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Warehouse Waywards: Inquiry into Identity
No full textThe photograph on this cover depics people enjoying an atlernative gathering in a non \u27normative\u27 community. In non-research, informal settings, most people from these communties have expressed to this this photographer that these people gather with an unstated understanding that there are varying backgrounds, educations, beliefs, political views, sexualities and interests in the space. The common link between these people is in the gathering to express freedom to be themselves. The bodies are blurred in the photograph to (1) depict the idea that in this culture, these people are not defined by solid lines (e.g., Harms, 2013), and to (2) represent that their identities are not typically represented in normative institutions (e.g., education, health care, justice, laws, policy, religion etc.; e.g., Tilsen & Nylund (2010)
The Trial of Grace Marks
Get PDFIn 1843, domestic servant Grace Marks and stable boy James McDermott murdered their employer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Hannah Nancy Montgomery. The murder took place on Kinnear’s farm near Richmond Hill, Ontario and their bodies were discovered by neighbours the next day. Marks and McDermott were captured shortly afterwards. During their trial for the murder of Kinnear, each blamed the other for instigating the murders. They were both sentenced to death, but only McDermott was hanged. The jury submitted a plea for mercy in the verdict of Grace Marks and her life was spared. She was incarcerated in the Kingston penitentiary for thirty years before being granted a pardon and released. Mystery still surrounds the trial of Grace Marks and James McDermott. Why was Grace Marks spared
Abraham Lincoln: Gradual Emancipator
Get PDFIn American historical memory, Abraham Lincoln has become a character of nearly mythical proportions, sometimes even referred to as \u27The Great Emancipator\u27. This characterization depicts Lincoln as having sought the abolition of slavery from the outset of his political career. However, this paper shall examine the speeches, letters, and actions of Lincoln, arguing that he was in fact a \u27Gradual Emancipator\u27, cautiously seeking only the phased abolition of slavery
Understanding Health and Medicine: A Critical Examination of Governance, Surveillance and Control within Contemporary Culture
Get PDFWithin contemporary western society, health and medicine understandings are often taken for granted, left unquestioned and undisturbed. However, the author of this paper looks to uproot and critically examine much of what medical professionals, scientists, and patients alike have come to understand as ‘normal’. Thus, an assessment of the ways in which the neo-liberal model, the creation of the abnormal/normal binary and social discourses combine in order to enact control, surveillance and governance, will be considered. Then, through the use of Foucauldian theory, a discussion of the implications of such ubiquitous and omnipresent social processes such as surveillance, control and governance will be considered. Furthermore, the neo-liberal model will be presented in greater detail to illustrate the ways in which privilege is cast unto those who embody that of the archetypal citizen. Additionally, social theorists Giddens and Beck will be considered as they offer critical key concepts – such as that of the risk society – which will help to better contextualize the larger theoretical frameworks that exist and pertain to health and medicine. In conclusion, Foucault’s concept of the panopticon will exemplify the ways in which surveillance, control and governance are irrevocably intertwined at a variety of levels to ultimately create citizens whom conform to government beliefs and ideals
Human Trafficking: The Complexities of a Global Definition
Get PDFThe author of this paper explores the question, what is human trafficking? In order to answer this question, differing definitions of human trafficking are examined, as well as what problems these inconsistencies can present. Additionally, the causes of human trafficking, types of trafficking, recruitment strategies, and those whom are often targeted as victims, are discussed along with the significant problems in conquering human trafficking internationally. In order to exemplify the issues, there is further exploration into how two western countries define and approach human trafficking; emphasizing the differences between them and problems it creates. In conclusion, unless we develop a global definition of trafficking to help deal with cross-border criminal activity, we will continue to struggle with these types of trafficking problems
Letter from the Editor
No full textA letter from the Editor outlining the objectives of the BSUJ and introducing the papers for this special inaugural issue
‘Blood, it’s in you to be Governed\u27
No full textThe author of this paper investigates how blood has been constructed as a gendered and heteronormative cultural product, explored through the use of critical analysis of historical and contemporary uses of blood. Heteronormativity and the fallacy of discrete sexes are then defined and explored to give context to the argument. It is found that through gendering under the two-sex model of opposing male and female sexes, blood is heteronormative. A case study of Canadian Blood Services was used to show how governance is enacted based upon the limitation of a heteronormative construction. This argument is bolstered in a theoretical discussion of the nation-state and the creation of the archetypical citizen, part of which is a compulsory heterosexuality
The Relocation of Monstrosity: An Analysis of Horror in Brian De Palma’s Carrie
Get PDFThe presence and expression of monstrosity, violence, and terror confirm Carrie’s status as a horror film. It is traditional in its use of visual cues such as darkness, blood and abnormality as sources of fear. In this sense, it obeys the conventions of its genre and embraces its iconography. However, the initially normative and ultimately transformative examination of monstrosity solidifies its position as an atypical horror film. The protagonist’s normalized environment is revealed to be a sinister setting, to the extent that its monstrosity becomes contagious. Carrie’s alterity is not inherently terrifying; she is pushed to terrifying measures by the social body that victimizes her
Derrida\u27s Secret and Symptom: A Certain Impossible Possibility of Writing the Event
Get PDFIn this paper, I will attempt to conceptualize the event through Derrida’s late lecture “A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event,” which he presented “spontaneously” at the Canadian Centre of Architecture in Montreal on April 1st 1997. Furthermore, I will analyze how a certain conception of the event emerges out of the conversations between Derrida, J.L. Austin, and John Searle, especially considering the essay that “started” the much-discussed debate between Derrida and the Anglo-American speech act theorists; namely, through a reading of Austin’s How to Do Things With Words. Derrida’s “concepts” of iterability and the perverformative will be mobilized to think through the ways the event, if it can be written that it exists, is undoubtedly beyond the categories of the performative and constative; however, recourse to the many impossible-possible aporias that populate Derrida’s late texts such as the decision, forgiveness, and invention will be necessary to understand this difficult position. The symptom and the secret, then, will be related to the event through an interrogation of “verticality” while analyzing the event’s capacity to disrupt established modalities of temporality
An Examination of Women\u27s Rights in Medieval England
No full textThis paper explores the rights and perceptions of women within Medieval England. It dicusses the laws that limited women personally and then examines the supposed legal freedoms they possessed in comparison to other countries of that time period. Ultimately this paper concluded that even though the intent behind the law code pertaining to women was protection, it ultimately resulted in injustice and supported a system of patriarchy