Joseph’s Squinting Eye: Race and Individualism in Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country

Peter Matthiessen’s novel Shadow Country offers a fictionalized account of the life of real-life character Edgar Watson. Matthiessen’s portrayal illustrates Jack Turner’s argument in Awakening to Race that atomistic individualism both justifies an individual’s success as a product of that person’s hard work and masks the racial inequality on which that success is actually predicated. Turner advocates an “awakening to race” as an important step toward replacing atomistic individualism with democratic individualism in American society. Matthiessen’s work deepens Turner’s analysis by showing that the whiteness of Watson’s atomistic individualism is inflected by masculinity. Further, Matthiessen depicts the difficulty of awakening to race for many white Americans. The Edgar Watson narrative serves to show that while closing one’s eyes to race may appear to be an advantage for most white people, not awakening to race actually exacts a devastating psychological tax. That kind of insight, which approaching political theory through literature affords, may help white Americans circumvent psychological mechanisms of denial and acknowledge the difficult history of their country.     

Of caterpillars and butterflies: The introduction of metamorphosis at the UWA law school

CENTRAL ISSUES IN JURISPRUDENCE: JUSTICE, LAW AND RIGHTS By Nigel E. Simmonds [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 2nd ed., 338 pp., £16.95 (paperback)]

JUSTICE, HUMANITY AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER By Ian Ward [Ashgate, 2003, 192 pp., £50 (hardback)]

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW OF THE EUROPEAN UNION By Sionaidh Douglas Scott [Longman, 2002, xlx + 533 pp., £29.99 (paperback)]

THE ENGLISH LEGAL PROCESS By Terence Ingman [Oxford University Press, 2002, 9th ed., 624 pp., £19.99 (paperback)]

SMITH, BAILEY &; GUNN ON THE MODERN ENGLISH LEGAL SYSTEM By S. H. Bailey, J. P. L. Ching, M. J. Gunn and D. C. Ormerod [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 9th ed., 1,387 pp., £30.00 (paperback)]

A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO CIVIL LITIGATION By Robert Hill, Helen Wood and Suzanne Fine [Jordans, 2003, 571 pp., £45 (paperback)]

PARTNERSHIP LAW By G. Morse [Blackstone Press, 2001, 5th ed., 280 pp., £14.95 (paperback)]

EMPLOYMENT LAW By Malcolm Sargeant [Longman, 2003, 2nd ed., 499 pp., £26.99 (paperback)]

THE LAW OF CONTRACT By J. C. Smith [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 4th ed., 268 pp., £15.95 (paperback)]

CONTRACT LAW By Catherine Elliott and Frances Quinn [Pearson Education, 2003, 4th ed., 353 pp., £17.99 (paperback)]

AQA LAW IN FOCUS: AS LEVEL By Simon Jackson [Causeway Press, 2003, First impression, 233 pp., £12.95 (paperback)]

TORT LAW By Chris Turner [Hodder and Stoughton, 2003, 1st ed., 232 pp., £13.99 (paperback)]

LOOKING AT CRIMINAL LAW By Chris Turner [Hodder and Stoughton, 2003, 1st ed., 114 pp., £9.99 (paperback)]

CRIMINAL LAW By Alan Reed and Peter Seago [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 2nd ed., lvii + 597 pp., £22.95 (paperback)]

CRIMINAL LAW: DOCTRINE AND THEORY By William Wilson [Longman, 2003, 2nd ed., lii + 640 pp., £29.99 (paperback)]

BURGLARY By R. I. Mawby [Willan Publishing, 2001, x + 213 pp., £40.00 (hardback), £16.99 (paperback)]

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY By David Bainbridge [Longman, 2002, 5th ed., 710 pp., £34.99 (paperback)]

PARRY AND CLARK: THE LAW OF SUCCESSION By Roger Kerridge Assisted by A. H. R. Brierley [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 11th ed., 671 pp., £29.95 (paperback)]

CONSTRUCTION LAW By John Uff [Sweet and Maxwell, 2002, 8th ed., 536 pp., £23.95 (paperback)]

WATER POLLUTION AND WATER QUALITY LAW By William Howarth and Donald McGillivray [Shaw and Son Publishers, 2001, 1212 pp., £85.00 (hardback)]

PROPERTY LAW By Roger J. Smith [Longman, 2003, 4th ed. lxviii + 617 pp., £29.99 (paperback)]

PROPERTY LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS By Roger J. Smith [Longman, 2003, 2nd ed. lv + 836 pp., £33.99 (paperback)]

