From Sphere to Boundary: Sexual Harassment, Identity, and the Shift in Privacy

The public/private dichotomy has long been a dominant theme in the narrative of Western legal culture. As a descriptive account of society, this theme appears in three versions: state/civil society, state/market, and society/household. As a normative interpretation of the meaning of a bifurcated society, the public/private theme relies on notions of access/nonaccess, freedom/coercion, and interference/non-interference. The plausibility of both the descriptive and the normative conceptions of the public/private divide has traditionally rested on an opposition between sameness and difference. The public is construed as a realm of similarity: public ideals of equality, universality, and civic action are premised on the notion that citizens qua citizens are all the same. To guarantee the freedom of each as a citizen, to ensure citizens\u27 access to the means and channels of public democratic participation, government interference and regulation is deemed just and necessary. The private sphere has been understood as one of particularity. Just as the household is the terrain of feminine specificity, so is the market configured as a space of individuality, an arena for conflict and struggle among agents oriented toward their own particular goods. In the private realm, moreover, dominance is admissible, whether configured as natural, chosen, or one of the risks of freedom. Attempts to regulate this dominance are often construed as interfering with the free and natural interactions of particular persons in their private lives

Politics without Politics

Prof.dr. Jodi Dean, hoogleraar politieke filosofie aan Hobart and William Smith Colleges (Geneva, New York), sprak donderdag 19 februari 2009 haar inaugurele rede uit, getiteld "Politics without politics". Dean is dit jaar Erasmus Professor op de Erasmus Chair of Humanities in de Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte. De Erasmus Wisselleerstoel is ingesteld door de G. Ph. Verhagen Stichting. V In haar oratie gaat Dean in op het thema democratie in relatie tot linkse politiek. Enkele politieke wetenschappers stellen dat dit geen positieve relatie kan zijn, omdat linkse politieke aspiraties de droom hebben van ‘politics without politics’ en dus geen elke vorm van politiek willen. Dean stelt, in lijn met de democratisch theoreticus Jacques Ranciere, dat deze droom niet minder politiek inhoudt, maar juist meer democratie. Dean deelt deze utopie niet, en om dit de onderbouwen benadert Dean de democratische droom als een overblijfsel van de vorige eeuwen, niet als iets waar naar moeten streven. Hierop, en op verscheidene andere punten analyseert zij de theorieën van Ranciere kritisch. Dean is als weinig anderen in staat een filosofie van de hedendaagse populaire cultuur systematisch te verbinden aan meer gevestigde tradities in het sociale, politieke en culturele denken. Niet alleen met die van de Kritische Theorie met uitlopers naar de actuele politieke theorie – voornamelijk Slavoj Zikeks theoretische raamwerk – maar ook met het Franse differentiedenken dat in het curriculum van de Faculteit der Wijsbegeerte prominent aanwezig is. Daarbij profileert zij zich vooral in de nieuwe media in debatten over burgerschap, openbaarheid, democratie en globalisering. Tijdens deze colleges behandelt Jodi Dean haar boek over Slavoj Zizek en hoofdstukken uit haar nieuwe boek

Anti-communism is All Around Us

Prezentowany esej przedstawia cztery tezy na temat współczesnego antykomunizmu: 1) antykomunizm jest powszechny i międzynarodowy; 2) antykomunizm to narzędzie ideologii kapitalistycznej; 3) antykomunizm to polityka strachu; 4) antykomunizm to pokusa, którą powinni odrzucić komuniści. Proponuje też nową ramę teoretyczną umożliwiającą zrozumienie i kwestionowanie różnorodnych manifestacji antykomunizmu.The essay discusses four theses on contemporary anti-communism: 1) anti-communism is general and international; 2) anti-communism is an operator within capitalist ideology; 3) anti-communism is a politics of fear; 4) anti-communism is a lure that communists should reject. It proposes new theoretical framework to understand and contest many-faced manifestations of anti-communism

Brand value: how affective labour helps create brands

One way brands create value is by engaging the capacity of cultural labourers to animate affective connections with consumers. Brands assemble social spaces that harness the communicative capacities of cultural actors. A mode of branding that works by managing an open-ended social process depends on affective labour. Affective labour involves not only the capacity of individuals to produce specific meanings and feelings, but also the open-endedly social capacity to stimulate and channel attention and recognition. This affective labour does not always depend on making particular "authentic" representations, but on facilitating a general circulation of meaning. By investing in social spaces and relations corporate brands engage popular musicians in new forms of labour. This article examines the participation of popular musicians in branding programmes run in Australia by corporate brands between 2005 and 2010. I examine the accounts of musicians and managers who participate in these programmes to consider how they make their participation in social relations that create brand value meaningful. They employ a variety of practices: identifying with brands, endorsing brands' claims of socially responsible investment in culture, and distancing themselves from their own participation in branded space

