Delegitimizing Jews and Israel in Iran's International Holocaust Cartoon Contest

In 2006, the Iranian government-aligned newspaper Hamshahri sponsored The International Holocaust Cartoon Contest. The stated aim of the contest was to denounce "Western hypocrisy on freedom of speech," and to challenge "Western hegemony" in relation to Holocaust knowledge. This government-backed initiative was a clear attempt to export the Iranian regime's anti-Zionist agenda. Using qualitative thematic analysis and Social Representations Theory, this article provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of the cartoons submitted to the contest in order to identify emerging social representations of Jews and Israel. Three superordinate themes are outlined: (i) "Constructing the 'Evil Jew' and 'Brutal Israel' as a Universal Threat;" (ii) "Denying the Holocaust and Affirming Palestinian Suffering;" (iii) "Constructing International Subservience to 'Nazi-Zionist' Ideology." Although the organizers of the International Holocaust Cartoon Contest claimed that their aims were anti-Zionist, this article elucidates the overtly anti-Semitic character of the contest and its cartoons. It is argued that the cartoons exhibit a distorted, one-sided version of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of Jewish history, and may therefore shape viewers' beliefs concerning Jews and Israel in fundamentally negative ways, with negative outcomes for intergroup relations and social harmony

An integer construction of infinitesimals: Toward a theory of Eudoxus hyperreals

A construction of the real number system based on almost homomorphisms of the integers Z was proposed by Schanuel, Arthan, and others. We combine such a construction with the ultrapower or limit ultrapower construction, to construct the hyperreals out of integers. In fact, any hyperreal field, whose universe is a set, can be obtained by such a one-step construction directly out of integers. Even the maximal (i.e., On-saturated) hyperreal number system described by Kanovei and Reeken (2004) and independently by Ehrlich (2012) can be obtained in this fashion, albeit not in NBG. In NBG, it can be obtained via a one-step construction by means of a definable ultrapower (modulo a suitable definable class ultrafilter).Comment: 17 pages, 1 figur

Construction of early childhood and ECCD service provisioning in India

There has been a growing recognition among scholars in childhood studies that childhood is a social construction. Several historical and cross-cultural studies conducted across the world validate this argument, and whereby explains the variability that exist in the descriptions of childhood. These constructions not only differ at the cultural or temporal level, they also differ at the individual or institutional level. In a contemporary society, individuals, professionals, service institutions and policy communities – all construct their own version of childhood based on their subjective understandings, experiences and theoretical perspectives. At the policy level, therefore, these constructions have a significant role to play in the designing of services, institutions and pedagogy for early childhood intervention. This paper critically examines the model of early childhood constructed in the policy provisioning of early childhood care and development (ECCD) in India. Drawing on literatures mostly from the Euro-American context, at the outset, the paper elaborates the shift that took place in the ontology of children. The distinctions between child development theories, which chiefly inform the policy community, and the social constructionist approach, which is considered as an alternative, are then analyzed as central to early childhood service provisioning. The paper problematizes the policy documents, while doing so, it picks up few key issues and (re)open up the debates on ‘developmentally appropriate practices’ and ‘play-based education’. The paper concludes by suggesting that oversubscription of child development theories or total obscurity of social constructionist perspectives not augurs well for policy formulation. Further it stresses that there is a need to understand what children’s lived experiences are in the early childhood institutions, what parental constructions are on early childhood service provisioning and, how that can be incorporated to establish clear policy goals

Modeling High-Temperature Superconductivity: Correspondence at Bay?

How does a predecessor theory relate to its successor? According to Heinz Post's General Correspondence Principle, the successor theory has to account for the empirical success of its predecessor. After a critical discussion of this principle, I outline and discuss various kinds of correspondence relations that hold between successive scientific theories. I then look in some detail at a case study from contemporary physics: the various proposals for a theory of high-temperature superconductivity. The aim of this case study is to understand better the prospects and the place of a methodological principle such as the Generalized Correspondence Principle. Generalizing from the case study, I will then argue that some such principle has to be considered, at best, as one tool that might guide scientists in their theorizing. Finally I present a tentative account of why principles such as the Generalized Correspondence Principle work so often and why there is so much continuity in scientific theorizing.Articl

Reassessing Putin's project : reflections on IR theory and the West

Putin's aim was not to isolate Russia from international society but to challenge the West's claim to define its norms

Doing and Showing

The persisting gap between the formal and the informal mathematics is due to an inadequate notion of mathematical theory behind the current formalization techniques. I mean the (informal) notion of axiomatic theory according to which a mathematical theory consists of a set of axioms and further theorems deduced from these axioms according to certain rules of logical inference. Thus the usual notion of axiomatic method is inadequate and needs a replacement.Comment: 54 pages, 2 figure