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Interpreting the self: autobiography in the Arabic literary tradition
No full textAutobiography is a literary genre which Western scholarship has ascribed mostly to Europe and the West. Countering this assessment and presenting many little-known texts, this comprehensive work demonstrates the existence of a flourishing tradition in Arabic autobiography. Interpreting the Self discusses nearly one hundred Arabic autobiographical texts and presents thirteen selections in translation. The authors of these autobiographies represent an astonishing variety of geographical areas, occupations, and religious affiliations. This pioneering study explores the origins, historical development, and distinctive characteristics of autobiography in the Arabic tradition, drawing from texts written between the ninth and nineteenth centuries c.e. This volume consists of two parts: a general study rethinking the place of autobiography in the Arabic tradition, and the translated texts. Part one demonstrates that there are far more Arabic autobiographical texts than previously recognized by modern scholars and shows that these texts represent an established and - especially in the Middle Ages - well-known category of literary production. The thirteen translated texts in part two are drawn from the full one-thousand-year period covered by this survey and represent a variety of styles. Each text is preceded by a brief introduction guiding the reader to specific features in the text and providing general background information about the author. The volume also contains an annotated bibliography of 130 premodern Arabic autobiographical texts.In addition to presenting much little-known material, this volume revisits current understandings of autobiographical writing and helps create an important cross-cultural comparative framework for studying the genre
May her likes be multiplied: biography and gender politics in Egypt
No full textMarilyn Booth's elegantly conceived study reveals the Arabic tradition of life-writing in an entirely new light. Though biography had long been male-authored, in the late nineteenth century short sketches by and about women began to appear in biographical dictionaries and women's journals. By 1940, hundreds of such biographies had been published, featuring Arabs, Turks, Indians, Europeans, North Americans, and ancient Greeks and Persians. Booth uses over five hundred "famous women" biographies - which include subjects as diverse as Joan of Arc, Jane Austen, Aisha bt. Abi Bakr, Sarojini Naidu, and Lucy Stone - to demonstrate how these narratives prescribed complex role models for middle-class girls, in a context where nationalist programs and emerging feminisms made defining the ideal female citizen an urgent matter.Booth begins by asking how cultural traditions shaped women's biography, and to whom the Egyptian biographies were directed. The biographies were published at a time of great cultural awakening in Egypt, when social and political institutions were in upheaval. The stories suggested that Islam could be flexible on social practice and gender, holding out the possibility for women to make their own lives. Yet ultimately they indicate that women would find it extremely difficult to escape the nationalist ideal: the nuclear family with "woman" at its center. This conflict remains central to Egyptian politics today, and in her final chapter Booth examines Islamic biographies of women's lives that have been published in more recent years
Speaking the unspeakable: religion, misogyny, and the uncanny mother in Freud's cultural texts
No full textIn this bold rereading of Freud's cultural texts, Diane Jonte-Pace uncovers an undeveloped "counterthesis," one that repeatedly interrupts or subverts his well-known Oedipal masterplot. The counterthesis is evident in three clusters of themes within Freud's work: maternity, mortality, and immortality; Judaism and anti-Semitism; and mourning and melancholia. Each of these clusters is associated with "the uncanny" and with death and loss. Appearing most frequently in Freud's images, metaphors, and illustrations, the counterthesis is no less present for being unspoken--it is, indeed, "unspeakable." The "uncanny mother" is a primary theme found in Freud's texts involving fantasies of immortality and mothers as instructors in death. In other texts, Jonte-Pace finds a story of Jews for whom the dangers of assimilation to a dominant Gentile culture are associated unconsciously with death and the uncanny mother. The counterthesis appears in the story of anti-Semites for whom the "uncanny impression of circumcision" gives rise not only to castration anxiety but also to matriphobia. It also surfaces in Freud's ability to mourn the social and religious losses accompanying modernity, and his inability to mourn the loss of his own mother. The unfolding of Freud's counterthesis points toward a theory of the cultural and unconscious sources of misogyny and anti-Semitism in "the unspeakable." Jonte-Pace's work opens exciting new vistas for the feminist analysis of Freud's intellectual legacy
Public health law: power, duty, restraint
