The non-magical realism of Jacques Roumain's Gouverneurs de la Rosée

Gouverneurs de la rosée has received more critical attention than any other Haitian novel, and much of that attention has been focused on the "realist" credentials of that novel. That realism has been variously defined—from those who have read the novel as a thinly disguised Marxist treatise to those who see in it a kind of fictionalized ethnography, allowing the reader a glimpse of the "real" daily life of the peasants of the mornes.1 Not all such judgements have been favorable, and it is remarkable how many readings of the novel excoriate it for its failure to live up to the aims that they, in fact, ascribe to it. Thus, the novel has been criticized for purporting to address the real problems of the peasants while ignoring the documented historical travails of analogous peasant communities in the Plaine du Cul-de-Sac in the 1930s; Roumain has been accused of eluding the contradictions inherent in applying a Marxist revolutionary theory to an undeveloped agrarian society by transforming his hero, Manuel, from militant into messiah; ethnologists have drawn attention to Roumain's supposed ignorance of the informal laws of land tenure and succession observed in Haitian rural communities and of the way that Vodou was actually practiced by the peasants.

A Vain Fascination: Writing from and about Haiti after the Earthquake

In the wake of the huge earthquake that struck Haiti on 12 January 2010, Haiti instantly became the focus of media attention across the world. At that moment, the tropes that had imprisoned Haiti for two centuries (barbarism, savagery, vodou, the land-that-God-forgot, etc.) began to resurface. Some Haitian intellectuals sought to combat those images, but in so doing they inadvertently revealed their complicity not only in the negative discursive construction of their country, but also in the economic and military re-colonisation of Haiti over the last decade. Adept in the fabrication of replicas of ‘post-political’ discourse, These Haitian intellectuals are in reality a subset of that country's morally bankrupt political class

The impact on organisational performance as a result of investment in self-service technology within the South African financial services industry

The advent of self-service technology (SST) and the adoption thereof has occurred in many industries and sectors globally. The financial services and banking sector embraced the SST transformation and invested heavily into this channel including the South African industry. This study aims to understand the causal relationship between the investment into the SST channel and the impact it has on organisational performance within the South African context. This research exercise applied a single unit of analysis case study research strategy to examine the impact on the organisation's various performance criteria, namely profitability, productivity, cost efficiency and intangible benefits as a result of a SST investment strategy. Qualitative data was collected from interviews with key informants from the selected organisation and analysed thematically. The study adopted a theory based deductive approach using the DeLone and McLean model of IS success (2003) as its underlying research framework. The findings of this study deduced that with an appropriate investment strategy in SSTs, there would be a positive impact on the net benefits of the organisation with an explicit relationship dynamic. This study lends support to earlier studies of this nature, particularly with regard to the SST channel offering, as there is a lack of literature due to the evolution of perception and recency of this technology channel. The relationship dynamic aspects between the constructs of this study also contributes to the closing of gaps within the body of knowledge that exists. However it must be noted that these findings are based on a single unit of analysis case study research strategy which connotes limitations in terms of generalisations

Peremptory Challenges: Preserving An Unequal Allocation and the Potential Promise of Progressive Prosecution

In the United States, the relative allocation of peremptory challenges afforded to the defense and prosecution is at once in a state of paralysis and flux. The federal system maintains an unequal allocation of peremptory challenges between the defense and prosecution in noncapital offenses, while many states have moved toward equalization of the number of peremptory challenges afforded to each side over the last few decades. Currently, only five states and the federal system have retained an allocation of peremptory challenges that affords the defense a greater number of peremptory challenges in noncapital offenses. Further, only nine states and the federal system maintain an unequal allocation of peremptory challenges in any capacity. This inconsistency strikes a chord fundamental to the fairness of our justice system, especially in light of the Supreme Court’s failure to eliminate the discriminatory exercise of the peremptory challenge in Batson. This Comment argues that, at this time, the federal system and remaining states should not move toward equalizing the number of peremptory challenges afforded to the defense and prosecution because allocating a greater number of peremptory challenges to the defense best serves theoretical fairness in the justice system, including maintaining the community’s perception the justice system’s fairness. Additionally, allocating a greater number of peremptory challenges to the defense serves actual fairness by reducing opportunities for prosecutors to use peremptory challenges in a discriminatory manner. Finally, this Comment takes the novel approach of considering how the “progressive prosecution” movement may justify movement toward equalization in the future, by shifting the community’s perception of fairness and by increasing actual fairness in the exercise of peremptory challenges

Influences of Parent Physical Activity Support and Physical Activity Modeling on Adolescent Physical Activity Engagement and Weight Status

Influences of Parent Physical Activity Support and Physical Activity Modeling on Adolescent Physical Activity Engagement and Weight Statu

ADAPTATION AND SENSITIZATION TO PROTEOTOXIC STRESS

Although severe stress can elicit toxicity, mild stress often elicits adaptations. Here we review the literature on stress-induced adaptations versus stress sensitization in models of neurodegenerative diseases. We also describe our recent findings that chronic proteotoxic stress can elicit adaptations if the dose is low but that high-dose proteotoxic stress sensitizes cells to subsequent challenges. In these experiments, long-term, low-dose proteasome inhibition elicited protection in a superoxide dismutase-dependent manner. In contrast, acute, high-dose proteotoxic stress sensitized cells to subsequent proteotoxic challenges by eliciting catastrophic loss of glutathione. However, even in the latter model of synergistic toxicity, several defensive proteins were upregulated by severe proteotoxicity. This led us to wonder whether high-dose proteotoxic stress can elicit protection against subsequent challenges in astrocytes, a cell type well known for their resilience. In support of this new hypothesis, we found that the astrocytes that survived severe proteotoxicity became harder to kill. The adaptive mechanism was glutathione dependent. If these findings can be generalized to the human brain, similar endogenous adaptations may help explain why neurodegenerative diseases are so delayed in appearance and so slow to progress. In contrast, sensitization to severe stress may explain why defenses eventually collapse in vulnerable neurons

Toward a borderless, decolonized, socially just, and inclusive Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

In the context of global curriculum transformation and from a global South perspective, this article explores the imposed and self-created borders that continue to “discipline” us into reproducing scholarly processes, practices, and traditions that privilege dominant forms of knowledge making and knowing in teaching and learning. Drawing on Africa as a case study to explore a framework for thinking outside borders, the author invites the reader to embrace a global social imagination that disrupts and transcends the epistemic, social, and cultural borders designed to produce knowledge that is ahistorical and decontextualized. Using a social mapping of how we thrive on neatly delineated borders that detach the known from the knower by marginalizing or delegitimizing knowledges of the Other, this article, which draws on an earlier version presented as a keynote at the 16th annual conference of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, presents a theory of change geared toward borderless, decolonized, socially just, and inclusive pedagogy and scholarship