Since its founding in 1943, Medievalia et Humanistica has won worldwide recognition as the first scholarly publication in America to devote itself entirely to medieval and Renaissance studies. Since 1970, a new series, sponsored by the Modern Language Association of America and edited by an international board of distinguished scholars and critics, has published interdisciplinary articles. In yearly hardbound volumes, the new series publishes significant scholarship, criticism, and reviews treating all facets of medieval and Renaissance culture: history, art, literature, music, (...) science, law, economics, and philosophy. (shrink)

Keywords Islam - Comparative religion - Culture - Fundamentalism R. MICHAEL FEENER, ed., Islam in World Cultures: Comparative Perspectives. Oxford, UK: ABC-CLIO, 2004, 387pp., ISBN: 978-1576075166, hb.

The term “ideology” can cover almost any set of ideas, but its power to bewitch political activists results from its strange logic. It is part philosophy, part science, and part spiritual revelation, all tied together in leading to a remarkable paradox—that the modern Western world, beneath its liberal appearance, is actually the most systematically oppressive system of despotism the world has ever seen. In Alien Powers, Kenneth Minogue takes this complex intellectual construction apart, analyzing its logical, rhetorical, and psychological devices, (...) and thus opening it up to critical analysis. This new, ISI Books’ Background edition of Alien Powers includes a new introduction to the text by Martyn P. Thompson and critical essays on the text by political theorist Paul Gottfried and philosopher Stephen A. Erickson. (shrink)

Regulated secretory proteins are stored within specialized vesicles known as secretory granules. It is not known how proteins are sorted into these organelles. Regulated proteins may possess targeting signals which interact with specific sorting receptors in the lumen of the trans‐Golgi network (TGN) prior to their aggregation to form the characteristic dense‐core of the granule. Alternatively, sorting may occur as the result of specific aggregation of regulated proteins in the TGN. Aggregates may be directed to secretory granules by interaction of (...) a targeting signal on the surface with a sorting receptor. Novel targeting signals which confer on regulated proteins a tendency to aggregate under certain conditions, and in so doing cause them to be incorporated into secretory granules, have been implicated. Specific targeting signals may also play a role in directing membrane proteins to secretory granules. (shrink)

Recent theoretical and philosophical movements within the study of material culture are more carefully attending to the variety of ways in which human artefacts, institutions, and cultural developments extend, shape and alter human cognition over time. Material Engagement Theory in particular has set out to map, explore and understand the relational nature of mind and material world as can be read through cultural artefacts. Within the context of MET, the neurological concept of metaplasticity has been expanded to include the affective (...) domains of technology, materials, and things in the neurological development and architecture of the plastic human mind; a ‘transactional’ relationship between a plastic mind and a plastic material world that are correlated at the ontological level. The challenges of mapping this metaplasticity of mind lie in understanding how the mind and material culture should be understood in relation to the constantly changing lifeworlds of humans over time; the ecological, social, technological and environmental contexts that form the historical specificity of cognitive development. This paper explores how the historical specificity of metaplasticity can be made tangible through the study of material culture, focusing upon the particular activity of oil painting. It will be argued that paintings can provide clues to the historical specificity of the mind that crosses the lifeworld of human action; the technological, phenomenological, philosophical, material, and social conditions underpinning the creation of a painted mark. Drawing from a range of sources that have a root within a Deleuzian process philosophy, the paper builds an account of painting that can be read as expressing the encultured and historical manipulation of paint as an expressive material in itself; an action rendered visible that express the historical emergence of mind. (shrink)

Reason and Value collects 15 new papers by leading contemporary philosophers on themes from the work of Joseph Raz. Raz has made major contributions in a wide range of areas, including jurisprudence, political philosophy, and the theory of practical reason; but all of his work displays a deep engagement with central themes in moral philosophy. The subtlety and power of Raz's reflections on ethical topics make his writings a fertile source for anyone working in this area. Especially significant are his (...) explorations of the connections between practical reason and the theory of value, which constitute a sustained and penetrating treatment of a set of issues at the very center of moral philosophy as it is practiced today. The contributors to the volume acknowledge the importance of Raz's contributions by engaging critically with his positions and offering independent perspectives on the topics that he has addressed. The volume aims both to honour Raz's accomplishments in the area of ethical theorizing, and to contribute to an enhanced appreciation of the significance of his work for the subject. (shrink)