No full textGostin's timely book offers the first systematic definition and theory of public health law. Basing his definition on a broad notion of the government's inherent responsibility to advance the population's health and well-being, he develops a rich understanding of the government's fundamental powers and duties. By analyzing constitutional powers and limits, as well as statutory, administrative, and tort law, Public Health Law vividly shows how law can become a potent tool for the realization of a healthier and safer population
Fascist modernities: Italy, 1922-1945
No full textRuth Ben-Ghiat's innovative cultural history of Mussolini's dictatorship is a provocative discussion of the meanings of modernity in interwar Italy. Eloquent, pathbreaking, and deft in its use of a broad range of materials, this work argues that fascism appealed to many Italian intellectuals as a new model of modernity that would resolve the contemporary European crisis as well as long-standing problems of the national past. Ben-Ghiat shows that - at a time of fears over the erosion of national and social identities - Mussolini presented fascism as a movement that would allow economic development without harm to social boundaries and national traditions. She demonstrates that although the regime largely failed in its attempts to remake Italians as paragons of a distinctly fascist model of mass society, twenty years of fascism did alter the landscape of Italian cultural life. Among younger intellectuals in particular, the dictatorship left a legacy of practices and attitudes that often continued under different political rubrics after 1945
Promoting human wellness: new frontiers for research, practice, and policy
No full textThis book is a state-of-the-art educational resource on the latest research and public-policy developments in the fields of wellness promotion and disease prevention. Based on award-winning lectures by University of California faculty on nine campuses as part of the Wellness Lectures Program jointly funded by The California Wellness Foundation, Health Net, and the University of California, the volume aims to widen the scope of health care research and policy to promote wellness rather than focus on illness and disease, and to incorporate proactive, interdisciplinary approaches to health care. The volume also contains chapters by distinguished scholars inthe fields of wellness promotion and disease prevention. Many of these articles fall outside the scope of what we conventionally call health promotion, bringing new perspectives to research and policy possibilities. Promoting Human Wellness is organized around core themes such as the importance of disease prevention programs that address multiple health risks, the link between poverty and minority status and disease susceptibility, and the challenge of evaluating health benefits and cost-effectiveness. The articles discuss such timely issues as genetic determinism as a paradigm in wellness promotion, adolescent health promotion and teen pregnancy prevention strategies, racial differences in cancer epidemiology, the California smokers' helpline, strategies for reducing youth violence, HIV/AIDS prevention, domestic violence education and prevention srategies, and the future of women's health research. Presented within the framework of social ecology, several of the chapters in this volume address new ideas and approaches in the wellness field that are only now beginning to be understood such as the social construction of variables including race, class, and gender. Promoting Human Wellness will be essential reading for health practitioners, policymakers, and others seeking to expand the ways we define and achieve health. Keywords: Public health, community health, medicine, nursing, social welfare, health education, health psychology, social ecology, public policy, aging, health promotion
Purified by fire: a history of cremation in America
No full textJust one hundred years ago, Americans almost universally condemned cremation. Today, nearly one-quarter of Americans choose to be cremated. The practice has gained wide acceptance as a funeral rite, in both our private and public lives, as the cremations of icons such as John Lennon and John F. Kennedy Jr. show. Purified by Fire tells the fascinating story of cremation's rise from notoriety to legitimacy and takes a provocative new look at important transformations in the American cultural landscape over the last 150 years. Stephen Prothero synthesizes a wide array of previously untapped source material, including newspapers, consumer guides, mortician trade journals, and popular magazines such as Reader's Digest to provide this first historical study of cremation in the United States. He vividly describes many noteworthy events - from the much-criticized first American cremation in 1876 to the death and cremation of Jerry Garcia in the late twentieth century. From the Gilded Age to the Progressive Era to the baby boomers of today, this book takes us on a tour through American culture and traces our changing attitudes toward death, religion, public health, the body, and the environment
Cultural curiosity: thirteen stories about the search for Chinese roots
