DNA, Historical Evidence and The Settlement of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews in Colonial Texas

The Lone Star state has long been a symbol of the American West, complete with cowboys, Native Americans, buffalo, cattle drives and the Alamo. Using DNA and genealogical analysis, together with historical documents, this article shows that both the original Spanish settlers and the later “Anglo” arrivals were primarily of Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish descent. These findings challenge traditional narratives of “how the West was won”, as well as the prevailing ideology of Anglo-American culture.

Transpinay: Genealogy of a term

This article provides a genealogical analysis of the Philippine category “transpinay,” a compound word combining “trans” and “pinay.” It traces the coining of the term by trans activists in the first decade of the 21st century and examines the ways in which the term gained its currency by drawing out distinctions between gender and sexuality categories. The article investigates what the category includes and what the category excludes, and examines disputes over the term’s categorical boundaries. Overall, the article aims not to determine what the term transpinay is, but rather investigates what the term does and how it came to be.

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

The gender binary haunts mainstream psychology’s history of medicalizing trans and gender nonconforming people, particularly its construction of their gender identities as psychopathological and in need of treatment for violating the binary logic of normative (cis) development. Drawing on interviews with 24 participants who identified as “non-binary,” this dissertation advances: 1) a genealogical analysis of the construction, interpretation, and administration of “transgenderism” (psychology’s parlance) which elucidates the discipline’s maintenance of the gender binary through said construction, interpretation, and administration; and (2) an account of “becoming” gendered (non-binary, in this case) as an alternative to the mainstream models of gender identity development. Becoming (a) shifts from the etiological “why” to the psychosocial “how” (as in, how to go about assembling oneself as non-binary; labels and pronouns are key); (b) eschews teleology (there is no end goal with regard to embodiment); (c) privileges gender self-determination; (d) attends to intersectionality; and (e) foregrounds intersubjectivity. The participants were largely concerned with asserting the validity of their gender identities as non-binary, which are routinely dismissed and invalidated, and this dissertation works toward undoing psychology’s own invalidating practices.

Mainstream Psychology And The Gender Binary: Toward An Account Of Becoming "Non-Binary"

The gender binary haunts mainstream psychology’s history of medicalizing trans and gender nonconforming people, particularly its construction of their gender identities as psychopathological and in need of treatment for violating the binary logic of normative (cis) development. Drawing on interviews with 24 participants who identified as “non-binary,” this dissertation advances: 1) a genealogical analysis of the construction, interpretation, and administration of “transgenderism” (psychology’s parlance) which elucidates the discipline’s maintenance of the gender binary through said construction, interpretation, and administration; and (2) an account of “becoming” gendered (non-binary, in this case) as an alternative to the mainstream models of gender identity development. Becoming (a) shifts from the etiological “why” to the psychosocial “how” (as in, how to go about assembling oneself as non-binary; labels and pronouns are key); (b) eschews teleology (there is no end goal with regard to embodiment); (c) privileges gender self-determination; (d) attends to intersectionality; and (e) foregrounds intersubjectivity. The participants were largely concerned with asserting the validity of their gender identities as non-binary, which are routinely dismissed and invalidated, and this dissertation works toward undoing psychology’s own invalidating practices.

'Devi Needs those Rituals!' Ontological Considerations on Ritual Transformations in a Contemporary South Indian Srividya Tradition

Negotiations between continuity and discontinuity have characterized Srividya traditions for centuries; these are primarily studied through texts or the juxtaposition of textual prescriptions with observed practices, leaving the process of how Srividya practitioners negotiate esoteric and orthodox tendencies unexplored. Building on extensive fieldwork among practitioners of a contemporary South Indian Srividya tradition, I present the dynamics animating such transformations. Focusing on kalavahana, one of the tradition's central rituals aimed at identifying with Devi, I trace the underlying forces that gradually replace its most esoteric aspects (centred around the body and pleasure) with conventional worship (external or meditative practices), refashioning the tradition as part of mainstream Saktism. While some practitioners conform to the new canon, others, for whom the changes diminish ritual efficacy, secretly continue embodied practices. Through a Foucauldian archaeologico-genealogical analysis, I investigate which regimes of truth and ontological coordinates allow the ritual to change, and which diminish its efficacy. While at first negotiations between continuity and discontinuity appear driven by socio-political motives, ultimately they are governed and legitimized by fundamentally diverging modes of being. A pre-objectified worldview demands embodied experiences (including unconventional practices invoking pleasure) while a dualistic framework endorses representational practices (such as meditation and idol-worship).

