University of Florida Press: Journals
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Critiquing Caste through Performance: A Reading of Datta Bhagat’s Dalit Play Routes and Escape Routes
No full textThe paper through a reading of one of the most important Dalit playwrights Datta Bhagat’s seminal Dalit play Routes and Escape Routes (2002) attempts to show how caste in the Indian social system functions as one of the most significant determinators in securing one’s social prestige. In the context of Indian Dalit literature, Dalit play or their performance tradition, though a vital component, has not been given due attention. This paper, by making the text the focal point of the study, examines the role of caste in Indian society, the different semiotics of Dalit performance tradition that gives rise to a different aesthetic form, the role of Dr. Ambedkar in the context, various layers of caste humiliation and the ways to combat this heinous system through social and political consciousness towards the emancipation of Dalit people in India
Columns by Nikolai Zabolotsky
No full textNikolai Zabolotsky. Columns. Translated from Russian by DmitriManin. Introduction by Darra Goldstein. Arc Publications, 2023.Paperback, 144 pages. $16.49. ISBN: 978191146915
Taphonomic Changes of the Skeletal Remains from the Winchester Anatomized Site, Massachusetts
No full textThe present research examined the taphonomic effects of anatomized human skeletal remains discovered in a burial feature underneath a construction site in a neighborhood house in Winchester, Massachusetts. Artifact association places the burial of these remains as early as the mid-1800s. Taphonomic profiles of buried remains display certain characteristics that can be used to make comparisons to other known burial types, specifically traditional cemetery burials. The effects observed for the taphonomic profile were soil and mineral staining, bone condition and preservation, plant adherence and/or damage, and postmortem damage.
It was hypothesized that the skeletal remains would display a different taphonomic profile compared to previously researched profiles of cemetery remains. There is ubiquitous soil staining throughout the sample and postmortem damage on 69.4%, cortical erosion on 15.7%, plant root adherence on 8.3%, and mineral staining on 5.3% of the identified remains. There is abnormal pink staining on 1.0% of the skeletal remains, possibly the result of a historical embalming technique that used mercury. The analysis also supported the hypothesis that the skeletal remains would display a taphonomic profile more consistent with cemetery remains with direct soil contact and secondarily confirmed that the site was likely used as a medical waste site of anatomized remains. The analysis of the Winchester Anatomized Site also confirmed that the remains displayed a taphonomic profile different from coffin cemetery remains, including a lack of coffin wear or cortical exfoliation, or remains that were prepared and used for anatomical teaching
Rehumanizing Rhetoric, Recuperative Ethos, and Human Specimens: A Case Study of the Indiana Medical History Museum
No full textUsing the Indiana Medical History Museum’s (IMHM) “Rehumanizing the Specimens” project as a case study, this essay explores the impact of language on rehumanizing human specimens in medical museums. The individuals represented by these specimens are often dehumanized because they are reduced to specific illnesses or injuries and/or because they are viewed as curiosities rather than representations of actual people. Further, the specimens at the IMHM were obtained from former patients of Central State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in operation from 1848 until 1994, so these individuals experienced additional dehumanization due to the stigma surrounding their mental illness diagnoses. To resist these forms of dehumanization, the IMHM launched the “Rehumanizing the Specimens” project, which used historical records and documents to develop narratives outlining the lived experiences of the 48 people represented by the specimens. Particularly, the narratives engaged rehumanizing rhetoric (Winderman & Landau, 2020) and recuperative ethos (Molloy, 2015), and I argue for the effectiveness of these rehumanizing strategies. In addition to offering suggestions for how these strategies can be adopted by other medical museums, I extend the discussion to healthcare providers, applying what was learned from the case study to the contemporary study and practice of medicine.
Deficit, Exploitation, Beauty, Opportunity: Academics and Practitioners Talk Rural Health and the Rhetoric of Health and Medicine
No full textThis dialogue examines rural health and healthcare by putting rhetoricians who study rural communities in direct conversation with healthcare professionals who practice in and advocate for rural communities. Thematic analysis of the dialogue revealed that conversations about healthcare in rural communities can simultaneously address what rural communities lack, how rural communities are exploited, and how strong and resilient rural communities are, while also emphasizing what opportunities there are for scholars and practitioners to partner together for the benefit of rural communities. The dialogue demonstrates how working directly with key stakeholders like medical providers can be both practically and intellectually fruitful when addressing complex issues like rural health and RHM.
