Digital Commons Network^™

Using The Internet Platform Second Life To Teach Social Justice, Sharon Kaye, Earl Spurgin

Earl W. Spurgin

Second Life, an on-line, interactive environment in which users create avatars through which they have virtual experiences, is a contemporary experiment in utopia. While most often it is used for social networking, it also is used for commercial and educational purposes, as well as for political activism. Here, we share the results from a course that uses Second Life as a tool for examining social justice. We examine the notion of utopia, present the results of a pre- and post-survey designed to measure the effectiveness of our Second Life course, and relate insights gleaned from the centerpiece assignment of the …

De Rechtsstaat In Cyberspace?, Mireille Hildebrandt

Mireille Hildebrandt

Cyberspace is inmiddels overal. Wat tien jaar geleden misschien nog een aparte niet-fysieke wereld leek waar niemand wist dat je een hond was, gaat steeds meer lijken op een verzameling onderling verbonden dorpspleinen. Met dien verstande dat alles wat iedereen doet permanent wordt opgenomen, opgeslagen en doorzocht op betekenisvolle patronen. Steeds meer personen, organisaties maar ook dingen raken verbonden via het internet. De Internationale Telecommunicatie Unie sprak in 2005 van het ‘internet van de dingen’, om aan te geven dat binnen afzienbare tijd alles overal (‘everyware’) via draadloze identificatiesystemen traceerbaar is. Intussen raakt iedereen via de smartphone ‘always on(line)’. Deze …

Geothermal Resources Under The Mining Law Regime--Problems & Possibilities, Richard A. Grisel

Richard A Grisel

The development of geothermal resources has been greatly hampered by the legal and institutional framework governing geothermal energy resources. This framework has been plagued by conflicting mining and water laws, anachronistic common law systems of property rights, problematic legal classifications of geothermal resources, and jurisdictional variances from state to state and between states and the Federal government. These issues have combined to significantly hinder the development of what will be a vital resource for our nation’s future energy needs.

This thesis concerns one way to address the suboptimal development of geothermal energy resources. Using the Federal acquisition of exclusive airspace …

“Sound Tracks: The Ashkenazi Orient Express” Segal, Miryam. A New Sound In Hebrew Poetry, Haim O. Rechnitzer

Haim O Rechnitzer חיים א. רכניצר

No abstract provided.

Desarrollo Cientifico Tecnologico Y Universidades, Jorge Gibert-Galassi

jorge gibert-galassi

The paper shows how scientific and technological activities are embodied at universities in emegent peripheric countries and regions.

La Construccion Social Del Cientifico, Jorge Gibert-Galassi

jorge gibert-galassi

The interview-based paper describes structures and mechanisms which link market, State and the university, in order to explain, in principle, what a scientist is meant to be in Chile. By analysing four communities (astronomers, molecular biologists, sociologists, and communication scientists), it attempts to uncover the social and cultural reasons why there are these scientific communities with patent social and intellectual identity; latent but constituted identities, evolving; and communities in path-searching definable identity. Reinforcing a utilitarian historical relationship between university and society, and exacerbated by Neo-liberalism, these structures and mechanisms have been precipitated during the last 20 years. Finally, the paper …

The Geography Of Comparative Literature, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

“The Geography of Comparative Literature,” Journal of Literary Theory 5.2 (2011): 167–186 (examines the disciplinary history of Comparative Literature in the Arab and Persian world in relation to Europe; reviewed in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 13.07.2011, No. 160, S. N5).

Understanding Controversies And Ill-Structured Problems Through Argument Visualization. Curriculum And Learning Materials For Problem-Based Learning In Small Groups Of Students Who Work Autonomously On Projects With The Interactive Agora Software, Including An Exemplary Reader On Genetically Modified Plants, Michael H.G. Hoffmann

Michael H.G. Hoffmann

No abstract provided.