A Genealogical Analysis of the Medical Model of Problem Gambling

By applying Foucault’s genealogical approach, this article understands the ascension of the medical model of problem gambling as a happenstance and contingent effect of a new form of social control (biopower). The investigation reveals the cumulative effect of some of the heterogeneous components surrounding the medical model’s creation: discourses; institutions; laws; regulatory decisions; administrative measures; scientific proposition, and philanthropic, moral, and philosophical arguments. In the process, it becomes apparent that the medical model is an effect of a form of control that is embedded in the population itself as a norm and follows the schemata of confessional discourse. This power is disciplining individual bodies and regulating populations towards normality by making problem gamblers critically examine themselves and discursively reveal the results. However, the present subjectivity for problem gamblers (i.e., how they understand themselves and how they are understood by those who would improve them) is an effect of the type of power contained in the confession as well. A certain form of subjectivity is created by admitting ‘I am powerless over gambling.’ While the language problem gamblers use to describe themselves is a mere effect of power, it nevertheless determines how they think of themselves and their relationship with gambling.

A Genealogical Analysis of Information and Technics

This paper explores how the concepts of information and technics have been leveraged differently by a variety of philosophical and epistemological frameworks over time. Using the Foucauldian methodology of genealogical historiography, it analyzes how the use of these concepts have impacted the way we understand the world and what we can know about that world. As these concepts are so ingrained in contemporary technologies of the information age, understanding how these concepts have changed over time can help make clearer how they continue to impact our processes of subjectivation. Analysis reveals that the predominant understanding of information and technics today is based on a cybernetic approach that conceptualizes information as a resource. However, this analysis also reveals that Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of technics resonates with that of the Sophists, offering an opportunity to rethink contemporary conceptualizations of information and technics in a way that connects to posthuman philosophic systems that afford new approaches to communication and media studies.

Foucault's geography: Spatial turn and genealogy of a wedding in Sarajevo

<p>This work analyzes Foucault's contribution to the development of geographic thinking through emphasis on its interpretation of space and elements of its epistemology. To understand this, it will start from two directions, from the geographer's interest in Foucault's geography, as well as his reference works for this discipline. These disciplinary issues are best marked by his notions of geoepistemology and spatial turn in social and humanities, which are important because two issues we will address in this work. First, it refers to more precise definitions of the boundaries of modern, for which there is a consensus among geographers and is related to the establishment of scientific geography (Humboldt and Ritter), but the end of this epoch is interpreted differently. Some geographers link this to: identifying three key principles for the construction of postmodernism, which are: style, epoch and method (Dear, 1988); an increased attack on history in modern thought (Soja, 1989); infuriatingly difficult to define (Cloke et al., 1991) or with the emergence of neoliberalism (Peet, 1998). Another issue concerns the possibility of applying post-structural methods to deconstruct major cultural and geographical changes in the Western Balkans at the end of the 20th century. This will be achieved through indications of genealogical analysis in the interpretation of contemporary historical-geographical and political-geographical issues in the example of Sarajevo (1992-1995).</p>

Foucault's geography: Spatial turn and genealogy of a wedding in Sarajevo

<p>This work analyzes Foucault's contribution to the development of geographic thinking through emphasis on its interpretation of space and elements of its epistemology. To understand this, it will start from two directions, from the geographer's interest in Foucault's geography, as well as his reference works for this discipline. These disciplinary issues are best marked by his notions of geoepistemology and spatial turn in social and humanities, which are important because two issues we will address in this work. First, it refers to more precise definitions of the boundaries of modern, for which there is a consensus among geographers and is related to the establishment of scientific geography (Humboldt and Ritter), but the end of this epoch is interpreted differently. Some geographers link this to: identifying three key principles for the construction of postmodernism, which are: style, epoch and method (Dear, 1988); an increased attack on history in modern thought (Soja, 1989); infuriatingly difficult to define (Cloke et al., 1991) or with the emergence of neoliberalism (Peet, 1998). Another issue concerns the possibility of applying post-structural methods to deconstruct major cultural and geographical changes in the Western Balkans at the end of the 20th century. This will be achieved through indications of genealogical analysis in the interpretation of contemporary historical-geographical and political-geographical issues in the example of Sarajevo (1992-1995).</p>