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Goodman’s ‘About’: the Ryle Factor
Full text linkNelson Goodman’s paper ‘About’ (1961) was a milestone in aboutness theory. Although it has been much discussed, an interesting fact about it has so far been completely ignored: the important debt it owes to two papers it cites by Gilbert Ryle. With Ryle’s ‘About’ (1933) it shares much more than the title – it, too, offers a three-fold account of different ways a sentence can relate to a subject matter and a separate account for fictitious objects. More importantly, although Goodman’s approach is quite different, the inspiration for the crucial element in his account, ‘differential consequence’, may well have come from a parenthetical suggestion of entailment in Ryle’s ‘About’. The second essential tool Goodman uses, viz. compound predicates which incorporate the (fictitious) object, is also the crucial element in Ryle’s ‘Imaginary Objects’ (also 1933). Goodman turns them into a predicate schema for fictitious subject matters as well as for a nominalist version of his account
Bertrand Russell’s Doxastic Sentimentalism (and Neutral Monism)
Full text linkThis paper reinterprets doxastic sentimentalism and neutral monism, as these doctrines appear in Bertrand Russell’s “On Propositions” (1919) and The Analysis of Mind (1921). It argues that Russell’s theory of belief, in this particular period, posited at least seven distinct types of feeling, but only one type of entity. The paper’s principal thesis is that Russell treated believing as feelings, but it also draws the conclusions that monism and sentimentalism are logically independent of one another, and that sentimentalism and (at least one type of) behaviorism are inconsistent, qua theories of belief
Introduction: Queer and Trans Issues in Medieval Drama
No full textThis essay provides a landscape of queer and trans theoretical approaches, particularly as applied to medieval studies. Despite queer studies having been practiced since at least since the 1980s, medieval drama studies has seen fewer queer (and now trans) readings of medieval dramatic texts and bodies with few exceptions until recent years. Such approaches are more important now than ever given the ongoing assault against LGBTQIA individuals around the globe. Medieval drama is a fecund field for work in queer and trans studies, and through doing such work, we may indeed learn much about ourselves in the twenty-first century
Introduction: Gascoigne from the Margins — Mediations, Translations, Appropriations
No full textThis introduction presents the essays in the Early Theatre Issues in Review ‘Gascoigne from the Margins — Mediations, Translations, Appropriations’, placing them in the context of current criticism on Gascoigne and bringing them into a conversation on his dramatic works looked at from the ‘margins’
‘To Coosen the Expectation’: George Gascoigne’s Moral ‘Poses’ in Supposes
No full textSupposes, based on Ludovico Ariosto’s Suppositi, found its way into print twice during George Gascoigne’s lifetime: first, in A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres (1573); then, in The Posies of George Gascoigne, a 1575 revised version of Flowres. In Posies’s prefatory letters, Gascoigne presents the collection as the ‘undoubted proof’ of his reformation, advertising the ‘morall discourses and reformed inventions’ it harbours. Recent criticism questions these claims, arguing for the marginality and inconsistency of Gascoigne\u27s revisions, yet gives little consideration in this respect to the actual works featured in the miscellany, including Supposes – a play rich in sexual innuendos, left unamended in Posies. This article addresses this gap by reconsidering Supposes as functional to Gascoigne’s deceptive fiction of reformation as set forth in Posies’s paratexts
Increasing Remuneration for Publicly Covered Eye Examinations in Québec
Full text linkIn Canada, fees for publicly covered health services are negotiated between professional associations and provincial governments, usually for multi-year periods. Whereas almost all services provided by physicians are publicly covered, some professions, such as optometrists, serve both publicly and privately paying patients. For these professions, the gap between what they are paid for both types of patients looms large in their negotiation with the government. Moreover, they can threaten to walk out and refuse to treat publicly covered patients altogether, which increases their bargaining power vis-à-vis the government. The failed negotiation between optometrists and the Québec government between 2015 and 2018, and its resolution in 2018 is therefore a case study that offers valuable insights about the relationships between public payers and professions in a context where publicly covered services are only a portion of the profession’s income. Amid stalled negotiations, thousands of optometrists announced they would collectively opt out of the public system. However, this move was blocked by the Québec government via a ministerial decree which was then legally challenged by the Québec Association of Optometrists. The escalation of this dispute attracted considerable media coverage, garnered public interest, and mounted pressure on the Québec government. Ultimately, an agreement on an updated remuneration was reached ahead of the court date, and the new fees came into effect in August 2018.