Elementos Para Una EconomíA PolíTica Del Republicanismo: Un AnáLisis CríTico De La Renta BáSica De Alaska, David Casassas, Jurgen De Wispelaere

Jurgen De Wispelaere

En este artículo presentamos las ideas básicas que subyacen a la teoría política republicana y establecemos una línea de demarcación entre la perspectiva republicana y el libertarianismo de izquierdas, el cual tiene en la renta básica de Alaska su plasmación institucional más natural e inmediata. A partir de ahí, abordamos tres conjuntos de problemas que presenta el modelo de Alaska: la falta de una base económica sustancial, la falta de frenos a la acumulación de poder económico privado y la falta de mecanismos de control democrático sobre los procesos de extracción, imposición tributaria y distribución de los recursos naturales. Así, …

Wiki Leaks Revelations In Global Context—The War Between ‘Right To Publish’ And ‘Ethical Code Of Conduct, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards …

Holmes And Dissent, Allen P. Mendenhall

Allen Mendenhall

Holmes saw the dissent as a mechanism to advance and preserve arguments and as a pageant for wordplay. Dissents, for Holmes, occupied an interstitial space between law and non-law. The thought and theory of pragmatism allowed him to recreate the dissent as a stage for performative text, a place where signs and syntax could mimic the environment of the particular time and place and in so doing become, or strive to become, law. Holmes’s dissents were sites of aesthetic adaptation. The language of his dissents was acrobatic. It acted and reacted and called attention to itself. The more provocative and …

A Critical Study Of Organizational Communication And Organizational Communication Theories- A Historical Perspective, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Organizational Communication is the study that looks at human communication within and outside the organization. Conrad and Poole (1998) break the definition of organizational communication in parts, by first defining communication and then analyses the organization. These researchers define communication as “a process through which people, acting together, create, sustain, and manage meanings through the use of verbal and nonverbal signs and symbols within a particular context” (Conrad and Poole, 1998, p. 5). In the context of this book, Kenyans and their leaders are communicating their views and final decision through the ballot box to elect their third president, during …

Review: Moral Psychology: Historical And Contemporary Readings, Audrey L. Anton

Audrey L Anton

Moral Psychology: Historical and Contemporary Readings is a much-needed collection of essays on issues of moral psychology. The aim of the book is to present the reader with a comprehensive view of both the history and foundations of moral psychology as well as the discipline's position in academia and its relationship with other disciplines, such as psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, all of which involve empirical investigation of human capabilities and behavior. This collection is well organized into five distinct parts. Each part has a helpful editorial introduction that not only summarizes the main themes of the debate assigned to …

Op-Ed: Occupiers Begin 'To Build A New Democracy', Stephen D'Arcy

Stephen D'Arcy

A defence of the Occupy movement.

From Vulgar Words To Lightening Bolts: Nietzsche On Style, Language And Experience, Erika Kerruish

Dr Erika Kerruish

Nietzsche writes that literary styles must be taken into account when determining meaning. To not do so vulgarizes language. The importance of style to meaning is best understood by examining the relationship between language and experience. Style requires readers to experience the particularity of texts if they are to understand their meaning, and style is experienced and evaluated in terms of the audience’s ethos. Through style’s ability to provide alternative perspectives on the audience’s linguistic norms, language is not limited to reiterating common generalisations but expresses the unfamiliar, rare and evolving.

Los Modelos De Equilibrio General: La Revisión De Chancelier Y Una Crítica A Debreu Y Mckenzie, Rodrigo Lopez-Pablos

Lopez-Pablos, Rodrigo

A revision on general equilibrium theory from an entropic perspective. JEL CLASSIFICATION: D50, O21, Z19

Public Accountability And Media : Its Success And Failure In Performing The Role As A Force For Public Accountability, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Media accountability is a phrase that refers to the general (especially western) belief that mass media has to be accountable in the public’s interest - that is, they are expected to behave in certain ways that contribute to the public good. The concept is not clearly defined, and often collides with commercial interests of media owners; legal issues, such as the constitutional right to the freedom of the press in the U.S.; and governmental concerns about public security and order. Several international organizations, like International Freedom of Expression Exchange, Freedom House, International Press Institute, World Press Freedom Committee and the …

