Teach phenomenology the bomb: Starship Troopers, the technologized body, and humanitarian warfare

Paul Verhoeven's SF films are often concerned with how the future body will be reshaped as a technological device. Starship Troopers strangely departs from Verhoeven's own work, other SF films, and current directions in cultural theory by seeing the future body as one that is more organic than mechanical. Drawing upon and challenging ideas developed by Paul Virilio, this article argues that Starship Troopers' departure from the notion of the 'post-human' mechanized body needs to be understood not as a nostalgic reassertion of de-technologized subjectivity. Rather, Verhoeven's film sees the idea of the pure body as a dangerous anachronism. And, this article further argues, Starship Troopers suggests that narratives of human salvation - such as those that arose during Nato's interventions in the Balkans - often conceal an appetite for territorial conquest

Interactivity within IMS Learning Design and Question and Test Interoperability

We examine the integration of IMS Question and Test Interoperability (QTI) and IMS Learning Design (LD) in implementations of E-learning from both pedagogical and technological points of view. We propose the use of interactivity as a parameter to evaluate the quality of assessment and E-learning, and assess various cases of individual and group study for their interactivity, ease of coding, flexibility, and reusability. We conclude that presenting assessments using IMS QTI provides flexibility and reusability within an IMS LD Unit Of Learning (UOL) for individual study. For group study, however, the use of QTI items may involve coding difficulties if group members need to wait for their feedback until all students have attempted a question, and QTI items may not be able to be used at all if the QTI services are implemented within a service-oriented architecture

One World, Two Worlds or Three? Reflections on the New International Economic Order

Hugh Patrick is R.D. Calkins Professor of International Business and Director of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business at the Graduate School of Business, Columbia University. This paper originated as a lecture given at the Asia Society in Hong Kong, January 16,1992

Experiencing the March 11, 2011 Earthquake

This report serves three purposes: to record my observations and impressions from being in Tokyo before and after the March 11 earthquake; to summarize trips to Kobe and across Honshu to the Japan Sea coastal area; and to provide some thoughts as further information became available during April. Japan now faces its worst crisis since World War II. The earthquake quickly became a triple disaster. The immense tsunami generated by the earthquake hit the Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima prefecture coastlines with great devastation and loss of more than 22,000 lives. The tsunami also crippled the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, creating potential radiation threats and global repercussions for energy policy. Many of the effects of the triple disaster are long-lasting, and the flow of new, important information requires a continual revision of our understanding. This is particularly true regarding the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant and electricity shortages, as well as development of energy policy. Accordingly, early May is my cut-off date for new information

Japanese high technology industrial policy in comparative context

Perceptions of Japanese industrial policy have entered the American debate on economic policy in two major ways: as a possible model to emulate in developing a United States industrial policy; and as a shaper of Japanese industrial structure and comparative advantage, especially vis à vis major American industries. The main purpose of this chapter is to provide a general assessment of Japanese industrial policy -- its successes and its failures -- because that is an obvious requisite for those attempting to derive possible lessons and implications for United States policy

Japan: Another economic recovery, new political terrain

This paper reviews Japan's recent economic performance through the first half of 2005, as well as the economic implications of Koizumi's snap election. After a disappointing final 3 quarters in 2004, first quarter growth in 2005 was a strong 5.8 percent annual rate, followed by a reassuring second quarter at 3.3 percent annual rate. Slow gradual improvements across the economy can be expected to continue, but achieving sustained full employment economic growth depends on whether growth rates over the next five years are closer to 3 percent or 1 percent. The most significant improvement over the past year has been in the labor market. Unemployment dropped to 4.4 percent in July, from its 5.5 percent January 2003 peak, while total employment and employee compensation figures are on the rise. The systemic problem of bank excessive nonperforming loans has been solved. Corporate restructuring proceeds, albeit in the light of new worries over hostile takeover bids. Despite improvement in virtually all Japan's economic indicators, most of the major concerns fundamentally persist. Aggregate demand remains inadequate; both deflation and labor market slack continue; household income growth is modest; capital is misallocated; and business borrowing continues to decrease. Koizumi's potent political victory will ensure the necessary postal privatization, although the details of implementation remain unclear. He has yet to define how he will use his public mandate to make other economic reforms, but general optimism prevails. The most difficult fiscal challenge will be to successfully navigate tax increases without inhibiting economic growth. The Bank of Japan faces two challenges: reducing the quantitative target, and proceeding to exit the current ZIRP monetary policy. Internationally, Japan must forge productive political relationships with its regional economic partners, specifically China, and continue to work towards greater East Asian economic corporation

Crumbling or transforming? Japan's economic success and its postwar economic institutions

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the evolutionary change of three of the major postwar economic institutions: the large firm industrial relations system; the main bank system of large firm corporate finance; and the keiretsu systems of various forms of business ties among groups of firms. In following sections I consider the conditions and circumstances that resulted in the development and flourishing of these institutions; the subsequent developments of the economy that have made these institutions less effective and in some respects now clearly inefficient; how these institutions have responded; and, in a brief conclusion, speculate how they are likely to evolve