Transfiguring identity: Social relationships and intercultural communication between foreign “children” and Japanese “parents”

This paper examines how intercultural communication and interpersonal relationships between Japanese “parents” and African “children” are capable of destabilizing status quo notions of identification. Using qualitative ethnographic data, this paper demonstrates how intercultural interactions unfold in ways that engender new forms of sociality, which underscore the diversifying nature of majority–minority relationships in Japan. Drawing on theoretical insights from applied linguistics and communications studies, this paper suggests that the material products of these relationships warrant increased scholarly attention because they are capable of positing compelling challenges to existing understandings of identity, as well as to the ways various groups conceptualize themselves in relation to others.     

Balfour’s Mission to Palestine: Science,Strategy, and the Inauguration of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem

In 1925, A.J. Balfour, first Earl Balfour and author of the famous ‘Balfour Declaration’, attended the inauguration of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His education and experience of foreign policy equipped him to take a prominent role. However, the conditions of strife-torn Palestine weighed heavily upon him, and raised wider interests of imperial concern. This essay recounts the circumstances leading to his visit, and suggests that, whatever the region’s political destiny, Balfour’s vision of science-based economic development would play an essential role in crafting its future.

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The Philippine–American War and the American Debates about the Necessity and Legality of the “Water Cure,” 1901–1903

Abstract

This essay provides a critical genealogical study of the “water cure” controversies that took place during the Philippine–American War. The author extends the work of Foucault and Agamben to argue that a biopolitical review of this controversy illustrates how many of the legal and cultural arguments used to legitimate the water cure have resurfaced in contemporary debates about waterboarding and enhanced interrogations techniques. The essay also illustrates how anti-imperialists and other critics of Theodore Roosevelt's administration tried to use these water-cure debates as discursive vehicles for complaining about the systematic abuse of Filipinos during the Philippine “Insurrection.”     

“The Ennobling Unity of Science and Technology”: Materials Sciences and Engineering, the Department of Energy, and the Nanotechnology Enigma

The ambiguous material identity of nanotechnology is a minor mystery of the history of contemporary science. This paper argues that nanotechnology functioned primarily in discourses of social, not physical or biological science, the problematic knowledge at stake concerning the economic value of state-supported basic science. The politics of taxonomy in the United States Department of Energy’s Office of Basic Energy Sciences in the 1990s reveals how scientists invoked the term as one of several competing and equally valid candidates for reframing materials sciences in ways believed consonant with the political tenor of the time. The resulting loss of conceptual clarity in the sociology of science traces ultimately to the struggle to bridge the disjunction between the promissory economy of federal basic science and the industrial economy, manifested in attempts to reconcile the precepts of linearity and interdisciplinarity in changing socio-economic conditions over a half century.     

The Simon Mann Trial,the Demise of the “Dogs of War,” and the Discursive Legitimation of “Humanitarian” Private Security Companies in Africa

The essay provides a critical intercultural analysis of the 2008 trial of the “mercenary” Simon Mann, accused of instigating an attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. The author argues that Equatorial Guinean President, Teodoro Obiang, tried to turn this trial into a tactical, neocolonial critique of mercenary activities that were allegedly supported by the United Kingdom, Spain, and other Western powers. Unfortunately, he was only partially successful. The growing influence of private security corporations and the suasory power of new military “rescue” tales meant that there were no shortage of defenders of these types of coups. This study demonstrates how certain actions can, at times, be simultaneously characterized as dominant strategies and subaltern tactics.     

Science,Politics/Policy and the Cold War in Argentina: From Concepts to Institutional Models in the 1950s and ’60s

Minerva - This paper analyses how the Cold War influenced the discourses on basic research and on Science and Technology Policies (STPs) of some leaders of the Argentine research community. It...     

From finding to making: Jacques Rancière,Richard Rorty,and the antifoundationalist story of progress

What is the contemporary significance of the modern antifoundationalist story of progress? By offering a critique of foundationalism and representationalism, pragmatists like John Dewey and Richard Rorty elucidate the far-reaching implications of this question. This article argues that Jacques Rancière’s critique of traditional philosophy and of Louis Althusser’s version of Marxism can be regarded as an important part of the antifoundationalist story of progress. Furthermore, it highlights suggestive affinities (and some differences) between Rorty’s postmetaphysical scenario of a poeticised culture and Rancière’s notion of the aesthetic regime of art. This article seeks to prepare the ground for a comparison between Rancière’s topographical and horizontal critique and Rorty’s pragmatist humanism as nominalist historicism.     

Beyond the “STEM Pipeline”: Expertise,Careers, and Lifelong Learning

Minerva - Studies of education and careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) commonly use a pipeline metaphor to conceptualize forward movement and persistence. However, the...     

“A Delicious Way to Help Save Lives”: Race,Commodification, and Celebrity in Product (RED)

Abstract

The Product (RED) campaign raises money to fight AIDS in Africa by helping to sell brand-name merchandise to affluent consumers. This paper examines the racialized representations of the (RED) website and the campaign's use of a consumer–celebrity fund-raising model. Through the analytical lens of critical cultural studies, I argue that (RED) commodifies Africans and “African-ness” under a celebratory guise, and reinscribes a narrative of Africa as a “problem child.” The campaign paradoxically trades on the very disparities of global capitalism that propel the AIDS crisis. It is central in (re)producing the human consequences of globalization, shoring up a symbolic and material marketplace marked by extreme poverty and extreme consumption.     

