449 research outputs found
Time after Time: Narratives of the Longue Durée in the Anthropocene
This article suggests that new potential areas of collaboration between historians and literary scholars have emerged around a nascent but galloping interest in two fields of scholarship, the Anthropocene and the longue durĂ©e. Building on the tradition of the Annales school, and in particular the contributions of Fernand Braudel, this article argues that while there is a growing consensus about the necessity of trans-national and trans-temporal history, the critical implications of this enterprise for thinking historical and literary narrative have remained highly unsatisfying. Any return to the longue durĂ©e necessitates a deep reconsideration of the social scientific foundations of the longue durĂ©e in its previous manifestations, especially its conception of the nature-culture relationship, and an acknowledgement of the limitations of these earlier formulations for thinking about longer time scales and beyond national boundaries today. Following recent work in anthropology that has attempted to break down the nature-culture barrier, this article suggests that the Anthropocene has generated a new arrangement of temporal scales and therefore a poignant rearticulation of the long and short durĂ©e as well as the agency that drives action within these two realms.Cet article sâintĂ©resse Ă de nouveaux domaines de collaboration potentielle entre historiens et spĂ©cialistes de la littĂ©rature autour dâun intĂ©rĂȘt naissant mais pregnant pour lâanthropocĂšne et la longue durĂ©e. Prenant pour point de dĂ©part la tradition de lâĂ©cole des Annales, en particulier les contributions de Fernand Braudel, cet article entend montrer que bien que se dĂ©gage un consensus sur la nĂ©cessitĂ© de lâhistoire trans-nationale et trans-temporelle, nous ne mesurons que trĂšs partiellement les enjeux critiques de cette entreprise et son impact sur la possibilitĂ© mĂȘme du rĂ©cit historique et littĂ©raire. Tout retour Ă la longue durĂ©e nĂ©cessite en effet de reconsidĂ©rer les fondements de ce concept dans les sciences sociales, en particulier la conception de la relation nature-culture qui en dĂ©coule, et de reconnaĂźtre les limites de ces formulations antĂ©rieures, notamment les difficultĂ©s Ă penser des Ă©chelles de temps plus longues et supra-nationales. Suite Ă de rĂ©cents travaux en anthropologie qui ont tentĂ© de briser la frontiĂšre entre nature et culture, cet article suggĂšre que lâanthropocĂšne entraĂźne un nouvel agencement des Ă©chelles temporelles et donc une rĂ©articulation radicale de la longue et de la courte durĂ©e
Epilogue: The Need for a New and Critical Democracy
Democratic critiques of neoliberalism have been comparatively rare, and positive democratic rejoinders to the social and political ruins of neoliberalism have been rarer. The question thus presents itself â what would an overtly democratic critique of neoliberalism look like and, beyond critique, what would a constructive democratic response to neoliberalism entail
Of Rights and Regulation
This chapter explores the development of social provisioning as a matter not of right but of democratic administration in France and the United States in the nineteenth century. The authors take issue with conventional chronologies of rights development, which see civil and political rights being developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with social rights appearing in the twentieth. Such categories and sequencing obscure the ways in which democratic administrations took the problem of social provisioning seriously. A history of socio-economic rights cannot be distinguished from the less formal technologies of socio-economic regulation that were an integral part of the democratic question across the nineteenth century, and, in particular, the modernisation of regulatory governance. The democratisation of administrative powers precluded any sharp distinction among the political, the social and the economic. For better and for worse, this process took place through the building, rescaling and redefining of older, pre-democratic technologies of governance in response to what were perceived as pressing public problems
Time after Time: Narratives of the Longue Durée in the Anthropocene
This article suggests that new potential areas of collaboration between historians and literary scholars have emerged around a nascent but galloping interest in two fields of scholarship, the Anthropocene and the longue durĂ©e. Building on the tradition of the Annales school, and in particular the contributions of Fernand Braudel, this article argues that while there is a growing consensus about the necessity of trans-national and trans-temporal history, the critical implications of this enterprise for thinking historical and literary narrative have remained highly unsatisfying. Any return to the longue durĂ©e necessitates a deep reconsideration of the social scientific foundations of the longue durĂ©e in its previous manifestations, especially its conception of the nature-culture relationship, and an acknowledgement of the limitations of these earlier formulations for thinking about longer time scales and beyond national boundaries today. Following recent work in anthropology that has attempted to break down the nature-culture barrier, this article suggests that the Anthropocene has generated a new arrangement of temporal scales and therefore a poignant rearticulation of the long and short durĂ©e as well as the agency that drives action within these two realms.Cet article sâintĂ©resse Ă de nouveaux domaines de collaboration potentielle entre historiens et spĂ©cialistes de la littĂ©rature autour dâun intĂ©rĂȘt naissant mais pregnant pour lâanthropocĂšne et la longue durĂ©e. Prenant pour point de dĂ©part la tradition de lâĂ©cole des Annales, en particulier les contributions de Fernand Braudel, cet article entend montrer que bien que se dĂ©gage un consensus sur la nĂ©cessitĂ© de lâhistoire trans-nationale et trans-temporelle, nous ne mesurons que trĂšs partiellement les enjeux critiques de cette entreprise et son impact sur la possibilitĂ© mĂȘme du rĂ©cit historique et littĂ©raire. Tout retour Ă la longue durĂ©e nĂ©cessite en effet de reconsidĂ©rer les fondements de ce concept dans les sciences sociales, en particulier la conception de la relation nature-culture qui en dĂ©coule, et de reconnaĂźtre les limites de ces formulations antĂ©rieures, notamment les difficultĂ©s Ă penser des Ă©chelles de temps plus longues et supra-nationales. Suite Ă de rĂ©cents travaux en anthropologie qui ont tentĂ© de briser la frontiĂšre entre nature et culture, cet article suggĂšre que lâanthropocĂšne entraĂźne un nouvel agencement des Ă©chelles temporelles et donc une rĂ©articulation radicale de la longue et de la courte durĂ©e
