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From Pleasure to Pain: Eroticism, Struggle and Gender in Jesús F. Contreras\u27s \u3cem\u3eMalgré Tout\u3c/em\u3e
No full textJesús F. Contreras’s life-size sculpture was originally created to represent Mexico during the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. After winning the Croix de Chevalier of the Legion of Honor at the 1900 Exhibition, Malgré Tout triumphantly returned to Mexico City, becoming the first nude, recumbent female sculpture exhibited at the Academia de San Carlos. The sculpture’s French stylistic characteristics and championship as a symbol of Mexico’s national achievement compels a closer look at Malgré Tout’s multiple locations, symbolic meanings and the distinct combination of eroticism, symbolism, gender and struggle present in the sculpture. Chapter One surveys the history of recumbent female nudes throughout western art, from antiquity until Contreras’s nineteenth-century contemporaries. This chapter also considers the theories of the male gaze put forth by Kenneth Clark, John Berger, Laura Mulvey and Linda Nochlin. Through an in-depth engagement with theorists and earlier artistic examples, I argue that gender, power and eroticism have always been implicitly linked within nude, female sculpture. However, the relationship between these three components changes when sculpture simultaneously depicts struggle. A figure’s reaction to suffering, whether active or passive, alters the erotic impact of nude, recumbent sculpture in important ways. While Malgré Tout’s formal character departs from precedents, the figure’s active resistance and defiant perseverance despite her shackles sets the sculpture apart. Chapter Two explores Contreras’s artistic training in Mexico City and Paris, underscoring the long history between the two cities. Malgré Tout’s expressive facial features, twisting body, dynamic movement, tension, and the unfinished quality of the body as it merges with the rocky surface all reflect Rodin’s stylistic tendencies. Malgré Tout became the first Latin American work of art to receive the Croix de Chevalier Award at the 1900 Paris Universal Exhibition. This recognition of both Contreras and Mexico’s global impact on the Exhibition inherently linked the sculpture to an image of a modern, cosmopolitan Mexico capable of competing on a global scale with French ideology and artistic practice. Chapter Three examines how Malgré Tout’s ambiguity and distinctive characteristics contribute to the sculpture’s lasting impact in Mexican society. Exhibited in four distinct locations since its creation in 1898, interpretations of the sculpture’s potential meaning evolve with each installation. Ultimately, this project argues that Jesús F. Contreras’s Malgré Tout is not merely a titillating example of an erotic female figure. While Contreras did not challenge the eroticizing male gaze, established in part through centuries of sculptural history, the late-nineteenth century Mexican artist created a heroic nude, recumbent female figure. This argument grapples with the differing interpretations of Malgré Tout found in scholarship since the late nineteenth-century until modern times. While it is by no means a straightforward definition of the sculpture’s character, this project has tried to pull together the shifting locations, ambiguous meanings and growing body of feminist scholarship to characterize Contreras’s sculpture. By representing a conscious woman during an uncertain time in Mexico’s political and artistic history, Contreras created a sculpture capable of embodying a revolutionary spirit of perseverance, resistance and fortitude, “in spite of everything.
Still Unclear After All These Years: County Variation in California Capital Trials, 2007-2018
No full textMany studies on capital punishment use death sentence or execution data to perform analyses. This paper seeks to expand our understanding of the death penalty by using capital trial data, including life sentences and death sentences, from 2007 to 2018 in California. Using news articles, every capital trial during this time period was recorded, then analyzed in conjunction with numerous county-level variables (e.g., racial demographics, crime rates). These data demonstrate that county population is the strongest predictor of the prevalence of capital trials in a given county. Apart from racial demographics, key county-level variables do not exhibit meaningful relationships with the prevalence of capital trials. This paper then argues that the lack of knowledge surrounding capital trials is a product of strategic ignorance on the part of the state
Faith: A Critical Review--What is Left at the End of the Day
Get PDFIn what follows I will try to set out some of my own rethinking -- fundamental things I believe and believe in – – enduring terms of engagement about the universe, life, death, faith -- in a concern to sort out what we have left at the end of the day
Food Insecurity and Eating Disorders: A Review of Emerging Evidence
Get PDFPurpose of Review: This review summarizes emerging evidence for the relationship between food insecurity and eating disorder (ED) pathology, outlines priorities for future research in this area, and comments on considerations for clinical and public health practice.
Recent Findings: Among adults, food insecurity is cross-sectionally associated with higher levels of overall ED pathology, binge eating, compensatory behaviors, binge-eating disorder, and bulimia nervosa. Evidence for similar relationships among adolescents has been less robust; however, compared to studies of adults, there have been substantially fewer studies conducted in adolescents to date.
