Gendering Palestinian Dispossession: Evaluating Land Loss in the West Bank

Despite increasing attention to Palestinian territorial dispossession, there is inadequate attention paid to how this dispossession is gendered in its legitimising discourses and practices. Inattention to gender results in a failure to understand the power relations at play in the processes through which Palestinians are dispossessed of their land, the discourses that serve to support that dispossession and the impacts of that dispossession. This article examines the roles of Israeli hegemonic militarised masculinity as deployed in discourses and practices of “security” as well as idealised Zionist femininity and idealised Zionist masculinity as deployed in discourses and practices of “God‐given Righteousness”. It finds that both are effective means of dispossessing Palestinians of their land, and that in settlements in the West Bank, the hegemonic militarised masculinity is often subsumed under idealised Zionist femininity and masculinity when it comes to settlement expansion and the violent dispossession of Palestinian land.     

„Simulanten des Irrsinns auf dem Vortragspult“: Dada,Krieg und Psychiatrie,eine ‚Aktive Traumadynamik‘

“Simulanten des Irrsinns auf dem Vortragspult”: Dada, War and Psychiatry – ‘Active Dynamics of Trauma’. This paper relates stage performances of dada artists to war neurosis and shell shock as sociocultural phenomena. The leitmotif of this investigation is the notion of simulation, as dada artists were referred to as malingerers (simulators) of madness by the press at the time. I hypothesize that the performers imitate/simulate with drums, shouting and ‘bruitist’ sound poems, the noises of war, staging themselves as war neurotics in a kind of shocking clinical demonstration. Both discourses intersect in the fact that many dadaists try to dodge the draft by simulating madness. The scandalizing anti-art of dada will be understood as contagious anti-pedagogy, trying to vaccinate against the madness of the era.     

An oasis in a watery desert? Discourses on an industrial ecosystem in the Gulf of Mexico Rigs‐to‐Reefs program

This article explores how in the years after 1980 a spectrum of historical actors came to see petroleum platforms in the Gulf of Mexico as a necessary part of the Gulf ecosystem and how such views affected platform removal policies. Through a discourse analysis of the Rigs‐to‐Reefs program, in which old offshore petroleum facilities were converted into artificial reefs, this article examines how actors presented to the public their notions of the relationship of the Gulf ecosystem with technological offshore structures. Through this case we see how ideas of technology and nature were mutually constructed via discourses and what affect that had on policies.     

Contemporary Iranian Art: The Emergence of New Artistic Discourses1

This article deals with the emerging discourses and concerns that have dominated the Iranian art community mainly since 1997. It discusses the existing, or rather conflicting, views of the current situation of the visual arts in Iran as expressed in recent artistic events, productions, and exhibitions as well as in critical reviews.² It does not fully discuss the variety of artistic genres in Iran, but examines the dominant ideas from the main opposing factions of cultural and artistic thought. It also aims at identifying the structural changes in Iranian art as well as the prevailing artistic policy of recent years.     

War neuroses and Arthur Hurst: a pioneering medical film about the treatment of psychiatric battle casualties

From 1917 to 1918, Major Arthur Hurst filmed shell-shocked patients home from the war in France. Funded by the Medical Research Committee, and using Pathé cameramen, he recorded soldiers who suffered from intractable movement disorders as they underwent treatment at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Netley and undertook programs of occupational therapy at Seale Hayne in Devon. As one of the earliest UK medical films, Hurst's efforts may have drawn inspiration from the official documentary of the Battle of the Somme and films made in 1916 by French Army neurologists. Although initially motivated to make use of a novel medium to illustrate lectures, Hurst was alert to the wider appeal of the motion picture and saw an opportunity to position himself in the postwar medical hierarchy. Some "before treatment" shots were reenacted for the camera. Hurst, like some other shell shock doctors, openly used deception as a therapeutic measure. On the basis that the ends justified the means, they defended this procedure as ethical. Clinicians also took advantage of changes in military regulations to address functional symptoms. Claims made of "cures" in the film and associated publications by Hurst were challenged by other doctors treating shell shock. The absence of follow-up data and evidence from war pension files suggested that Hurst may have overstated the effectiveness of his methods. Nevertheless, the message conveyed in the film that chronic cases could be treated in a single session had a powerful resonance for ambitious or charismatic doctors and was revived in World War II.     

Rehoboth Baster,Namibian or Namibian Baster? An analysis of national discourses in Rehoboth,Namibia*

Abstract. The point of departure of this article is a conception of nations as discursive constructions of ‘us’/‘here’ in relation to ‘them’/‘there’. The empirical analysis examines three national discourses in Rehoboth, Namibia: (1) a discourse on the ethnic Baster nation; (2) a discourse on the Namibian nation‐state and (3) a discourse on the nation‐state containing a variety of ethnic nations (‘the rainbow nation’). The first discourse is characterised by a primordial belief about Rehoboth Basters, their homeland and their ties to this homeland. This conception is challenged by the discourse on the Namibian nation‐state. Here, it is argued that ‘ethnic nations’ are the creation of colonialism; with Namibia's new independence, it is seen as necessary to tear down previous ‘ethnic nations’ and build up a new, united nation‐state. The rainbow discourse attempts to integrate the other two discourses through ideas about overlapping nations, where the boundaries that separate ‘us’/‘here’ from ‘them’/‘there’ overlap and are inclusive rather than exclusive.     

