What Executioners Can—and Cannot—Teach Us About the Death Penalty

Those who work with the condemned often come to reject the death penalty not only in individual cases, and not only on the ground that it is poorly implemented. They tend to conclude that the punishment is wrong. I argue that the perspective of the executioner helps illuminate the debate about whether to abolish capital punishment, and that indeed the perspective of those who work with the condemned raises the troubling possibility that support for the death penalty can survive only at a great remove. Jeffrie Murphy has also argued that the executioner’s perspective can be useful, but I contend that Murphy asks the wrong question. His essay considers whether an executioner may, under some circumstances, take pride in his work. The better question is whether anyone ought to be asked to do such work. On this latter question, the perspective of the executioner sheds important light. Like Murphy, I draw on works by and about Albert Pierrepoint, the “last hangman” of Britain. I also draw on the perspectives of numerous executioners, wardens, chaplains, and other death row personnel. I argue that their perspectives offer a powerful argument against the main rationale for the death penalty: retribution. If retribution is keyed to the offender’s character as well as his wrongful act, then post-conviction character ought to matter. The executioners’ accounts share a common theme: that death row inmates change over time and hold the potential for redemption.     

Hearts and Minds: War Neurosis and the Politics of Madness in Anna Kavan's I Am Lazarus

Abstract

Anna Kavan's fictional portrayals of psychiatric breakdown and its treatment provide a unique perspective on the patient's experience of early to mid twentieth-century psychiatry. This article looks in detail at Kavan's time working with soldiers suffering from effort syndrome during the Second World War, observing how the solider-psychiatric patient becomes a figurehead for her radical politics in her Horizon article ‘The Case of Bill Williams’ (1944), and a prominent protagonist in her stories. Through close reading of her correspondence, her journalism and her wartime stories collected in I Am Lazarus (1945), it examines how the intersection of psychological trauma and physiological symptoms characteristic of effort syndrome surfaces in Kavan's writing of this period and in her own psychic responses to the war. It observes the importance of figurative language to her portrayal of war trauma and psychological breakdown, as her characters embody metaphor in their psychosomatic symptoms, and explores a twisted reconception of mind–body dualism prevalent throughout her writing of this period. It goes on to examine how the peculiar interaction of the physical and the psychological extends to the relationship between Kavan's characters and their external environment in her Blitz stories. Against the backdrop of the war-torn city, mind and body engage in ongoing conflict, affect and emotion bleed into her physical landscapes, and everyday objects become animated and hostile towards her protagonists.     

论社会思想解放运动对哲学变革的作用

哲学变革与社会思想解放的关系是双向的。哲学变革是社会变革和社会思想解放的先导,但是,社会思想解放运动对哲学具有巨大的推动作用、变革作用、解放作用。在当代中国哲学的“困境期”,尤其不可忽视后一种作用。     

Community Penalties in the United States

The author discusses some background matters concerning the US criminal justice systems that may provide useful context for non-US readers, and summarises the main general conclusions about the operation of community penalties from two decades' research. He also briefly summarises research concerning each of the major penalties that have been attempted. Why American jurisdictions have been comparatively unsuccessful at use of community penalties as alternatives to incarceration and whether that lack of receptivity can be changed is discussed in the conclusion.     

试论中国帝王文学

中国帝王文学是一种独立于中国文学主流但又起着特殊作用的文学类群 ,应当从文学自身本质规律出发来进行解析。作为一种文学类群 ,它是一种十分独特而又悠久的客观存在。这种畸形的阳刚文学的产生是中国特有的现象。它有着突出的特征 :政治化极强的文学内容 ,唯我独尊的个体精神心理 ,主体表现的阳刚雄壮 ,符合艺术本质的自我表现等     

1949-1959中国教育体系中的民间文艺学课程建设--以北京师范大学为中心

文章把1949-1959年北京师范大学中文系民间文艺学专业教育的发展情况作为主要对象,研究民间文艺学课程的初创以及该课程如何伴随政府的教育、文化政策的发展而发展,探寻其发生、发展的文化史背景和意义,及其对课程建设的启示及借鉴.