At the Margins of the World: The Nature of Limits in Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line

Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998) is an anti-war film which can be read as an Orphic narrative meditating on the relationship between humans and “nature.” Many scholarly readings of the film have been attracted by analyzes that explore the influences of Cavell and Heidegger on Malick (Critchley, Furstenau and MacCavoy, Sinnerbrink). Kaja Silverman’s recent opus, Flesh of My Flesh (2009), contains a chapter titled “All Things Shining.” She elegantly examines how Malick’s film explores the theme of “finitude.” She argues that, ontologically speaking, human existence gains a more intense “glow” when humans are made aware of their mortality. The present becomes paramount. But like Orpheus, the present seeks to make amends with the past. Taking Silverman’s analysis one step further involves exploring finitude through the film’s many animal, arboreal and geological images. Nature can be read as a “margin” that more fully enhances the film’s exploration of connection and finitude. To this end, the opening chapter of Jacques Derrida’s Margins of Philosophy (1986) is invaluable. Entitled “Tympan,” Derrida’s introductory essay introduces a wealth of ecological metaphors. These stimulate an interaction between Silverman’s model of finitude, Derrida’s surprising ecologies at the margin and Malick’s quest for what shines in all beings

Mutual benefit, added value? Doing research in the National Health Service

The National Health Service (NHS) has recently been the focus of government efforts to retain pharmaceutical research in the UK. Efforts to foster new partnerships between health care providers and industry have been framed with suggestions that clinical trials can offer patient benefit within the NHS, cutting across ethical and sociological concerns with the possible tension between doing research and offering care. This paper draws on ethnographic research to explore the sometimes awkward juxtapositions between trial protocols and everyday care, individual health and commercial profit, and thus the distribution of value produced through trials. While researchers appear to find the distinction between research and care useful, at least some of the time, both formal and informal strategies for living with this distinction may have the unintended consequence of making research appear supplementary to rather than simply different from clinical care

Cutting in on the \u3ci\u3eChevron\u3c/i\u3e Two-Step

Consider the following scenario: an ambiguous statutory provision could plausibly mean A or B—which could in fact be the opposite of A. A federal agency, drawing upon its scientific and/or experiential expertise, either has or could develop policy-based reasons backed by fact-intensive evidence to prefer one interpretation over the other. But instead of developing and setting forth its policy reasons and subjecting them to vetting in a notice-andcomment rulemaking, the agency instead justifies its interpretive choice in a rule, setting forth its legal analysis of statutory text, perhaps legislative history, and the purpose and structure of the statute as a whole. Subsequently, in a dispute over how the statutory provision should be interpreted, the agency claims that its interpretive view merits judicial deference. In statutory interpretation cases, courts typically invoke the Chevron Two-Step framework and, given that the agency has promulgated a rule, assuming the court agrees that the statutory provision is ambiguous at Step One, the agency is all but assured deference at Step Two. What is wrong with this scenario? First, from a comparative institutionalist perspective, deference to agencies’ statutory interpretations should be premised upon the agencies’ policy-based expertise; thus, it should be withheld where agencies have not provided policy based rationales for their interpretive choices. Second, the “reasoned decisionmaking” element of judicial review drops out of the picture altogether and thus judicial oversight of agencies is diminished. In other words, it should not be “per se” reasonable when an agency chooses—based on unarticulated and thus unvetted policy variables—between two permissible statutory interpretations. This Article proposes a doctrinal solution: the incorporation of State Farm hard look review into the Chevron Two-Step framework. The main goal is to extend the domain of State Farm “reasoned decisionmaking” review, widening the scope of agency rules subject to hard look review. By incorporating this hard look review within the Chevron framework, the model highlights the extent to which agency statutory interpretations are driven by underlying policy choices. And by collapsing the conceptual acoustic separation of Chevron and State FarmV, the model makes it difficult for an agency to evade hard look review by convincing a court that it is a Chevron, not State Farm, case. Moreover, where the Chevron interpretive issue arises between private parties when the agency is not a party, and litigants accordingly cannot raise a direct State Farm challenge to the rulemaking, the model would open the door to an indirect State Farm challenge. This Article explores how this new doctrinal approach, one of hard look review of agency policy decisions at Chevron Step Two, will affect courts and agency decision-making. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court seems to have reached a critical juncture for Chevron. This particular form of Chevron retreat—widening the space for the application of State Farm—is fundamentally distinct from, and preferable to, setting Chevron aside. Whereas knocking down the Chevron pillar deals a blow to overexuberant regulators and promises to stem the tide of overregulation of the economy and health and safety, heightened judicial scrutiny of the Chevron-State Farm variety will force the agency’s hand in the context of deregulation as well

Alternative approaches to education provision for out-of-school youth in Malawi:The case of Complementary Basic Education

Young people in Malawi face many challenges. Primary education is struggling with poor internal efficiency, low quality and poor educational outcomes. Access to post-primary education is limited and highly selective. The majority of young people who exit the formal education system dropout in the primary cycle. Few out-of-school youth have had access to technical, vocational or entrepreneurial training, or the chance to develop key skills to support and sustain livelihoods in the country’s predominantly rural-based economies. Until recently education and skills development for out-of-school youth was given scant attention at the national level. However, in response to growing concerns about the ability to meet Education for All (EFA) targets and to support poverty alleviation strategies, the Malawi government now acknowledges the need for alternative approaches to basic education in order to cater for out-of-school children and youth. In 2006, the Complementary Basic Education (CBE) programme was launched in Malawi, first piloted and then expanded across several rural districts in Malawi. This background paper presents an overview and analysis of the role of Complementary Basic Education in the educational provision for out-of-school youth. In doing so, it focuses on the expectations, participation and outcomes of older learners, as well as the challenges faced in the delivery of curriculum content and practical pre-vocational skills training in light of the differing needs of children and youth. It explores the interface between basic education and skills development and reflects on lessons to be learnt with regard to the design, implementation and mainstreaming of complementary and non-formal education programmes

Alienated Catholics: Establishing the Groundwork for Dialogue

One of the earliest arguments against women\u27s ordination the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops articulated in 1972 was that, since the incarnation of God was in a male, this culminates in a male priesthood. This reflects a hierarchical anthropology well-known from Christianity\u27s earliest encounters with the Greco-Roman world, whereby the male was associated with the mind, reason, and the spirit, while the female was associated with the body, passion, and the material world.1 In fact, some Greek doctors and philosophers thought that every fetus began as a male, but those that didn\u27t develop fully became female.2 Thomas Laqueur calls this the one- sex body theory-there is one normative body, the male, and the female body is just an underdeveloped version of it. 3 Several of the early Church fathers were well aware of these notions, and added to them a scriptural layer that read Eve\u27s secondary creation from Adam\u27s rib as evidence of woman\u27s subordination and incompleteness compared to man. Eve\u27s susceptibility to temptation later in the story only proved that she should be carefully managed by a man. This gendered anthropology was used to legitimate male control of women on the grounds of female incapacity and male superiority throughout much of western history, so that only recently have women, rather than their fathers , husbands or the state, been legally allowed Lo make decisions affecting their bodies, their children and their property

Five-country Study on Service and Volunteering in Southern Africa Malawi Country Report

This study on the nature and form of civic service and volunteering in Malawi followed a qualitative, descriptive research approach, drawing on information from an extensive document search, interviews with key informants responsible for supporting and/or implementing service and volunteering programmes and a focus group discussion with representatives of national and international organisations running structured service programmes, as well as those involved in district and community-based activities