Fiction and reality in "The Kindly Ones" of Jonathan Littell

This paper studies the novel The Kindly Ones, whose main plot charts the anguished memories of a Nazi officer. The reader of this novel is plunged into the harshest atrocities of the Holocaust and WWII, as these are recounted by a perverse conscience who is unmoved by the most terrible actions. Fiction and reality are contrasted in the novel against the framework of history writing and the subsequent debates sparked by historical elaboration. This novel perceptively captures historical truth, thus calling for critical attention upon the collective responsibility which will prevent the repetition of events.

The Collusion of Feminist and Postmodernist Impulses in E.L. Doctorow’s "Ragtime"

Many critics of Doctorow have classified him as a postmodernist writer, acknowledging that a wide number of thematic and stylistic features of his early fiction emanate from the postmodern context in which he took his first steps as a writer. Yet, these novels have an eminently social and ethical scope that may be best perceived in their intellectual engagement and support of feminist concerns. This is certainly the case of Doctorow’s fourth and most successful novel, Ragtime. The purpose of this paper will be two-fold. I will explore Ragtime’s indebtedness to postmodern aesthetics and themes, but also its feminist elements. Thus, on the one hand, I will focus on issues of uncertainty, indeterminacy of meaning, plurality and decentering of subjectivity; on the other hand, I will examine the novel’s attitude towards gender oppression, violence and objectification, its denunciation of hegemonic gender configurations and its voicing of certain feminist demands. This analysis will lead to an examination of the problematic collusion of the mostly white, male, patriarchal aesthetics of postmodernism and feminist politics in the novel. I will attempt to establish how these two traditionally conflicting modes coexist and interact in Ragtime.

Land, Power and Technology : Essays on Political Economy and Historical Development

Land Ownership and Development: Evidence from Postwar Japan This paper analyzes the effect of land ownership on technology adoption and structural transformation. A large-scale land reform in postwar Japan enforced a large number of tenant farmers who were cultivating land to become owners of this land. I find that the municipalities which had many owner farmers after the land reform tended to experience a quick entry of new agricultural machines which became available after the reform. The adoption of the machines reduced the dependence on family labor, and led to a reallocation of labor from agriculture to industries and service sectors in urban centers when these sectors were growing. I also analyze the aggregate impact of labor reallocation on economic growth by using a simple growth model and micro data. I find that it increased GDP by about 12 percent of the GDP in 1974 during 1955-74. I also find a large and positive effect on agricultural productivity. Loyalty and Treason: Theory and Evidence from Japan's Land Reform A historically large-scale land reform in Japan after World War II enforced by the occupation forces redistributed a large area of farmlands to tenant farmers. The reform demolished hierarchical structures by weakening landlords' power in villages and towns. This paper investigates how the change in the social and economic structure of small communities affects electoral outcomes in the presence of clientelism. I find that there was a considerable decrease in the vote share of conservative parties in highly affected areas after the reform. I find the supporting evidence that the effect was driven by the fact that the tenant farmers who had obtained land exited from the long-term tenancy contract and became independent landowners. The effect was relatively persistent. Finally, I also find the surprising result that there was a decrease, rather than an increase, in turnout in these areas after the reform.  Geography and State Fragmentation We examine how geography affects the location of borders between sovereign states in Europe and surrounding areas from 1500 until today at the grid-cell level. This is motivated by an observation that the richest places in this region also have the highest historical border presence, suggesting a hitherto unexplored link between geography and modern development, working through state fragmentation. The raw correlations show that borders tend to be located on mountains, by rivers, closer to coasts, and in areas suitable for rainfed, but not irrigated, agriculture. Many of these patterns also hold with rigorous spatial controls. For example, cells with more rivers and more rugged terrain than their neighboring cells have higher border densities. However, the fragmenting effects of suitability for rainfed agriculture are reversed with such neighbor controls. Moreover, we find that borders are less likely to survive over time when they separate large states from small, but this size-difference effect is mitigated by, e.g., rugged terrain.

Economic Development and Mass Poverty in Africa: Assessment of the Nigerian Experience

The forces surrounding the emerging economies of underdeveloped world, especially Africa has practically stifled its economic progress, growth, development and sustainability. This economic condition brings to the fore the massive onslaught of rural/urban poverty which the African continent grapples with since the post-world war II era to date. The economic misfortunes and incidence of mass poverty in Africa, vis-à-vis Nigeria is used as a point of departure in this study. The paper underscores the ideological and philosophical undertone of international capital manifesting in form of colonialism and imperialism as a major character in the historical process of underdevelopment and mass poverty in peripheral states of Africa, Asia and Latin America, respectively. Of particular interest in this study is the activities of domestic bourgeoisie elite class who have vigorously displayed some degree of lack of much needed vision and abject lack of desires to draw up workable plans to redeem the battered image of African/ Nigerian economic misfortunes. This state of affairs has practically engendered economic underdevelopment, misery and disturbing levels of poverty in the nation-state system. The paper concludes with the forward towards realizing the vision 20-20-20 objectives in the 21t century and beyond.