Beyond Stateless Democracy
Pierre Bourdieu began his posthumously published lectures âOn the Stateâ by highlighting the three dominant traditions that have framed most thinking about the state in Western social science and modern social theory. On the one hand, he highlighted what he termed the âinitial definitionâ of the state as a âneutral siteâ designed to regulate conflict and âserve the common good.â Bourdieu traced this essentially classical liberal conception of the state back to the pioneering political treatises of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.1 In direct response to this âoptimistic functionalism,â Bourdieu noted the rise of a critical and more âpessimisticâ alternativeâsomething of a diametric opposite
Social Freedom, Democracy and the Political: Three Reflections on Axel Honneth\u27s Idea of Socialism
Axel Honnethâs Idea of Socialism is an important clarion call for an urgent rethinking of the possibilities of a socialism for the twenty-first century. One of the most surprising and satisfying aspects of Axel Honnethâs timely new book is its recovery of the continued vitality of John Deweyâs pragmatic democratic philosophy. These reflections on Honnethâs use of John Dewey for democratizing social freedom, take stock of and explore the political limits of Honnethâs social reconstruction
Toward a History of the Democratic State
Over the past generation, the history of the state has been experiencing a much-noted renaissance, especially in France and the United States. In the United States as late as 1986, Morton Keller complained to William Leuchtenburg in the Journal of American History: âTo say that âthere is much still to be learned about the nature of the State in Americaâ is ⊠a major understatement. There is close to everything to be learned about the State.â In France as late as 1990, Pierre Rosanvallonâs powerful introduction to LâĂtat en France suggested that an ambitious history of the state could not yet be written because of the lack of works focused specifically on the state. As he put it, âLâĂtat comme problĂšme politique, ou comme phĂ©nomĂšne bureaucratique, est au coeur des passions partisanes et des dĂ©bats philosophiques tout en restant une sorte de non-objet historique.â As the essays in this volume attest, much has changed in the historiography of the American and French states in the intervening 25 years. The state has indeed been brought âback inâ in Theda Skocpolâs influential words. In fact, the return of the state in history, theory, and the social sciences in both France and the United States has been so strong and successful, that the subject of âthe state/lâĂtatâ has again itself become an intellectual crossroadsâand a contested terrainâfor new important debates and controversies concerning the French and American past more generally
Democratic States of Unexception: Towards a New Genealogy of the American Political
This chapter takes issue with the history and theory of exception along these three lines. The first section offers a critique of the idea of law at the heart of the theory of exception. By taking a closer look at the history and theory of law in early nineteenth-century America, it offers an alternative reading of the role of exception in Emersonâs America â a place and time in which the exception in law was anything but exceptional. The second section offers a critique of the idea of state and sovereignty at the heart of the theory of exception in the early twentieth century. In place of Schmittâs concept of the political, it offers a reconsideration of John Deweyâs more democratic conception of âthe publicâ and its problems, where again the exception is an unexceptional part of an everyday and agonistic democratic politics. The third section moves us further into the twentieth century, challenging the suzerainty of both liberal and neoliberal characterizations of exception and totalitarianism in that ideologically charged period. Here, Charles Merriamâs ideas about new democracy and new despotism provide an alternative reference point for thinking about the exception, its antidemocratic dangers, and its democratic possibilities.
In the context of a revitalized theory of the nature of power in democratic states, the exception does not appear so exceptional. Indeed, when viewed from the perspective of democratic state history, the exception may be one of the most common ways that democratic states exercise power every day. Evaluating the state of exception from the critical perspective of the modern democratic state exposes the limits of the notions of formal law, bureaucratic statecraft, and liberal politics that so frequently preoccupy discussions of exception and emergency governance. Those rather profound limitations suggest the need for an alternative genealogy of the political. In the theories of law, state, and politics in the writings of Emerson, Dewey, and Merriam, this essay proposes a tentative new genealogy of the modern American political â where democracy is not a problem but a solution and where the exception is not exceptional but one of the most quotidian ways of exercising power in agonistic modes of self-government
Oxygen Cost of Performing Selected Adult and Child Care Activities
International Journal of Exercise Science 6(1) : 11-19, 2013. Little is known about the oxygen cost of caring for infants and older adults. Many people perform these activities so it is useful to know the energy cost and if the activities are of sufficient intensity to contribute to meeting physical activity recommendations. The purpose of this study was to assess the oxygen cost of four care-related activities in the Compendium of Physical Activities. Nineteen participants (n = 10 women, n = 9 men; Age = 36.4 ± 13.6 y; % Fat = 34.1 ± 10.5; BMI = 28.1 ± 4.5 kg/m2) performed four activities: 1) pushing an infant in a stroller, 2) pushing an adult in a wheelchair, 3) carrying an infant, and 4) bathing and dressing an infant. The oxygen cost was assessed using a portable metabolic unit. Activities were performed in random order for 8 minutes. The oxygen cost and heart rates, respectively, for healthy adults during care related activities were 3.09 METs and 90 ± 8 beats per minute (bpm) for pushing an infant in a stroller, 3.69 METs and 97 ± 9 bpm for pushing an adult in a wheelchair, 2.37 METs and 85 ± 9 bpm for carrying an infant, and 2.00 METs and 87 ± 9 bpm for bathing and dressing an infant. Carrying an infant and bathing an infant are light-intensity physical activities and pushing a wheelchair or a stroller are moderate intensity activities. The latter activities are of sufficient intensity to meet health-related physical activity recommendations
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