The snub-nosed, reclining, and serene image of the fetus is commonplace in cultural representations and analyses of obstetric ultrasound. Yet following the provocation of various feminist scholars, taking the fetal sonogram as the automatic object of concern vis-à-vis ultrasound cedes ground to anti-abortionists, who deploy fetal images to argue that life begins at conception and that the unborn are rights bearing subjects who must be protected. How might feminists escape this analytical trap, where discussions of ultrasonics must always be engaged (...) in the act of debunking? This article orients away from the problem of fetal representation by employing a method which may appear to be wildly unsuitable: media archaeology. Media archaeologists typically reject the body and the human sensory apparatus as the default subject of media and argue that the interpretive methods of the humanities are incapable of accounting for the ontology of machines. I propose, however, that media archaeological methods provide a necessary vocabulary to attend to obstetric ultrasound outside of iconography. I develop and deploy a media archaeological method that integrates feminist concerns—including advocation of subjugated persons and the making visible of maligned subjects—to examine the ultrasonic experiments performed by gynecologist Ian Donald on working-class Glaswegian women during the 1950s and 1960s, ultimately arguing that, in the case of ultrasound, there can be no separation between technical process and the historically situated body. (shrink)

What is the fear of missing out (FOMO)? I construe FOMO as a kind of fear which represents its object as absent and distinguish it from nearby phenomena such as regret and loneliness. This construal raises a tension. Philosophers understand fear as representing objects as dangerous, but it is less than clear how experiences of absence pose a threat to the subject. I argue that the threat is to be explained socially. I take FOMO to involve a representation of some (...) absent experience as posing a threat to one’s social connections. (shrink)

I argue that the direct perception of emotion (DP) is best conceived in terms of event perception, rather than fact perception or object perception. On neither of these two traditional models can the perception of emotion be as direct as its counterpart in ordinary perception; the proponent of DP must either drop the ‘direct’ claim or embrace a part-whole model of emotion perception and its problems. But our best account of how we perceive events directly can be applied to emotion (...) perception without any loss in directness. Not only this but there are good reasons to think that such a conception better respects both empirical evidence and the phenomenology of emotion perception. (shrink)

Expressions of emotion pose a serious challenge to the view that we perceive other people’s emotions directly. If we must perceive expressions in order to perceive emotions, then it is only ever the expressions that we are directly aware of, not emotions themselves. This paper develops a new response to this challenge by drawing an analogy between expressions of emotion and perceptual media. It is through illumination and sound, the paradigmatic examples of perceptual media, that we can see and hear (...) objects around us. Instead of screening these objects from view, however, they enable our perception while being transparent to us. With reference to perceptual constancy and transparency, I show how expressions show up in our experience of emotions in a surprisingly similar way. Given this, we can understand expressions as the media _through_ which we perceive emotions and overcome the above challenge to an otherwise attractive view. (shrink)

Arabic and English on opposing pages in Kitåab section; introd., commentary, bibliography, and indices in English and romanized Arabic and Greek.

Tolerated in Britain for over 300 years—and ubiquitous throughout the world for much longer—visual satire gives offence in the quickest way and in its purest form. Cartoons have long since established themselves as a legitimate part of the general political discourse. As a cartoonist, it is Rowson's job to give offence. But the flip side of giving offence is, of course, giving comfort to the opponents or victims of the offended. In Giving Offence, Rowson explains how and why (...) cartoons work, why they matter and why the reactions of the offended are often an even blunter political weapon than the cartoons themselves. In collaboration with Index on Censorship. (shrink)

People engaged in international research projects – whether sponsors, researchers or participants – have different cultural and religious backgrounds. This can lead to quandaries over whose values should dictate the ethical basis for research. This paper addresses this issue by claiming that four core values are integral to the nature and justification of valid research and that to have integrity researchers must be committed to these values. Since the values are not specific to any particular culture or religion they constitute (...) a neutral ethical framework for the conduct of international research. It then claims that if researchers understand these values they can take responsibility for applying them to their own situation. This can help overcome problems which currently arise when researchers are not certain what to do because the specific ethical requirements of sponsors would be impractical or damaging if implemented in the circumstances in which the researchers operate. Finally, it is suggested that the four values outlined in the paper may be a basis for further work – such as developing awareness training and evolving guidance for specialist areas of research. (shrink)

I propose that accounts of emotional expression can be divided into primary and secondary quality accounts. Primary quality accounts of expression take behaviour to express emotion only if certain perceiver-independent facts about the behaviour or behaving subject obtain. I argue that views of this kind get the extension of expression wrong. I argue instead that behaviour expresses emotion just in case it is disposed to appear to express emotion to standard observers under standard conditions.

