The Distortions and Realities of the Senate’s Constitutional Purpose: Setting the Record Straight on “Senate Exceptionalism”

Drawing on part of the argument from my recent book, The Senate: From White Supremacy to Government Gridlock (University of Virginia Press, 2021), I critique what I call “Senate exceptionalism:” the notion that the Senate is the framers’ particularly special or remarkable creation. I do so by contrasting the historical and constitutional distortions that support this institutional conceit with the realities of the founding and American political development. After reviewing the parallels between the ideas and tenets of American and Senate exceptionalism, I introduce four arguments from the book that undermine the basis of the Senate’s exceptionalism and in particular draw critical attention to the constitutional mythology surrounding and supporting the filibuster in the form of Senate Rule XXII and its three-fifths supermajority threshold for ending debate on many matters before the Senate.

Virgin Territories

In this wide-ranging conversation, David Serlin (University of California, San Diego) and Roland Betancourt (University of California, Irvine) discuss questions of sexual consent and sexual violence in the visual culture of early Christian art as inspired by Betancourt’s recent book, Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages (2020). Drawing on rare manuscripts and other objects of worship from institutional archives, Betancourt analyzes and contextualizes numerous Byzantine visual texts featuring often confounding representations of sexual acts or gendered behavior that later Christian interpreters would treat as conventional or settled. For Betancourt, early Christian authors and artists were far more open to troubling and experimenting with depictions of sexual and gendered narratives than many medievalists (and, importantly, non-medievalists) have been trained to see.

Private Experience and Public-Spirited Critique: Brexit-Era Britain in the Recent Poetry of Vidyan Ravinthiran and Nicholas Hagger

Two starkly different aspects of the Brexit phenomenon may be seen in the recent work of two British poets, Vidyan Ravinthiran and Nicholas Hagger. Ravinthiran’s most recent book consists of love sonnets composed for his wife. These are addressed to an intimate “you” which, upon publication, is expanded to vicariously include his readership. In the course of their everyday life as a mixed-race couple in northern England, the context of Brexit occasionally intrudes. When it leads him to communicate something to his wife, the poet organically transcribes these experiences. While ultimately a secondary (if often inescapable) theme in Ravinthiran’s sonnet sequence, the Brexit negotiations are the leitmotif of Hagger’s Fools’ Paradise. Taking his cue from the sixteenth and seventeenth century mock epic, the poet offers an erudite satire excoriating a short-sighted political class. Hagger appears to move easily in such circles, presumably due to the diplomatic and intelligence contacts in his past. Assuming the guise of an insider or pundit, “your poet” provides a meticulous, tactical critique of the inefficacy of foolish parliamentarians.

Book Review: Nadège Ragaru, “Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvés”: Une histoire des saviors sur la Shoah en Bulgarie