Au Canada, les tarifs des services de santé couverts par le système public sont négociés entre les associations professionnelles et les gouvernements provinciaux, généralement pour des périodes pluriannuelles. Alors que la quasi-totalité des services fournis par les médecins sont couverts par le système public, certaines professions, comme les optométristes, s’adressent à la fois à des patients bénéficiant d’une couverture publique et à des patients bénéficiant d’une couverture privée. Pour ces professions, la différence entre ce qu’elles sont payées pour les deux types de patients représente un contrainte considérable dans leurs négociations avec le gouvernement. En outre, les membres de ces professions peuvent menacer de quitter l’accord et de refuser de traiter les patients couverts par le système public, ce qui accroît leur pouvoir de négociation vis-à-vis du gouvernement. L’échec des négociations entre les optométristes et le gouvernement du Québec entre 2015 et 2018, suivi d’une résolution en 2018, est donc une étude de cas qui offre des indications très utiles sur les relations entre les payeurs publics et les professions dans un contexte où les services couverts par le système public ne représentent qu’une partie des revenus de la profession. Face à l’impasse des négociations, des milliers d’optométristes ont annoncé qu’ils se retireraient collectivement du système public. Toutefois, cette décision a été bloquée par le gouvernement du Québec au moyen d’un décret ministériel qui a ensuite été contesté juridiquement par l’Association des optométristes du Québec. L’escalade de ce conflit a attiré une couverture médiatique considérable, a suscité l’intérêt du public et a fait monter la pression sur le gouvernement du Québec. Finalement, un accord sur une rémunération actualisée a été conclu avant la date du procès, et les nouveaux honoraires sont entrés en vigueur en août 2018
Pandemic Necrolabour and Essential Workers in the UK and France
Full text linkDrawing on recent studies on the necropolitics of Covid-19, this paper focuses on UK and French government policies towards essential workers, examining the conditions under which workers were systematically exposed to deadly harm within these two contrasting economic models. I argue that the pandemic revealed a category of necrolabour whose labour value supersedes their right to life and who could be legitimately sacrificed in the interests of the economy. Statistical recording shows that internationally, death rates amongst low-income essential workers were disproportionately high. We will see that workers’ exposure to death was as much a consequence of state authority that compelled them to continue working, at risk to their lives, as an outcome of official negligence that left many unprotected and lacking basic rights. Without legislative changes to improve employment rights and social protection, the unnecessary deaths of socially marginalised workers in essential jobs are likely to persist in the post-pandemic economy.
Adaptation Strategies: Labour Education, Climate Crisis and the UK Trade Union Movement
Full text linkA growing number of climate activists and scholars argue that an effective climate movement needs the involvement of the trade union movement, to be able to push forward the radical social transformations required to address the global climate crisis. This article analyses the recent focus on climate adaptation in labour education and action by trade unions in the UK. Climate adaptation is inherently political, and this article analyses the agendas driving the turn to adaptation, the possibilities that adaptation strategies open up, and some of their risks and limitations. Climate adaptation strategies, the article argues, could represent an important step forward for developing effective labour education and action on the climate crisis, but only if these strategies enable unions to mobilize a focus on the root causes of the crisis, agitate for structural change, and attend to the global and not just local concerns of worker, social and climate justice
“No Foreign Workers, No Agriculture, No Region”: Thai Farmworkers in Israel in the Wake of War
Full text linkThere is perhaps no more paradigmatically settler-colonial activity than agriculture, especially in the Palestinian/Israeli context. Zionist strategists perceived the takeover of farmland from indigenous cultivators as a primary goal of their colonising project, pursuing it eagerly through purchase until the war of 1948, and primarily through violence since then. More than an economic sector, agriculture has served a strategic role in consolidating control over broad stretches of frontier, as well as the ideological purpose of emblematising the Jewish people’s return to its land (Shafir, 1989; Neumann, 2011). However, pace the emergent orthodoxy in settler-colonial studies – which has recently been subjected to strident critiques, not least in the Palestinian/Israeli context – Israeli agriculture has not, for the most part, been characterised by an “eliminationist” attitude towards indigenous labour or by a serious commitment to exclusively employing the labour of settlers.[1] In fact, Israeli agriculture, like other low-wage sectors of the economy, has nearly always depended on Palestinian labour. When the First Intifada of 1987 to 1991 convinced Israeli policymakers that this dependency was dangerous, their response was to replace it not with the more expensive labour of Israeli citizens, but with the similarly cheap and skilled labour of migrant workers. The farm sector would quickly come to recruit the bulk of its workforce from Thailand, while continuing to employ thousands of Palestinians
Promoting students as partners in a pilot study involving undergraduate students and instructors in Spanish as a foreign language courses
Full text linkThrough the student-as-partners (SaP) framework, this paper explores how this can enhance undergraduate Spanish as a foreign language flipped classroom courses and promote student engagement and satisfaction. Traditionally, higher education courses are designed and developed by faculty members; however, our pilot project proposed collaboration between students and instructors in the design and implementation of course activities. This paper explores the model’s effects and outcomes through four surveys administered at the end of the academic year. Each survey included key factors related to the learning experience: student enjoyment, emotional support, relatedness to peers, feedback from/for students, and content-related support. Collectively, these perspectives were used to reflect on the feedback provided, which helped us achieve our objective: the creation of teaching and learning resources to engage future cohorts and increase student retention. Although this model is presented in the foreign language context, it is transferable to any discipline