August 9, 2012
Transgressive fiction is a genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways. Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressional fiction may seem mentally ill, anti-social, or nihilistic. The genre deals extensively with taboo subject matters such as drugs, sex, violence, incest, pedophilia, and crime.
The term ‘transgressive fiction’ was coined by Los Angeles Times literary critic Michael Silverblatt. Rene Chun, a journalist for ‘The New York Times,’ described is as, ‘A literary genre that graphically explores such topics as incest and other aberrant sexual practices, mutilation, the sprouting of sexual organs in various places on the human body, urban violence and violence against women, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, and that is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge.’
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August 9, 2012
‘What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America’ (2004) is a book by American journalist and historian Thomas Frank, which explores the rise of populist anti-elitist Conservatism in the United States, centering on the experience of Kansas, Frank’s native state.
In the late 19th century, Kansas was known as a hotbed of the left-wing Populist movement, but in recent decades, it has become overwhelmingly conservative. The book was published in Britain and Australia as ‘What’s the Matter with America?’ According to the book, the political discourse of recent decades has dramatically shifted from the social and economic equality to one in which ‘explosive’ cultural issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, are used to redirect anger towards ‘liberal elites.’
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August 9, 2012
‘Irrational exuberance‘ is a phrase used by the then-Federal Reserve Board Chairman, Alan Greenspan, in a speech given at the American Enterprise Institute during the Dot-com bubble of the 1990s. The phrase was interpreted as a warning that the market might be somewhat overvalued.
Greenspan’s comment was made in late 1996: ‘[…] Clearly, sustained low inflation implies less uncertainty about the future, and lower risk premiums imply higher prices of stocks and other earning assets. We can see that in the inverse relationship exhibited by price/earnings ratios and the rate of inflation in the past. But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they have in Japan over the past decade?’
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August 9, 2012
Feminazi is a term popularized by radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh to describe ‘an extreme or militant feminist.’ In 2004, Limbaugh named feminist activists Gloria Steinem, Susan Sarandon, Christine Lahti, and Camryn Manheim as ‘famous feminazis.’
Feminazi is a portmanteau of the nouns feminist and Nazi. The term is used pejoratively by some U.S. conservatives to criticize feminists that they perceive as extreme.
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August 9, 2012
The Manipulated Man (German: ‘Der Dressierte Mann’) is a 1971 book by author Argentinian-German writer Esther Vilar, which argues that, contrary to common feminist and women’s rights rhetoric, women in industrialized cultures are not oppressed, but rather exploit a well-established system of manipulating men.
A third edition of the book was released in 2009. Vilar writes, ‘Men have been trained and conditioned by women, not unlike the way Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves. As compensation for their labors men are given periodic use of a woman’s vagina.’ The book contends that young boys are encouraged to associate their masculinity with their ability to be sexually intimate with a woman, and that a woman can control a man by socially empowering herself to be the gate-keeper to his sense of masculinity.
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August 6, 2012
The Wilson Quarterly is a magazine published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. The magazine was founded in 1976 by journalist Peter Braestrup and James H. Billington, the thirteenth Librarian of the United States Congress. The ‘Quarterly’ is noted for its nonpartisan, nonideological approach to current issues, with articles written from various perspectives.
Designed to make the research and debates of scholars and intellectuals accessible to a general audience, it covers a wide range of topics, from science policy and literature to foreign affairs. In 2012, the ‘Quarterly’ changed to a digital-only publishing model.
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August 6, 2012
‘Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World’ is a 2006 book by law professors Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu that offers an assessment of the struggle to control the Internet. Starting with a discussion of the early vision of a borderless global community, the authors present some of the most prominent individuals, ideas, and movements that have played key roles in developing the Internet.
The book asserts the important role of government in maintaining Internet law and order while debunking the claims of techno-utopianism that have been espoused by theorists such as Thomas Friedman. In the 1990s the Internet was greeted as the ‘New New Thing’: It would erase national borders, give rise to communal societies that invented their own rules, undermine the power of governments. Goldsmith and Wu explain why these early assumptions were mostly wrong. The Internet turns out to illustrate the enduring importance of Old Old Things, such as law and national power and business logic.
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July 30, 2012
Bruce Conner (1933 – 2008) was an American artist renowned for his work in assemblage (artistic compositions made by putting together found objects) and film, among other disciplines. He attended Wichita University (now Wichita State), and received his B.F.A in Art at Nebraska University in 1956.
He then attended the University of Colorado on scholarship; also there was Jean Sandstedt, whom he had met at Nebraska and who would become his wife. In 1957 the two married and immediately flew to San Francisco. There, Conner quickly assimilated into the city’s famous Beat community and founded the Rat Bastard Protective Association, an underground, arts organization. His first solo shows in San Francisco, in 1958 and 1959, featured paintings, drawings, prints, collages, assemblages, and sculpture.
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July 30, 2012
Si vis pacem, para bellum is a Latin adage translated as, ‘If you wish for peace, prepare for war’ (usually interpreted as meaning peace through strength—a strong society being less likely to be attacked by enemies). The adage was adapted from a statement in ‘De Re Militari’ (‘Concerning Military Matters’) by Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, although the idea it conveys is also present in earlier works, such as Plato’s ‘Nomoi’ (‘Laws’).
With reference to the foreign policy of Napoleon Bonaparte, the historian, de Bourrienne, said: ‘Everyone knows the adage… Had Bonaparte been a Latin scholar he would probably have reversed it and said, ‘Si vis bellum para pacem.” Meaning that if you are planning a war, you should put other nations off guard by cultivating peace. Conversely, another interpretation could be that preparing for peace may lead another party to wage war on you.
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July 30, 2012
‘Peace through strength‘ is a conservative slogan supporting military strength for the purpose of creating peaceful international relations. For supporters of the MX missile in the 1970s, the missile symbolized ‘peace through strength.’ The phrase was popular in political rallies during 1988.
The idea is a major justification cited for large militaries, and also served as the primary motivation behind the Cold War doctrine of mutually assured destruction. The logic here is that a strong military deters aggression and coercion (blackmail), and that no potential aggressor in his right mind would dare to attack or blackmail someone stronger than he is, because he knows he would be swiftly defeated if he tried to. Conservatives and neoconservatives argue that if an aggressor is irrational and cannot be deterred, he can be swiftly defeated by a large and strong standing military.
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July 27, 2012
‘Cyber Rights: Defending Free speech in the Digital Age’ is a 1998 non-fiction book about cyberlaw, written by free speech lawyer Mike Godwin. Godwin graduated from the University of Texas School of Law in 1990 and was the first staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Written with a first-person perspective, ‘Cyber Rights’ gives the reader a background in legal issues and history pertaining to free speech on the Internet.
It documents the author’s experiences in defending free speech online, and puts forth the thesis that ‘the remedy for the abuse of free speech is more speech.’ Godwin emphasizes that decisions made about the expression of ideas on the Internet have an impact on freedom of speech in other mediums of communication as well, as granted by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
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July 27, 2012
Counter-economics is a term originally used by libertarian activists Samuel Edward Konkin III and J. Neil Schulman, defined as ‘the study and/or practice of all peaceful human action which is forbidden by the State.’ The term is short for ‘counter-establishment economics.’
Counter-economics was integrated by Schulman into Konkin’s doctrine of agorism (a philosophy that advocates the goal of the bringing about of a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges). The first book to portray counter-economics as a strategy for achieving a libertarian society was Schulman’s novel ‘Alongside Night’ (1979).
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