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Inverting Doux Commerce : The Paradox of Rhetoric Surrounding European Jewish Commerce
No full textThis paper investigates the inherent contradictions in the Doux Commerce thesis as articulated by Montesquieu, which argues that commerce civilizes and morally enriches its participants, using the historical experiences of the French Jewish community as a case study. Despite the Enlightenment’s promotion of commerce as a path to societal gentility and tolerance, French Jews remained targets of economic and social marginalization, which persisted into the 19th century. The analysis centers on the rhetorical dissonance exhibited by philosophers such as Voltaire, who extolled the virtues of commerce for its ability to unify diverse religious and cultural groups, yet simultaneously endorsed and propagated anti-Semitic stereotypes. By examining the economic activities and contributions of Jewish merchants alongside their continued denigration and exclusion from the supposed ethical benefits of commerce, this study highlights the selective application of Enlightenment ideals. This paper demonstrates that the Doux Commerce thesis, while promoting an ethical economic framework, failed to dismantle entrenched prejudices, instead often reinforcing them
Shaping the Fabric of Society: Middle Class Women as Imperial Consumers of Calico in Pre-Revolutionary America
No full textThrough the Calico Acts of 1700 and 1721, Britain repositioned its Atlantic colonies as distinct imperial consumers of imported calico cloth from India. The resulting expansion of the cotton textile trade had profound impacts for class and society in pre-revolutionary America, as middle class consumers used calico to express their purchasing power, refined taste, and social identity. These patterns of class expression were especially relevant for middle class women. As the primary consumers of imported calico, women directed purchases of luxury textiles for their households in order to shape their families’ identities as members of the middle class. Ultimately, as calicoes became increasingly gendered items over the course of the eighteenth century, middle class women in the colonies became inextricably associated with imperial consumption
Law in Bloom: The Roots of Legal Consciousness and Negotiation in Philadelphia Community Gardens
No full textThis thesis examines how legal consciousness, self-governance, and social networks shape power, participation, and belonging in the Southwark Queen Village Community Garden in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I draw on theories of legal pluralism and network theory to analyze archival documents, participant observation, and semi-structured interviews with garden members and leadership. I show that gardeners navigate overlapping formal rules and informal hierarchies, appearing in the form of bylaws, land trust agreements, social ties, and embodied practices, that together produce a complex web of legal consciousness inside the space. Mechanisms of self-governance, like plot assignments and leadership elections, often reinforce social hierarchies shaped by race, class, and tenure, while personal networks determine whose voices carry weight in decision-making. This thesis sheds light on community gardens as a microcosm of urban governance, where commons-based spaces simultaneously reproduce and challenge broader systems of inequality
“Finally girls hitting a celly:” Emotions and Gender Embodiment in Competitive Swimmers’ Post-Race Celebrations
No full textIn athletic competitions, the moment of achievement is often extremely cathartic and results in a visible celebration. In competitive swimming, these reactions to success are isolated to the end of a race, completely individual, and often feature interaction with one’s surroundings, such as the water or lane lines. These moments are also highly visible and usually well-photographed, and the visibility of these actions contributes to a growing culture in the sport around post-race celebrations. The exposure of the body in competitive swimming additionally contributes to its visibility, further complicating behaviors and norms around celebrating race outcomes. This research aims to investigate how social processes that construct ideas around gender and the body influence swimmers’ celebrations, and in what ways swimmers reinforce or complicate ideas about gender through their celebrations.