Watching nightlife: affective labor, social media and surveillance

This article examines the affective labor of nightlife photographers within the surveillance economy of social media. I examine nightlife photographers as “below the line” cultural laborers who employ their identities and communicative capacities to create and circulate images of nightlife online. These images stimulate interaction that can be watched, tracked, and responded to by the databases of social media. The study draws on interviews with nightlife photographers to examine how they account for the creative and promotional aspects of their labor. I argue that the analytical capacities of social media databases, and the modes of promotion they facilitate, depend in the first instance on the affective labor of cultural intermediaries like nightlife photographers

Exploring the Political-Economic Factors of Participatory Journalism: Views of Online Journalists in 10 Countries

This comparative study of user-generated content (UGC) in 10 Western democracies examines the political economic aspects of citizen participation in online media, as assessed by journalists who work with this content. Drawing on interviews with more than 60 journalists, we explore their perceived economic motivations for an ongoing redefinition of traditional journalistic roles, as UGC becomes an increasingly dominant feature of news websites

Erratum to: CASPER plus (CollAborative care in screen-positive EldeRs with major depressive disorder): study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Published onlinePUBLISHED ERRATUMThe original article is available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/18985.n/

Identifying perinatal depression with case-finding instruments : a mixed-methods study (BaBY PaNDA – Born and Bred in Yorkshire PeriNatal Depression Diagnostic Accuracy)

Background: Perinatal depression is well recognised as a mental health condition but < 50% of cases are identified in routine practice. A case-finding strategy using the Whooley questions is currently recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Objectives: To determine the diagnostic accuracy, acceptability and cost-effectiveness of the Whooley questions and the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) to identify perinatal depression. Design: A prospective diagnostic accuracy cohort study, with concurrent qualitative and economic evaluations. Setting: Maternity services in England. Participants: A total of 391 pregnant women. Main outcome measures: Women completed the Whooley questions, EPDS and a diagnostic reference standard (Clinical Interview Schedule – Revised) during pregnancy (20 weeks) and postnatally (3–4 months). Qualitative interviews were conducted with health professionals (HPs) and a subsample of women. Results: Diagnostic accuracy results: depression prevalence rates were 10.3% during pregnancy and 10.5% postnatally. The Whooley questions and EPDS (cut-off point of ≥ 10) performed reasonably well, with comparable sensitivity [pregnancy: Whooley questions 85.0%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 70.2% to 94.3%; EPDS 82.5%, 95% CI 67.2% to 92.7%; postnatally: Whooley questions 85.7%, 95% CI 69.7% to 95.2%; EPDS 82.9%, 95% CI 66.4% to 93.4%] and specificity (pregnancy: Whooley questions 83.7%, 95% CI 79.4% to 87.4%; EPDS 86.6%, 95% CI 82.5% to 90.0%; postnatally: Whooley questions 80.6%, 95% CI 75.7% to 84.9%; EPDS 87.6%, 95% CI 83.3% to 91.1%). Diagnostic accuracy of the EPDS (cut-off point of ≥ 13) was poor at both time points (pregnancy: sensitivity 45%, 95% CI 29.3% to 61.5%, and specificity 95.7%, 95% CI 93.0% to 97.6%; postnatally: sensitivity 62.9%, 95% CI 44.9% to 78.5%, and specificity 95.7%, 95% CI 92.7% to 97.7%). Qualitative evaluation: women and HPs were supportive of screening/case-finding for perinatal depression. The EPDS was preferred to the Whooley questions by women and HPs, mainly because of its ‘softer’ wording. Whooley question 1 was thought to be less acceptable, largely because of the terms ‘depressed’ and ‘hopeless’, leading to women not revealing their depressive symptoms. HPs identified a ‘patient-centred’ environment that focused on the mother and baby to promote discussion about mental health. Cost-effectiveness results: screening/case-finding using the Whooley questions or the EPDS alone was not the most cost-effective strategy. A two-stage strategy, ‘Whooley questions followed by the Patient Health Questionnaire’ (a measure assessing depression symptomatology), was the most cost-effective strategy in the range between £20,000 and £30,000 per quality-adjusted life-year in both the prenatal and postnatal decision models. Limitations: Perinatal depression diagnosis was not cross-referenced with women’s medical records so the proportion of new cases identified is unknown. The clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of screening/case-finding strategies was not assessed as part of a randomised controlled trial. Conclusions: The Whooley questions and EPDS had acceptable sensitivity and specificity, but their use in practice might be limited by low predictive value and variation in their acceptability. A two-stage strategy was more cost-effective than single-stage strategies. Neither case-finding instrument met National Screening Committee criteria. Future work: The yield of screening/case-finding should be established with reference to health-care records. The clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of screening/case-finding for perinatal depression needs to be tested in a randomised controlled trial. Funding: The National Institute for Health Research Health Services and Delivery Research programme