Gender Identities and Feminism

Many feminists (e.g. T. Bettcher and B. R. George) argue for a principle of first person authority (FPA) about gender, i.e. that we should (at least) not disavow people's gender self-categorisations. However, there is a feminist tradition resistant to FPA about gender, which I call "radical feminism”. Feminists in this tradition define gender-categories via biological sex, thus denying non-binary and trans self-identifications. Using a taxonomy by B. R. George, I begin to demystify the concept of gender. We are also able to use the taxonomy to model various feminist approaches. It becomes easier to see how conceptualisations ofgender which allow for FPA often do not allow for understanding female subjugation as being rooted in reproductive biology. I put forward a conceptual scheme: radical FPA feminism. If we accept FPA, but also radical feminist concerns, radical FPA feminism is an attractive way of conceptualising gender

Deployment, Managed Charging, and Equity: How can U.S. distribution utilities support and enable equitable electrification of transportation?

This study examines the critically important ways in which electric distribution utilities can support and enable the U.S. transition to full electrification of the transportation sector in an equitable manner. It evaluates the state of the market, reviews characteristics of charging behavior for different use cases and applications, and identifies what roles electric distribution utilities can, and should, play. The study finds that utilities have key roles in two broad respects: deployment and energy management. Without utility involvement in deployment of charging infrastructure, the electrification of transportation likely be inadequate to meet policy targets, and without utility involvement in managing the load, the electrification of transportation will require costly grid upgrades that will undermine the value proposition of electrification. Additionally, a cross-cutting theme applicable to both of these roles has to do with equity – ensuring that all demographics have access to – and can benefit from – transportation electrification

‘Something extra’: In defence of an uncanny humanism

This article proposes literature and psychoanalysis as forms of critical education, putting in urgent question the market-driven, instrumental models of learning that currently dominate higher education policy. In psychoanalytic terms, it argues, the primary mechanism at work in such a policy is what psychoanalysis calls splitting, which involves above all a kind of banishment of doubt and a rigid assurance in the rightness of the status quo that precludes meaningful change or transformation in the self and the world. The article goes on to identify in psychoanalysis and literature more ‘unsplit’ modes of thinking that refuse the reduction of the human being to a purely functional value. It ends with a reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go as a critical meditation on this reductive tendency

Amnesiac Passages: Melville’s Pierre, Blanchot and the Question of Psychoanalytic Reading

No abstract (available)

Bruce Nauman, Jean Laplanche and the Art of Helplessness

In a career spanning more than five decades the distinguished French psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche (1924-2012) elaborated a distinctive methodology for the reading of Freud's corpus and evolved, in connection with it, a radical new metapsychology - one that critically recast Freud's early 'seduction' theory of trauma and placed at the heart of psychic life a particular model of 'enigmatic signification.' Seductions and Enigmas is a volume dedicated to the implications of Laplanche's thought for reading and interpretation. It collects papers that elaborate Laplanche's unique method for the interpretation of Freud, with its attention to the decentering and recentering movements of thought that structure the psychoanalytic field, and explore how the metapsychological developments arising from the implementation of that method open up new horizons for the psychoanalytic reading of other texts and oeuvres in the cultural domain. The volume comprises essays by Laplanche as well as by clinicians and scholars whose work takes inspiration from his research. Authors variously establish, develop or consolidate Laplanche's critical methodology as such, or work through aspects of his major theoretical innovations as points of departure for the reading of cultural works of different kinds: fiction, drama, painting, visual and sound installations, and film. These theoretical innovations cover a breadth of topics including seduction, sublimation, gender, femininity, the functions of binding and unbinding, masochism and the role of the enigmatic. In their range, the texts brought together here are a testament to the vitality and fertility of Laplanche's theoretical endeavour, for anyone concerned with the re-reading of Freud or with continuing to recalibrate and advance the parameters of critical interpretation in light of Freud's legacy

