Maya Paintings as Teachers of Justice: Art Making the Impossible Possible

This article examines Maya paintings as historical documents, political platforms and conduits for cultural transmission in two local Maya communities. Particular attention is paid to the recent history of genocide of Maya peoples in Guatemala and the production of paintings as visual reminders of cultural loss and regeneration, as well as visual means to protect Maya future generations. Collaborative ethnography and decolonizing methodologies (Lassiter, 1998; Tuhiwai-Smith, 1999) are used in this study; thus, Maya artists speak through written dialogues and interviews in first voice regarding massacres that were kept clandestine for three decades. This paper addresses the potential and capacity for paintings to relay concepts of social justice. In two Maya contexts, paintings are seen by artists as didactic works that express outrage and concurrent hope. Art is used to transform that which feels impossible into possibility(ies)

Nonlinear conductivity in CaRuO3 thin films measured by short current pulses

Metals near quantum critical points have been predicted to display universal out-of equilibrium behavior in the steady current-carrying state. We have studied the non-linear conductivity of high-quality CaRuO$_3$ thin films with residual resistivity ratio up to 57 using micro-second short, high-field current pulses at low temperatures. Even for the shortest pulses of $5\mu$s, Joule heating persists, making it impossible to observe a possible universal non-linearity. Much shorter pulses are needed for the investigation of universal non-linear conductivity.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure

Impulse/response functions of individual components of flow-injection manifolds

The dispersion behaviour of the various individual parts making up a flow-injection manifold is often difficult to establish because it is virtually impossible to obtainthe required very small injection and detection volumes. It is shown that it is possible, under suitable experimental conditions, to find the impulse/response functionof each component by means of a deconvolution process of the response functions have been established, the response function of any arrangement can be predicted by convoluting the impulse/response functions of all the individuaol parts involved. Convolution and deconvolution were done in the Fourier domain, by using a fast FT algorithm

Records and their imaginaries: imagining the impossible, making possible the imagined

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht This paper argues that the roles of individual and collective imaginings about the absent or unattainable archive and its contents should be explicitly acknowledged in both archival theory and practice. We propose two new terms: impossible archival imaginaries and imagined records. These concepts offer important affective counterbalances and sometimes resistance to dominant legal, bureaucratic, historical and forensic notions of evidence that so often fall short in explaining the capacity of records and archives to motivate, inspire, anger and traumatize. The paper begins with a reflection on how imagined records have surfaced in our own work related to human rights. It then reviews some of the ways in which the concept of the imaginary has been understood by scholarship in other fields. It considers how such interpretations might contribute epistemologically to the phenomenon of impossible archival imaginaries; and it provides examples of what we argue are impossible archival imaginaries at work. The paper moves on to examine specific cases and “archival stories” involving imagined records and contemplate how they can function societally in ways similar to actual records because of the weight of their absence or because of their aspirational nature. Drawing upon threads that run through these cases, we propose definitions of both phenomena that not only augment the current descriptive, analytical and explicatory armaments of archival theory and practice but also open up the possibility of “returning” them (Ketelaar in Research in the archival multiverse. Monash University Press, Melbourne 2015a) as theoretical contributions to the fields from which the cases were drawn

THE POSSIBILITY OF REASONABLE DISAGREEMENT

In the essay “Reasonable Religious Disagreements,” Dr. Richard Feldman examines reasonable disagreements between peers. More specifically, he asks whether such disagreements are possible, and also whether the parties to such a disagreement could think that both their own belief and the belief of their peer with whom they disagree are reasonable. Feldman argues that there cannot be any such thing as a reasonable disagreement, and furthermore, that the parties to a disagreement are not epistemically licensed to think that their own belief and their opponents belief are both reasonable. As Feldman notes, “open and honest discussion seems to have the puzzling effect of making reasonable disagreement impossible”. My project herein will be (in §2) to explain Feldman’s notion of a reasonable disagreement, and then reconstruct and assess his argumentation, and (in §3) advance three objections to Feldman’s argument. I will focus on denying Feldman’s answer to his first question—that reasonable disagreement between peers is not possible—and my suggestion is that if any of these three objections to Feldman’s argument go through, then the argument falls. And if Feldman’s argument falls, then his argument no longer provides grounds for our thinking that reasonable disagreement is impossible

Różewicz and Bonhoeffer. On the Margin of the Poem Learning to Walk by Tadeusz Różewicz

The departure point of the analysis presented in this article is a poem written by Tadeusz Różewicz learning to walk (nauka chodzenia). The protagonist of the poem is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who created the theory of “religionless Christianity”. According to Bonhoeffer, a modern Christian has to immerse himself/herself in the “godless” world so that – in tandem with the Saviour – he/she can be experience the final abandonment. The author of this article tries to prove that the theology of Bonhoeffer had a great impact on Różewicz, making him reconsider his viewpoint on faith. Due to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the poet also found a solution for a basic contradiction that was explicated in the famous poem entitled Bez (Without): “life without god is possible / life without god is impossible”