Refracted axis: Kitayama Jun'yū and writing a German Japan

The question of how individuals navigate a given regime is inevitably a delicate one, but one no less important because of its sensitivity. This article examines the case of one Kitayama Jun'yū – author of dozens of works during the 1930s and 1940s that purported to introduce Japan to a German audience – and his changing rhetorical strategies in presenting a Japan that would be acceptable to his readership. It employs an adapted notion of Bhabha's concept of ‘mimicry’ as a means to understand both developments internal to Kitayama's works as well as their changing reception. This framework recognizes that power dynamics played an influential role in cross-cultural exchange between the two countries; at the same time, it enables a depersonalized engagement with cultural politics that does not rest on identifying individual authorial political allegiances. Drawing on both Kitayama's writings and archival materials that reflect official and semi-private responses to his work, this article offers a closer look at how a particular Japanese intellectual negotiated Japan's place within the discursive space of the National Socialist regime.     

Youth Pathways to Placement: The Influence of Gender, Mental Health Need and Trauma on Confinement in the Juvenile Justice System

Although the juvenile crime rate has generally declined, the involvement of girls in the juvenile justice system has been increasing. Possible explanations for this gender difference include the impact of exposure to trauma and mental health needs on developmental pathways and the resulting influence of youth’s involvement in the justice system. This study examined the influence of gender, mental health needs and trauma on the risk of out-of-home placement for juvenile offenders. The sample included youth referred to three urban juvenile probation departments in Texas between January 1, 2007 and December 31, 2008 and who received state-mandated mental health screening (N = 34,222; 30.1 % female). The analysis revealed that, for both genders, elevated scores on the seven factor-analytically derived subscales of a mental health screening instrument (Alcohol and Drug Use, Depressed-Anxious, Somatic Complaints, Suicidal Ideation, Thought Disturbance, and Traumatic Experiences), especially related to past traumatic experiences, influenced how deeply juveniles penetrated the system. The findings suggest that additional research is needed to determine the effectiveness of trauma interventions and the implementation of trauma informed systems for youth involved with the juvenile justice system.     

In Brief

Margaret Cavendish, The Convent of Pleasure and Other Plays, edited by Anne Shaver (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1999).

Rising Star: Dandyism, Gender, and Performance in the Fin de Siècle, by Rhonda Garelick (Princeton: Princeton U P, 1998).

Television, History, and American Culture: Feminist Critical Essays, edited by Mary Beth Haralovich, and Lauren Rabinovitz (Durham and London: Duke UP, 1999).

Soft Canons: American Women Writers and Masculine Traditions, edited by Karen L. Kilcup (Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999).

The Suppression of Salt of the Earth: How Hollywood, Big Labor, and Politicians Blacklisted A Movie in Cold War America, by James J. Lorence (Albuquerque: U of New Mexico P, 1999).

Working Hard and Making Do: Surviving in Small Town America, by Margaret K. Nelson, and Joan Smith (Berkeley: U of California P, 1999).

Women's Reading in Britain: A Dangerous Recreation, by Jacqueline. Pearson (Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1999).

Regine Pernoud, and Marie‐Veronique Clin, Joan of Arc: Her Story, revised and trans, by Jeremy duQuesnay Adams (New York: St. Martin's P, 1999).

Design and Feminism: Re‐Visioning Spaces, Places, and Everyday Things, edited by Joan Rothschild (New Brunswick: Rutgers U P, 1999).

Feminism and Cultural Studies, edited by Morag Schiach (Oxford: Oxford U P, 1999).

Southern Mothers: Fact and Fictions in Southern Women's Writing, edited by Nagueyalti Warren, and Sally Wolff (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1999).     

Pro Rata or Pro Tanto? Why Equity Dictates the Choice Is Not a “Toss Up” in Private Party CERCLA Settlements

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is extremely complicated. Adding to this complexity is the near impossible task of predicting how settlements will be credited. In most tort cases, courts use the pro tanto approach and give the remaining defendants a dollar-for-dollar credit for settlement amounts received by the plaintiff. However, the trend in CERCLA cases is to forego the pro tanto approach and give the remaining defendants credit for the settling defendants’ proportional, or pro rata, share of the liability. This article examines the two approaches and posits which one is more aligned with the spirit of CERCLA.     

