Sisters Crossing Boundaries: German Missionary Nuns in Colonial Togo and New Guinea, 1897-1960

The last third of the 19th century witnessed a considerable increase in the active participation of women in the various Christian missions. The author focusses onthe Catholic case, and particularly explores the activities and experiences of German missionary nuns, the so-called Servants of the Holy Spirit,in colonial Togo and New Guinea in the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. Introducing the nuns' ambiguous roles as travelers, evangelists, believers, domestic workers, farmers, teachers, and nurses, the author highlights the ways in which these women shaped and were shaped by the missionary encounter and how they affected colonial societies more generally. Privileging the sources produced by nuns (i.e. letters, chronicles and reports) and emphasizing their activities, Sisters Crossing Boundaries profoundly challenges the frequent depiction of women and particularly nuns as the largely passive observers of the missionizing and colonizing activities of men. The author does not stop at adding women to the existing historical narrative of mission in Togo and New Guinea, but presents the hopes and strategies that German nuns related to the imagination and practice of empire. She also discusses the effects of boundary-crossing, both real and imagined, in the context of religion, gender and race

1981 Hay Day report : Forage Systems Research Center, Linneus, Mo.

Includes reprints of articles from "UMC science and technology guide", "Making and storing quality hay" and "Large round balers.

The Uses of Ambiguity : Representing the "People" and the Stability of States Unions

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The Rule of Law is Dead! Long Live the Rule of Law!

Polls show that a significant proportion of the public considers judges to be political. This result holds whether Americans are asked about Supreme Court justices, federal judges, state judges, or judges in general. At the same time, a large majority of the public also believes that judges are fair and impartial arbiters, and this belief also applies across the board. In this paper, I consider what this half-law-half-politics understanding of the courts means for judicial legitimacy and the public confidence on which that legitimacy rests. Drawing on the Legal Realists, and particularly on the work of Thurman Arnold, I argue against the notion that the contradictory views must be resolved in order for judicial legitimacy to remain intact. A rule of law built on contending legal and political beliefs is not necessarily fair or just. But it can be stable. At least in the context of law and courts, a house divided may stand

In Search of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of An American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993.

“In Search of Veritas: Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy Theories and the Emergence of an American Culture of Suspicion, 1963-1993” argues that the evolving theories and concepts contained in the literature and media surrounding the Kennedy assassination demonstrate the deteriorating trust in American government institutions that resulted from the political and social climate of the 1960s through the 1980s. The assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, marked a pivotal and horrific point in American history. The shocking murder and unanswered questions that surrounded the young president’s death traumatized the nation, leaving a psychological wound that persists decades after the event. Utilizing both primary and secondary sources, including assassination literature, public opinion polls, and scholarly articles, the work contends that acceptance of Kennedy assassination theories represented a broader symptom of distrust in public government and reflected how Americans felt of their own history and national trajectory in the latter part of the twentieth century. From substantial to absurd, the theories around President Kennedy’s shocking death reflect a pursuit for personal meaning; one designed to provide a sense of closure to the American public in the wake of the public tragedies and political turmoil in the three decades after the assassination