GENDER IDENTITIES AND FEMINISM

Many feminists (e.g. T. Bettcher and B.R. George) argue for a principle of first person authority (FPA) about gender, i.e. that we should (at least) not disavow people's gender self-categorisations. However, there is a feminist tradition resistant to FPA about gender, which I call "radical feminism”. Feminists in this tradition define gender-categories via biological sex, thus denying nonbinary and trans self-identifications. Using a taxonomy by B. R. George, I begin to demystify the concept of gender. We are also able to use the taxonomy to model various feminist approaches. It becomes easier to see how conceptualisations of gender which allow for FPA often do not allow for understanding female subjugation as being rooted in reproductive biology. I put forward a conceptual scheme: radical FPA feminism. If we accept FPA, but also radical feminist concerns, radical FPA feminism is an attractive way of conceptualising gender.Muitas feministas (por exemplo, T. Bettcher e B.R. George) defendem um princípio de autoridade na primeira pessoa (FPA) sobre o género, ou seja, argumentam que não devemos (pelo menos) desautorizar as auto-categorizações de género das pessoas. No entanto, há uma tradição feminista resistente à FPA sobre género, a que eu chamo "feminismo radical". As feministas desta tradição definem categorias de género através do sexo biológico, negando então as autoidentificações não binárias e trans. Usando a taxonomia de B. R. George, começo por desmistificar o conceito de género. Também podemos usar a taxonomia para modelar várias abordagens feministas. Torna-se mais fácil ver como as conceptualizações de género que permitem o FPA muitas vezes não permitem compreender a subjugação feminina como estando enraizada na reprodução biológica. Proponho um esquema conceptual: a FPA do feminismo radical. Se aceitarmos a FPA, mas também as preocupações feministas radicais, a FPA do feminismo radical é uma forma apelativa de conceptualizar o género

'No room for truth': On the Precariousness of Life and Narrative in The Last of the Just

This article explores André Schwarz-Bart's famous novel, The Last of the Just, as the expression of twin crises in literary and religious representation. Ernie Levy's words, ' there is no room for truth here', spoken on the transport to Auschwitz as he cradles and comforts a dying child with stories of an idyllic afterlife, become the point of departure for a reading of the novel in terms of the loss of just this 'room for truth'. The article considers the novel's reimagining of the legend of the Lamed Vav in the light of Gershom Scholem's criticism that Schwarz-Bart compromises the legend's 'moral anarchy' before casting the novel in the light of Freud's remarks on traumatic dreams in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, as well as Emmanuel Levinas' ideas on 'useless suffering'. The last part of the article reads the novel's anguished theological motifs alongside Paul Celan's poem 'Psalm'

Differential behaviour of distinct motoneuron pools that innervate the triceps surae

It has been shown that when humans lean in various directions, the central nervous system (CNS) recruits different motoneuron pools for task completion; common units that are active during different leaning directions, and unique units that are active in only one leaning direction. We used high-density surface electromyography (HD-sEMG) to examine if motor unit (MU) firing behaviour was dependent on leaning direction, muscle (medial and lateral gastrocnemius; soleus), limits of stability, or whether a MU is considered common or unique. Fourteen healthy participants stood on a force platform and maintained their center of pressure in five different leaning directions. HD-sEMG recordings were decomposed into MU action potentials and the average firing rate (AFR), coefficient of variation (CoVISI) and firing intermittency were calculated on the MU spike trains. During the 30-90º leaning directions both unique units and common units had higher firing rates (F = 31.31, p \u3c 0.0001). However, the unique units achieved higher firing rates compared to the common units (mean estimate difference = 3.48 Hz, p \u3c 0.0001). The CoVISI increased across directions for the unique units but not for the common units (F = 23.65. p \u3c 0.0001). Finally, intermittent activation of MUs was dependent on the leaning direction (F = 11.15, p \u3c 0.0001), with less intermittent activity occurring during diagonal and forward-leaning directions. These results provide evidence that the CNS can preferentially control separate motoneuron pools within the ankle plantarflexors during voluntary leaning tasks for the maintenance of standing balance