Ideological State Apparatuses, Consumerism, and U.S. Capitalism: Lessons for the Left

Althusser's pioneering concept of "ideological state apparatuses" is extended to the unique role of consumerism as a particular ideology enabling and supporting U.S. capitalism. It is argued that rising levels of worker consumption have functioned effectively to compensate workers for (and thereby allow) rising rates of exploitation and their negative social effects. For such compensation to succeed requires that workers embrace an ideology stressing the importance of consumption, namely consumerism. It is argued that the weakness of the US left (in labor unions, parties, and movements) stems in part from having endorsed this consumerism rather than undermining it within the framework of an anti-capitalist politics.Exploitation, Consumerism, Ideology, Althusser

Robust Control of Uncertain Markov Decision Processes with Temporal Logic Specifications

We present a method for designing robust controllers for dynamical systems with linear temporal logic specifications. We abstract the original system by a finite Markov Decision Process (MDP) that has transition probabilities in a specified uncertainty set. A robust control policy for the MDP is generated that maximizes the worst-case probability of satisfying the specification over all transition probabilities in the uncertainty set. To do this, we use a procedure from probabilistic model checking to combine the system model with an automaton representing the specification. This new MDP is then transformed into an equivalent form that satisfies assumptions for stochastic shortest path dynamic programming. A robust version of dynamic programming allows us to solve for a $\epsilon$-suboptimal robust control policy with time complexity $O(\log 1/\epsilon)$ times that for the non-robust case. We then implement this control policy on the original dynamical system

An Evil Threat to Marriage, Children and the Future: Queer Theory, The Passion of the Christ, and Evangelical Political Rhetoric

This article employs queer theory to analyze Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ (2004) for its portrayal of queer characters (Satan and Herod) in contrast with non-queer (Pilate and Claudia, Seraphia, Simon the Cyrene, and Mary, Christ’s mother), and how it depicts the former as evil and the latter as good. In particular, these contrasts involve self-indulgent or predatory sexual expression versus a healthy marital relationship, and evil versus loving influences over children, who represent hope for the future. Finally, the article looks at the film’s heavy marketing to American evangelicals and how the symbolic representations in the film relate to evangelical politics and rhetoric concerning contemporaneous queer issues – gay marriage debates in particular

The contributions of the book of Job to persons suffering

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Factors affecting the rate of cooling in immersion hypothermia

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1949. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Linkages and Leakages: Industrial Tracking in an Enclave Economy

The study of export-led industrialization in an enclave economy comes at the juncture of two chains of long-standing controversies concerning developing areas. The first controversy grows out of observed difficulties of poor countries to industrialize from a current comparative advantage in primary commodities, despite buoyant earnings of foreign exchange. The second controversy turns inward, and looking away from trade policy, seeks the key to industrial development in greater interaction between domestically-oriented sectors, not in greater export earnings