Assessment of thermo-hygrometric quality in museums: Method and in-field application to the “Duccio di Buoninsegna” exhibition at Santa Maria della Scala (Siena,Italy)

Maintaining the microclimatic parameters at the desired value is essential for artefacts preservation. In order to control the status of the microclimatic parameters, a continuous monitoring of the indoor environmental provides conservators, curators, restorers, and lenders with an exact knowledge of the microclimatic conditions under which the works of art are kept. Moreover, the monitoring results give important information in order to make adequate changes to the control strategy of microclimatic parameters. From this point of view, monitoring is an essential tool to develop an actual preventive control programme aimed at maintaining the optimal microclimatic conditions for preservation. As a consequence, long-term monitoring has to be applied to prevent deterioration of works of art. The widespread opinion that a correct approach to the topic of microclimate control for artefacts preservation is not only and necessarily to provide buildings with sophisticated environmental control systems, but mainly to investigate the actual environmental dynamics and, before any structural intervention, to define the compatibility between the climate control potentials and the preservation requirements, has become more and more firm among the experts. Monitoring also allows to verify the capacity of the “building and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC)” system to maintain the desired thermo-hygrometric values within the operating conditions. To this aim, the Italian Standard UNI 10829 (1999) defining monitoring, elaboration and analysis of the microclimatic data as supporting actions for artefacts preservation, led to the need of a long-term monitoring and of a statistical approach to the data management. The approach proposed by the Italian Standard has been recently adopted by a European Standard (EN 15251, 2007). In accordance with the Standards mentioned above, in this paper an operational procedure to assess the thermo-hygrometric quality in museums is firstly synthetically presented and than applied to a case study. In particular, the procedure is developed in order to define the thermo-hygrometric quality level of the exhibition areas in the large museum complex of “Santa Maria della Scala” in Siena (Italy) during the international temporary exhibition “Duccio. La nascita della pittura senese” (“Duccio. The birth of Sienese Painting”).     

Viscoelastic and mechano-sorptive studies applied to the conservation of historical violins: A case study of the Guarneri “del Gesù” violin (1743) known as the “Cannone”

To assess the possible effects of mechanical loading on the conservation of historical wooden musical instruments, a research project was carried out on the violin Guarneri “del Gesù” (1743), known as the “Cannone”. This paper refers to the results obtained by studying the deformations to which a violin is subjected after being tuned, with special attention to the viscous and mechano-sorptive behaviour (as in a concert environment for example). The amount of viscoelastic creep was quantified under normal tuning conditions, and the mechano-sorptive creep was quantified using a dead mass resulting in 55% of the elastic deformation obtained after tuning. The viscoelastic and mechano-sorptive deformations were clearly observed. These deformations were completely recovered once the violin was unloaded, demonstrating that this violin structure is appropriately dimensioned for the applied stresses.     

Evolution of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: The Effects of the “Third” on the Interplay Between Cooperation and Competition

Minerva - The paper investigates the evolution of the first manned international space mission – a rendezvous and docking between a US and a Soviet spacecraft in 1975 known as the...     

“Let’s make lots of money”: the determinants of performance in the recorded music sector

This research analyzes the performance of 467 record labels in eight European countries over a period of 13 years (2003–2015). The main goal is to explain a relative measure of profitability in terms of observed variables, although the nature of the dataset also allows us to include non-observed firm and country effects. To this end alternative models are estimated and three main research questions are tested, namely: (1) the effect of the dual structure of the recorded music market, in which a competitive segment and an oligopoly coexist; (2) the extent and source of the volatility of profits in record labels; and (3) the nonlinear impact of size on performance.     

‘Partnership’ in Action: Contagious Abortion and the Governance of Livestock Disease in Britain, 1885–1921

Most histories of livestock disease in Britain treat the development of control policy as a government responsibility, to which farmers made little constructive contribution. Similarly, farmers rarely appear in accounts of disease research. This paper uses the example of contagious abortion (brucellosis) at the turn of the twentieth century to reveal that state-farming collaboration in research and policy did in fact occur, and that it operated in various ways, with often unexpected outcomes. The collaborative approach to contagious abortion is partly attributed to its clinical and epidemiological features, which made it an unsuitable candidate for the existing, state-led policy of stamping out disease. It is claimed that such collaboration has been overlooked by historians on account of their focus upon diseases that were amenable to stamping out. This focus needs to change if history is to inform present-day disease governance in Britain, which is founded on the concept of ‘partnership’ between farmers and the state.

Dynamic identification of historic masonry towers through an expeditious and no-contact approach: Application to the “Torre del Mangia” in Siena (Italy)

The paper presents a synergic and multidisciplinary approach where laser scanner survey, radar interferometric monitoring and finite element (FE) numerical modelling are used for expeditious and no-contact dynamic identification of monumental masonry towers. The methodology is applied to a real case of great historical interest: the “Torre del Mangia” (Mangia's tower) in Siena (Italy). The tower geometry was acquired through Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) techniques. The tower oscillations were detected using an interferometric radar in “Piazza del Campo”, the square facing the Mangia's Tower, along three alignments, and movement of the structure at several heights were recorded. A FE model, built on the basis of the geometry acquired through the TLS, was used to interpret and verify the physical meaning of the experimental results. Through the discussion of the case study, the paper shows that the proposed approach can be considered as an effective and expeditious method for assessing the dynamic behavior of monumental buildings (and to plan interventions) on territorial scale.