Towards a Grotesque Phenomenology of Ethical Eroticism

Abstract: Over the course of this article, the author argues that ethics and the erotic are interrelated. The author also contends that the way subjectivities are constructed has a strong impact on the development of the ethical and the erotic character of these same subjectivities. Against this backdrop, the author postulates that envisioning or creating oneself as a grotesque subject promises to facilitate one's own development into a moral and erotic human being by triggering a process of inner estrangement that enables one to recognize the otherness within oneself. This analysis is based mainly on Mikhail Bakhtin's grotesque as presented in his Rabelais and His World (1965). This self-introspection serves as the basis for an ethical eroticism through which one shall transform oneself into a fully fledged moral and sensual subject. In formulating this argument, the author draws on Simone de Beauvoir's own attempt to link the erotic to the ethical. As will be seen, the same principle that stands at the heart of a phenomenological ethics also steers the author's phenomenological conception of the erotic. The principle in question is carnal intersubjectivity-bodies that penetrate one another and merge, yet never lose themselves in the other's carnality. Put differently, they remain non-objectified subjects. The grotesque subject is presented as a figuration that helps shed light on the way the subject has been conceived by, above all, phenomenological and postmodern theorists. The author then explores some of the ethical ramifications of this conceptualization. Drawing on these insights, the author fashions an ethical eroticism that derives from a grotesque subjectivity.     

Gendered entanglements: Dakotas and Scandinavians at Spirit Lake, 1900–1930

In this article the author explores the interconnections between the social and the material—as people move to a space on the land, coexisting with one another. By focusing in on one specific place—the Spirit Lake Dakota Indian Reservation (formerly called the Devils Lake Sioux Indian Reservation) in North Dakota—the author analyzes what happened when white immigrants came to homestead and live on land historically reserved for Dakotas. Against the backdrop of Native dispossession, this illustrative case reveals the ways everyday interactions created entanglements through landownership, the gendered division of paid work, neighboring practices, and leasing land. It challenges us to uncover gendered processes, probe denials, and interrogate silences.     

The Project for the Education of Israeli Children in the Kibbutz Movement

Summary

In Israel there are various settings in which children can be raised if for various reasons they cannot live with their families. This article describes one of these programs, The Project for the Education of Israeli Children (Mif'al Lehahsharat Yaldei Israel) (Brashi, 1994), and focuses on the role of the kibbutz movement. The Project is special in that children are placed in foster families (or family homes), offering them not only warmth and love but also the opportunity for a remedial experience of family life in functioning families that provide physical and emotional support. The first part presents a general outline of the Project, and the second part describes the development of the Project in the kibbutz movement: the absorption procedures, the foster families and foster family homes, and the advantages and difficulties of absorbing children within a kibbutz framework.     

Family and Community Determinants of Educational Attainment in Mexico

Using hierarchical linear modeling, this article investigates the effect of gender, parental capital, and community context on school-age children's educational attainment in Mexico. Data come from the Mexican Migration Project; this study investigates the contribution of various micro- and macro-level determinants. To measure schooling, the amount of education completed by two different age groups of children in Mexico was examined. In sum, male respondents were found to attain fewer years of education than females, contrary to the gender-effect model. But the study lends firm support to the parental capital model which stresses the significance of parental education and household wealth. The community context argument was marginally upheld for younger respondents but exerted a more meaningful impact on older respondents, signaling the need to emphasize age and community ecological factors in assessing educational outcomes in Mexico.     

Land tenure,land law and development: some thoughts on recent debates

This paper offers a discussion of some of the features of recent land tenure debates and policies. It argues that two different orientations can be discerned: one that tends to regard land primarily as an economic asset and another that rather takes a (human) rights orientation and emphasises food and shelter security. These different orientations can be seen to be related to contrasting conceptualisations of extra-legality and different ranges of policy options when it comes to the legalisation or formalisation of land tenure and the acknowledgement of arrangements alternative to Western style individual ownership.     

The Liverpool Dock Strike, 1995–98: a resurgence of solidarity in the age of globalisation

As the 20th anniversary of the 1995–1998 Liverpool Dockers’ Strike approaches, this case of industrial action should not be dismissed as a reminder of yet another nail in the coffin of organised labour. Rather, this event needs to be viewed more optimistically in hindsight as a symbol that working-class consciousness and systems of solidarity had not vanished entirely from Britain after the crushing collapse of domestic manufacturing and the fall of the miners in 1985. Indeed, the Liverpool dockers invented a fresh campaign of industrial action at this time, led more from the ‘bottom-up’ than most other labour protests in the past. Fuelled by a cognisant awareness of both community and workplace experience within the context of popular historical memory, this industrial action played significant roles in reconfiguring and adapting solidarity in this new era of rentier, global capitalism. It is appropriate we recall working-class militancy in a city whose own historical narrative is often described as ‘exceptional’ when one reflects upon Liverpool’s long entrenched culture of opposition.     

voicing the non-place: precarious theatre in a women's prison

Based on the personal experience of the author, who is involved in theatre projects with women convicts, the article moves across issues of detention, migration, and precarity. Foucault's concept of governmentality is instrumental in describing the arbitrary exercise of power on incarcerated people and their precarious living conditions. Life in jail is especially uncertain for clandestine migrants. In the article, recollections from the rehearsals of the show I racconti del corpo (Tales of the body) alternate with images and quotes from the play, poems by women convicts, and reflections on detention as the ultimate condition of precarity for migrant women.     

