<Emphasis Type="Italic">The Eric Voegelin Reader: Politics,History, Consciousness</Emphasis>, Selected and Edited by Charles R. Embry and Glenn Hughes

After an abbreviated biography of Voegelin, the essay unfolds the six ‘key elements’ the Reader’s editors focus on. There’s Voegelin’s grounded rejection of positivism in human inquiry, his labor to recover the wisdom of the past, along with a theoretical attempt to articulate a philosophy of the conscious experiences underlying a philosophical anthropology. He explored the equivalent differentiations of this human consciousness in terms of mythic, classic philosophic, and Judeo-Christian formulations. This led him to characterize much of modernity as an attempt to immanentize the transcendent in this world rather than beyond. And underlying all of these elements was his understanding of philosophy as a participation in the eschatological movement of history,’ in conformation ‘to the Platonic-Aristotelian practice of dying.’     

‘Everybody Did It’—or Did They?: The Use of Oral History in Researching Women’s Experiences of Smoking in Britain, 1930–1970

From having been predominantly a masculine habit in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, cigarette smoking was adopted by flappers and film stars in the 1920s and 30s, symbolising new types of femininity. However, it was not until the economic and social dislocation of the Second World War that substantial numbers of women began to smoke cigarettes. This article draws on oral history material to explore the reasons why women took up smoking during and following the Second World War. It suggests that smoking among women became more acceptable in a wider range of circumstances following the War, reflecting the adaptability of the cigarette and its role in negotiating an increasingly diverse range of femininities. The article examines the impact of current anti‐smoking discourse on smoking narratives, as interviewees set up opposing discourses of social acceptance in their youth and awareness of the health risks today.     

Women in the shadow war: gender,class and MI5 in the Second World War

During the Second World War, the women employed in Britain’s secret Security Service (MI5) far outnumbered their male colleagues, with a ratio of twelve women for every five men. Their numbers grew rapidly over the course of the war and by 1941 stood at over 800. Despite the vast influx of female labour into the agency, attitudes towards the role of women in intelligence, be it as wartime workers or as secret agents, demonstrated remarkable continuity with those of the interwar period. Women were near universally restricted to subordinate roles; typically of clerical and secretarial nature in the case of office staff. Similarly, internal attitudes regarding those traits which produced the best agents and intelligence officers, shaped by wider understandings of both masculinity and social status, demonstrated considerable resilience. Drawing upon declassified official records, this article argues that MI5’s wartime experiences did little to alter the agency’s attitudes to gender.     

The Power of Feminist Judgments?

Recent years have seen the advent of two feminist judgment-writing projects, the Women??s Court of Canada, and the Feminist Judgments Project in England. This article analyses these projects in light of Carol Smart??s feminist critique of law and legal reform and her proposed feminist strategies in Feminism and the Power of Law (1989). At the same time, it reflects on Smart??s arguments 20?years after their first publication and considers the extent to which feminist judgment-writing projects may reinforce or trouble her conclusions. It argues that both of these results are discernible??that while some of Smart??s contentions have proved to be unsustainable, others remain salient and have both inspired and hold important cautions for feminist judgment-writing projects.     

When a Career Public Servant Sues the Agency He Loves: Claude Ferguson, the Forest Service, and Off-Road Vehicles in the Hoosier National Forest

Claude Ferguson, who in his own words “met the test of his lifetime,” deviated from the norms of the U.S. Forest Service articulated by Herbert Kaufman in The Forest Ranger to became a government guerrilla against the organization he loved. This profile highlights several enduring themes: the inherent tensions between democracy and bureaucracy, the many masters of career bureaucrats, how organizational culture can both empower and constrain employees, and what it means to act responsibly, ethically, and with integrity as a public servant. In addition, this case demonstrates how the Forest Service has evolved since Kaufman's classic study. First, Kaufman depicted forest rangers as “valuing the organization more than they value[d] getting their own way,” yet this profile underscores that public servants do not check their worldviews, mores, or ethics at the door. Second, Kaufman described the Forest Service's efforts to routinize the decisions of its employees in an effort to prevent allegiances to, or co‐optation by, local populations. Yet in this Administrative Profile, Ferguson's hidden strategic tactics co‐opted local stakeholders to enlist their support for a cause he deeply felt was right and just.     

