University of Warwick Press: Journals
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Cuba, Irma, and ongoing exceptionalism in the Caribbean
Get PDFIn this post I review disaster risk/reduction in Cuba, particularly in light of the devastating 2017 hurricane season. The year after Irma is, for a number of reasons, an appropriate time to revisit the practices, meanings, and politics of disaster risk in this most interesting of cases. While Puerto Rico is negotiating temporary housing, an insufficient budget for critical services, and a disruptive political dispute over the post-disaster privatisation of education, the signs from Cuba are of significant recovery and business-as-usual as it enters the next hurricane season. Further intrigue is added by the fact that Raúl Castro stepped down as Cuban leader in April 2018, ending 59 years of Castro rule. The recent thaw in relations with the US under the Obama administration—and only partially refrozen by Trump—leads us to think through what the future might hold for disaster risk in a state widely considered to be in a process of opening to global influences and markets. I should add that I have as my primary target here an understanding of disaster risk rather than political ideology. Yet, as I will show, viewing the two separately proves impossible, given the clear links between societal form and top-down planning. Viewing them in tandem helps us to consider the mutually reinforcing connections between ideology, political-institutional legitimacy, and the triumph of societal organisation over not-so-natural disasters. As Cuba moves into the post-Castro era, its approach to hurricane exposure remains emphatically exceptional to what’s become a sad Caribbean norm of destitution, debt, blame shifting, and global political ineptness. Clues in dealing with the presence of natural hazards going forward must surely be found in independent analysis, as far as is possible free from twentieth century ideological conjecture
The Deontology of Using Pets in Academic Publishing-Related Sting Operations
No full textAcademic publishing has become considerably stringent in the past few years because of increased scrutiny focused on an overwhelming number of challenges. One of the greatest challenges that academia faces is the notion that certain elements within science publishing have entered an era of ‘fake’. There are few moral arguments in favor of anything fake in academic publishing, including fake identities (authors, reviewers, or editors), fake peer reviews, or fake publications. We argue – humor aside – that a zero-tolerance approach is likely essential to prevent the proliferation of fake aspects in academic publishing, independent of the publishing venue, i.e., journal or publisher. Sting operations against ‘predatory’ publishing outlets, which involve the use of fake authors, papers, or editors, continue to be selectively praised, including by some media. In this opinion article, we focus on the personification of animals assuming roles within academic publishing, such as authors or editors, to emphasize that while perhaps there is an element of humor, such actions may further endanger scientific integrity, precisely at a time when academic publishing is in the phase of a crisis of trust. We believe that while the authors of such hoaxes and sting operations involving animals, as well as some readers, may find humor in these actions, academic publishing cannot and should not be equated with reality shows. We ultimately argue that such hoaxes and sting operations have no place in academic publishing, nor do they have any scholarly value. Finally, we put forward a set of guidelines that could assist academics, including early career researchers, editors, publishers and ethics-related organizations, in dealing with these threats
So Many Ways to be an Outsider: ‘Nerdism’ and ethnicity as signifiers of otherness
No full textThe concept of the nerd and loneliness is an interesting one when we consider the idea of what ‘outsider’ status means and how it is communicated within popular culture. It is important to note that being identified as a nerd does not necessarily align with being lonely or holding outsider status as a negative quality. Indeed, within the mainstream Americanised evolution of the nerd we see the development of someone who although considered ‘strange’ or ‘odd’ and at times ‘other’ by their peers does have value and finds their place within the group, nerd becomes in these circumstances a shorthand for socially awkward rather than a true outsider.
Exchanges Discourse Podcast
In Conversation with Sharon Coleclough [35:34
‘A place where everybody is a legendary hero… and a total dork’: Representing the American nerd community as an antidote to loneliness in G. Willow Wilson’s Ms. Marvel Comics (2014-2019)
No full textNerddom plays an important role in G. Willow Wilson’s superhero comic books series ‘Ms. Marvel’: Its protagonist, Muslim Pakistani American teenager Kamala Khan is a comic loving, fanfiction writing, videogame playing nerd. The nerd community full of likeminded individuals provides her with a nurturing safe haven distracting her from the feelings of loneliness brought about by conflicts with her ambitious parents and by the Islamophobic bullying of her classmates. Reading this idealized representation of the American nerd community as a heterotopia of compensation in the Foucauldian sense, I argue that the diegetic nerds of ‘Ms. Marvel’ work to raise more awareness for the diversity of real-world nerd subculture by normalizing the presence of Muslim women of colour within it. Thus, ‘Ms. Marvel’s’ reimagination of nerddom as an open, welcoming, and egalitarian space debunks traditional stereotypes of nerds as white, socially inept young men and simultaneously celebrates the potential of nerdy interests to encourage mutual understanding between people from diverse backgrounds, as my analysis of exemplary passages from the book series will show.