Contracting Freedom: Race, Empire, and U.S. Labor Importation Programs, 1942-1964

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

Dimensions of historical empathy in upper secondary students’ essays

This article examines upper secondary school students’ understanding of historical empathy. The focus is on how and to what degree they displayed in their essays historical contextualisation, perspective taking and affective connection. The study was based on the essays written by 96 students, using resource-material that comprised background information and historical sources. The students reflected on the controversial issue of Finnish children who were sent to Sweden during World War II. All the three dimensions of empathy were expressed at some level, but contextualisation was most often superficial. The dimension the students managed best was perspective taking, which was related to the affective dimension of the topic. They also applied psychological terminology to this historical issue. It could be concluded from the findings that students need instruments for and have interest in dealing with sensitive and affective historical issues.

Imprensa brasileira no ocaso da belle époque

A Grande Guerra foi o acontecimento ápice de tensões acumuladas entre as potências da Europa ainda no começo da segunda década do século XX. O conflito deflagrado no verão de 1914 expandiu-se e envolveu nações de outros continentes, tornando-o mundial, com repercussões que extrapolaram os mais de quatro anos de batalhas oficiais – atualmente pode-se concluir que a Segunda Guerra Mundial nada mais foi do que a segunda parte de um conflito que não acabou de forma a contentar todos os países beligerantes. Entretanto, a Grande Guerra também demarcou o final de uma era conhecida como belle époque, um tempo que simbolicamente representava o apogeu cultural, econômico e social na Europa, inspirador do modelo civilizador em nações no novo mundo, inclusive no Brasil. Na Amazônia, sobretudo na capital do Estado do Pará, Belém, vivia-se ainda sob o imaginário da era da abundância provocada pela exportação da borracha nativa, cujo inicio ocorreu no final do século XIX e na primeira década do século passado. Nesse cenário, desenvolveu-se um jornalismo forte e muito sintonizado com as questões nacionais, regionais e de além-mar. Formado por intelectuais, políticos e escritores, o jornalismo paraense cobriu de forma sistemática os acontecimentos em torno da Grande Guerra, desde a morte do herdeiro do trono do Império Austro-húngaro, Francisco Ferdinando, até a paz ser selada. Com base neste panorâma, o objetivo desta investigação centra-se no esforço para compreender a natureza da cobertura jornalística dos jornais paraenses acerca da Primeira Guerra Mundial, tendo como objeto de análise três jornais diários que circulavam à época: Estado do Pará, Folha do Norte e A Tarde. Os dois primeiros eram jornais generalistas e de longo período de circulação. O terceiro foi um jornal vespertino, publicado entre setembro de 1915 e setembro de 1916, portanto, de caráter ocasional. Para alcançar esse objetivo, a metodologia usada compreende as análises quantitativa e qualitativa de conteúdo, conforme descrito por Sousa (2006). A primeira parte das análises centra-se em avaliar os dados relativos ao número de peças, de espaços dedicados ao tema da guerra, entre outros aspectos quantificáveis. Na segunda parte usou-se a análise qualitativa com base no estudo do diálogo establecido entre os aspectos da historiografia e os achados jornalísticos nos três jornais.

Interview with Hans G. Hornung

An interview in two sessions, June and July 2014, with Hans Georg Hornung, Clarence L. Johnson Professor of Aeronautics, emeritus, in the Division of Engineering and Applied Science. Dr. Hornung describes the origins of the German Templer Colony in Palestine and his upbringing there before and during World War II. Family moves to Templer settlement, Melbourne, Australia, 1948. He attends technical college; University of Melbourne; master’s in engineering, 1962. Researcher, Aeronautical Research Laboratories, Melbourne; PhD, Imperial College, London, 1965. He recalls his academic career at the Australian National University, Canberra (1967-1980); his interest in hypersonics; building free-piston shock tunnel with Raymond Stalker. Sabbatical in Darmstadt with Ernst Becker. Seven years as director of fluid-mechanics institute of the DLR [Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt], in Göttingen. Comes to Caltech in 1987 to succeed Hans W. Liepmann as director of GALCIT [Graduate Aerospace Laboratories, California Institute of Technology]. Recalls his various aero colleagues, his work with Rocketdyne on Caltech’s T5 (successor to Canberra’s T3 shock tunnel) and Ludwieg tube, collaboration with JPL on space program, and work with graduate students Simon Sanderson and Eric Cummings. Discusses his involvement in various scientific societies and his current activities and continuing research as an emeritus professor.

