Dust in Supernovae and Supernova Remnants II: Processing and survival

Observations have recently shown that supernovae are efficient dust factories, as predicted for a long time by theoretical models. The rapid evolution of their stellar progenitors combined with their efficiency in precipitating refractory elements from the gas phase into dust grains make supernovae the major potential suppliers of dust in the early Universe, where more conventional sources like Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars did not have time to evolve. However, dust yields inferred from observations of young supernovae or derived from models do not reflect the net amount of supernova-condensed dust able to be expelled from the remnants and reach the interstellar medium. The cavity where the dust is formed and initially resides is crossed by the high velocity reverse shock which is generated by the pressure of the circumstellar material shocked by the expanding supernova blast wave. Depending on grain composition and initial size, processing by the reverse shock may lead to substantial dust erosion and even complete destruction. The goal of this review is to present the state of the art about processing and survival of dust inside supernova remnants, in terms of theoretical modelling and comparison to observations

School-to-work transition services: marginalising ‘disposable’ youth in a state of exception?

Disadvantaged young people often inhabit a dangerous space: excluded from education, training and employment markets; constructed as disposable; and cast out as ‘human waste’ (Bauman, 2004). There are many macro-level analyses of this catastrophic trend, but this article provides insights into some of the everyday educational micro-practices which contribute to such marginalisation. It presents findings from a study of a national school-to-work transition service in England, in a context not only of neo-liberal policies but also of severe austerity measures. The data reveal processes of triage, surveillance and control – driven by governmental and institutional targets – which denied many young people access to the service, including some of the most vulnerable. Beneath a rhetoric of social inclusion, the service in fact acted as a conduit into a dangerous space of exclusion. Drawing on the work of Butler and of Agamben, the article argues innovatively that such practices may represent an encroaching state of exception, in which more or less subtle forms of governmentality are gradually being supplanted by the more overt exercise of sovereign power

Violence and the end of revolution after 1989

The series of Velvet revolutions in 1989, which brought about the collapse of communism in Europe, seem to have vindicated those political theorists and activists who believed in the possibility of non-violent power. The relative success of the 1989 revolutions has validated a new paradigm of revolutionary change based on the assumption that radical changes were attainable through moderate means. Yet the legacy of these non-violent revolutions also points towards the limits of political strategies fundamentally opposed to violence. The article shows that the key architects of non-violent revolutions in 1989 were well aware of the contingent nature of all political actions, and were thus willing to take risks in their pursuit of freedom.link_to_subscribed_fulltex

Revolution and Diavolution: What is the Difference?

Whereas revolution has been often viewed as contrary to organization, it in fact requires the overcoming of a present organization in the promise of achieving another superior organization. The revolutionaries of every age have always harboured a dream of organization. In an attempt to achieve better understanding of the relationship between organization and revolution, the article conducts a theoretical, rather than historical, reflection on the interplay among three concepts: organization, revolution, and diavolution. By exploring the modernist conception of revolution and its religious substratum, the idea is advanced that the relationship can be framed as follows: organization is the katéchon of revolution, whereas revolution is the éschaton of organization. The last part of the article introduces and discusses the concept of diavolution as an attempt to overcome the dichotomy between the subjectivist and the structuralist view both at the theoretical and the practical level. Diavolution is a style of inhabiting organizations that differs from the revolutionary one; a style of resistance that, although much more elusive and difficult to capture, may prove to be at the same time more human