158 research outputs found
Eating Anxiety: The Perils of Food Politics
No full textIn Eating Anxiety, Chad Lavin argues that our culture's obsession with diet, obesity, meat, and local foods enacts ideological and biopolitical responses to perceived threats to both individual and national sovereignty. Using the occasion of eating to examine assumptions about identity, objectivity, and sovereignty that underwrite so much political order, Lavin explains how food functions to help structure popular and philosophical understandings of the world and the place of humans within it. He introduces the concept of digestive subjectivity and shows how this offers valuable resources for rethinking cherished political ideals surrounding knowledge, democracy, and power. Exploring discourses of food politics, Eating Anxiety links the concerns of food—especially issues of sustainability, public health, and inequality—to the evolution of the world order and the possibilities for democratic rule. It forces us to question the significance of consumerist politics and—simultaneously—the relationship between politics and ethics, public and private. “In Eating Anxiety, Chad Lavin steadfastly rejects what have come to be clichés about our modern relation to food and gives us new answers to old questions about what makes us anxious about food. His innovative analysis tacks back and forth between political philosophy and contemporary food treatises to show how ethical consumption is founded on untenable notions of the liberal, disembodied subject—ironically so. Taking swipes at obesity hysteria, food localism, and post-humanism alike, Lavin asks us to confront our anxieties—including those about our failing democracy—rather than to seek solace in individualist approaches to food system change.” —Julie Guthman, author of Weighing in: Obesity, food justice, and the limits of capitalis
Writers, artists, mothers: Author figures in the short fiction of Mary Lavin
No full textThis paper traces the development figures of the author in the short fiction of the Irish writer Mary Lavin against the background of her anomalous position as woman, writer and mother in the conservative and patriarchal context of mid-century Ireland. Through a detailed reading of six stories, the paper shows how after staging a confident author figure in the early "A Story With A Pattern", Lavin dramatized the tension between her roles as mother and artist in a series of oppositional characters in stories such as "The Becker Wives", "Eterna" and "In a Café". Her artist figures, modelled after the Romantic conception of the author as exceptionally gifted outsiders, are thus unable to attain 'ordinary' lives as wives or mothers; while her alter ego in the so-called widow stories are mostly realised as 'just' wife, widow and mother. Only in two stories written at the end of her career does Lavin again stage an author figure who combines the roles of mother and writer, thus offering an alternative to the Romantic and predominantly masculine image of the author that has long dominated Irish literary culture.status: Publishe
Data for Gender Dynamics and Critical Reception: A Study of Early 20th-century Book Reviews from The New York Times
No full textA dataset of approximately 2,800 book reviews published in The New York Times between January 1, 1905 and December 31, 1925. Includes labels for presumed gender of the author under review
Graduate Sessions 1: Sylvia Lavin
No full textSylvia Lavin is Professor of Architecture at UCLA and writes widely on contemporary architecture and theory. She recently completed a year as a Getty Scholar where she was working on her next book, The Flash in the Pan and Other Forms of Architectural Contemporaneity. She is co-editor of Crib Sheets (Monacelli Press, 2005) and the author of Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture (MIT Press, 2005)
Response to Löhr: Why we still need a new normativism
No full textGuido Löhr's recent article makes several insightful and productive suggestions about how to proceed with the empirical study of collective action. However, their critique of the conclusions drawn in Gomez-Lavin & Rachar (2022) is undermined by some issues with the interpretation of the debate and paper. This discussion article clears up those issues, presents new findings from experiments developed in response to Löhr's critiques, reflects on the role of experimental research in the development and refinement of philosophical theories, and adds to Löhr's suggestions about the path forward.Final article published
Factory Farms in a Consumer Society
No full textOriginally developed to describe the industrialization of American agriculture, the term “factory farm” became an increasingly pervasive metaphor in American culture through the 20th Century. From its origins in triumphal narratives of agricultural engineering, the term has extended beyond critiques of agribusiness in recent decades and found expression in critiques of the white-collar workplace and allegories of consumerism and colonialism. This paper chronicles this shift, and argues that the expansive use of the metaphor corresponds to our transformation from a producer to a consumer society. This shift to a consumer society is similarly expressed in food writing from the 20th Century, as Upton Sinclair’s focus on the industrial slaughterhouse is replaced with Eric Schlosser’s focus on the fast-food franchise. Wide use of the metaphor of a factory farm reveals not only how disciplinary technologies far exceed the confines of specific industrial settings, but also how seemingly unrelated institutions and activities – like working, eating, and political protest – are organized by the same technologies and discourses
Empowerment of youth in foster care: foster care alumni's perceptions of transition supports during aging out of care
No full textOutcome research has shown that upon aging out of the foster care system, many young adults struggle during their transition to independence. Youth who age out are less likely than their peers in the general population to achieve academic success, including high school graduation and post-secondary education. These youth are more likely to be unemployed or work at jobs that do not provide them with financial security. They are more likely than their peers to experience violence, victimization, homelessness or unstable housing, mental illness, and other poor health outcomes. They are also at an increased risk for incarceration, substance abuse, and early parenthood; and they are more likely to lose their children to the foster care system. The current study seeks to examine experiences foster care alumni identify as empowering and promoting resilience. By identifying elements that contributed to building self-sufficiency and positive outcomes, this research attempts to inform practitioners, policy makers, and other stakeholders as they attempt to move towards best practices of effective service delivery. Data were collected by conducting semi-structured interviews with four foster care alumni who were in care in New Jersey. Transcribed interview data was analyzed utilizing McCracken’s “grounded theory” as a guide. Data was reduced to smaller units for identification of common, interrelated themes. These themes and patterns were subjected to a process of analysis in an attempt to inform conclusions. Participants credit their positive outcomes, post transition, to several factors, which include the impact of relationships and mentoring, as well as other intrinsic and environmental factors. Study participants offered several recommendations for policy and program reform. The relationship of findings to literature, limitations and implications of the current study for practice and research are discussed.Psy. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Ewa U. Lavi
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