Louise Bourgeois,ageing, and maternal bodies

This article explores late works by contemporary artist Louise Bourgeois that illuminate current concerns about ageing maternal bodies and the ambivalent responses of fear and loathing that they provoke. In 2003, Louise Bourgeois made an installation for the Freud Museum in Vienna entitled The Reticent Child, on the subject of her own earlier pregnancy and birth of her son, one of several works featuring maternity and fertility which Bourgeois has created in old age. In Nature Study 2007, made at the age of 96 years, she depicts carnal couples and pregnant and birthing figures embodied in brilliant pinks and scarlet reds. Bourgeois represents women as the powerful agents of the maternal function, marking a return to motherhood as a central topic of her earlier work. Edward Said posited sources of cultural meaning as ‘the whole notion of beginning, the moment of birth and origin … reproductive generation, maturity’, and ‘the last great problematic … the last and late period of life, the decay of the body’ (Said, 2006: 4–6). What does it mean for Bourgeois to return to the theme of birth in her nineties and how does it resonate with contemporary anxieties about the ageing maternal body? If the space of the gallery is a safe arena for a woman artist to present sexuality and maternity in old age, how are older women who break codes of fertility represented elsewhere? In a culture which is hostile to the conjunction of ageing women with motherhood, I shall argue that Bourgeois’ late maternal works can help to undo the taboo on older mothers.     

‘If a girl’s photo gets sent around,that’s a way bigger deal than if a guy’s photo gets sent around’: gender,sexting, and the teenage years

Youth, particularly female teens, are encouraged to self-monitor and be responsible for their actions online in order to avoid harm from cyberbullying, ‘sexting,’ and other forms of cyber-risk. Highlighting findings from 35 focus groups with Canadian teens regarding sexting, we show the continued saliency of a gendered double standard applied to the online distribution of nudes. Our sample of male and female teens (n = 115) from urban and rural regions, aged 13–19, underscores the relatively lower ‘stakes’ involved with sexting for male teens. We explore this trend with specific reference to the salience of hegemonic masculinities and the gendered aspects of public and private spaces, both online and offline. Public exposure of nudes has potentially serious stigmatizing consequences for youth. We highlight teen experiences sending and receiving images of male penises (‘dick pics’), which is an under-researched aspect of sexting. We show the relative ubiquity of receiving ‘dick pics’ among female teens, exploring various reactions, and male motivations for doing so from male and female standpoints. Policy implications are discussed with specific reference to school-based cyber-safety programs, which our participants indicate remain highly gendered, neglecting epistemological questions around male experiences and responsibility.     

The 2018 California Wildfires: Integration of Rapid DNA to Dramatically Accelerate Victim Identification

In November 2018, Butte County, California, was decimated by the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in state history. Over 150,000 acres were destroyed, and at its peak, the fire consumed eighty acres per minute. The speed and intensity of the oncoming flames killed scores of people, and weeks before the fire was contained, first responders began searching through the rubble of 18,804 residences and commercial buildings. As with most mass disasters, conventional identification modalities (e.g., fingerprints, odontology, hardware) were utilized to identify victims. The intensity and duration of the fire severely degraded most of the remains, and these approaches were useful in only 22 of 84 cases. In the past, the remaining cases would have been subjected to conventional DNA analysis, which may have required months to years. Instead, Rapid DNA technology was utilized (in a rented recreational vehicle outside the Sacramento morgue) in the victim identification effort. Sixty-nine sets of remains were subjected to Rapid DNA Identification and, of these, 62 (89.9%) generated short tandem repeat profiles that were subjected to familial searching; essentially all these profiles were produced within hours of sample receipt. Samples successfully utilized for DNA identification included blood, bone, liver, muscle, soft tissue of unknown origin, and brain. In tandem with processing of 255 family reference samples, 58 victims were identified. This work represents the first use of Rapid DNA Identification in a mass casualty event, and the results support the use of Rapid DNA as an integrated tool with conventional disaster victim identification modalities.     

Control,Communication, and Power: A Study of the Use of Alternative Dispute Resolution of Enforcement Actions at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Two decades after pioneering the use of alternative dispute resolution techniques, practices, and processes, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has emerged as the leader among federal agencies. As such, the EPA provides a useful setting for testing conventional wisdom and theories about alternative dispute resolution. This essay takes data collected as a part of an assessment of the agency's enforcement ADR program and examines how well it reflects or illuminates current theory and conventional wisdom about conflict resolution. In particular, we examine why parties to a dispute choose ADR, and the key elements needed for the successful resolution of environmental conflicts, including the dynamics between the parties at the table and mediator characteristics.