There is much law and many guidelines surrounding the whole issue of the indemnity for human volunteers when it comes to clinical trials. The system that had been put in place to protect individual volunteer drug trialists seems largely to have worked by the fact that there are so few examples of legal cases being issued. However, recent events have shown that when the system fails it fails somewhat spectacularly. The difficulty for groups such as the ethics committee is that (...) lawyers look for targets to try and meet the difference between the claims and the monies available and it might therefore always be possible that the ethics committee becomes centre stage in terms of the pursuit of the action. (shrink)

This article challenges the assumption inherent in many ethics codes that duties only arise when the project is sufficiently advanced that a formal research proposal can be put before an ethics committee for approval. Certain social science methodologies do not lend themselves to a simple demarcation between the preparation and the implementation of the research. It is therefore imperative that consideration is given to researchers' ethical duties prior to formal review. The problem of demarcation and of defining a duty are (...) explored in the particular context of a potential research project involving research on taxi-drivers' experiences of crime and the strategies that they employ to avoid victimisation. Two key issues emerge. First, in what circumstances, if any, can information supplied during this gestation period be used as ‘research data’? Secondly, there are concerns about the researcher's identity and role at this stage. These issues, and others, need to be the subject of further consideration by the relevant bodies so that researchers receive meaningful guidance on the duty prior to ethics review. (shrink)

Theories of affective influences on cognition posit that negative mood may increase cognitive load, causing a decrement in task performance (Seibert & Ellis, [1991]. Irrelevant thoughts, emotional mood states, and cognitive task performance. Memory & Cognition, 19(5), 507–513), or cause a shift to more analytic thinking, which benefits tasks requiring attention to detail (Schwarz & Clore, [1983]. Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(3), 513–523). We previously reported (...) that individuals who are higher in the trait of emotional reactivity performed better on an inhibitory task with increasing negative mood whereas low-reactive individuals showed the converse pattern (Gabel & McAuley, [2018]. Does mood help or hinder executive functions? Reactivity may be the key. Personality and Individual Differences, 128, 94–99; [2020]. React to act: Negative mood, response inhibition, and the moderating role of emotional reactivity. Motivation and Emotion, 44(6), 862–869). Because high-reactive individuals are more accustomed to negative affect (Nock et al., [2008]. The emotion reactivity scale: Development, evaluation, and relation to self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Behavior Therapy, 39(2), 107–116), we speculated that negative mood engendered analytic thinking but without a task-incongruent increase in cognitive load – thereby facilitating performance. Here, we induced a heuristic or analytic approach to information processing prior to performance of an inhibitory task and expected different results pending the thinking style induced. In the heuristic condition, increasing negative mood was associated with better performance for high-reactive participants but not their low-reactive counterparts. In the analytic condition, increasing negative mood was associated with better performance irrespective of emotional reactivity. Our results are consistent with the notion that negative mood engenders analytic thinking which may benefit response inhibition provided it does not increase task-incongruent cognitive load. (shrink)

The concept of “ethical research” holds considerable sway over the ways in which contemporary biomedical, natural, and social science investigations are funded, regulated, and practiced within a variety of countries. Some commentators have viewed this “new” means of governance positively; others, however, have been resoundingly critical, regarding it as restrictive and ethics bodies and regulations unfit for the task they have been set. Regardless, it is clear that science today is an “ethical” business. The ways in which formal and informal (...) ethical discourses and practices—what might be called “regimes of normativity”—structure scientific work and the meanings it is ascribed with have, however, been underexplored. This article attends to how science and ethics articulate; how they are, in many ways, co-produced. Exploring these processes of co-production casts into sharp relief the essential emotionality of science; the relationships investigators have with their colleagues, work, and research participants pulse with emotion, potentially shaping in important ways the very kinds of knowledge that laboratories produce. (shrink)

The development of the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association9s _Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders_—the DSM-5—has reenergised and driven further forward critical discourse about the place and role of diagnosis in mental health. The DSM-5 has attracted considerable criticism, not least about its role in processes of medicalisation. This paper suggests the need for a sociology of psychiatric critique. Sociological analysis can help map fields of contention, and cast fresh light on the assumptions and nuances of debate (...) around the DSM-5; it underscores the importance of diagnosis to the governance of social and clinical life, as well as the wider discourses critical commentaries connect with and are activated by. More normatively, a sociology of critique can indicate which interests and values are structuring the dialogues being articulated, and just how diverse clinical opinion regarding the DSM can actually be. This has implications for the considerations of health services and policy decision-makers who might look to such debates for guidance. (shrink)

