Does It Pay to Be A Manager? The Significance of the Manager Rule in Analyzing Retaliation Claims Under Title VII

(Excerpt) This Note argues that the manager rule should be applied to Title VII cases but in a new and very specific and detailed context involving a case-by-case analysis, similar to that of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in Rosenfield v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc. This Note is comprised of three parts. Part I provides the history of Title VII generally, and discusses the emergence of the manager rule in the FLSA context. Part II addresses how different federal circuit courts have either recognized or rejected the manager rule as it applies to retaliation claims in the Title VII context. Part III discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the manager rule and proposes a solution that the manager rule should be applied to Title VII cases using a case-by-case analysis similar to that of the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning in Rosenfield

Legitimate defence

Wh.t is the 'raison d'etre' of legitimate defence? What justifies it? When and under what circumstances? Self-defence is a right based on common sense because it comes as a natural instinct. It is an inherent right to protect onself from any personal aggressor and, since we live in a civilized world, we should feel ourselves constrained if not bound by human sympathy to defend others who are unjustly assaulted and in need of help. This natural right of every individual is not a modern concept of law, but it has been the theme of great philosophers.peer-reviewe

The notion of 'causa’

As a general doctrine 'causa' was not developed under Roman Law. It was only developed by the commentators of Roman Law in the nineteenth century. At most it was considered under the heading of 'object' which had to be possible and lawful. This close identification of 'causa' with object tended to obscure the development of 'causa' the doctrine of which was often confused with that of object.peer-reviewe

Law as a game of chance : Rabelais’ Bridlegoose and DC’s two-face

The Batman villain Two-Face and Rabelais’ Bridlegoose in The Third Book of Pantagruel ([1546]1894) are identified with the law – or at least, the law distorted, exaggerated, caricatured. Two-Face decides matters based on the tossing of a double-faced coin, one side of which is defaced; in some respects, he is the successor to Rabelais’ Judge Bridlegoose, who decides the judicial cases before him by a throw of the dice. They both surrender their decision-making to the aleatory, in a manner that prompts us to gaze upon (or askance at) the [im]possible moment of decision. This article takes a comparative approach to draw out how these two characters illuminate broader questions of law and justice, through considerations of parody, satire, deconstruction, and play, having significance for the philosophy of law.peer-reviewe

Treating the ‘other’ as disease : Ħal Far Open Centre as a zone of contagion

The armed presence along the perimeter of Ħal Far—essentially, the border between ‘us’ and ‘them’—was a display of state power and a pretense of care for its loyal citizens. At once, it disciplined the diseased ‘other’ and fenced the rest off from it. “We are all in this together,” the Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres declared in one of his speeches. It may be a comforting thought to suppose that, at the very least, our basic sense of helplessness in the face of the pandemic is shared. After all, we are alike in our vulnerability to the virus. However, the assumptions of togetherness, shared vulnerability and helplessness that have become so commonplace are regularly contradicted by facts. As some authors have observed, the current crisis is rather exacerbating the inequalities in our society, proving that we are, indeed, “not all in it together”. ‘Solidarity’ is an empty word, if not based on efforts to ensure more equitable conditions which would enable a truly collective response.peer-reviewe

Ten years of historical game studies : towards the intersection with memory studies

As a multidisciplinary field of study, historical game studies has become increasingly established as a stand-alone branch, albeit one having clear interdisciplinary links with (and significance for) both history and game studies. Recently, many historical game scholars have increasingly been dealing with the concept of memory. Concepts such as Landsberg’s ‘prosthetic memory’ (2004), ‘media memory’ (Neiger et al. 2011; Erll & Rigney 2009), and the study of how digital games play a significant role in cultural memory-making processes have enlarged the field to include more open-ended and broader approaches and implications (see also Hammar 2019b; 2020). The article aims to deal with these recent developments within historical game studies. Recent debates and increasingly prominent topics in the literature (prosthetic memory, historical fantasy, pseudohistory, history as metaphor) will be framed in terms of their relation toward memory studies, and further possible developments and open questions within the field(s) will be identified and discussed.peer-reviewe

Satirical game design : the case of the boardgame construction BOOM!

https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3402942.3403008To recognize satire, the audience must be aware of the context and the satirical intent of the work in question. Academic research on the possibilities and effects of satire in games is minimal, if compared with other rhetorical uses of playful interaction. This paper contributes to our understanding of satire in games by discussing and annotating design decisions that were meant to be taken satirically. More specifically, the focus of this paper is Construction BOOM!, a tile-laying boardgame designed by the some of the authors of the paper (Gualeni and Schellekens) themselves with the overt intention of satirizing the current situation of real-estate development in Malta. Part of our contribution consists in leveraging the notion of the ‘implied designer’ as articulated by Van de Mosselaer and Gualeni to show how game elements participate in the player's inferring a satiric implied designer for the game. The paper highlights the opportunities available for designers to implement satire into the various elements of a game and opens the door to further research into exploring how much these elements influence the perception of satire by players.peer-reviewe

Satire at play : a game studies approach to satire

https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3402942.3403007The persuasive potential of games and their use in political propaganda and raising social awareness are well-established components of the game studies discourse, and the literature around persuasive games highlights satire among the expressive tones of several games. Despite this, what persuasive games’ literature still lacks is a complete and stand-alone defining account of satire in games, which could be useful in analyzing both analog and digital games used for satirical purposes. Our intention with this paper is to frame satire within the field of game studies through notions and perspectives borrowed from other media studies and narratology. In that pursuit, we initially give an operational definition of satire focusing on concepts such as entertainment, critique, and rhetoric. Subsequently, we explore how this definition relates to, and interacts with, key concepts in game studies, such as procedural rhetoric, and the implied designer.peer-reviewe

Valletta : Streets of History : documenting the process of developing a location-based game in the area of Maltese history and culture

Playing Maltese History is a project funded by Malta Arts Council involving the research for and development of a mobile AR game about the cultural history of Malta titled Valletta: Streets of History (Bewitched Mitches 2023), officially released in March of this year. As a concept, it was conceived in an effort to bridge the gap between historical research and detective games; or rather to make the profound connections between the two practices explicit. The design of the game attempts to simulate the process of conducting archival research by situating the player in the role of a detective-historian who unearths details from Maltese history and culture, which are not generally foregrounded in the textbooks. The game invites the player to trace these events in actual locations by means of geolocation mechanics and AR elements. It additionally employs more traditional methods of ludic engagement, like puzzles and scoring games, which are thematically adapted to reflect the historical content of the game. In this paper, the development team first analyses the research supporting the project by highlighting the affinities between historical research and detective games. In the second part, we document the process of development from conceptualisation and funding application to research and implementation up to dissemination. In this, we aim to contribute to the theoretical discussion around game design methods and approaches, especially within the context of historical games, as well as providing a practical example of game development and distribution for other interested game designers and academics.peer-reviewe