No full textThis anthology of autobiographical essays reveals the human side of the Chinese diaspora. Written by ethnic Chinese who were born or raised outside of China, these moving pieces, full of the poignant details of everyday life, describe the experience of growing up as a visible minority and the subsequent journey each author made to China. The authors - whose diverse backgrounds in countries such as New Zealand, Denmark, Sri Lanka, England, Indonesia, and the United States mirror the complex global scope of the Chinese diaspora - describe in particular how their journey to the country of their ancestors transformed their sense of what it means to be Chinese. The collection as a whole provides important insights into what ethnic identity has come to mean in our transnational era. Among the pieces is Brad Wong's discussion of his visit to his grandfather's poverty-stricken village in China's southern Guangdong province. He describes working with a few of the peasants tilling vegetables and compares life in the village with his middle-class upbringing in a San Francisco suburb. In another essay, Milan Lin-Rodrigo tells of her life in Sri Lanka and of the trip she made to China as an adult. She describes the difficult and sometimes humorous cultural differences she experienced when she met her Chinese half-sister and her father's first wife. Josephine Khu's lively afterword provides background information on the Chinese diaspora and gives a theoretical framework for understanding the issues raised in the essays. This intimate and rich anthology will be compelling reading for all who are seeking answers to the increasingly complex issue of ethnic and personal identity
Weimar: a jurisprudence of crisis
No full textThis selection of the major works of constitutional theory during the Weimar period reflects the reactions of legal scholars to a state in permanent crisis, a society in which all bets were off. Yet the Weimar Republic's brief experiment in constitutionalism laid the groundwork for the postwar Federal Republic, and today its lessons can be of use to states throughout the world. Weimar legal theory is a key to understanding the experience of nations turning from traditional, religious, or command-and-control forms of legitimation to the rule of law. Only two of these authors, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, have been published to any extent in English, but they and the others whose writings are translated here played key roles in the political and constitutional struggles of the Weimar Republic. Critical introductions to all the theorists and commentaries on their works have been provided by experts from Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United States. In their general introduction, the editors place the Weimar debate in the context of the history and politics of the Weimar Republic and the struggle for constitutionalism in Germany. This critical scrutiny of the Weimar jurisprudence of crisis offers an invaluable overview of the perils and promise of constitutional development in states that lack an entrenched tradition of constitutionalism
Same bed, different dreams: managing U.S.-China relations, 1989-2000
No full textThe title of this unique insider's look at a crucial decade of Sino-American interchange derives from a Chinese expression that describes a relationship of two people whose lives are intimately intertwined but who do not fundamentally communicate with each other. David M. Lampton, former president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, demonstrates that while the United States and China have enormous interests at stake in their bilateral relationship, neither has been particularly deft in dealing with the other. His fascinating account shows how the processes of globalization, along with the development of international regimes and multilateral organizations, have brought America and China increasingly close in the global bed. At the same time, their respective national institutions, interests, popular perceptions, and the very characters of their two peoples, assure that the nations continue to have substantially different dreams. Lampton explores the reasons why the Sino-American relationship is so difficult for both nations to manage and suggests ways it can be more effectively conducted in the future. His unique experience in China - nearly thirty years as a scholar, as the head of a policy-oriented exchange organization, and as director of Washington think-tank research programs - enabled him to spend extended periods with Chinese leaders and see them as they encountered America, as well as to observe U.S. leaders as they tried to come to grips with Chinese circumstances. Among many other key events, Lampton witnessed firsthand the aftermath of Tiananmen Square, successive congressional battles over most-favored-nation tariff treatment, the end of the Bush era and the rocky beginning of the Clinton administration, the death of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin's transition to power, the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, and the Asian financial crisis that unfolded from mid-1997 to the end of the decade. Lampton's careful documentary research is supplemented by interviews and accounts of his personal interaction throughout the period with leaders and key players in Washington, Beijing, Taipei, and Hong Kong. The book thus represents a singular combination of historical research, policy analysis, and personal observation, and offers guidance for those in both America and China who must shape this critical relationship in the twenty-first century