Medicine, as Byron Good argues, reconstitutes thehuman body of our daily experience as a medical body,unfamiliar outside medicine. This reconstitution can be seen intwo ways: as a salutary reminder of the extent to which thereality even of the human body is constructed; and as anarena for what Stephen Toulmin distinguishes as theintersection of natural science and history, in which many ofphilosophy''s traditional questionsare given concrete and urgent form.This paper begins by examining a number of dualities between themedical body and the (...) body familiar in daily experience. Toulmin''s epistemological analysis of clinical medicine ascombining both universal and existential knowledge is thenconsidered. Their expression, in terms of attention,respectively, to natural science and to personal history, isexplored through the epistemological contrasts between themedical body and the familiar body, noting the traditionalphilosophical questions which they in turn illustrate. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have identified a political formation that mobilizes the emancipatory energies of feminism in the service of the expansion of the carceral state. ‘Carceral feminism,’ as it has come to be known, is often portrayed by these scholars as a product of feminist-conservative convergence. Here, I argue that the rise of the SlutWalk movement suggests a more complex genealogy for carceral feminism. By situating SlutWalk in the historico-theoretical context of feminism’s sex wars, I reveal the carceral–feminist impulses (...) roiling beneath its progressive ‘sex-positive’ surface. With its tendency to reduce sexual freedom to expressive freedom, valorize conventional forms of femininity and sexuality, and promote a fundamentally carceral paradigm of sexual freedom, the SlutWalk movement, I argue, is descended from anti-censorship/pro-sex feminism, a liberal-feminist hybrid that emerged out of the convergence of sex-radical feminism and liberalism during the sex wars. When viewed in this light, SlutWalk no longer appears as a sign that feminism’s ‘pleasure’ and ‘danger’ factions have negotiated a long-awaited ‘sex-détente.’ Rather, it stands as a testament to the extent to which feminism’s once radical aspirations in the domain of sexual politics have been supplanted by a tepid, heteronormative, and disquietingly carceral liberal project. (shrink)

The years from 1918 to 1945 remain central to European History. It was a breath-taking time during which the very best and very worst attributes of Mankind were on display. In the euphoria of peace which followed the end of the First World War, the Baltic States emerged as independent forces on the world stage, participating in thrilling experiments in national and transnational governance. Later, following economic collapse and in the face of rising totalitarianism among even Europe’s most cultured nations, (...) Baltic communities succumbed to nationalism too. During wartime, Baltic peoples became both victims and, sometimes, victimisers. Ultimately their victimhood lasted until the end of the Cold War, yielding consequences still discernible at the start of the twenty first century. Taking the period 1918 to 1945 as pivotal, this collection of essays examines some of the key themes in Baltic History as they are emerging today. These include appreciations of identity, autonomy and the rights of national minorities; the everyday and social foundations of international security; and the importance of historical memory to popular and political identities. (shrink)

The Nature of God explores a perennial problem in the philosophy of religion.

This book questions the generally accepted view that mechanics’ institutes made little contribution to adult working-class education from their foundation in the 1820s to 1890. The book traces the historical development of several mechanics’ institutes across Britain, establishing that many supported both male and female working-class membership before state intervention at the end of the nineteenth century resulted in the development of further education for all. Chapters of the book draw on historical accounts in supporting the claim that the movement, (...) until now seen as of little national significance, was a success, and particularly for the working classes for whom they were established. (shrink)

In this book the author argues that human musical understanding is rooted in the traditions of culture and that experience of music depends crucially on what the individual brings to it.

ArgumentResearch into the biological markers of pathology has long been a feature of British psychiatry. Such somatic indicators and associated features of mental disorder often intertwine with discourse on psychological and behavioral correlates and causes of mental ill-health. Disorders of sociality – particularly psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder – are important instances where the search for markers of pathology has a long history; research in this area has played an important role in shaping how mental health professionals understand the conditions. (...) Here, I characterize the multiplicity of psychiatric praxis that has sought to define the mark of antisociality as a form of “ontological anarchy.” I regard this as an essential feature of the search for biological and other markers of an unstable referent, positing that uncertainties endure – in part – precisely because of attempts to build consensus regarding the ontology of antisociality through biomedical means. Such an account is suggestive of the co-production of biomarkers, mental disorder, and psychiatric institutions. (shrink)