There is considerable evidence for the existence of a form of publicly recognized and institutionalized effeminacy or transvestism among males in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabian society. Unlike other men, these effeminates or mukhannarhiin were permitted to associate freely with women, on the assumption that they had no sexual interest in them, and often acted as marriage brokers, or, less legitimately, as go-betweens. They also played an important role in the development of Arabic music in Umayyad Mecca and, especially, Medina, (...) where they were numbered among the most celebrated singers and instrumentalists. Although they were subject to periodic persecution by the state, such measures were not based on any conclusions about their own sexual status – they were not assumed to be homosexual, although a few were – but on their activities as musicians and go-betweens, which were seen as corrupting the morals of society and especially of women. A particularly severe repression under the caliph Sulayman put an end to the mukhannarhiin's prominence in music and society, although not to their existence. (shrink)

Part I: Seeking ethical values for the professions -- Sources of guidance and the basis of ethics -- Seeking a foundation for ethics in the professions -- Values integral to the role of professions -- Part II: Exploring values as principles -- Seeking the best results -- Treating people justly and fairly -- Treating people justly and fairly -- Respecting autonomy -- Acting with integrity -- Part III: Applying principles to practice -- Ethical thinking in professional situations -- Dealing with (...) dilemmas -- Blame -- A guide to thinking about rights. (shrink)

Recent debates about inequality have focused almost exclusively on the distribution of wealth and disparities in income, but little notice has been paid to the distribution of free time. Free time is commonly assumed to be a matter of personal preference, a good that one chooses to have more or less of. Even if there is unequal access to free time, the cause and solution are presumed to lie with the resources of income and wealth. In Free Time, Julie (...) class='Hi'>Rose argues that these views are fundamentally mistaken. First, Rose contends that free time is a resource, like money, that one needs in order to pursue chosen ends. Further, realizing a just distribution of income and wealth is not sufficient to ensure a fair distribution of free time. Because of this, anyone concerned with distributive justice must attend to the distribution of free time. On the basis of widely held liberal principles, Rose explains why citizens are entitled to free time—time not committed to meeting life's necessities and instead available for chosen pursuits. The novel argument that the just society must guarantee all citizens their fair share of free time provides principled grounds to address critical policy choices, including work hours regulations, Sunday closing laws, public support for caregiving, and the pursuit of economic growth. Delving into an original topic that touches everyone, Free Time demonstrates why all citizens have, in the words of early labor reformers, a right to "hours for what we will.". (shrink)

In Mourning Becomes the Law, Gillian Rose takes us beyond the impasse of post-modernism or 'despairing rationalism withour reason'. Arguing that the post-modern search for a 'new ethics' and ironic philosophy are incoherent, she breathes new life into the debates concerning power and domination, transcendence and eternity. Mourning Becomes the Law is the philosophical counterpart to Gillian Rose's highly acclaimed memoir Love's Work. She extends similar clarity and insight to discussions of architecture, cinema, painting and poetry, through which (...) relations between the formation of the individual and the theory of justice are connected. At the heart of this reconnection lies a reflection on the significance of the Holocaust and Judaism. Mourning Becomes the Law reinvents the classical analogy of the soul, the city and the sacred. It returns philosophy, Nietzsche's 'bestowing virtue', to the pulse of our intellectual and political culture. (shrink)

A discussion of Rose's new theory which argues that life depends on the interactions within cells, organisms and ecosystems and is not wholly dependent on DNA.

