Appearances

This article re-evaluates the theoretical import of networks of signification, one of Antoine Berman’s twelve deforming tendencies in translation. Taking Jane Eyre as a case study, the article considers character description as an example of a Bermanian network and traces the physical appearance of the novel’s characters across its six Russian translations. Character description represents a network that is traceable, depends on the reader’s ability to construct a visual mental image over the course of a narrative, has a tangible impact on characterisation, and remains relevant throughout a novel. It thus offers a concrete illustration of the relevance of networks of signification as a model for the systemic interpretative potential of translation variation. This analysis paves the way for further study of Bermanian networks and the ultimate integration of this concept in translation practice.

Burning Matters

This book explores the complex cultural, economic, and environmental health politics of electronic waste (e-waste) in Ghana. Global trade in e-waste has led to various global e-waste management challenges, and many regions of the Global South, like Ghana, have suffered the consequences. Based on ethnographic research, the book exposes the lived experience of Ghana’s e-waste workers as they navigate the health, social, and economic challenges of e-waste labor, especially e-waste workers burning electrical wires to extract copper, a valuable and ubiquitous tech metal. With a particular focus on e-waste workers working in an urban scrap metal market known as Agbogbloshie, the book examines the ways in which this labor practice has raised concerns about toxic exposures and urban environmental contamination and has drawn the attention of international organizations seeking to find “green” solutions to severe environmental and health risks posed by e-waste burning. Addressing the practices and risks of e-waste burning and the politics and optimism of environmental health interventions, the book explores the theoretical import of the “pyropolitical ecology of e-waste,” an approach developed to augment and synthesize the emerging anthropology and political ecology of e-waste ruination, environmental justice, and uncertainty in the Global South.

The historical and the transhistorical in Marx’s dialectical method

This essay revisits the question of alterations in Marx’s view of method from the 1857 “Introduction” to Capital. In the wake of the belated upsurge of interest in Marx’s notebooks of 1857–8, posthumously published as the Grundrisse, a dominant interpretation has been developed in Marx scholarship which characterizes the method of the “Introduction” as an ascent from the (transhistorical) abstract to the (historical) concrete and, upon such characterization, stresses the mature Marx’s departure from it. Rereading the 1857 “Introduction” with an emphasis on the theoretical import of its examples, I argue, against this interpretation, that although this text does not provide a fully worked-out account of method, it nevertheless offers invaluable insights into some of the central methodological problems with which Marx was concerned and in response to which his dialectical method was developed. In particular, I highlight what could be called Marx’s critical historicist approach to the categories and argue that this approach, together with his specific understanding of the process of the reproduction of the concrete in thought, constitute the lasting pillars of Marx’s dialectical method, in the 1857 “Introduction” as well as in Capital. Finally, in a concluding section, I re-examine the methodological status of the commodity and argue that the post-1857 emergence of the commodity as Marx’s favourite starting point does not represent a fundamental change, or a reversal, in his view of method.

Encoding Post-Spectral Sound

This article examines computer-based music (ca. 1982–87) created by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho at the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in Paris. A detailed account of archival materials for an early étude in voice synthesis, Vers le blanc (1982), demonstrates the music-theoretical import of software to Saariaho’s development of a robust compositional method that resonated with the emergent aesthetics of a post-spectral milieu. Subsequent analyses of two additional works from this period—Jardin secret II (1984–86) for harpsichord and tape, and IO (1987) for large ensemble and electronics—serve to illustrate Saariaho’s extension of this method into instrumental settings. Specific techniques highlighted include the use of interpolation systems to create continuous processes of transformation, the organization of individual musical parameters into multidimensional formal networks, and the exploration of harmonic structures based on the analysis of timbral phenomena. Relating these techniques to the affordances of contemporaneous IRCAM technologies, including CHANT, FORMES, and Saariaho’s own customized program, “transkaija,” this article adopts a transductive approach to archival research that is responsive to the diverse media artifacts associated with computer-based composition.

