Carbon fiber masculinity: Disability and surfaces of homosociality

In this paper I am concerned with instances in which carbon fiber extends performances of masculinity that are attached to particular kinds of hegemonic male bodies. In examining carbon fiber as a prosthetic form of masculinity, I advance three main arguments. Firstly, carbon fiber can be a site of the supersession of disability that is affected through masculinized technology. Disability can be ‘overcome’ through carbon fiber. Disability is often culturally coded as feminine (Pedersen, 2001; Meeuf, 2009; Garland-Thompson 1997). Building on this cultural construction of disability as feminine, in and as a technology of masculine homosociality (Sedgwick, 1985), carbon fiber reproduced disability as feminine when carbon fiber prosthetic lower legs allowed Oscar Pistorius to compete in the non-disabled Olympic games. Secondly, I argue that carbon fiber can be a homosocial surface; that is, carbon fiber becomes both a surface extension of the self and a third party mediator in homosocial relationships, a surface that facilitates intimacy between men in ways that devalue femininity in both male and female bodies. I examine surfaces as material extensions of subjectivity, and carbon fiber surfaces as vectors of the cultural economies of masculine competition to which I refer. Thirdly, the case of Oscar Pistorius is exemplary of the masculinization of carbon fire, and the associated binding of a psychic attitude of misogyny and power to a form of violent and competitive masculine subjectivity. In this article I explore the affects, economies and surfaces of what I call ‘carbon fiber masculinity’ and discusses Pistorius’ use of carbon fiber, homosociality and misogyny as forms of protest masculinity through which he unconsciously attempted to recuperate his gendered identity from emasculating discourses of disability

Rewriting the just war tradition: just war in classical Greek political thought and practice

The just war tradition is the predominant western framework for thinking about the ethics of contemporary war. Political and military leaders frequently invoke its venerable lineage to lend ballast to their arguments for or against particular wars. How we understand the history of just war matters, then, for it subtends how that discourse is deployed today. Conventional accounts of the just war trace its origins to the writings of Saint Augustine in the 4th century CE. This discounts the possibility that just war ideas were in circulation prior to this, in the classical world. This article contests this omission. It contends that ideas homologous to a range of core jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum principles were evident in classical Greek political thought and practice. This finding challenges scholars to re-consider not only the common view that the just war is, at root, a Christian tradition, but also the relation between victory and just war, the nature of the ties binding just war and Islamic jihad, and an innovative approach to the comparative ethics of war

Il meticciato nell'Italia contemporanea. Storia, memorie e cultura di massa.

L'idea diffusa degli "italiani brava gente" e della diversit\ue0 della nostra storia rispetto alla storia USA, segnata da razzismo istituzionale, si fonda sul silenziamento del passato coloniale e razzista italiano. Il ripudio della categoria di razza da parte dell'Italia repubblicana e la smentita scientifica dell'esistenza biologica della categoria non hanno cancellato la presenza della razza, formazione storico-culturale che paradossalmente esiste e non esiste. Priva di referenti oggettivi nella realt\ue0, la razza produce in essa effetti significativi, opera sia come categoria sociale e strumento di esclusione, sia come costruzione simbolica e istanza identitaria. A fronte del silenziamento del meticciato storico nell'uso pubblico della storia e nella memoria nazionali del secondo dopoguerra, il saggio sottolinea la presenza diffusa del meticciato nei prodotti della cultura di massa italiani contemporanei e ne indaga i significati con gli strumenti degli studi critici sulla razza e in prospettiva comparata tra Italia e Stati Uniti

The Rights of Children in Biomedicine : Challenges posed by scientific advances and uncertainties

The Committee on Bioethics of the Council of Europe commissioned this study to identify potential areas of heightened concern for the rights of children that may be unfavorably affected by scientific advances and uncertainties in biomedicine. This report is the result of that study. It provides substantive illustrations of the diversity of problems generated by biomedical developments, including the expanded use of certain biomedical procedures, emerging technologies, and innovative therapies. It also addresses uncertain risks to children through the continuation of longstanding biomedical practices that lack sufficient scientific support. Because considerable legal protections have been developed for biomedical research and continue to be debated in great depth, this report focuses more broadly on biomedicine as a whole. The specific concern addressed here is not about the research process and regulation as such, but rather on how scientific advances and risk-laden practices reach children in biomedicine – whether through health care practices or in other biomedical settings. Mapping out the areas of concern for this report required not only identifying the technological advances and scientific challenges at stake but contemplating these challenges first and foremost from the perspective of the rights of children as class – formally collectively defined as persons from birth to age 18, unless they have attained majority status. Because a subsequent report will analyze the potential legal frameworks protecting children from the scientific risks and uncertainties identified here, this report identifies the challenges in protecting children relative to those rights that are commonly described in international human rights discourse, with only summary references to specific legal instruments in the report’s conclusions. The aim of the report is to demonstrate how the scientific risks and uncertainties illustrated here may affect the rights of children from birth through adolescence, in a variety of ways. Chapter 2 surveys differences in childhood development to illustrate why the lack of protection from scientific risks and uncertainty persists, in part because of limited understanding of the developmental differences and vulnerabilities of children at different phases of life. The report then expands on how many interventions may reach children at the earliest stages of their development, such as through assisted reproduction and other interventions in utero (Chapter 3) as well as in the field of genetics (Chapter 4). The report then addresses children who have been subjected to high-risk and controversial clinical practices, many of which lack sufficient scientific support regarding their safety. Among those children at risk are sexual or gender minority children (Chapter 5) and children diagnosed with serious physical and mental health needs (Chapter 6). The next chapters address two areas affecting critically ill children where considerable policy debate has taken place, but without sufficient regard to scientific advances and uncertainties, specifically in transplantation (Chapter 7) and end-of-life decisions (Chapter 8). In the final chapter, the report sets forth numerous rights of children in biomedicine that are currently at stake from scientific advances and uncertainties – not only the right to the highest attainable standard of health but rights protecting their physical and psychological integrity and their privacy and identity, as well as freedom from discrimination. The landscape of these rights is as vast and potentially complex as biomedicine. The report thus concludes that the biomedical controversies surveyed here signal a need for systemic, continuous and multidisciplinary oversight of these issues, as well as for many biomedical interventions that could not be covered here in depth. These matters cannot be left to biomedical expertise alone, but instead require vigilant oversight from human rights authorities and scholars with an understanding of these issues.Council of Europe, The Committee on Bioethics report