Diseases in Colonias
No full textIn the fall of 2020, a US/Mexico border community received national attention because of its high number of COVID cases. Hidalgo county reported over 51,000 COVID cases in 2020 resulting in 2,200 fatalities. Rural communities in Hidalgo were uniquely precarious to the disease because of assemblages constructed by human and material interactions that displaced Latinx/e bodies to unincorporated, underdeveloped communities called colonias. Centuries of interactions between humans and material life in the region had created and sustained an ecology of harm which exploited labor of rural citizens living in colonias. These interactions and the ecology they constitute are grounded in the Rio Grande River, which separates Hidalgo County from Mexico. From its initial arrival to the Hidalgo county region 2 million years ago, the Rio Grande River has assembled together humans and material life into relationships in which human rhetoric brings ideologies and ways of being that determine the precarity of border communities in the 21st-century
From ‘Crisis to Chronic’: Prioritizing 'Good Farmer' Constructs and Intersectional Farmer Identities in Mental Health Messaging
No full textIn response to a documented disproportionate incidence of suicide in rural America, this autoethnographic essay explores specific ideological and historical factors influencing this disparity and mental health issues connected directly to farmers. Situating her discussion in the context of her family’s five-generation farming operation, Ryan draws on dominant “good farmer” constructs and intersectional identities to critique mental health resources available in a Corn Belt farming community. The chronic pressure placed on farmers in a productivist agricultural climate urging them to do more and be more requires acknowledgement of the complexities and nuances of farmer identities and behaviors
Eyes are More than Cameras: The Rhetorical Infrastructure of Vision Care and Its Impact on Patients with Eye Movement Disorders
No full textThis paper explores how an intellectual account that describes eyes as cameras shapes clinical practices of measurement and correction in vision care. For patients with eye movement disorders (EMDs), which are complex, not easily treated, and often incurable, the acuity-centric system of vision care often reduces their experiences to standardized assessments that fail to address the full scope of their needs. Bringing together rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) research, quality-of-life studies, patient testimonies, and qualitative responses from our survey of people with EMDs, we examined patients’ frustrations within a system that prioritizes acuity correction over a nuanced understanding of their complex conditions. We used the framework of the quest narrative as derived from the domains of theater and improv to highlight the multiplicity of ways that people with non-normative bodies navigate a normative infrastructure over time. This paper contributes to RHM scholarship in two primary ways: 1) by operationalizing critical disability studies critiques of biomedical normativity within care contexts and 2) detailing the care-related experiences of people defined as having rare disabilities or diseases
The Impact of SEC v. Jarkesy on Civil Tax Fraud Penalties
No full textOn June 27, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy. It held that when the SEC sought a 6.3 million civil penalty against a taxpayer for tax fraud. No jury was available. That has been true since 1862: no jury has ever been available to taxpayers facing fraud penalties, unless they pay first.
This Article considers whether Jarkesy now requires adjudication of civil tax fraud penalties in an Article III court with access to a jury. That question is more nuanced than it might first appear. The answer depends on how one balances government administrative needs against individual liberty interests. Jarkesy inverts prior teachings on how courts should perform that balancing.
The Article first reviews why courts have found the pay-first structure of tax administration constitutional. That case law, however, mostly involves collection of taxes, not penalties. It then considers whether the result in Jarkesy, the logic by which it reached that result, and recent changes in tax administration together open a plausible path for a different conclusion as to the imposition of tax fraud penalties
Phantom Tax Loopholes
No full textThis Article reports the results of a new survey of 726 U.S. adults designed to gauge people’s intuitions about tax law. Survey respondents consider several scenarios. In each scenario, the survey describes two ways that parties to a transaction can achieve their non-tax objectives. The two available routes are equivalent from a non-tax perspective. The survey asks respondents to provide their best guess about whether the two routes will produce the same or different U.S. federal income tax consequences. The survey asksrespondents to rate on a five-point scale how confident they are that their answer is correct and to explain why they select their chosen response. They are also asked whether, in their opinion, the options should receive the same or different tax treatment, and they are asked to rate the strength of their opinion on a five-point scale. In general, this study’s results show that many respondents harbor form-driven intuitions about tax law. That is, they expect the form of a transaction will dictate its tax outcome.
The results point to what may be a side effect of tax law’s failures—in some contexts—to appropriately tax transactions and its tendency to benefit the well-advised. In particular, non-experts expect tax law to contain “loopholes” even in cases when it does not. The results demonstrate the propensity of tax law to trap unwary taxpayers, in that, in many scenarios, respondents’ best guesses about tax outcome diverge from actual law. The results underscore the need to clearly prompt taxpayers when reporting of non-cash income is required and suggest that, absent such prompting, lack of compliance may be attributable not just to willful evasion but also to a failure to understand what tax law requires. The results reveal information about perceptions of the (un)fairness and complexity of tax law. Finally, the results offer one additional justification for closing actual tax “loopholes”—the prospect that doing so might exorcise phantom ones