Rehistoricizing Differently, Differently: American Literary Globalism and Disruptions of Neo-Colonial Discourse in Tropic of Orange and Dogeaters

Through a comparative reading of two important transnational Asian American texts, Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters and Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange, I argue that multiplicity of narration may, but does not always, resist the imposition of culturally dominant aesthetic modes, especially historical and nationalist narratives and multiculturalism. While Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange delegates narrative power to seven characters, it ultimately stages an ambiguous clash of discourses with a multiculturalist historicizing voice that is limited by its own contradictory impulses to control and containment. The novel dialogizes its excessive tendencies by scripting plural-but-discrete identities. In contrast, Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters diffuses its perspectives nearly (or potentially) infinitely, and this infinite multiplication of voices that represents a more direct critique of power. The novel juxtaposes voices from multiple social strata, differing sexual identities, and diverse genres; there is such a profusion of radically different perspectives that the novel makes it impossible for any single voice to dominate. The purpose of this comparative analysis is to begin to understand the specific relationships between resistant cultural formations and material political structures as well as to situate these two novels in the context of what Rachel Adams has termed “American literary globalism.” Lisa Lowe’s Immigrant Acts is also an important frame for the argument, though the article extends her contentions about the useful contradictions of Asian American identity from the political, legal, and economic realm into the aesthetic

Leveraged Buyout, Management Buyout, and Going Private Corporate Control Transactions: Insider Trading or Efficient Market Economics?

According to one commentator, a particularly troublesome form of insider trading abuse has developed in the past decade without full public discussion of its ethics or its legality. This abuse has spurred significant commentary. Corporate control transactions of this type, known as insider leveraged buyouts, management buyouts, and going private, have totaled billions of dollars. On their face, these deals, regardless of their specifics, raise the most basic questions of whether security holders are getting the legal and ethical protection they require and, by law, deserve. It is a fundamental precept of the theory of going private that different groups of security holders of the same class will be treated differently. Furthermore, the arm\u27s-length bargaining that is present in the majority of intercorporate transactions is absent. Accordingly, going private transactions are often attended by uncertainty and legal risks. For these reasons, among others, substantive and administrative law are beginning to place limitations on the ability of corporations to engage in going private transactions. For example, under recent federal securities regulations, management must publicize its opinion as to the fairness or unfairness of certain going private transactions. Yet, there are those who question the effectiveness of these limitations. One commentator argues that persons who participate in a leveraged buyout have better knowledge of the true value of a parcel of real estate, an invention, a pending contract, or a competitor\u27s problems than do the security holders to whom they make their leveraged buyout offer. This commentator concludes that those who initiate leveraged buyout, management buyout, and going private transactions are inevitably acting on inside information for profit. This Note first examines the historical development and modern application of judicial decisions and statutes concerning insider trading. This Note then discusses the phenomena of leveraged buyout, management buyout, and going private transactions with emphasis on their structure, fairness to security holders, and a possible breach of fiduciary duty to shareholders in the case of management buyouts. Following a discussion of recommendations and policy arguments proferred by other commentators and scholars, this Note recommends that a remedy be afforded to minority security holder who feel they are being grossly undercompensated, while allowing leveraged buyout, management buyout, and going private transactions to continue in such a way that the principle of fiduciary duty remains untarnished

Sex and Gender Segregation in Competitive Sport: Internal and External Normative Perspectives

What are the justifications for mandatory sex segregation in competitive sport, and what are the arguments against it? This article takes up these questions. I argue that justifications of sex segregation in sport should be sensitive to two distinct perspectives that can come into play. The “internal” perspective emphasizes considerations rooted in an ethos of athletic competition. The “external” perspective brings into focus broader social norms such as anti-discrimination principles and equality goals. Both perspectives support the general idea of separate men’s and women’s competitions, at least in elite levels of sports that reward physical strength and power. The perspectives may diverge, however, on specific questions about who should be permitted to compete in each division, and more particularly, on the appropriate treatment of transgender athletes. What is important to see is that objections that arise from the external vantage point of equality and anti-discrimination cannot be fully answered by appeal to internal considerations about the competitive integrity of sport. Institutional decisions to exclude classes of individuals from participating in men’s or women’s competitions must consider not only what would be best for the sport, but what is required by antidiscrimination principles and genuine commitment to respect for gender identity and expression

Wherefore Art Thou Guidelines? An Empirical Study of White-Collar Criminal Sentencing and How the Gall Decision Effectively Eliminated the Sentencing Guidelines

[Excerpt] “Until the passage of the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines in 1984, federal judges had relatively wide discretion in sentencing federal offenders up to the statutory maximum. This judicial discretion led to a disparity in the sentences of similarly situated offenders, particularly in white-collar cases. The Guidelines attempted to eliminate this disparity by establishing maximum and minimum sentences for certain offenses based on the characteristics of the crime. An important feature of the Guidelines system was its mandatory nature, which decreased and structured the judiciary‘s discretion within bounds set by Congress. The mandatory application of the Guidelines resulted in stiff sentences for white-collar criminals, effectively reducing the disparity in sentencing that had existed prior to implementation. However, in January of 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court held in United States v. Booker that the Guidelines‘ mandatory use of enhancing factors not found by a jury was unconstitutional, and the proper remedy for this constitutional error was to sever the provisions from the statute that made the Guidelines mandatory, rendering the Guidelines advisory. Then, in December of 2007, the Court effectively eliminated the mandatory guideline sentencing entirely in Gall v. United States. Although the Gall decision impacts all sentencing within the federal court system, a significant group of criminal defendants that one should expect to be impacted are high-ranking corporate officers convicted of financial crimes. Theoretically, those defendants should now expect to receive lighter sentences, in part because of the subjective factors available to district court judges during sentencing which were expressly rejected by appellate courts prior to Gall. Additionally, because judges often articulate the view that white-collar crime lacks violence and identifiable victims — a belief that tends to obscure the severity of the harm caused by white-collar crimes — their personal views often influence white-collar defendants‘ sentences. Although one of the motivating factors behind Congress‘s passage of the Guidelines was the relatively light sentences given to white-collar criminals, recent trends demonstrate that judges have increasingly imposed more lenient sentences upon white-collar defendants since the Booker decision, a trend which Gall could help accelerate. This note will theoretically analyze why one should expect lighter sentences for defendants convicted of financial crimes, and it will test that theory by examining sentences imposed on Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from 1998 to 2007.