Redressing Colonial Genocide: The Hereros\u27 Cause of Action Against Germany

In February 2003, the Herero People\u27s Reparations Corporation filed a complaint against Germany in the District Court of the District of Columbia alleging violations of international law, crimes against humanity, genocide, slavery, and forced labor before, during, and after the German-Herero War (1904-07). The German government, modern scholars, and other commentators have long taken the position that genocides committed by colonial governments in the nineteenth century did not violate international law at that time. Arguments for this position rely, inter alia, on the belief that all forms of genocide were first criminalized and made punishable by the 1948 U.N. Convention on Genocide. However, an analysis of contemporaneous international customary and treaty law shows this position to be wrong and supports the position that colonial acts of annihilation in Africa were illegal by the end of the nineteenth century. This article further argues that this law was directly applicable to the German-Herero War. It concludes that the Hereros\u27 case for legal redress is stronger than heretofore assumed and examine the implications for the claims of other similarly situated victims of genocide

Pet Watch

This paper outlines our project of building Pet Watch. Pet Watch is a device similar to a Fit Bit except that it tracks your pet’s activity instead of your own. You can then access this data on our website. This paper defines our requirements, how the system works, and how we built this system

Mental time travel in dysphoria: Differences in the content and subjective experience of past and future episodes

Previous research has shown that depressed individuals demonstrate a number of biases in their ability to retrieve past events and simulate future events. The current study investigated the content and phenomenological experience of past and future events in dysphoric and non-dysphoric individuals. Results indicated that dysphoric, compared with non-dysphoric, individuals reported fewer positive events across both temporal directions. Furthermore, phenomenological characteristics ratings suggested that dysphoric individuals saw future, but not past, events as less vivid, coherent, sensorially detailed, bodily experienced, emotionally intense and important with respect to their life story and identity. These findings are discussed with reference to theories regarding the functions of ‘mental time travel’, in particular how the muted subjective experience of future episodes in depression may impair future planning, problem-solving and self regulation

Overgeneral past and future thinking in dysphoria: the role of emotional cues and cueing methodology

Overgeneral memory, where individuals exhibit difficulties in retrieving specific episodes from autobiographical memory, has been consistently linked with emotional disorders. However, the majority of this literature has relied upon a single methodology, in which participants respond to emotional cue words with explicit instructions to retrieve/simulate specific events. Through use of sentence completion tasks the current studies explored whether overgenerality represents a habitual pattern of thinking that extends to how individuals naturally consider their personal past and future life story. In both studies, when compared with controls, dysphoric individuals evidenced overgeneral thinking style with respect to their personal past. However, overgeneral future thinking was only evident when the sentence stems included emotional words. These findings highlight the importance of investigating the overgenerality phenomenon using a variety of cueing techniques and results are discussed with reference to the previous literature exploring overgenerality and cognitive models of depression

A dysphoric's TALE: The relationship between the self-reported functions of autobiographical memory and symptoms of depression

Autobiographical memory (AM) is believed to serve self, social and directive functions; however, little is known regarding how this triad of functions operates in depression. Using the Thinking About Life Experiences questionnaire [Bluck, S., & Alea, N. (2011). Crafting the TALE: Construction of a measure to assess the functions of autobiographical remembering. Memory, 19, 470–486.; Bluck, S., Alea, N., Habermas, T., & Rubin, D. C. (2005). A TALE of three functions: The self–reported uses of autobiographical memory. Social Cognition, 23, 91–117.], two studies explored the relationship between depressive symptomology and the self-reported frequency and usefulness of AMs for self, social and directive purposes. Study 1 revealed that thinking more frequently but talking less frequently about past life events was significantly associated with higher depression scores. Recalling past events more frequently to maintain self-continuity was also significantly associated with higher depressive symptomology. However, results from Study 2 indicated that higher levels of depression were also significantly associated with less-frequent useful recollections of past life events for self-continuity purposes. Taken together, the findings suggest atypical utilisations of AM to serve self-continuity functions in depression and can be interpreted within the wider context of ruminative thought processes

Framing Feminine Identity: Exploring Ways of Being a Woman, through the Practice of Faith, and Ideas of Equality and Justice through Narratives of South African Muslim Women Activists

What began as an attempt to explore Islamic Feminism through the life narratives of Muslim women, actually enabled a journey into exploring ways of being a woman, through the practice of faith, and ideas of justice and equality. Through multiple in-depth interviews and conversations, a visit to the mosque for Friday prayer, and a night at a theatrical production in the Muslim community, I spent time with influential Muslim women activists in the Durban community of South Africa listening, learning and reflecting. What I found was less concrete than labeling these women as ‘Islamic Feminists’ but it was also more unifying. Through telling these women’s stories, I hope to take the reader on a journey through the complicated nature of identity in order to not only shed light on a group of women who are making strides in social justice but to allow the thoughtful words of these women to help you along your own faith or identity journey. In the end, I offer a look into how, contrary to feminist thought, rejecting labels of Islamic feminism and instead allowing for narrative discourse free of labeling can actually prove to be more unifying for women of all faith backgrounds

Shakespeare and The Supreme Court: How the Justices Reveal Their Ideologies by Referencing His Works

The works of William Shakespeare have been referenced many times throughout history, even by Supreme Court justices. Building off of an observation of a mock trial by James Shapiro, this project puts the utilization of Shakespeare from three Court opinions in relation to its context within the play and the opinion to examine what the reference reveals about the authoring justices\u27 ideology. In doing so, this project concludes that the justices utilize Shakespeare\u27s works in their opinions for various reasons, including to infuse their beliefs into their argument. This implies that Supreme Court justices do not base their opinions on only legal precedent, but their preferences for the outcome as well. This project also offers another way to make inferences about the justices\u27 ideology and offers implications for further research

Darwin, Bryan, Raman, and the Dalai Lama Re-Create the World

A poem written for Science and Religion: Historical Perspectives

If It Isn\u27t Baroque, Don\u27t Fix It

The ensemble was based on the contrast of Chinese adoption of exotic French Baroque influence and at the same time, France\u27s adoption of China\u27s influence in the visual and decorative arts during the 18th century. Both cultures exchanged and adopted ideas simultaneously because of the vast influence of the trade route of theSilk Road, between Asia and Europe. The designers\u27 purpose was to create an ensemble reflecting this influence using a mixture of traditional interior design and fashion textiles. This also includes incorporating old world textile and surface techniques while making the garment relevant and representative visually of high fashion. This ensemble was created with tea dyed burlap, a hand painted and stenciled textile print, and hand needle felting for the butterfly embellishment. Old world methods of textile development in tea dying, felting, and stenciling were used to represent the traditional ways of working in contrast with the change of a younger more whimsical approach to design