A community of practice: explaining change and continuity in ASEAN's diplomatic environment

Despite change in the aims, institutions and informal diplomacy of ASEAN since 1997, the formal diplomatic code of conduct remains locked in a traditionalist mode first outlined in the 1970s. Existing approaches from mainstream International Relations theorising are unable to adequately explain this continuity and change. The recent ‘practice turn’ in theorising offers distinct explanatory advantage, which this article illustrates by arguing that the formation of an ‘ASEAN rationality’ between 1967 and 1997 fundamentally curtailed the ability of regional diplomats to revise ASEAN post 1997, resulting in the coexistence of new and old norms in ASEAN's organisation design.     

Advocacy 20 years on from Hampel: is it time we revisited the postgraduate teaching of advocacy?

This paper seeks to discuss the teaching of advocacy as a discipline with specific reference to the way in which advocacy is taught on the Bar Professional Training Course in England and Wales. The Advocacy Training Council favours the Hampel Method of teaching advocacy first developed more than 20 years ago in Australia. The paper seeks to review the use of the Hampel Method by offering a critique of behaviourist learning theory from a constructivist standpoint and putting forward alternative teaching techniques which are in harmony with the principles of constructivism, experiential learning and productive failure. We conclude that the teaching of advocacy can be improved and that greater scholarship is needed in this important area to ensure students are taught using the best techniques.     

Between Cold War Imperatives and State-Sponsored Terrorism: The United States and “Operation Condor”

Operation Condor was a transnational network of organized state-sponsored terrorism that targeted Communist “subversion.” It was operational in the second half of the 1970s. The key member countries were Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil (Peru and Equador joined the network later on, with a more marginal role). Based on declassified documents from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva and on U.S. documents of various origin, this article will assess the development of the Condor network and the U.S. reaction to such manifest acts of state-sponsored terrorism.     

¿”Mujeres al borde de un naufragio” or female redeemers? The representation and role of women in Galdós’s Torquemada novels (1889–95)

Considered superficially, the women in the Torquemada novels conform to the negative gender stereotypes imposed upon them by their male counterparts. On further examination, however, we discover that the male viewpoints are both undermined and questioned, and a number of female characters are used to pose questions that are even more ambitious than those raised in Galdosian novels where the eponymous characters are women. Aiming to enhance our understanding of the significance of the female characters in Galdós’s novels, as well as unearthing their complexity, this article highlights the presence of ambiguity in the Torquemada novels and argues that these works question traditional perceptions of women. Boundaries are revealed to be hazy and the male characters (who sometimes have effeminate qualities) are essentially puppets or “fronts” in what is effectively a domain controlled by the women. Displaying a level of resourcefulness, creativity, and resilience that surpasses that of their male counterparts, the female characters (particularly Cruz) are sometimes influential catalysts for change. Hence, rather than being misconstrued as “a problem” or “al borde de un naufragio,” they could be regarded as potential redeemers in a Spain that was in need of regeneration.     

Ophthalmologic Concerns in Abusive Head Trauma

When Abusive Head Trauma (AHT) is suspected in a child, a dilated eye examination by an ophthalmologist is an essential part of the medical workup, as the presence and pattern of retinal hemorrhages can have a high positive predictive rate for abusive head injury. This article proposes to review the clinical presentation, pathophysiology, natural history, sequelae, and differential diagnosis of retinal hemorrhages and other ocular lesions associated with AHT.     

‘Good-bye Pompey,komm bald zurück’: Stevie Smith's Vision of Germany in Novel on Yellow Paper

Abstract

In Stevie Smith's debut novel Novel on Yellow Paper, set in 1936, the narrator Pompey Casmilus recalls several trips to Germany she made in the years shortly before the rise of the Hitler regime. The memories of these German travels are linked to Pompey's love affair with a Swiss-German student named Karl with whom she has spent time in both England and Germany. The essay explores the significance of the German theme in the novel. This theme emerges in Pompey's memories of Germany and Karl, which at first glance appear to be random moments of recollection. However, the German theme also asserts itself in what I call Pompey's German voice, a distinct narrative voice that uses a specific German vocabulary and mimics German speech patterns, which appears at different points throughout the novel and is not exclusively linked to Pompey's memories of Germany. The essay argues that this narrative voice, the Karl-Pompey romance plot and the narrator's obsessive concern with Jewishness combine into an exploration of the Anglo-German relationship in the inter-war years and the attraction which Germany held for some British visitors during the 1920s and early 1930s, an attraction which is linked to previous literary explorations of the country by British writers such as D. H. Lawrence and which by 1936 has taken on an ominous significance as Pompey observes from afar the atrocities being committed within Germany in the name of the Hitler regime.