The Language of Hysteria: A Misappropriation of the Master Narratives

Bronfen discusses the language of hysteria in conjunction with recent discussions of ethics, notably in the sense that the hysteric gesture of misappropriating a grand narrative such as humanism confronts the manner in which discussions of gender might traverse alterity without effacing or occluding it.     

Adolescent Agentic Orientations: Contemporaneous Family Influence,Parental Biography and Intergenerational Development

Agentic orientations developed in adolescence have been linked to better health, well-being, and achievements in the years following. This study examines longitudinal parental influences on the development of adolescent children’s agentic orientations, captured by the core constructs of mastery beliefs and generalized life expectations. Drawing on multigenerational panel data from the United States (1991–2011), the study examines contemporaneous family factors, but also how parental biographies (their own transition to adulthood) and parents’ own adolescent agentic orientations influence their adolescent children. Study adolescents were 46% male, 52% white, and 15.6 years old on average. The findings indicate that parents’ early orientations and experiences in the transition to adulthood have little effect on their children’s mastery beliefs, but that parents’ generalized life expectations (in adolescence) and having married before having the child were associated with their children’s more optimistic life expectations. Contemporaneous family income and optimistic expectations among parents-as-adolescents were somewhat substitutable as positive influences on adolescents’ optimistic life expectations. The findings contribute to our understanding of intergenerational and over-time influences on these key adolescent orientations.     

The third aspect: An investigation of U.K. business networks

The research was a study of 16 women's networks in the United Kingdom. Information was mainly collected via a self-completion postal questionnaire in Summer 1987. The purpose of this paper is to develop concepts which might be used to understand the characteristics and activities of such networks and to test out the hypothesis that a network's political stance is predictive of some of its main features. It seeks to demonstrate that Tomlinson's dichotomous political classification of networks (Women in Management Review, 2(4), 238–247, 1987) can usefully be extended to encompass a third category. The hypothesis that the political stance of a network will be predictive of its orientation — discussed in terms of the relative importance of training and lobbying to a given group — and the inclusivity/exclusivity of its membership policy is supported. Conversely, it is shown that attitudes to men as potential members, organisational structures, and sources and levels of funding cannot be predicted purely by reference to a network's political position.     

Rhythms of resurrection: The comebacks of Ruth St. Denis

Ruth St. Denis (1879–1968) had one of the first and longest careers as a professional modern dancer. At age 62, she embarked on a “comeback” that lasted nearly three decades, appearing on stage and screen in the dances that had made her an international star earlier in her career. This essay examines the relationship between her well-known “Orientalism,” her feminism, her spirituality, and her perspective on aging and ageism. In particular, it brings into relief her innovative efforts to redefine dance as a feminist project at the intersection of aging and modern dance history. St. Denis converted “oriental tradition” into a feminist dance praxis, thus, staking a claim for the aging dancer under the banner of feminist politics.