Shooting the Isolation and Marginality of Masculinities in Iranian Cinema

This article examines the isolation and marginality of Iranian men living in contemporary Iran with a focus on three post-2005 films. As a patriarchal society, Iran has been the subject of many studies on the subjugation and marginality of women. This study demonstrates how recent Iranian films have skillfully employed the cinematic language to narrate men’s stories of alienation and despair. These filmic constructions provide a valuable and complex insight into masculine identities, challenging perceptions of the essentialized image of the Middle Eastern male. By employing Connell’s hierarchy of masculinities, the article demonstrates the position of marginalized men in relation to the dominant ideals of masculinity and the influence of these discourses on the lives of such men. The films discussed here do not perpetuate the construction of the ‘true’ gender, but instead challenge ideas of heroism, manliness and patriarchy.     

The Volatility of Sex: Intersexuality,Gender and Clinical Practice in the 1950s

The term ‘gender role’ was coined at Johns Hopkins's paediatric endocrinology clinic in the 1950s, where Dr Lawson Wilkins and psychologist John Money diagnosed, treated and evaluated intersexual children, most of them suffering from a condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Going beyond existing discourses on the medicalisation of intersexuality, I reframe the emergence of gender as an element in the development of a specific medical treatment for an endocrinological condition and excavate the complex and contingent historical factors that led to the formulation of gender role in the Hopkins context. Using previously unavailable patient records from the clinic, this article follows the patients through their medical encounters and describes the process of normalisation around the diagnosis, treatment and management of CAH. By paying specific attention to the practices at the clinic, I show that diagnosing a child's sex often depended on the physicians’ skill, experience and techniques. Correct gender role was folded into the management of CAH as one aspect of successful treatment. Normalisation was a process, in which treating somatic effects and assuring psychological healthiness were deeply enmeshed in the conviction that a normal life would only be possible as a clearly gendered and sexed person.     

“Vote with your feet”: Neoliberalism,the democratic nation-state,and utopian enclave libertarianism

This paper examines a series of emerging utopian discourses that call for the creation of autonomous libertarian enclaves on land ceded by or claimed against existing states. These discourses have emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and can be seen as a response to the crisis on the part of free-market advocates who critique previous waves of neoliberal reform for failing to radically transform the existing structures of the state. Enclave libertarianism seeks to overcome neoliberal capitalism's contradictory relationship to the liberal democratic state by rethinking the state as a “private government service provider” and rethinking citizens as mobile consumers of government services. Citizens are thus called to “vote with their feet” by opting-in to the jurisdiction that best fits their needs and beliefs. The paper argues that these utopian imaginaries are key to understanding specific new manifestations of post-crisis neoliberalism, and calls for more research into the diversity of discourses and imaginaries that circulate through networks of neoliberal actors beyond specific policy initiatives.     

Empire‐nation: national and imperial discourses in England

When the states of England and Scotland combined in 1707, conditions were created whereby English nationalism could merge into British nationalism. With the expansion of empire, English nationalism was expressed through imperial‐national discourses allowing English nationalists to claim non‐English space when articulating what might be best understood as an Anglo‐British nationalism. Accordingly, such discourses largely ‘hid’ what one might now understand as ‘English nationalism’ within a ‘British’ discourse of empire. The case of England illustrates that imperial discourses can become intimately bound up with the ‘national’ discourse of the nations at the core of the imperial structures. Accordingly, it is here argued that imperial and national discourse are not necessarily opposed to each other, but are able to feed into each other, affecting the manner in which ideas of the nation and empire are conceived and articulated.     

‘Fit Only for the Scrap Heap’: Rebuilding Returned Soldier Manhood in Australia after 1945

This paper examines the expert and popular discourses that sought to construct and disseminate the idea that Australia faced a masculinity crisis with the return of servicemen at the end of the Second World War. It explores how these discourses proposed a process of remasculinisation to ensure the successful reintegration of returning servicemen. These discourses were directed primarily at wives, mothers and fiancées, who were seen to bear the responsibility for rebuilding the manhood of returning men. Doctors played an important role in producing this prevailing discourse on the looming post‐war masculinity crisis, identifying its symptoms and proposing solutions. This crisis discourse filtered into popular culture through many means, predominantly, however, advice literature and romance fiction. While some of these expert and popular discourses constructed a backward looking ideal of domesticity for women, romance fiction in particular explored more modern possibilities of companionate marriage. The dissemination of a discourse about an impending masculinity crisis created different possibilities for the reconstruction of relations between men and women. The remasculinisation project could look both backwards (through ideals of women's subservience to damaged men) and forwards (through notions of marriage as a partnership) in imagining post war gender relations.     