Exchanges Discourse Podcast
In Conversation with Alena Cicholewski [19:48
Conquering the Meatspace: The lonely nerd in David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010) and Baran bo Odar’s Who Am I (2014)
No full textThis article analyses how Baran bo Odar’s film Who Am I: Kein System ist sicher (2014) productively engages with its US predecessor The Social Network (2010), directed by David Fincher, to undermine the notion of the lonely nerd. Both films revolve around the distinction between social connections in real and virtual life: on the one hand, this separation allows them to examine the validity of an online community as a remedy for loneliness and a potential catalyst for relationships in embodied meatspace; on the other hand, this enables them to self-reflexively discuss the workings of film narratives. The article will demonstrate how Fincher’s film challenges the notion of the lonely nerd by highlighting its constructedness, while presenting a nerdy protagonist who is not able to overcome his real-life isolation. Who Am I, in contrast, takes on the lonely nerd as a transnationally recognisable archetype mediated through Hollywood’s cinematic hegemony, moulds it into a specifically German context, and establishes firm social bonds for the nerd in meatspace
Saved by the Nerd: Otaku and the space of family in Summer Wars
No full textThis article analyses Hosoda Mamoru’s anime film Summer Wars (2009) through its rearticulation of the lonely male otaku. A highly debated issue in and outside of Japan, the otaku community of fans shares with nerds associations with obsessive interests, technology, and lack of social skills. Summer Wars provides a counternarrative to such discourses by setting up a story of interpersonal ties with an otaku at its centre. Furthermore, the film displaces this story to rural Japan, thus recontextualising the otaku’s typical highly technological urban environment by relocating one of them amidst a large family and historical continuity. Through this emblematic shift in space, in opposition to the city at multiple levels, Summer Wars takes a novel approach in representing the otaku’s potential for sociability, while still retaining the very features that may categorise him as an otaku; at the same time, the film uses otaku themes to create an imaginative reflection on the importance of interpersonal familial bonds, recuperated through the space of the native place.
Editors note (March 2023): Please see the Errata file, for minor typographic corrections to article as published
Socially Inept? The perceived loneliness of nerds
No full textThis introduction establishes the main perspectives of the special issue on the relationship between loneliness and nerds. We argue that the stereotype of the lonely nerd is becoming increasingly reductive in the technological age at the turn of the 21st century, in which being a nerd is not only perceived as cool but in which nerds also occupy central positions of power. We also stress the transnational perspective of the special issue. While the majority of studies on fictional representations of nerds focuses on the Anglo-American context, the issue moves away from this hegemony, also engaging with studies on narratives of nerds produced in other cultural contexts, ranging from Europe to Asia. This informs the issue’s interdisciplinary approach, whereby intersections between different cultural contexts are reflected in connections across various media that have shaped the perception of lonely nerds. Finally, we challenge the traditional perception of the nerd as white, male, heterosexual, and middle class and establish five analytical categories that will help us to present a more diverse image of the nerd, particularly with regard to race, gender, and sexual orientation
Disciplining Speech, Violating Rights: Recurrent and Shifting Patterns in the Context of Turkey
Get PDFThe article proposes a historical account of the evolution of struggles and debates surrounding freedom of speech in the context of Turkey. The main argument is that violations of freedom of speech cannot be assessed in a manner isolated from the comprehensive remakings of politics, economy and society in the country that configure and reconfigure the contours of ‘(un)acceptability’ and ‘(un)desirability’ of speech in historically specific ways. Therefore, the article challenges mainstream approaches that treat freedom of speech within the allegedly autonomous, abstract and individualised domain of intellect divorced from its material context and situates it within the deep-seated societal transformations that both influence and are influenced by continuously contested governing strategies. After outlining key terms of the debate, the second section provides a historical overview of the evolution of controversies in this field before Justice and Development Party or Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP) rule. The final section focuses on the specific evolution of the AKP-era governing strategy in its continuities and ruptures from the historically prevalent freedom of speech issues in three domains: labour rights, cultural and political rights, and gender and sexuality
Libraries, Piracy and the Grey Area In-Between: Free Digital Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic
No full textThis article examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns on the consumption of free digital books, paying particular consideration to the financial advantages and disadvantages for the authors of those books and the libraries supplying them. It investigates trends in the consumption of digital books through both library and piracy sites, sourcing information from librarian reports and the anti-piracy company MUSO, which tracks visits to piracy sites. This research demonstrates that the tense library–publisher relationship is not stable and does not hold up under stress, emphasising the need for an appropriate solution to be developed. It also spotlights the impacts of COVID-19 on authors, some of the most vulnerable members of the publishing community
Biodegradable Synthetic Polymers for Tissue Engineering: A Mini-review
No full textTissue engineering is a revolutionary area of medicine, helping the body to heal large quantities of tissue loss that would otherwise require grafting procedures to promote recovery. Tissue engineering approaches reduce both donor site morbidity in graft procedures as well as the need for multiple surgeries. In this, biodegradable scaffolds are developed that hold cells; these scaffolds break down as new tissue forms and replaces the scaffold until full bodily function is regained. Synthetic polymers can offer tuneable mechanical and degradable characteristics alongside a low immunogenic response, which has made these materials a popular line of research as biodegradable scaffolds. This article seeks to summarise this field. Scaffold requirements, degradation factors and mechanisms, and common synthetic biodegradable polymers used in tissue scaffolding are covered, along with fabrication techniques. Specific examples of synthetic scaffolding polymers are explored for both bone and skeletal muscle to highlight the different desirable characteristics, hence the demands for each. Further research into new copolymer and scaffolding techniques will open new avenues to increased biocompatibility and clinical use, for which we recommend the creation of a comprehensive polymer database to store the vast library of synthetic polymer types and applications for future researchers