Using both surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews, I examine the ways in which gender is created, maintained, and performed in the context of competitive swimming. I investigate how the expression of emotions in these contexts reflects desired gender expressions and mediates a relationship with an audience. Additionally, I explore how gendered and athletic conceptions of the body influence the self-concept of competitive swimmers, especially in high-visibility situations. In examining reactions to athletic achievements, I give scholarly attention to a relatively unexplored aspect of sporting culture and contribute to conversations on the intersections of gender, the body, and sports in society
Axon Initial Segment Plasticity Caused By Auditory Deprivation Degrades Time Difference Sensitivity In A Model Of Neural Responses To Cochlear Implants
No full textSynaptic and neural properties can change during periods of auditory deprivation. These changes may disrupt the computations that neurons perform. In the brainstem of chickens, auditory deprivation can lead to changes in the size and biophysics of the axon initial segment (AIS) of neurons in the sound source localization circuit. This is the phenomenon of axon initial segment (AIS) plasticity. Individuals who use cochlear implants (CIs) experience periods of hearing loss, and so we ask whether AIS plasticity in neurons of the medial superior olive (MSO), a key stage of sound location processing, would impact time difference sensitivity in the scenario of hearing with cochlear implants. The biophysical changes that we implement in our model of AIS plasticity include enlargement of the AIS and replacement of low-threshold potassium conductance with the more slowly-activated M-type potassium conductance. AIS plasticity has been observed to have a homeostatic effect with respect to excitability. In our model, AIS plasticity has the additional effect of converting MSO neurons from phasic firing type to tonic firing type. Phasic firing is known to have greater temporal sensitivity to coincident inputs. Consistent with this, we find AIS plasticity degrades time difference sensitivity in the auditory deprived MSO neuron model across a range of stimulus parameters. Our study illustrates a possible mechanism of cellular plasticity in a non-peripheral stage of neural processing that could impose barriers to sound source localization by bilateral cochlear implant users
Review Of The Mending Of Broken Bones: A Modern Guide To Classical Algebra By P. Lockhart
No full textTranscendental Arguments In Reid? A Reply To McCraw
No full textBenjamin W. McCraw’s article “A Reidian Transcendental Argument Against Skepticism” (2025) constitutes an original and thought-provoking contribution both to Reid scholarship and to the discussion of epistemic skepticism.[1] In the following I will make a few remarks about it, focusing on the discussion of skepticism. I start with a brief historical remark on Reid and Kant (§ 1) before I explain the anti-skeptical argument in some detail (§ 2). A discussion of the premises of the argument follows (§ 3). I add some remarks about the social aspect of McCraw’s anti-skeptical stance (§ 4). I finish with another set of historical remarks (§ 5), this time about Reid and Wittgenstein, and a brief conclusion (§ 6)
Non-Existence Of Extremal Sasaki Metrics And The Berglund-Hübsch Transpose
No full textWe use the Berglund-Hübsch transpose rule from classical mirror symmetry in the context of Sasakian geometry [11] and results on relative K-stability in the Sasaki setting developed by Boyer and van Coevering in [6] to exhibit examples of Sasaki manifolds with big Sasaki cones that have no extremal Sasaki metrics at all. Previously, examples with this feature were produced in [6] for Brieskorn-Pham polynomials or their deformations. Our examples are based on the more general framework of invertible polynomials. In particular, we construct families of links that preserve the emptiness of the extremal Sasaki-Reeb cone via the Berglund-Hübsch rule: if the link does not admit extremal Sasaki metrics then its Berglund-Hübsch dual preserves this property and moreover this dual admits a representative in its local moduli with a larger Sasaki-Reeb cone which remains obstructed to admitting extremal Sasaki metrics. Some of the examples exhibited here have the homotopy type of a sphere or are rational homology spheres
Central America, English And Creoles In
No full textCreoles and Englishes are spoken all along the Caribbean coast of Central America in Belize, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and even in the small Caribbean coastal region of Guatemala. They have been relatively unknown despite the wealth of research on Anglophone creoles. Discussed are some of the causes for this discrepancy, the sociohistorical circumstances which gave rise to these varieties, and a sketch of the particularities of contact between creoles and both the lexifier language (English) and a non-lexifier language (Spanish). These creoles offer new lines of inquiry as well as challenges to traditional analyses of creole languages
The Major Questions Doctrine: Judicial Power And The Prevalence Of Policy Drift In The United States
No full textA major challenge of governance in the United States is policy drift, the phenomenon wherein a policy’s outcomes are transformed due to a failure to update its rules or structures to meet changing circumstances. Policy drift has been prevalent in recent decades due to declining legislative productivity, a veto-riddled legislative process, and the rapid pace of technological and environmental change. We argue that the emergence of the “major questions doctrine” in Supreme Court jurisprudence is likely to exacerbate the problem of policy drift. This new doctrine enables courts to declare administrative actions as invalid if they are “novel” or of “economic or political significance” and lack “clear congressional authorization.” This doctrine, which departs from past standards that were more deferential to agencies, exacerbates the likelihood of policy drift by limiting the capacity of agencies to actively adapt policy implementation to changing circumstances. By rendering agency action suspect on the basis of novelty or significance, the doctrine limits action in precisely those policy domains most in need of adaptation. We show the relationship between the doctrine and policy drift through case studies of three policy domains (air pollution, student loan debt, and workplace vaccine mandates). We then examine how the doctrine has already begun to spread through lower courts, where its impact is likely to be felt most strongly. Finally, we discuss the normative and theoretical implications of our analysis, noting how the doctrine further concentrates power in the judiciary and undermines democratic accountability and transparency in the policy process