This book fundamentally challenges the radical credentials of post-structuralism. Though Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze claim to have 'deconstructed' metaphysics, their work has much in common with previous attempts to 'end' the metaphysical tradition, from Kant to Nietzshe and Heidegger, and by sociology in general. Gillian Rose shows that this anti-metaphysical writing always appears in historically specific jurisprudential terms, which themselves found and recapitulate metaphysical categories. She reconsiders post-structuralism in this light and assesses the relationship between deconstruction and the earlier (...) structuralism of Saussure and Levi-Strauss. She argues in conclusion that the choice between post-structuralist nihilism and Hegelian and Marxist dialectic is spurious. (shrink)

Reductionism--understanding complex processes by breaking them into simpler elements--dominates scientific thinking around the world and has certainly proved a powerful tool, leading to major discoveries in every field of science. But reductionism can be taken too far, especially in the life sciences, where sociobiological thinking has bordered on biological determinism. Thus popular science writers such as Richard Dawkins, author of the highly influential The Selfish Gene, can write that human beings are just "robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish (...) molecules known as genes." Indeed, for many in science, genes have become the fundamental unit for understanding human existence: genes determine every aspect of our lives, from personal success to existential despair: genes for health and illness, genes for criminality, violence, and sexual orientation. Others would say that this is reductionism with a vengeance. In Lifelines, biologist Steven Rose offers a powerful alternative to the ultradarwinist claims of Dawkins, E.O. Wilson, Daniel Dennett and others. Rose argues against an extreme reductionist approach that would make the gene the key to understanding human nature, in favor of a more complex and richer vision of life. He urges instead that we focus on the organism and in particular on the organism's lifeline: the trajectory it takes through time and space. Our personal lifeline, Rose points out, is unique--even identical twins, with identical genes at birth, will differ over time. These differences are obviously not embedded in our genes, but come about through our developmental trajectory in which genes, as part of the biochemical orchestra of trillions of cells in each human body, have an important part--but only a part--to play. To illustrate this idea, Rose examines recent research in modern biology, and especially two disciplines--genetics (which looks at the impact of genes on form) and developmental biology (which examines the interaction between the organism and the environment)--and he explores new ideas on biological complexity proposed by scientists such as Stuart Kauffman. He shows how our lifelines are constructed through the interplay of physical forces--such as the intrinsic chemistry of lipids and proteins, and the self-organizing and stabilizing properties of complex metabolic webs--and he reaches a startling conclusion: that organisms are active players in their own fate, not simply the playthings of the gods, nature, or the inevitable workings out of gene-driven natural selection. The organism is both the weaver and the pattern it weaves. Lifelines will be a rallying point for all who seek an alternative to the currently fashionable, deeply determinist accounts which dominate popular science writing and, in fact, crowd the pages of some of the major scientific journals. Based on solid, state-of-the-art research, it not only makes important contributions to our understanding of Darwin and natural selection, but will swing the pendulum back to a richer, more complex view of human nature and of life. (shrink)

_A bracing account of liberalism’s most radical critics introducing one of the most controversial movements of the twentieth century__ “Powerful.... Bracing.... Part of the book’s eerie relevance comes from the role Russia plays throughout.”—Ezra Klein, _New York Times___ “One of the best books I’ve read this year.... Its importance at this critical moment in our history cannot be overstated.”—Rod Dreher, ___American Conservative__ In this eye-opening book, Matthew Rose introduces us to one of the most controversial intellectual movements of the (...) twentieth century, the “radical right,” and discusses its adherents’ different attempts to imagine political societies after the death or decline of liberalism. Rose shows how such thinkers are animated by religious aspirations and anxieties that are ultimately in tension with Christian teachings and the secular values those teachings birthed in modernity. (shrink)

A radical new assessment of Hegel revealing the problems and limitations of sociological method.

The Broken Middle offers a startlingly original rethinking of the modern philosophical tradition and fundamentally rejects the anti-philosophy and anti-theory of post-modernity. Extending across the disciplines from philosophy to theology, Judaica, law, social and political theory, literary criticism, feminism and architecture, this book stakes itself on a renewed potential for sustained critique. Against the grain of much contemporary thought, this work of criticism offers the reader a way beyond the spurious alternatives of "totalization" or acknowledgement of the "other". The Broken (...) Middle expounds the phenomenology of the diremption of law and ethics. By reconstructing the suppressed political history of modernity, it shows that contemporary thought belongs to a tradition which has become ancient. Following this drama in the configuration of anxiety of beginning, equivocation of the ethical, and agon of authorship, the logos opens out of the pathos of the concept. (shrink)