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People's war and wars of decolonisation
No full textThe wars of decolonisation in Africa were contested by national liberation movements that, to varying degrees, all modelled their insurgencies on leftist theories of people’s war. At the same time, however, African national liberation movements never followed the precepts set out by the theorists of people’s war in any slavish manner. Instead, they adapted these precepts to local conditions and needs. Drawing on examples ranging from the Algerian war of independence to the armed struggle of the African National Congress against Apartheid, this chapter explores the strategic practice of a disparate group of insurgent movements that sought to end decades and more of colonial and white minority rule in Africa. Focusing on their objectives, means, methods and priorities, the chapter argues that people’s war was an important guiding principle for African liberation movements, one from which they drew key lessons. Yet it never represented an immutable blueprint for victory
Vivisection and late-Victorian literary culture
No full textThe nineteenth-century antivivisection movement was supported by a striking number of poets, authors, and playwrights who attended meetings, signed petitions, contributed funds, and lent their pens to the cause. Yet live animal experimentation also permeated the Victorian imagination and shaped British literary culture in ways that the movement against it did not anticipate and could not entirely control. This is the first sustained literary-critical study of the topic. It traces responses to the practice through an extensive corpus of canonical, popular, and ephemeral texts including newspapers, scientific books, and government documents. Asha Hornsby sheds light on the complex entanglement of art and science at the fin-de-siècle and explores how the representational and aesthetic preoccupations opened up by vivisection debates often sat uneasily alongside a socio-political commitment to animal protection. Despite efforts to present writing and vivisecting as rivalrous activities, author and experimenter, pen and scalpel, often resembled each other
Learning your papist ABCs:gender and print in clandestine Catholic schools in the Dutch Republic
No full textStructural refactorings for exploring dependently typed programming
No full textDependent types provide users with the tools to embody specifications in types, with implementations carrying proofs that the specifications are met. One approach to developing programs in a dependently typed language develops such programs by enriching simply typed programs through a process of refactoring
The open veins of modernity:ecological crisis and the legacy of Byzantium and pre-Columbian America
No full textThe ecological crisis is the result of modernity's coloniality. The Moderns considered the Earth as 'natural resources' at their disposal. Their colonial vision of nature was complemented by that of nonmodern cultures like Byzantium and pre-Columbian America as passive or primitive, respectively. For the Moderns, the Byzantines were the 'librarians of humanity,' an inert repository of Greco-Roman knowledge, unable to produce their own. Byzantium's inertia was matched by that of nature, both reservoirs of epistemic and material resources. Thanks to those “librarians,” the supposedly inexhaustible supply of natural resources, and the epistemic and material riches of indigenous America, the Moderns believed they were inaugurating an epoch of intellectual maturity and infinite growth. Today, the enduring negative view of Byzantium and the ecological crisis confirm that we remain entangled in modernity's coloniality. We should decolonize both history and nature. To mitigate humanity's existential threat, modernity must be rethought and overcome
Tracking individual animals can reveal the mechanisms of species loss
No full textAs biodiversity loss continues, targeted conservation interventions are increasingly necessary. Stemming species loss requires mechanistic understanding of the processes governing population dynamics. However, this information is unavailable for most animals because it requires data that are difficult to collect using traditional methods. Advances in animal tracking technology have generated an avalanche of high-resolution observations for a growing list of species around the globe. To date, most research using these data has focused on questions about animal behavior, with less emphasis on population processes. Here, we argue that tracking data are uniquely poised to bring powerful new insights to the urgent, global problem of halting species extinctions by revealing when, where, how, and why populations are changing
Utopian anti-utopianism:rethinking Cold War liberalism through British anarchism
No full textIsaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Liberty” lecture was the iconic statement of Cold War liberalism, an expression of all its insights and limitations. It divided critics then and now: was it a stimulating restatement of classical liberalism with revitalising potential for post-war democracy or a conservative retreat from politics that paralysed liberalism as both a social and political force? This article approaches the debate from a side angle. It looks at how the Freedom anarchist group addressed the problems raised by the lecture. Of all ideologies, anarchism most elevated liberty as the highest good. At the same time, it considered itself a social movement for the advance of liberty. As such, the tension highlighted by “Two Concepts”, between the intrinsic value of liberty and the pursuit of liberty, had long preoccupied generations of anarchist thinkers but never more so than after the War, where inherited assumptions about revolution and social change became implausible. Although Berlin identified anarchism with the fullest realisation of positive liberty, the movement was more philosophically diverse than he recognised. The Freedom group’s responses to his dilemma of liberty demonstrates this. At the same time, their efforts to think beyond the impasse and experiment with new forms of political practice – as exemplified by Anarchy, Freedom’s sister publication – outstripped those of the liberals casting fresh light on the limits and possibilities of freedom in a Cold War world
The mechanism of ruthenium-catalyzed directed C─H arylation of arenes:the key role of bis-cyclometalated intermediates
No full textThe mechanism of Ru-catalyzed N-directed C-H ortho-arylation with haloarenes has been under intense scrutiny over the last decade, with conflicting proposals concerning the relevance of various catalytic intermediates and the nature of the key steps. This work presents experimental and computational studies that address these long-standing questions. Stoichiometric, catalytic, and mechanistic kinetic studies, supported by DFT calculations, reveal that bis-cyclometallated ruthenium species are key intermediates in these reactions. These studies also show that oxidative addition with bromoarenes proceeds via a concerted oxidative addition pathway, as demonstrated by DFT and experimental kinetic orders. Bromoarene activation does not proceed at mono-cyclometalated species. In the catalytic process, zero order kinetics are observed on both reaction substrates, an observation that is rationalized by DFT calculations which predict a rate-limiting step within the product-release stage. These results showcase how detailed experimental and DFT studies can combine to probe mechanistic questions, as well as resolving opposing views around the mechanism of these Ru-catalyzed arylations that form the basis of promising mild C─H functionalizations
Exploring Sino-Foreign EAP teachers’ challenges
No full textDifficulties faced by EAP teachers at Sino- Foreign tertiary programs tend to be numerous, varied, intertwined, and underexplored. Surveys featuring closed and open- ended items completed by 109 lecturers and 529 students from 28 universities in China inquired into EAP challenges and suggestions for tutors. The main challenges for instructors were related to cultural aspects along with making lessons interesting and engaging. Interviews with 10 instructors and 10 learners further explored these hurdles and sought recommendations to help tutors overcome them. Suggestions included strengthening rapport with students to foster a better classroom environment, familiarizing oneself with the culture, language, needs, and interests of students, and adapting one’s teaching to make lessons more active and personalized instead of just lecturing