当前城镇社区文化建设难点与对策的思考

社区文化是一定区域内的社会共同社所反映出来的有关人的行为方式、社会习俗、价值观念、思维定向、地域心态等文化现象的总和。当前城镇社区文化存在的主要问题是 :宣传工作不够 ,群众认识有待提高 ;主管部门不明确 ,各项关系尚未理顺 ;法律法规有待建立和健全 ;经费开支难以完全保障 ,建设水平参差不齐。针对这种现状 ,应从宏观和微观两方面来加强和改进城镇的社区文化建设。     

Politics of Belonging: A Narrative on Activism in Sweden

Intersectionality is commonly used as an analytical tool to bring to light how various social divisions merge to produce a cohesive set of subordination practices, but not as often how the concept can be used in the study of agency. Discussing politics of belonging through cases of urban justice movement in Sweden, the article focuses on intersectionality as a perspective interlinking different dimensions of power with agency; thus the aim is to highlight analytically the interconnection of agency with subordinating power dimensions, creating a basis for resistance. This is illustrated with examples on movements for social justice, opposing racism, sexism, and class oppression. The article discusses their collective mobilization and claims for public voice. Using one activist's narrative about how the subjectivity denied to citizens can be recaptured, the author demonstrates how reflexive self-awareness becomes connected to politics of belonging, expressing how the personal becomes political.     

A “Quick and Dirty” Approach to Women’s Emancipation and Human Rights?<Superscript>1</Superscript>

During the past decade, women’s and human rights ‘language’ has moved from the margins to the ‘mainstream’ of international law and politics. In this paper, the author argues that while feminists and human rights activists criticise the ‘mainstream’s interpretation of women’s and human rights, ‘we’ do not question what becoming part of the mainstream and the cosmopolitan classes has meant for us. Drawing on examples of how women’s and human rights arguments have been used in the post-conflict state-building process in Afghanistan, the author attempts to show how international women’s rights and human rights advocacy campaigns planned by well-meaning humanitarians in Western capitals can backfire when implemented in politically complex environments. Dr. Sari Kouvo is a post-doctoral scholar in the Department of Law, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is also affiliated with the Center for Global Gender Studies at the University of Gothenburg. Dr. Kouvo has several years experience of working with human rights and gender issues in Afghanistan. The opinions expressed in this article are her own and do not represent opinions of the organisations she has worked for or is working with.     

A king named Nicki: strategic queerness and the black femmecee

This article explores the deployment of race, queer sexuality, and femme gender performance in the work of rapper and pop musical artist Nicki Minaj. The author argues that Minaj's complex assemblage of public personae functions as a sort of “bait and switch” on the laws of normativity, where she appears to perform as “straight” or “queer,” while upon closer examination, she refuses to be legible as either. Rather than perpetuate notions of Minaj as yet another pop diva, the author proposes that Minaj signals the emergence of the femmecee, or a rapper whose critical, strategic performance of queer femininity is inextricably linked to the production and reception of their rhymes. This article engages a pair of music video releases that reflect the range of Minaj's gender performances as cinematic lenses into the strategic moves that Minaj is able to make from her femmecee stance. King Nicki's hypervisibility as a black femmecee and refusal to cede to any regime of recognition confound the multiple common senses that seek to produce her as a compliant subject.     

‘We must give them an education,large, liberal and comprehensive’. Catherine Vale Whitwell: teacher,artist, author,feminist and Owenite communitarian

This article was provoked by the author’s conviction that its subject was a great deal more significant than a marginalised woman on the fringes of Owenism, the reformist movement promoted by Robert Owen during the early nineteenth century. It examines the life of Catherine Whitwell, formally identified in studies of Owen and in histories of education as teacher cum artist in the school at New Lanark, Owen’s factory community in Scotland, and also one of several women writers on astronomy. Otherwise little was known of her activities or the contexts in which they occurred. There are many gaps in the record and her footprint is often illusive, but much new information in widely dispersed archives, periodicals, digitised newspapers and secondary sources helps cast further light on her background, a career embracing work as proprietor of girls’ schools, author of works on astronomy and mathematics, promoter of sciences for women, advocate of women’s education, artist and communitarian. The context of Whitwell’s work is reviewed with reference to recent relevant literature and followed by a case study explaining her association with Owen, speculating on her role in visualising his plans for communities of co-operation designed to relieve distress and create greater equality, then describing her teaching career both at New Lanark and later at Orbiston, the first British Owenite community near Glasgow. The study concludes with a brief review of her post-Owen work running girls’ schools and an assessment of her role in the development of education and disseminating knowledge, particularly for young middle class women and working class children in the first half of the nineteenth century.     