Introduction

The Introduction outlines the inter-penetration of literary and diplomatic cultures within European and some non-European diplomatic practices, emphasizing the wide-ranging and sophisticated ways in which early modern diplomats utilized literary motifs. It introduces readers to existing research within the emerging field of diplo-literary studies and those areas of the ‘new diplomatic history’ which are most pertinent to the core thematic focus of the collection. While situating contributions within this literature, it also outlines the collective methodological and theoretical import of the volume. Paying particular attention to literary representations of diplomacy, diplomacy, and translation, the diplomatic dissemination of texts, and the texts used in diplomatic practice, it draws out a series of findings for the field.

Preparing for Brexit: Substance, Politics and Readiness in an International Re-negotiation

The UK ‘Brexit referendum’ set in motion a unique and highly complex set of negotiations to withdraw from a fundamentally embedded economic and political union. The final referendum was preceded by a nine-month pre-negotiation phase; this article examines the dynamics of that stage. The context of a unilaterally initiated negotiation, together with the economic and political costs associated with it, distinguish it from the existing literature. Three analytical approaches are combined and built upon in this article: the tasks of the pre-negotiation phase, the readiness of the temporal moment, and the demands of multi-level, multi-party negotiations. The concept of psychological readiness has broad theoretical import, though explicit recognition is given that negotiators are not unitary decision makers and that the incorporation of a political analysis is required. The combination of these frameworks provides insight into the dynamics of this phase and the difficulties experienced by both the UK and EU27.

Getting a Grip on Sensorimotor Effects in Lexical-Semantic Processing

One of the strategies that researchers have used to investigate the role of sensorimotor information in lexical-semantic processing is to examine effects of words’ rated body-object interaction (BOI; the ease with which the human body can interact with a word’s referent). Processing tends to be facilitated for words with high BOI compared to words with low BOI, across a wide variety of tasks. Such effects have been referenced in debates over the nature of semantic representations, but their theoretical import has been limited by the fact that BOI is a fairly coarse measure of sensorimotor experience with words’ referents. In the present study we collected ratings for 621 words on seven semantic dimensions (graspability, ease of pantomime, number of actions, animacy, size, danger, and usefulness) in order to investigate which attributes are most strongly related to BOI ratings, and to lexical-semantic processing. BOI ratings were obtained from previous norming studies (Bennett, Burnett, Siakaluk, & Pexman, 2011; Tillotson, Siakaluk, & Pexman, 2008) and measures of lexical-semantic processing were obtained from previous behavioural megastudies involving the semantic categorization task (concrete/abstract decision; Pexman, Heard, Lloyd, & Yap, 2017) and the lexical decision task (Balota et al., 2007). Results showed that the motor dimension of graspability, ease of pantomime, and number of actions were all related to BOI and that these dimensions together explained more variance in semantic processing than did BOI ratings alone. These ratings will be useful for researchers who wish to study how different kinds of bodily interactions influence lexical-semantic processing and cognition.

THE DEMOCRATIC BOUNDARY PROBLEM RECONSIDERED

Who should have a right to take part in which decisions in democratic decision making? This “boundary problem” is a central issue for democracy and is of both practical and theoretical import. If nothing else, all different notions of democracy have one thing in common: a reference to a community of individuals, “a people”, who takes decision in a democratic fashion. However, that a decision is made with a democratic decision method by a certain group of people doesn’t suffice for making the decision democratic or satisfactory from a democratic perspective. The group also has to be the right one. But what makes a group the right one? The criteria by which to identify the members of the people entitled to participate in collective decisions have been surprisingly difficult to pin down. In this paper, I shall revisit some of the problems discussed in my 2005 paper in light of some recent criticism and discussion of my position in the literature, and address a number of new issues.

How to Do Things Without Words: A Theory of Declarations

Declarations like “this meeting is adjourned” make certain facts the case by representing them as being the case. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the mechanism whereby the utterance of a declaration can bring about a new state of affairs. In this paper, we use the incentivization account of institutional facts to address this issue. We argue that declarations can serve to bring about new states of affairs as their utterance have game theoretical import, typically in virtue of the utterer signaling a commitment to act in an incentive-changing way.