The collaboration of ‘ghostwriting’ and literature – the case of Kawabata Yasunari

Abstract: Kawabata Yasunari is Japan's first Nobel Prize recipient for literature and thus an emblem of the modern Japanese writer, but as this essay demonstrates, this writer's career, like that of so many throughout Japan's premodern and modern history, is spanned by the curious practice of ghostwriting. Taking up the specific case of Kawabata, the article exposes a wider conflict between the modern West's notion of the original artist, underwritten by its idea of individualized creativity, and modern Japan's persistent adherence to ghostwriting's more collaborative premodern concept of creativity. Subjecting fine-grained literary historical analysis to its far-reaching theoretical consequences for the modernness of modern literature, Japanese and otherwise, this essay shows how the spectre of Kawabata's ghostwriting haunts our contemporary, and therefore possibly anachronistic, understanding of ‘modern’ literary practice.     

Are Defendants Guilty If They Were Chosen in a Lineup?

Courts overbelieve witnesses who choose suspects in lineups. The extent of the problem depends on the probability of defendants who were chosen actually being guilty. According to Bayes' theorem, the probability of their guilt depends as much on the relative number of guilty who are chosen [p(C/G)] as on the number of innocent suspects [p(C/not G)]. Evidence is presented, based on both experimental data and archival reports of real eyewitness cases, that p(C/G) = 0.29 and p(C/not G) = 0.098 are conservative estimates. This leads to 0.247 being the probability of innocence if chosen (assuming no a priori presumption of guilt or innocence). The problem, then, is serious. Potential remedies are discussed.     

Changing biases in the operation of the UK's electoral system, 1950–97

The biased outcomes of recent British general elections, whereby the two main parties (Conservative and Labour) would have achieved different percentages of the seats in the House of Commons for the same percentages of the votes cast, are explored, using a method of bias decomposition developed by a New Zealand political scientist. Overall, the situation changed markedly between 1950 and 1997: the biases in the system strongly favoured the Conservatives in the 1950s and early 1960s, but Labour in 1992 and 1997. Examination of the seven components of the bias measure shows that most of these moved in Labour's favour over the 50-year period, with a major shift between 1992 and 1997 because of the greater geographical efficiency of the Labour party's vote at the latter date: reasons for this are suggested.     

Policing disorder: Calgary Transit peace officers and the Alberta law enforcement framework

An analysis of current trends suggests that the delivery of policing services in Canada is fundamentally shifting. In 2011, the Province of Alberta established the Law Enforcement Framework, which includes Calgary Transit peace officers who are responsible for the safety and security needs of transit customers and employees. This article examines the role of Calgary Transit peace officers and makes recommendations for their incorporation into a broader model of nodal governance in order to ensure that the Calgary Police Service maintains a legitimate, coordinating role for the provision of public safety in the City of Calgary.