Mechanisms (Oxford), Stuart Glennan

Stuart Glennan

Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis …

Gauging Gender: A Metaphysics, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

In this article the author discusses sex and gender in human beings and examines how the study of science, particularly biology, has influenced the study of these subjects in higher education. It traces the evolution of sex and gender studies in academe, comments on the failure of many humanities scholars to dismiss biology in studying human behavior, and explores ways in which psychoanalysis, social constructionism, and metaphysics have informed the debate over the differences between sex and gender. Other topics include research conducted by Anne Fausto-Sterling regarding intersexed people, scientific tests focusing on sexual preference in rats, and thoughts by …

"Else-Where": Essays In Art, Architecture, And Cultural Production 2002-2011, Gavin W. Keeney

Gavin W Keeney

“Else-where” is a synoptic survey of the representational values given to art, architecture, and cultural production from 2002 through 2011. Written primarily as a critique of what is suppressed in architecture and what is disclosed in art, the essays are informed by the passage out of post-structuralism and its disciplinary analogues toward the real Real (denoted over the course of the studies as the “Real-Irreal” or “Else-where”).

The essays collected in “Else-where” cross various disciplines, inclusive of landscape architecture, architecture, and visual art, to develop a nuanced critique of an emergent formal regard in the arts that is also an …

Beyond Anti-Semitism, Rebecca Gould

Rebecca Gould

Focusing on internal contradictions within the Israeli left, this essay considers the impact of the historical legacy of anti-Semitism on everyday thinking about Israel and the Palestinian territories. Contesting the view that to criticize Israel is to engage in anti-Semitic defamation, it offers an historical account of how Israel's actions in the West Bank have come to be immunized from conscientious criticism. It also documents how progressive media outlets in contemporary Israel have silenced or otherwise marginalized Israel's most active critics.

Moral Conviction, Matthew Pianalto

Matthew Pianalto

We often praise people who stand by their convictions in the face of adversity and practice what they preach. However, strong moral convictions can also motivate atrocious acts. Two significant questions here are (1) whether conviction itself — taken as a mode of belief — has any distinctive value, or whether all the value of conviction derives from its substantive content, and (2) how conviction can be made responsible in a way that mitigates the risks of falling into dogmatism, fanaticism, and other vices. In response to the first question, I suggest that conviction has instrumental value that derives from …

Gaining Ground: Towards A Discourse Of Posthuman Animality: A Geophilosophical Journey (Presentation), Anne Louise Schillmoller

Anne Schillmoller

A Powerpoint slide presentation which, through the use of images and geospatial metaphors, explores the human-animal binary.

La Presunción De Inocencia Como Proposición Sintética, Cesar A. Prieto

Cesar A. Prieto

No abstract provided.

The Cogito Arguments Of Descartes And Augustine, Joyce Lazier

joyce lazier

Descartes Cogito reconstructed in its basic logical format.

Categorical Imperative As The Source Of Morality, Joyce Lazier

joyce lazier

No abstract provided.

One Way Up Through The Way Back Into The Out Of Ontotheology (Powerpoint), Mary-Jane V. Rubenstein

Mary-Jane Rubenstein

This is the powerpoint presentation associated with the lecture whose video can be found at http://condor.wesleyan.edu/openmedia/upub/video/lectures/fall2011/theory/theory_10_05_11.m4v. Please see the text version above, if it would be helpful.

Philosophy And Nascar, Jake Bates

The Intellectual Standard

No abstract provided.

On Reason, Michael Christison

The Intellectual Standard

No abstract provided.

Faulty Phrases: “Good Things Come To Those Who Wait”, Jake Bates

The Intellectual Standard

No abstract provided.