Russia in a Western Mirror. A Presentation of Denis Diderot, Mme de Stael and Andre Gide

Abstract is not availabl

Many Labs 2: Investigating Variation in Replicability Across Samples and Settings

We conducted preregistered replications of 28 classic and contemporary published findings, with protocols that were peer reviewed in advance, to examine variation in effect magnitudes across samples and settings. Each protocol was administered to approximately half of 125 samples that comprised 15,305 participants from 36 countries and territories. Using the conventional criterion of statistical significance (p < .05), we found that 15 (54%) of the replications provided evidence of a statistically significant effect in the same direction as the original finding. With a strict significance criterion (p < .0001), 14 (50%) of the replications still provided such evidence, a reflection of the extremely highpowered design. Seven (25%) of the replications yielded effect sizes larger than the original ones, and 21 (75%) yielded effect sizes smaller than the original ones. The median comparable Cohen’s ds were 0.60 for the original findings and 0.15 for the replications. The effect sizes were small (< 0.20) in 16 of the replications (57%), and 9 effects (32%) were in the direction opposite the direction of the original effect. Across settings, the Q statistic indicated significant heterogeneity in 11 (39%) of the replication effects, and most of those were among the findings with the largest overall effect sizes; only 1 effect that was near zero in the aggregate showed significant heterogeneity according to this measure. Only 1 effect had a tau value greater than .20, an indication of moderate heterogeneity. Eight others had tau values near or slightly above .10, an indication of slight heterogeneity. Moderation tests indicated that very little heterogeneity was attributable to the order in which the tasks were performed or whether the tasks were administered in lab versus online. Exploratory comparisons revealed little heterogeneity between Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) cultures and less WEIRD cultures (i.e., cultures with relatively high and low WEIRDness scores, respectively). Cumulatively, variability in the observed effect sizes was attributable more to the effect being studied than to the sample or setting in which it was studied.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Instituto de Investigaciones Psicológicas (IIP

The Human Being as a Creator of (in) Human Life : The Example of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus

Humans have an inquiring mind. Throughout history, one may find documentation that shows on human curiosity, and our drive to stretch boundaries to satisfy it. Thus, this is not something that characterizes our time in any particular way. Sources, for instance, from the 13th century can serve as good examples that support such an assumption. Mary Shelley’s novel from the 19th century, “Frankenstein; or, the modern Prometheus,” might perhaps be the most known commentary to that boundary stretching, which continues in a slightly new form in the ongoing debate and the popular culture within the scientific community. Shelley’s narrative about the scientist Frankenstein and his Creature has continued to interest the audience. Through adaptations to film, the story has reached many new generations of cinema goers. However, new interpretations have altered some aspects the original message. Shelley’s conception of the monstrous was more complex than today when parts of the narrative have been downplayed and others have been upscaled

Signs, Senses and Cognition: Lady Welby and Contemporary Semiotics

Susan Petrilli discusses Victoria Welby (1837–1912) and the Signific movement in her book Signifying and Understanding. The disposition of the book is chronological and thematic, and Petrilli’s discussion connects Welby’s work with contemporary semiotics, as well as with the intellectual and scientific landscape of Welby’s own time. For instance, a selection of Welby’s vast correspondence with intellectuals, researchers and philosophers important to linguistics, semiotics, psychology and anthropology, to mention a few of her interests mirrored in the exchange of letters, is included in the book. The review aims at further connecting Welby’s work to semiotic research of the day, where phenomenological and modern cognitive influences are important

Germaine de Staël and the narrative(s) of her alter-ego Corinne : The example of Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s portrait

The Swiss/French writer and political thinker Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) was the daughter of Mme and M. Necker. Her father had been Minister of finance before the revolution and her mother used to host of one most important salons in Paris. Mme de Staël, as she was called after the marriage in 1786 with the Swedish ambassador to France, Carl-Magnus de Staël von Holstein, was thus born into one of the most illustrious circles of Parisian cultural and political elite. Germaine’s political ideas and background made her a target for Napoleon’s animosity. This resentment between the two affected her self-perception, which was based on her idea of representing the French culture, or even the genius of it. However, that self-image might have been a ‘mask’ hiding de Staël’s true longings, to be loved as a person and woman, at the time incompatible with being a ‘genius’, a concept reserved for men.Germaine never stopped struggling for merging the two poles of her personality, the creation of an alter-ego, the ‘genius’ Corinne, might have been an attempt to solve this issue. In 1807 Germaine de Staël published a novel with the titleCorinne, or Italy. Her possible attempt to solve an inner conflict is a question that this chapter addresses, by analysing Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun’s (1755–1842) portrait Portait of Mme de Staël as Corinne on Cap Misenum (1808–1809). In the portrait two narratives seem to meet and compete about what it is to be a woman, and to be a genius

Mme de Staël’s självbiografisk reseskildring från Tyskland: En ‘jagets’ genre?

Kultursemiotiken per se analyserar mötet mellan kulturer. Begrepp som ego-kultur, extrakultur och icke-kultur är centrala i undersökningar som syftar till att blottlägga den självbild en kultur gör av sig själv i mötet med en annan. Dessa begrepp har paralleller på individnivå med de personliga pronomina i språket. I den uppsats jag ämnar presentera kommer jag därför att koncentrera mig på en diskussion inom ramen för kultursemiotiken om ”jagets” tillblivelse, genom ett intersektionellt prisma bestående av främst religion, nationalitet och kön, i relation till en pilotstudie av Mme de Staëls självbiografiska reseskildring från Tyskland, där hon vistades ett par månader mellan 1803 och 1804. Frågor som berörs är: Skiftar Mme de Staëls självförståelse som kvinna, protestant och intellektuell i de olika sammanträffanden hon gör i Tyskland? Hur uppfattar hon sin egen komplicerade nationella tillhörighet i dessa möten? Mme de Staëls komplexa bakgrund gör hennes självbiografiska reseskildring särskilt intressant för en kultursemiotisk analys, som syftar till att förklara hennes mångskiftande självrepresentation