Book Review: Nadège Ragaru, “Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvés”: Une histoire des saviors sur la Shoah en BulgarieThis presentation reviews a recent book by the French historian and political scientist Nadège Ragaru, analyzing how Bulgarian society has been dealing with the fate of the Bulgarian Jews during World War II. Pressurized by its Nazi German ally to send 20,000 Bulgarian Jews to extermination camps then located in the General Government, a part of the former Republic of Poland, the Bulgarian wartime government participated in the deportation of 11,343 Jews from the territories under Bulgarian administration in Greek Thrace and Yugoslav Macedonia, while withholding, after protests by some politicians and intellectuals, the Church and a part of the Bulgarian population, from completing the number of 20,000 by sending another 8,000 Jews from Bulgaria proper. In three consecutive chapters, Ragaru discusses how the People’s Courts dealt with the persecutors of the Jews, analyzes the ideological sensibilities raised by a film (a Bulgarian-DDR coproduction) about the deportation, and examines the use of three original short documentary shootings of the events. In the two final chapters, Ragaru deals with the relative pluralism of opinions that has been the case since the fall of the communist regime and the internationalization of the topic, especially as the tense relations with North Macedonia are concerned. Ragaru’s general conclusion is that in spite of the increased preparedness to admit Bulgaria’s involvement, the salvation continues to be overstated, while the complicity is smuggled away.Boek recensie: Nadège Ragaru, “Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvés”: Une histoire des saviors sur la Shoah en BulgarieDit recente boek van de Franse historica en politieke wetenschapster Nadège Ragaru analiseert de manier waarop de Bulgaarse samenleving is omgegaan met het lot van de Bulgaarse Joden gedurende de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Onder druk van haar Nazi-Duitse bondgenoot om 20.000 Bulgaarse Joden naar uitroeiingskampen toen gesitueerd in het Generaal-Gouvernement, een deel van de voormalige Republiek Polen te sturen nam de Bulgaarse regering deel aan de deportatie van 11.343 Joden uit de territoria in Grieks Thracië en Joegoslavisch Macedonië onder Bulgaars bestuur, maar zag, na protesten van enkele politici en intellectuelen, de kerk en een deel van de Bulgaarse bevolking, af van de uitlevering van het resterende aantal van 8.000 Joden uit Bulgarije zelf. In drie opeenvolgende hoofdstukken, Ragaru beschrijft hoe de Volksrechtbanken omgingen met de vervolgers van de Joden, welke ideologische gevoeligheden werden opgeroepen door een film (een Bulgaars-Oost-Duitse coproductie) over de deportatie, en het gebruik dat gemaakt werd van drie originele korte documentaire filmfragmenten over de gebeurtenissen. In de laatste twee hoofdstukken behandelt Ragaru de relatieve verscheidenheid aan opinie na de val van het communistische regime en de internationalizering van het onderwerp, in het bijzonder in verband met de relaties met de Republiek van Noord-Macedonië. Haar algemene conclusie luidt dat, ondanks te toenemende bereidheid om de betrokkenheid van Bulgarije te erkennen, de redding toch overbelicht blijft, terwijl de medeplichtigheid wordt weggemoffeld.Recenzja książki: Nadège Ragaru, “Et les Juifs bulgares furent sauvés”: Une histoire des saviors sur la Shoah en BulgarieNadège Ragaru, francuska historyczka i politolożka, w swej najnowszej książce analizuje, w jaki sposób społeczeństwo bułgarskie traktowało bułgarskich Żydów w czasie II wojny światowej. Rząd Bułgarii, ulegając naciskom swego sojusznika, nazistowskich Niemiec, w sprawie wysłania dwudziestu tysięcy bułgarskich Żydów do obozów Zagłady w Generalnym Gubernatorstwie, wcześniej Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, deportował 11 343 Żydów z terytoriów greckiej Tracji i jugosłowiańskiej Macedonii, znajdujących się wówczas pod rządami władz Bułgarii. Jednak po protestach nielicznych polityków, intelektualistów i Cerkwi oraz części bułgarskiej ludności władze Bułgarii ostatecznie odstąpiły od procederu wydalenia z kraju pozostałych 8 000 Żydów. W trzech kolejnych rozdziałach Ragaru opisuje, jak Trybunały Ludowe traktowały prześladowców Żydów, jaką podatność na ideologię wśród społeczeństwa bułgarskiego ukazała filmowa koprodukcja bułgarsko- -enerdowska o deportacjach, a także wyjaśnia, do czego posłużyły trzy krótkie oryginalne fragmenty filmów dokumentalnych ukazujące tamte wydarzenia. W ostatnich dwóch rozdziałach Ragaru przedstawia różnorodność opinii po upadku reżimu komunistycznego oraz internacjonalizację tematu, w szczególności kwestię stosunków z Republiką Północnej Macedonii. Autorka wysnuwa ogólny wniosek, że mimo przejawiającej się skłonności Bułgarii do uznania swego zaangażowania [w Zagładę], kwestia ocalenia Żydów [przez społeczeństwo bułgarskie] jest nadal bardziej eksponowana, a współsprawstwo jest wciąż zamiatane pod dywan.

Dare to Think?

The previous two chapters argued that beliefs are pervasively outsourced to other people and to the environment, and that belief revision often occurs in response to changes in the cues that scaffold our beliefs. In light of these facts, we need to ensure the scaffolding of better beliefs. We need, that is, to manage the epistemic environment. Many people are uncomfortable with this suggestion, and urge that instead we should improve beliefs by promoting better reasons. This chapter examines the prospects for better individual reason, focusing on virtue epistemology. It argues that individual cognition is extremely unreliable, however virtuously it is conducted. Focusing on Quassim Cassam’s recent book on intellectual vices, it works through case studies, from climate denial and from historical scholarship, to show just how limited individual cognition is. It argues that even genuine experts are at severe risk of error when they stray outside their own sphere of expertise, and that spheres of expertise are much narrower than we tend to think.

New Perspectives on Translation: Translating Odisha by Paul St-Pierre

Translating Odisha (2019) by Prof. Paul St-Pierre fetches a wide range of new perspectives on translation and the act of translating with specific reference to translations from and to Odia. Being a Professor of Linguistics and Translation Studies, and at the same time a prolific translator, St-Pierre produces a rare combination of theory and application. He invokes and applies translation theories even as he theorises the experience of translating. Through three decades of association with Odia literature and its historiography and through translations with collaborators, St-Pierre has become an authority on translation studies in Odisha. His recent book is mostly a compilation of the articles that he has published in different journals of international repute, papers that he has presented in conferences and seminars, and a few short occasional pieces.