El hombre perdido: Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Albert Camus

[es] Se establece aquí una relación entre dos obras narrativas publicadas durante los años posteriores a la Segunda Guerra Mundial: El hombre perdido (1947), de Ramón Gómez de la Serna, y La chute (1956), de Albert Camus. Se establece la relación en el plano del pensamiento filosófico y político y se señalan las coincidencias entre las obras. La ciudad, el paseante solitario, el distanciamiento del «gregarismo» y la defensa del individuo coinciden con un leitmotiv, el suicidio, que se da insistentemente en los años cuarenta como consecuencia del desasosiego contemporáneo, la guerra, el nazismo y el totalitarismo socialista impuesto en la URSS, defendido en numerosos núcleos de intelectuales europeos y americanos. [en] This article deals with the connection between two prose works published during the years after World War ii: El hombre perdido (1947) by Ramón Gómez de la Serna and La chute (1956) by Albert Camus. The article examines the relationship from a philosophical and political perspective and establishes the coincidences in both writers’ works. The city, the solitary stroller, the distance from «gregariousness» and the defense of the individual coincide with a leitmotiv, suicide, which has been insistently present during the 1940s as a consequence of contemporary unease, war, Nazism and the socialist totalitarianism imposed on the USSR and supported by many European and American intellectual groups.

Silk Butterflies

The first section of this unfinished novel, titled Silk Butterflies is a diptych about a woman named Sarah, and her desire to acquire ancestral truth regarding her identity to negate the pain she feels from losing her unborn child. Her story, told in a guarded, first person point-of-view is paralleled with Ling’s story, an unconventional, ninety-two year old Shanghainese woman who, against her desires, had her feet bound in China during the early 1920’s. Ling’s story is also told from a lyrical first-person perspective that focuses especially on sensory details, and delves into the sacrifices we make to attain standards of beauty, and the loss Ling has never recovered from. As this historical fiction progresses, their stories overlap in an unexpected way, as both Sarah and Ling attempt to revitalize forgotten histories, including how Sarah’s grandparents fled to Shanghai in the 1930’s to escape Nazi persecution during World War II.

The age of studies and reports: selected elements concerning the background of encounters defining the power of education

In the present paper, we discuss the time before the “age of reports”. Besides the Coleman Report in the period of Coleman, the Lady Plowden Report also appeared, while there were important studies in France (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1964; Peyre, 1959) and studies that inaugurated comprehensive education in Nordic countries. We focus on the period after the World War II, which was marked by rising economic nationalism, on the one hand, and by the second wave of mass education, on the other, bearing the promise of more equality and a reduction of several social inequalities, both supposed to be ensured by school. It was a period of great expectations related to the power of education and the rise of educational meritocracy. On this background, in the second part of the paper, the authors attempt to explore the phenomenon of the aforementioned reports, which significantly questioned the power of education and, at the same time, enabled the formation of evidence-based education policies. In this part of the paper, the central place is devoted to the case of socialist Yugoslavia/Slovenia and its striving for more equality and equity through education. Through the socialist ideology of more education for all, socialist Yugoslavia, with its exaggerated stress on the unified school and its overemphasised belief in simple equality, overstepped the line between relying on comprehensive education as an important mechanism for increasing the possibility of more equal and just education, on the one hand, and the myth of the almighty unified school capable of eradicating social inequalities, especially class inequalities, on the other. With this radical approach to the reduction of inequalities, socialist policy in the then Yugoslavia paradoxically reduced the opportunity for greater equality, and even more so for more equitable education. (DIPF/Orig.)

Portuguese health care costs related to asbestos exposure: a cost-of-illness study on mesothelioma hospital admission in the period 2000-2015

Background: Portugal has a temperate climate and low industrialization levels existing in the period after World War II, when asbestos materials were used worldwide, has contributed to the generalized belief of low usage of those materials. - Such supposition lacks confirmation; - There is no specific registry of asbestos-related diseases, workers asbestos exposure or asbestos industrial use; - Mesotheliomas are rare neoplasms strongly related to asbestos exposure so they can be used to understand the possible dimension of past exposure to asbestos; - It was estimated that professional diseases under notification was up to 90% for asbestos-related diseases, mainly mesotheliomas.