Summary: Emerging evidence consistently indicates that food insecurity is cross-sectionally associated with bulimic-spectrum ED pathology among adults. Findings emphasize the need for ED research to include marginalized populations who have historically been overlooked in the ED field. Much more research is needed to better understand the relationship between food insecurity and ED pathology and to determine effective ways to intervene
John Leamy\u27s Atlantic Worlds: Trade, Religion, and Imperial Transformations in the Spanish Empire and Early Republican Philadelphia
Get PDFJohn Leamy (1757–1839) accumulated a substantial fortune through trade with the Spanish Empire following the American Revolution. This immigrant from Ireland, via southern Spain, was the key player in establishing Philadelphia\u27s dominant role in Cuban markets during the 1790s. Unlike his Protestant competitors, as a high-profile Catholic, Leamy nurtured successful personal and commercial relationships with those Spanish imperial bureaucrats charged with regulating the trade. In the new century, as the Spanish Empire destabilized, Leamy adjusted both his business strategies and religious practices. With his Catholic loyalties in flux, he led the lay trustees of St. Mary\u27s during the Hogan Schism and moved towards Episcopalianism. John Leamy\u27s actions throw into relief how republicanism emboldened challenges to ecclesiastical authority and encouraged denominational flexibility, even as he maneuvered to rekindle his ties with Spain in the 1820s and 1830s
Pandemic-Induced Mortality Salience and Jury Decision-Making
Get PDFTerror management theory (TMT) suggests that people adhere more strongly to cultural worldviews to assuage their anxiety and bolster their self-esteem when faced with reminders of their own mortality (mortality salience). These cultural worldviews may include hostility towards outgroups, such as criminals, social transgressors, and racial minority groups. This study investigated whether reminders of the COVID-19 pandemic induced mortality salience (MS) and whether these reminders influenced the severity of punitive judgments suggested for hypothetical offenders. It also investigated whether mortality salience influenced people to suggest harsher punitive sentences for offenders belonging to racial minority groups. After reading a COVID-19 related mortality salience or control passage, participants (N = 210) suggested jail time and bail amount for two hypothetical criminals, one Caucasian and one African American via an online survey. The study found that people experiencing mortality salience were less punitive towards criminals than those not experiencing mortality salience, and they prescribed relatively equal sentences for both the African-American and Caucasian offenders. Participants not experiencing mortality salience prescribed harsher sentences for both criminals and were more punitive towards the Caucasian offender when prescribing bail amounts. These findings ran counter to the assumptions of terror management theory, suggesting that mortality salience may promote prosocial behavior rather than discriminatory ingroup adherence in jurors under specific conditions
Oxytocin Attenuates Expression, but Not Acquisition, of Sucrose Conditioned Place Preference in Rats
Get PDFMaladaptation of reward processing for natural rewards, such as sucrose or sugar, may play a role in the development of diseases such as obesity and diabetes. Furthermore, uncovering mechanisms to disrupt or reverse maladaptation of reward-seeking behaviors for natural reinforcers can provide insight into treatment of such diseases, as well as disorders such as addiction. As such, studying the effects of potential pharmacotherapeutics on maladaptive sugar-seeking behavior offers valuable clinical significance. Sucrose conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigms can offer insight into aspects of reward processes as it provides a way to assess acquisition and expression of context-reward associations. The present study examined the effect of peripheral oxytocin injections on sucrose CPP in rats. Oxytocin, when administered prior to CPP test, attenuated expression of sucrose CPP. However, oxytocin, when administered during sucrose conditioning, did not affect subsequent place preference. These findings suggest oxytocin sufficiently attenuates expression of sucrose-associated place preference
Richard Gough, Peter Peckard, and the Problem of Little Gidding
No full textThis article explores the ways in which Little Gidding and its inhabitants-including the leader of that pious seventeenth-century household, Nicholas Ferrar-were remembered in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The memory of Little Gidding was shaped, in part, by a passage in Richard Gough\u27s British Topography, in which Gough dismissed Nicholas Ferrar as a \u27useless enthusiast\u27. Gough\u27s attack was answered by the liberal churchman Peter Peckard, who defended the reputation of his wife\u27s ancestor in his Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Nicholas Ferrar. And yet Peckard\u27s response to the Ferrars of Little Gidding was not entirely approving: While Peckard celebrated their piety and benevolence, he also worried over their \u27ceremonials\u27 and their \u27austerities\u27. This article presents a reading of the Memoirs, as well as a study of the relationship between Peckard\u27s text and other contemporary sources, in order to shed light on the complex nature of Peckard\u27s liberal Anglicanism
Sometimes Your Memories Are Not Your Own : The Graphic Turn and the Future of Holocaust Representation
Get PDF“The legacy of the Shoah” writes Eva Hoffman, a child of Holocaust survivors, “is being passed on to … the post-generation … The inheritance … is being placed in our hands, perhaps in our trust.” We are entering an era that will witness the end of direct survivor testimony. As we move farther and farther from the events of the Shoah, subsequent generations, who see their own lives shaped by the defining rupture of the past, continue to respond to the call of memory. The current era has seen a burgeoning of Holocaust literary representation in the evolving genre of graphic novels, narratives that reanimate and materialize the past through the juxtapositions and intersections of text and image. Calling upon the Deuteronomic imperative to “teach your children,” second and third-generation Holocaust writers, through the hybrid form of the graphic novel, attempt to give shape to the traumatic imprint of the Shoah and its haunting aftermath for generations extending beyond that history
Jesse Norman\u27s Adam Smith: Crony Capitalism vs Open Borders
Get PDFAdam Smith\u27s relevance for today is not limited to his analysis of crony-capitalism, but includes also important lessons on open borders and free migration