The Paradox of Citizenship in American Politics: Ideals and Reality

The Paradox of Citizenship in American Politics: Ideals and Reality, by Mehnaaz Momen, London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 265 pp. $130.63 hardback. ISBN: 978-3-319-61529-5 Reviewed by Peter Kivisto, Augustana College and St. Petersburg State University

What's New About the "New Social Movements"?: Continuities and Discontinuities with the Socialist Project

Since the 1960s, social theorists have sought to explicate factors that contributed to the emergence of the New Left in North America and Western Europe and to the "new social movements" that arose during this tumultuous decade (see, for example, Alberoni, 1984; Birnbaum, 1969; Gamson, 1975; Gorz, 1973; Gouldner, 1979; Habermas, 1970 and 197 5; Jenkins, 1986; Klandermans and Oegema, 1987; Oberschall, 1978; Offe, 1984 and 1985; Tilly, 1978; Touraine, 1971a, 1971b, and 1981; Useem, 1975). There are, as Cohen (1983:97) suggests, "compelling reasons for a renewed reflection on the significance and potentials of social movements." In no small part, this is because these movements served to dispel the conviction that advanced industrial societies had arrived at a stage that marked the "end of ideology," as they reflected instead conflictual tendencies in those societies. This paper explores questions concerning the relationship of these movements to socialism. It does so by reviewing issues raised both in theoretic discourse and in concrete instances of these new contestatory actors

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM’S COLLECTIVE NARRATIVE OF TRUMP IN BUSINESS

This article explores the collective journalistic narrative of Donald Trump’s business career. While Trump’s presentation of self as a successful businessman and celebrity was his primary rationale for his presidential candidacy, these investigative reporters paint a negative portrait of his conduct. Two years into the Trump administration, it is mired by a remarkable series of financial and other scandals, resulting in the forced resignations of top officials and increasing criticism of others. The emerging narrative is that the administration has attracted the type of individual drawn to a culture of corruption, which is in turn seen as emanating from the business culture embraced by Trump and his family

Modelling aerosol transport and virus exposure with numerical simulations in relation to SARS-CoV-2 transmission by inhalation indoors

We provide research findings on the physics of aerosol and droplet dispersion relevant to the hypothesized aerosol transmission of SARS-CoV-2 during the current pandemic. We utilize physics-based modeling at different levels of complexity, along with previous literature on coronaviruses, to investigate the possibility of airborne transmission. The previous literature, our 0D-3D simulations by various physics-based models, and theoretical calculations, indicate that the typical size range of speech and cough originated droplets (dPeer reviewe

A Mysterious Island in the Digital Age: Technology and Musical Life in Ulleungdo, South Korea

This paper contributes to the growing body of ethnomusicological research about music-making on small islands, focusing on the remote South Korean island of Ulleungdo (literally, ‘Mysterious Island’). Historically, a number of factors have conspired to present serious obstacles to the Ulleungdo islanders' musical aspirations. However, since the early 1990s, enterprising amateurs have managed to generate and maintain a variety of musical activities in spite of these obstacles: church ensembles, karaoke, saxophone clubs, and more. Paralleling other island music studies, this paper seeks to show how the condition of being an Ulleungdo islander—entailing a complex of varied experiences, values, and relationships—has informed music-making over the years. However, here, the discussion remains firmly focused upon the islanders' use of technology since an acute reliance on technology has come to permeate Ulleungdo's musical life, with certain electronic devices commonly regarded as essential facilitators of musical expression. Drawing from the islanders' own testimonies, studies of Ulleungdo's cultural history, and works addressing technology's applications within and effects upon local communities, the authors explore how and why this condition of musical techno-reliance developed, how it is manifest in the present-day, and its broader implications for the island's music culture and identity

Multiculturalism and moderate secularism

What is sometimes talked about as the ‘post-secular’ or a ‘crisis of secularism’ is, in Western Europe, quite crucially to do with the reality of multiculturalism. By which I mean not just the fact of new ethno-religious diversity but the presence of a multiculturalist approach to this diversity, namely: the idea that equality must be extended from uniformity of treatment to include respect for difference; recognition of public/private interdependence rather than dichotomized as in classical liberalism; the public recognition and institutional accommodation of minorities; the reversal of marginalisation and a remaking of national citizenship so that all can have a sense of belonging to it. I think that equality requires that this ethno-cultural multiculturalism should be extended to include state-religion connexions in Western Europe, which I characterise as ‘moderate secularism’, based on the idea that political authority should not be subordinated to religious authority yet religion can be a public good which the state should assist in realising or utilising. I discuss here three multiculturalist approaches that contend this multiculturalising of moderate secularism is not the way forward. One excludes religious groups and secularism from the scope of multiculturalism (Kymlicka); another largely limits itself to opposing the ‘othering’ of groups such as Jews and Muslims (Jansen); and the third argues that moderate secularism is the problem not the solution (Bhargava)

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Form and content of immigrant socialist ideology: The case of the Finnish-American left

Form and content of immigrant socialist ideology: The case of the Finnish-American lef