日本老年人力资源开发的经验及启示

积极应对人口老龄化，已经上升为国家的重要发展战略。在应对老龄化的过程中，老年人力资 源开发不失为化解各项社会问题的有效之道。研究认为，日本作为最早进入老龄化社会的国家，通过传播积极 老龄化观念、制定立体化政策、建立多层次机构等举措，积极开展老年人力资源开发工作，取得了良好效果。 基于日本的经验，研究建议，我国的老年人力资源开发，可从构建开发文化、制定开发政策、建设开发机构网 络等方面入手，以助力我国实现从“人口红利”向“人力红利”的转变，从“人力资源大国”向“人力资源强国” 的飞跃。     

The male experience of pubertal change

Adolescent boys' psychological experience of the first ejaculation was examined with regard to emotional reactions to the event, feelings of preparedness prior to the event, informational sources, and extent of peer discussions following the event. Thirteen boys who ranged in age from 13 1/2 to 15 1/2 years were interviewed. Eleven of the boys had experienced an ejaculation; 55% felt they were well informed prior to the first ejaculation. However, only three had had ejaculation explained to them by another person, in all cases an adult male. The primary information source was reading material aquired from friends. The majority of the boys reported experiencing strong positive feelings at spermarche, and few had strong negative feelings. No one was upset or ashamed, and only two were very scared. The only boys who had discussed the experience were the three who received their initial information from adult males. No one had discussed the experience with peers. Differences and similarities in boys' experience of ejaculation and girls' experience of menarche are discussed.The research was supported by the W. T. Grant Foundation.The first author conducted this research as an undergraduate senior thesis in the Department of Psychology at Princeton University.     

Situational Analysis: Centerless Systems and Human Service Practices

Bronfenbrenner's ecological model is a conceptual framework that continues to contribute to human service practices. In the current article, the author describes the possibilities for practice made intelligible by drawing from this framework. She then explores White's “Web of Praxis” model as an important extension of this approach, and proceeds to offer Clarke's “Situational Analysis” as another fruitful tool for practitioners who seek relational ways of engaging with clients. With the example of a practice scenario, readers can consider the practical possibilities that open up with the shift in perspective invited by situational analysis.     

女性非正规就业的影响因素研究 ——基于中国社会状况综合调查的实证分析

系统考察女性劳动者选择非正规就业的因素,不仅对揭示其非正规就业选择的机理具有重要意义,而且对其权益保护也具有深远影响。本研究基于中国社会状况综合调查(CSS)数据,分析女性非正规就业的影响因素,并考察影响非正规就业女性选择不同就业身份和职业类型的因素。研究结果表明:非正规就业已经成为女性非农就业的主要途径;户籍等个体特征、家庭中子女数量等家庭因素以及所在地区等对女性劳动者非正规就业选择有显著影响,而人力资本不但对女性非正规就业的选择有显著影响,对其就业身份和职业类型的选择也有显著影响。研究建议:应完善非正规就业政策,结合影响女性非正规就业的因素制定措施保障其合法权益,提升女性劳动者的人力资本水平,进而提高女性非正规就业劳动者的就业质量。     

美国社区学院职业教育对我国高职教育的启示

美国社区学院职业教育的发展对我国发展高等职业教育有三个启示 :人们对高等职业教育的接受与认可需要一个过程 ,故我国高等职业教育工作者切不可丧失继续前进的信心 ;社区和学院配合 ,共同培养适应当地经济和社会发展需要的应用型人才 ;高等职业教育发展的趋势必然是加强职业技术教育与学术教育的融合。     

Fragments of Lives—The Use of Private Letters in Historical Research

When reading and interpreting private letters the historian needs constantly to be aware of the personal nature of her sources, asking herself to what extent she can use the information revealed in these letters and how far she can go in interpreting another persons' words and deeds—a life. The author argues that the small size of Icelandic society makes this especially important, because descendants or relatives of the people who are being explored and represented in the historian's work are often very sensitive to biographical work of this nature. Furthermore, the historian has to be aware of the ambiguous nature of private letters, as they are not necessarily a “true” narrative of what happened, and the meaning of the sentiments expressed can be unclear to the modern reader. Moreover, what is written in private letters can easily affect the historian emotionally. The author argues that historians must treat private letters with care and do justice to the people that once were alive and left these personal sources for posterity. However, historians must not hesitate to ask new and challenging questions—to reach as far as possible when interpreting a life. This leads the author to reflect on her own disposition in her research, to acknowledge that the boundaries between herself and her subject could become blurred. She does not, however, consider this to be a hindrance for her research but rather sees it as an opportunity to explore and discuss the nature of her sources and to reflect on how knowledge is being produced.     

Studying the emergence of depression and depressive symptoms during adolescence

The special issue on the emergence and maintenance of depression and depressive symptoms is introduced. The special issue considers two typically separate lines of research, one focusing on severe clinical depression and another on depressive symptoms. The biological, social, and cognitive factors contributing to the emergence of depression in adolescence are highlighted in this special issue.Received Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Research interests include biological and social development of adolescents and changes in development over a series of life cycle transitions.Received Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. Research interests include biopsychosocial aspects of adoleslcent development.