In Search of Social Justice: Current Developments in Higher Education and the Labour Market in Bulgaria

The discussions about social justice date from ancient times, but despite the enduring interest in the topic and the progress made, we are still witnessing injustices throughout the world. Thus, the search for social justice, under some form, is an inseparable part of our lives. In general, social justice may be considered as a critical idea that challenges us to reform our institutions and practices in the name of greater fairness (Miller 1999, p. x). In political and policy debates, social justice is often related to fair access (Brown, 2013) but at the same time its meanings seem to vary when we consider different definitions, perspectives and social theories (Zajda, Majhanovich, & Rust, 2006). When seen in the context of higher education, social justice appears in relevant literature as a buzzword (Patton, Shahjahan, Riyad, & Osei-Kofi, 2010). Within the recent studies of higher education and public debates related to the development of higher education, more emphasis is placed on the link between higher education and the economic growth and how higher education could be more responsive to the labour market demands, and little emphasis has been put on social justice. Given this, the present study attempts to at least partially fill the gap with regard to this apparently very topical issue, especially in the context of the unprecedented worldwide expansion of higher education in the last century (Schofer & Meyer, 2005), an expansion that is expected to continue in the next decades. More specifically, the expansion of higher education intensified in the second part of the 20th century, especially after World War II. It was seen as a result of the intertwined dynamics related to demographic, economic and political pressures (Goastellec, 2008a). This trend undoubtedly contributed to the increase of the size of the student body. To illustrate this trend, we may point out that in the period between 2000 and 2007, the number of tertiary students in the world increased from 98,303,539 to 150,656,459 (UNESCO, 2009, p. 205). This growth occurred in all regions of the world, including Central and Eastern Europe, North America and Western Europe, and contributed to raising the number of tertiary graduates. Thus, in the period between 2000 and 2008, the total number of tertiary graduates in the European Union (EU) 27 increased by a total of 35 percent (or 4.5 percent per year). However, this growth was very uneven, ranging from 21.1 percent in Romania to 0.7 percent in Hungary (European Commission working staff document, 2011). The increase of the number of students and graduates was seen as enhancing the social justice in higher education, since it is assumed that expansion “extends a valued good to a broader spectrum of the population” (Arum, Gamoran, & Shavit, 2007, p. 29). However, concerns for a deep contradiction for 21st-century higher education also emerged with regard to its expansion.

Contested Play and Clean Water: McMillan Park, Race, and the Built Environment in Washington, D.C., 1900-1941

This study focuses on the intersection of the politics and culture of open public space with race relations in the United States from 1900 to 1941. The history of McMillan Park in Washington, D.C. serves as a lens to examine these themes. Ultimately, the park’s history, as documented in newspapers, interviews, reports, and photographs, reveals how white residents attempted to protect their dominance in a racial hierarchy through the control of both the physical and cultural elements of public recreation space. White use of discrimination through seemingly neutral desires to protect health, safety, and property values, establishes a congruence with their defense of residential property. Without similar access to legal methods, African Americans acted through direct action in gaps of governmental control. Their use of this space demonstrates how African-American residents of Washington and the United States contested their race, recreation, and spatial privileges in the pre-World War II era.

Conflitos ambientais e progresso técnico na indústria mineira e metalúrgica em Portugal (1858-1938)

This chapter explores the relationship between environmental conflicts and technical progress, trying to understand, in the case of large mines of the Iberian Pyrite Belt, in Alentejo, how emerging environmental problems conditioned the performance or led to the search for alternative technical solutions, taking as chronological limit for this observation the beginning of World War II. In the absence of the archives of the companies, the research was based on existing administrative documents in the state archives (mining engineers reports, the licensing of mining activities), on reports and documents published in specialized mining press, in particular, the Bulletin of the Ministry of Public Works, Trade and Industry, the Journal of Public Works, Trade and Industry (both in Portuguese), and finally in the local press. Despite that limitation, the information available shows that in global competition markets, the success of the British enterprise in Santo Domingo had the active search for new technical solutions for the creation and adaptation of existing knowledge to local problems in order to maximize the mineral resources available. The early development of the hydrometallurgical processes for the treatment of poor ores, named ‘natural cementation’, can be explained as the way these companies tried to solve problems of competitiveness, boosting economies of scale. Thus, they transferred the environmental costs previously limited to agriculture to more fragile social groups, the poor fishermen of Guadiana River and of Vila Real de Santo António. Therefore, the hydrometallurgy of pyrites was developed locally, pioneered in Santo Domingo that allowed the survival and expansion of the British company from the late 1870s, that is, at a time when most small mines shut since they were not able to compete globally. Through different consented and regulated processes (judicial), through conflict or parliamentary mediation, the State imposed exceptionally additional costs to companies, either for compensation, the imposing the application of remediation measures to reduce the environmental damage in some cases, thus contributing to derail some projects. These cases suggest that the interaction between local conflicts, corporate behavior and technological progress proves to be complex. This article aims to contribute to the debate on economic and social history between the environment and technological progress, arguing that the fixed costs and economic imponderable social risks were factors that encouraged the companies to search for new solutions and to introduce innovations since that would allow the expansion of their activity. In this process the companies sometimes faced environmental dilemmas and unforeseen costs with consequences on the economy of firms. The nature of the knowledge needed to address the environmental problems they created, however, is of a very different nature from that knowledge needed to face the environmental burdens that were inherent to the development of its activity.