Creating the world: the origins of all things in ancient Greek myth and medicine

Abstract

In the sixth and fifth centuries BC, a series of dramatic shifts in science and the arts took place in the Greek world, and history, medicine, philosophy, and science came into being. This paper examines 'the Greek miracle', looking at how new ideas about 'the origin of all things' were rooted in traditional mythic patterns of thought. In particular, it examines how medical writers thought about the origins of the cosmos, and of disease. The multiple creations of the world present in Greek myth, where the origin of all things was seen as a process of differentiation out of original similarity, may have predisposed the Greeks to be open to the new theories of early scientific thinkers.     

The tyranny of transnational discourse: ‘authenticity’ and Irish diasporic identity in Ireland and England

Through the prism of current state discourses in Ireland on engagement with the Irish diaspora, this article examines the empirical merit of the related concepts of ‘diaspora’ and ‘transnationalism’. Drawing on recent research on how Irish identity is articulated and negotiated by Irish people in England, this study suggests a worked distinction between the concepts of ‘diaspora’ and ‘transnationalism’. Two separate discourses of authenticity are compared and contrasted: they rest on a conceptualisation of Irish identity as transnational and diasporic, respectively. I argue that knowledge of contemporary Ireland is constructed as sufficiently important that claims on diasporic Irishness are constrained by the discourse of authentic Irishness as transnational. I discuss how this affects the identity claims of second‐generation Irish people, the relationship between conceptualisations of Irishness as diasporic within Ireland and ‘lived’ diasporic Irish identities, and implications for state discourses of diaspora engagement.     

White environmental subjectivity and the politics of belonging

In a society dominated by a colorblind approach to racial difference, racial categories are often viewed as unchanging and constructed in a time past. This article examines the making of racial categories and subjectivities in everyday perceptions and portrayals of place and belonging related to environmentalism. It examines the ways in which middle-class white people, who engage regularly with Latino immigrants, simultaneously construct the racial category of ‘white’ and affirm their own belonging in Boulder, Colorado through an exclusionary discourse of environmentalism. In Boulder, immigrants and non-immigrant Latinos are often portrayed as unaware of environmentalism, not interested in environmentalism, and/or too busy or poor to participate in environmentalism. In interviews, white residents of the city reproduce discourses of privilege and exclusion through environmental discourses and reinforce their own white environmental subjectivity as the norm. The insider/outsider division established through environmental discourse in Boulder is a specific example of how exclusion is enforced through the racialization of ‘natural’ spaces and environmental activities and how environmentalism itself is an important articulation of difference.     

Religion and ethno‐nationalism: Turkey's Kurdish issue

One approach within the Islamic camp treats Islam, which emphasizes overarching notions such as the ‘Islamic brotherhood’ and ‘ummah’, as incompatible with ethno‐nationalist ideas and movements. It is, however, striking that in the last decades, several Islamic and conservative groups in Turkey have paid increasing attention to the Kurdish issue, supporting their ethnic demands and sentiments. Even more striking, the leftist, secular Kurdish ethno‐nationalists have adopted a more welcoming attitude toward Islam. How can we explain such intriguing developments and shifts? Using original data derived from several elite interviews and a public opinion survey, this study shows that the struggle for Kurdish popular support and legitimacy has encouraged political elites from both camps to enrich their ideological toolbox by borrowing ideas and discourses from each other. Further, Turkish and Kurdish nationalists alike utilize Islamic discourses and ideas to legitimize their competing nationalist claims. Exploring such issues, the study also provides theoretical and policy implications.     

Justifying the use of force in a post‐9/11 world: striving for hierarchy in international society

This article examines the justifications made for war by President Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq, cataloguing all the administration's statements that justify or support these wars. These discourses reveal a radical departure from the post‐1990 trend of United States presidents, with international law and human rights being almost absent. The justifications point to a hegemonic US attempting to establish itself as the guarantor and provider of freedom and peace, attempting to establish a hierarchically structured international society.     

Between Galen, Geddes, and the Gael: Arthur Brock, modernity, and medical humanism in early-twentieth-century Scotland

Arthur Brock (1879-1947) is generally remembered as the physician who treated poet Wilfred Owen for shell shock and as the translator of Galen and other ancient physicians. He was also a key figure in the early-twentieth-century humanist revival within medicine. Brock's interest in humanism, I argue, was inspired by a broader concern about modernity and by a desire to return medicine and society to the more harmonious, organic existence that he believed was characteristic of ancient Greece and could still be found among "primitive" peoples, such as the Scottish Gaels. This article explores Brock's anxieties about modernity and its relations to his interests in ancient and "primitive" peoples; to his medical thought and practice; to his interests in history, sociology, language, and translation; and to his involvement in the social and political life of Edinburgh and North Queensferry, where he moved in 1925. Crucially, it shows how all these interests and activities were influenced by Brock's mentor, Edinburgh polymath Patrick Geddes. The article concludes with a discussion of Brock's place in early-twentieth-century medical humanism.