La storia assente: i limiti della Convenzione Europea del Paesaggio

The European Landscape Convention is an international treaty of great importance in the European institutional framework, but it contains a number of unclear and controversial points. This article investigates the relationship between the Convention and history, disclosing several critical aspects. In particular, it is worth mentioning that from the text of the Convention the term history/histoire is missing. The essay explores the reasons for this absence, in relation to a more general crisis of historical culture that affects the European nations. This crisis had already been foreseen by a number of authors, such as Jean-François Lyotard, Eric Hobsbawm, Claude Lévi-Strauss and François Hartog. In Italy, the most recent book by Adriano Prosperi (Un tempo senza storia, 2021) investigates the crisis of historical culture in contemporary societies, severely affecting schools and students’ educational programmes. The European Convention apparently shares this approach that constitutes a real threat to a proper knowledge of landscapes as repositories of collective memory and cultural heritage.

Contributing to Historical-Structural Injustice via Morally Wrong Acts

Alasia Nuti’s important recent book, Injustice and the Reproduction of History: Structural Inequalities, Gender and Redress (2019), makes many persuasive interventions. Nuti shows how structural injustice theory is enriched by being explicitly historical; in theorizing historical-structural injustice, she lays bare the mechanisms of how the injustices of history reproduce themselves. For Nuti, historical-structural patterns are not only shaped by habitual behaviors that are or appear to be morally permissible, but also by individual wrongdoing and wrongdoing by powerful group agents like states. In this article, I extend Nuti’s rich analysis, focusing on two questions that arise from her theory of historical-structural injustice: (1) Beyond being blameworthy for wrongful acts themselves, are culpable wrongdoers blameworthy for contributing to structural injustice? (2) Does historical moral ignorance mitigate moral responsibility for past injustice? Regarding (1), I distinguish between the local and societal structural effects of wrongdoing. Though I think this distinction is well-founded, it ultimately leads to tensions with structural injustice theory’s idea of ordinary individuals being blameless for reproducing unjust structures. Regarding (2), I argue that even though it is natural for the question of historical moral ignorance to arise in considering past wrongdoing, at least in the case of powerful group agents, we should not overlook forms of cruelty which present-day moral concepts are not needed to condemn.

An outline of extension from Neutrosophic Psychology to Pneumatic Transpersonal Psychology: Towards Relational Psychotherapy and Relational Pedagogy

Continuing our previous paper, we gave an outline of a new integral model of human consciousness scheme beyond Freudian mental model. We start from a recent book by one of us: Neutropsychic personality. Then we discuss possibility to reintroduce spirit into human consciousness. To emphasize what we have outlined in a preceding paper, we consider the following: that human consciousness model should take into consideration “spirit” role, i.e. the mind-body-spirit as integral aspect, which view is neglected in the Freudian mental model. In this paper, we consider a further step: introducing “soul” as a different element of human consciousness. We also discuss a few possible applications of such an integral model of human consciousness, including relational psychotherapy and relational pedagogy. While we are fully aware that much remain to be done and we admit that this is only a sketch, we hope that this paper will start a fresh approach of research towards more realistic nonlinear human consciousness model. === Melanjutkan makalah kami sebelumnya, kami memberikan garis besar model integral baru skema kesadaran manusia di luar model mental Freudian. Kita mulai dari sebuah buku baru-baru ini oleh salah satu dari kita: kepribadian Neutropsik. Kemudian kita membahas kemungkinan untuk memperkenalkan kembali roh ke dalam kesadaran manusia. Untuk menekankan apa yang telah kami uraikan dalam makalah sebelumnya, kami mempertimbangkan yang berikut: bahwa model kesadaran manusia harus mempertimbangkan peran "roh", yaitu jiwa-raga-jiwa sebagai aspek integral, yang pandangannya diabaikan dalam model mental Freudian. Dalam tulisan ini, kami mempertimbangkan langkah selanjutnya: memperkenalkan "jiwa" sebagai elemen berbeda dari kesadaran manusia. Kami juga membahas beberapa aplikasi yang mungkin dari model integral dari kesadaran manusia, termasuk psikoterapi relasional dan pedagogi relasional. Sementara kami sepenuhnya menyadari bahwa masih banyak yang harus dilakukan dan kami mengakui bahwa ini hanya sketsa, kami berharap makalah ini akan memulai pendekatan penelitian baru menuju model kesadaran manusia nonlinier yang lebih realistis.

Moscow’s Golden Mask Festival: The Russian Case (Online, 2021)

The team running the Russian Case as part of Moscow’s annual Golden Mask Festival pulled off a major feat in 2021 by organizing a five-day programme online. Deeply disappointed that the Russian Case had been cancelled in the preceding year due to the Covid pandemic, this group made it its mission to succeed in adverse circumstances; and succeed it did by providing works varied enough to engage its habitual audience, as well as people coming to the event for the first time, albeit digitally. In a departure from established practice, several productions that were performed too late to compete for the awards of the 2021 Festival appeared in this year’s Russian Case. The overview offered here gathers some works out of the choices made by Maria Shevtsova, Editor of New Theatre Quarterly, whose most recent book is Rediscovering Stanislavsky (Cambridge University Press, 2020).