美国法律关于夫妻证据的一些规定

<正> 婚姻,给配偶一方提供了某种合法权利,即配偶一方有权拒绝提供不利另一方的证据。因此,便产生了配偶双方的权限以及依法提供证据的问题。婚姻的这种特殊关系,对维护夫妻间的     

Dead Man Walking: The Affective Roots of Issue Proximity Between Voters and Parties

Do voters like the party they already agree with or do they agree with the party they already like? Previous studies have suggested a link from preferences to perceptions. However, such a causal link has not been convincingly demonstrated. Most issue voting studies have adopted the basic premise of spatial models of voting—that voters compare parties’ positions with their own ideal points and apply a rule to choose among these parties. Drawing on a natural experiment, this study shows that perceptual agreement between parties and voters is endogenous to voters’ party affect. We use the murder of a Dutch politician amidst the data collection period of the 2002 Dutch election study. The death increases respondents’ feelings for his party without providing information about its issue stances. This upward shift in feelings translates into a significant increase in the perceived level of proximity with the party. The design also allows us to explore the mechanism bringing parties and voters closer. Rather than taking up the party’s stances, voters move a party’s positions closer to their own views when their feelings for that party increase. The findings challenge established assumptions about the theoretical underpinnings of spatial models of voting. They support classic notions of voter projection and lend credence to recent theories of attitudinal change, which are based on coarse thinking and uninformative updating.     

Social Justice Attitudes and Their Demographic Correlates Among a Nationally Representative Sample of U.S. Adolescents

Compared to extant studies, this study uses more rigorous analyses to describe social justice attitudes and their correlates among a nationally representative sample of 2,811 U.S. ninth-graders. Females and adolescents with more educated mothers tended to express more support for social justice. Strikingly, about 90 % of adolescents believed that equal opportunity to obtain a good education exists in the U.S. Adolescents were also more likely to support abstract social justice principles rather than solutions that promote social justice: about 80 % agreed that all races and genders should have equal opportunities, but only 55 % reported that government should be responsible for individuals’ economic needs. Differences between U.S. adolescents’ and adults’ attitudes are noted, and implications for future research are presented.     

Elder neglect and the pathophysiology of aging

Elder neglect, one of the 6 forms of elder maltreatment, is difficult to diagnose and is underreported both in the scientific literature and to law enforcement. Recognizing fatal neglect is even more challenging especially with concurrent organic disease. Many entities can mimic elder neglect, and many age-related changes can result in pathology that may be confused with maltreatment. We retrospectively reviewed all forensic cases of individuals age sixty-five years and older which were referred for autopsy. Cases of fatal neglect were analyzed as to age, sex, race, cause of death, location of incident, perpetrator, victim-to-perpetrator relationship, and autopsy and ancillary findings. The cases studies totaled 8. The age range was 74 to 94 years. Two were white, 6 black, one male, and 7 female. The causes of death were sepsis due to severe decubitus ulcers and severe dehydration. Five cases occurred in the victim's home, and 3 occurred in an institution (nursing home/care facility). In 5 cases, the perpetrators were family members. The pathophysiology of aging with respect to elder maltreatment is reviewed.     

Effect of electron beam irradiation on forensic evidence. 2. Analysis of writing inks on porous surfaces

The effect of electron beam irradiation on a series of different writing inks is described. As the anthrax-tainted letters were discovered in October 2001, the U.S. government began to experiment with the use of the electron beam irradiation process for destroying such biological agents. Plans initially considered a large-scale countrywide use of this technology. However, over time the scope of this plan as well as the radiation dosage were reduced, especially when some adverse consequences to mailed items subjected to this process were observed. Little data existed at the time to characterize what level of damage might be expected to occur with common items sent through the mail. This was especially important to museums and other institutions that routinely ship valuable and historic items through the mail. Although the Smithsonian Institution initiated some studies of the effect of electron beam irradiation on archived materials, little data existed on the effect that this process would have on forensic evidence. Approximately 97 different black, blue, red, green, and yellow writing inks were selected. Writing ink types included ballpoint, gel, plastic/felt tip, and rollerball. All noncontrol samples were subjected to standard mail irradiation conditions used by the U.S. Postal Service at the time this experiment was performed. A video spectral comparator and thin-layer chromatography (TLC) analysis were used to evaluate both the control and the irradiated samples. Some published studies reported changes in the presence/absence of dye bands in the chromatograms of irradiated writing inks. Some of these studies report the formation of additional dye bands on the chromatogram while others report missing dye bands. However, using standard testing guidelines and procedures, none of the 97 irradiated inks tested were found to show any significant optical or chemical differences from the control samples. In addition, random testing of some of the ink samples using a second solvent system did not reveal any changes. However, one control ink did show some minor changes in optical properties and dye characteristics over time (but not TLC) while the irradiated sample remained stable. Significant changes in the ultraviolet fluorescence characteristics of the irradiated paper samples themselves (not inks) were also observed.