Documenting financial performativity: film aesthetics and financial crisis

Marc Bauder’s finance film, Master of the Universe (2013) won the European Documentary Film Prize in December 2014. Bauder’s film focuses on a series on interviews with a former leading investment banker, Rainer Voss, high up in one of Frankfurt’s deserted bank skyscrapers. Voss’s statements, set against the skyline of Frankfurt’s ‘Mainhattan’ financial sector, allow Bauder to constitute an aesthetic that, I argue, successfully addresses a key problem in moving image studies, namely how to find an appropriate film form to register the workings of contemporary finance. Bauder’s film offers an unusual depiction of the self-constitution and self-understanding of a banker-turned-whistleblower, focusing on Voss’s speech acts of explication and justification. Drawing on Judith Butler’s analysis of performative agency and of the separation of economics and politics through iterative perlocutionary acts, I argue that Bauder’s investigation into the performativity that establishes the autonomy of the financial sector and grants it extensive social power offers a significant aesthetic engagement with financial performativity and contributes to debates about documentary and performativity and about routes to a reconnection of economics and politics.     

IDEALS AND METHODS OF RELIGIOUS EDUCATION FOR THE COMING WORLD ORDER∗

This article brings to bear on our understanding of learning many insights from the field of psychology

     

A Course in Applied Chemistry at a Third World University

Summaries

English

An outline is given of a programme in applied chemistry within a classical chemistry department of a university located in a Third World country with certain specific needs. The curriculum has been specifically designed to provide students with the knowledge and skills used by chemists in Jamaican industry. Industry personnel were invited to participate fully in the development of the curriculum as well as in actual instruction. In this way, an attempt was made to bridge the gap between the ‘academic’ and the ‘real’ world.

The Third World has experienced a perennial shortage of skilled professional scientists, including chemical engineers. The role of the applied chemist, as envisaged by the authors, has assumed greater importance in the light of this shortage. The programme outlined can probably serve as a basis for discussion in other developing countries contemplating similar programmes.     

Teaching PubMed in Cyberspace: The Development of a Self-Learning Package

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the development of a series of online modules for learning the PubMed version of MEDLINE. Funded by a National Library of Medicine grant and targeted initially to physician assistants practicing in New Hampshire, the project is approved for CE credit nationally by the American Association of Physician Assistants. The development of the project is described, the tutorial modules are reviewed, and issues encountered with technology and human factors are discussed and evaluated.     

The Conglomeration of Public Radio: A Tale of Three Cities

A relatively unstudied development in the recent history of U.S. community and public radio is the emergence of metropolitan-based public radio networks. These are being constructed by buying out college and community facilities and frequencies by larger stations, resulting in student and community radio outlets being shifted to online streams and giving universities a one-time cash infusion, though this seems to vitiate the purpose of their educational licenses.     

Thomas De Quincey on rhetoric and national character

De Quincey's sociological criticism remains an integral part of meta‐critical thought.     

Quantification of maximal power output in well-trained cyclists

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to compare mechanical variables derived from torque-cadence and power-cadence profiles established from different cycle ergometer modes (isoinertial and isokinetic) and modelling procedures (second- and third-order polynomials), whilst employing a novel method to validate the theoretical maximal power output (P_max). Nineteen well-trained cyclists (n = 12 males) completed two experimental sessions comprising six, 6-s maximal isoinertial or isokinetic cycling sprints. Maximal pedal strokes were extracted to construct power–cadence relationships using second- and third-order polynomials. A 6-s sprint at the optimal cadence (F_opt) or optimal resistance (T_opt) was performed to assess construct validity of P_max. No differences were found in the mechanical parameters when derived from isokinetic (P_max = 1311 ± 415, F_opt = 118 ± 12) or isoinertial modes (P_max = 1320 ± 421, F_opt = 116 ± 19). However, R² improved (P < 0.02) when derived from isoinertial sprints. Third-order polynomial modelling improved goodness of fit values (Standard Error, adjusted R²), but derived similar mechanical parameters. Finally, peak power output during the optimised sprint did not significantly differ from the theoretical P_max in both cycling modes, thus providing construct validity. The most accurate P-C profile can be derived from isoinertial cycling sprints, modelled using third-order polynomial equations.