HOUSING LAW CASEBOOK By Nic Madge [Legal Action Group, 2003, 3rd ed., 1,139 pp., £39.00 (paperback)]

LEGAL MATERIALS FOR SOCIAL WORKERS By Hugh Brayne and Graeme Broadbent [Oxford University Press, 2002, 522 pp., £24.99 (paperback)]     

The Measurement of Democracy: Towards a New Paradigm

Mainstream political science on democracy has been criticised for ‘regime bias’. This has led political scientists to draw on a narrow range of democratic theory that considers democratic potential only at the cost of ignoring democratic purpose, to ignore other units of observation than the regime, notably the individual citizen, and to overlook advances in measurement theory. A robust normative account of democratic quality, it is argued, should rest on three foundations. First, measurement should start with observations of the regime. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of the degree of democracy in the regime. This analysis should be grounded in standard democratic theory. Secondly, the measurement effort should follow through to observations of how the potential in the regime is manifested in the lives of citizens. No account of democratic quality should be considered valid without an account of how well the system delivers for citizens. This analysis should be grounded in a theory of the purpose of democracy. Thirdly, pronouncements on democratic quality should finally be made only from some combination or index of information from both systems analysis and individual analysis. That combined analysis should be grounded in measurement theory, specifically the law of methodological individualism and the principle of double book-keeping.     

Intimate violence among underrepresented groups on a college campus

Rape, sexual violence, psychological violence, and physical violence, among college students have been a concern. Lifetime events are often studied but not violence that specifically transpires while one is in college. Underrepresented groups such as Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, students who are gay, lesbian, and bisexual, and students who are members of racial and ethnic minorities have not been studied as extensively as White, heterosexual females. The authors used several measures to investigate the incidence of sexual violence, physical and psychological abuse among underrepresented groups in a random sample of 1,028 college students at a private, northeastern, technological campus in upstate New York, United States and analyzed victimization rates by gender, race/ethnicity, auditory status, and sexual orientation. Binary logistic regression analyses found that statistically significant differences are likely to exist between members of underrepresented groups and groups in the majority. The study found statistically significant associations between Deaf and Hard of Hearing students and students who were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or other sexual orientation with psychological abuse and physical abuse. Racial and ethnic minorities and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other sexual orientation students were significantly more at risk for sexual abuse. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other sexual orientation students, students who were members of a racial or ethnic minority, and female students were significantly more likely to be raped. Female heterosexual students were more likely to be the victim of an attempted rape. Suggestions for further research and policy implications are provided.     

Gender differences in risk for intimate partner violence among South African adults

Despite a high prevalence of intimate partner violence in South Africa, few epidemiological studies have assessed individual risk factors and differential vulnerability by gender. This study seeks to analyze gender differences in risk for intimate partner violence victimization and perpetration according to childhood and adult risk factors in a national sample of South African men and women. Using data from the cross-sectional, nationally representative South Africa Stress and Health Study, the authors examine data from 1,715 currently married or cohabiting adults on reporting of intimate partner violence. Our analysis include (a) demographic factors, (b) early life risk factors (including exposure to childhood physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, parental closeness, and early onset DSM-IV disorders), and (c) adult risk factors (including experiencing the death of a child and episodes of DSM-IV disorders after age 20). Although prevalence rates of intimate partner violence are high among both genders, women are significantly more likely than men to report being victimized (29.3% vs. 20.9%). Rates of perpetrating violence are similar for women and men (25.2% and 26.5%, respectively). Men are more likely to report predictive factors for perpetration, whereas women are more likely to report predictors for victimization. Common risk factors among men and women reporting perpetration include exposure to childhood physical abuse, witnessing parental violence, and adult onset alcohol abuse/dependence. However, risk factors in male perpetrators are more likely to include cohabitation, low income, and early and adult-onset mood disorders, whereas risk factors in female perpetrators include low educational attainment and early onset alcohol abuse/dependence. The single common risk factor for male and female victims of partner violence is witnessing parental violence. Additional risk factors for male victims are low income and lack of closeness to a primary female caregiver, whereas additional risk factors for female victims are low educational attainment, childhood physical abuse, and adult onset alcohol abuse/dependence and intermittent explosive disorder. Intimate partner violence is a significant public health issue in South Africa, strongly linked to intergenerational cycling of violence and risk exposure across the life course. These findings indicate that gender differences in risk and common predictive factors, such as alcohol abuse and exposure to childhood violence, should inform the design of future violence-prevention programs and policies.