• Going green for St. Patrick’s Day and more The Pyramids and Sphinx on St. Patrick’s Day. (Courtesy of The Embassy of Ireland and Daily News Egypt) Anthropologyworks’ Sean Carey published an article in The Guardian about going green for St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. He discussed the trend to turn buildings and sites green through lighting or dye including  Berlin’s TV Tower, Cape Town’s Table Mountain, the Citadel in Jordan, Dubai’s Burj al Arab, the Empire State Building, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Pyramids of Giza, the Sydney Opera House, and Niagara Falls. There was a request to the Queen that Buckingham Palace be turned green to mark the saint’s day (the answer was no). Tourism Ireland has recently discovered that royal bride and mother-to-be Kate Middleton has Irish ancestry: “We have an authenticated connection, with all the certificates and everything,” said Tourism Ireland’s chief executive Niall Gibbons. He promises to reveal details in the next few weeks. • A less green note: Lessons from Chernobyl to Fukushima Cultural anthropologist Sarah Phillips of the University of Indiana at Bloomington writes in CounterPunch: “The March 11, 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami caused the deaths of approximately 16,000 persons, left more than 6,000 injured and 2,713 missing, destroyed or partially damaged nearly one million buildings, and produced at least $14.5 billion in damages. The earthquake also caused a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Japan’s eastern coast. After reading the first news reports about what the Japanese call ’3.11,’ I immediately drew associations between the accident in Fukushima and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 in what was then the Soviet Union…. I positioned the problem-riddled Chernobyl clean-up, evacuation, and reparation efforts as a foil, assuming that Japan would, in contrast, unroll a state-of-the-art nuclear disaster response for the modern age…surely a country like Japan that relies so heavily on nuclear-generated power has developed thorough, well-rehearsed, and tested responses to any potential nuclear emergency? Thus, I expected the inevitable comparisons between the world’s two worst nuclear accidents to yield more contrasts than parallels.” In fact, the author finds many parallels. • What do you believe, and does it matter? Tapestry is a radio feature of CBA Canada about modern spirituality. Its host Mary Hynes recently asked the question: What do you believe? A write-up of the program mentions Tanya Luhrmann, cultural anthropologist at Stanford University, and her recent book, When God Talks Back, Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God. Hynes ackonwledges Lurhmann’s role in trying “to bridge the chasm between those who believe and those who find the concept of belief unfathomable…On the one side: those for whom belief is real, tangible and beyond question. On the other: those who regard belief with skepticism, hostility, confusion or bemusement. So, go ahead and ponder the question, ‘What do you believe?’ But spare a thought, too, for its corollary: Does it matter?” • More on belief: A confusion of saints? An image of St. Francis (Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and the University of Toronto). An article in the Arizona Star Daily raised questions about the name “Saint Francis” and why the new Pope chose Francis as his name. The author ponders the connections between the name Francis and a possible confusion with Jesuits and Franciscans who apparently each have a Saint Francis [Blogger's note: with apologies to my readers, I am a bit lost here myself].  The connection to anthropology in all this is some commentary by Bernard Fontana, retired University of Arizona anthropologist and ethnohistorian and leading expert on Jesuit-Franciscan history in the Southwest. [Blogger's second note: the Saint Francis name choice is complicated, and I look forward to further clarifications]. • Museum exhibits in Pittsburgh on empowering women Two exhibitions focus on how women around the world are taking charge of defining their lives. “Empowering Women: Artisan Cooperatives That Transform Communities” at Carnegie Museum of Natural History tells the stories of 10 groups in Africa, Asia, and the Americas that gain power through economic success. “Feminist And …” at the Mattress Factory Art Museum exhibits work by six women artists who challenge power. Sandra Olsen, curator of the Carnegie Museum show is quoted as saying:”The big story to be told about these women is what a difference they are making in their lives and in their families’ lives…” The positive results aren’t all monetary. As women gain status, there is a decline of rape in the community and of child marriages. Olsen is a cultural anthropologist and director of the Carnegie Museum’s Center for World Cultures. • Throwing shoes at the anthropology of throwing shoes Man on a park bench, Chicago 2006. (Courtesy Paul Goyette and Wikimedia Commons). More ethnographic work on the culture of shoe-throwing is absolutely necessary, argues Hamid Dabashi, professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, in an op-ed published by Al Jazeera. Dabashi lobs several significant zingers at anthropological studies of “Middle Eastern culture,” notably Raphael Patai‘s book, The Arab Mind.  [Blogger's note: Dabashi is right about the importance of the cultural meaning of shoes, especially their soles, as being connected with disgust and dirt...I learned about this when I first went to India as an undergraduate and did really stupid things with my sandals like putting them on the foot of my bed when the sweeper came to clean my room -- he was appalled at my filthy habits. I still cringe when people here in America put their feet on a coffee table -- shod or unshod. He's also right about the problems with anthropologists' writings about "the Arab mind." I hope the new century brings better thinking and writing about the cultural meaning of shoes, insults, degradation, understanding, tolerance, and more ]. • Penis-snatching in the Central African Republic [Blogger's note: readers should first look at what a culture-specific syndrome is].  In an article in AlterNet, Louisa Lombard,  a post-doctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, recounts her visit to the village of Tiringoulou in the Central African Republic, where two men said their genitals had been stolen. She was surprised to encounter reports of penis-snatching in a village because this “crime” is normally confined to more populated areas, the Daily Mail reports. Lombard explains that the belief in “penis-snatching” is a manifestation of anxieties caused as villages grow into cities. So it is more common in larger population centers. “If penis stealing seems beyond-the-pale weird,” writes Lombard, “consider what people in Tiringoulou might think upon hearing of Americans who starve themselves near to death because their reflection in the mirror convinces them they are fat.” Click for her full article. • Financial support for indigenous languages in Australia ABC news Australia reports on a new Federal Government program that provides cash for maintenance and revival of indigenous languages. Anthropologist and linguist Murray Garde, research fellow at Australia National University,  welcomes the $14 million for language funding, though it is just a small proportion of the money set aside for the Commonwealth’s new National Cultural Policy. The National Cultural Policy, which includes more than $200 million to fund arts and culture, is the Government’s first such policy in almost 20 years.  Garde said the languages component  is “… a win-win for everyone because [it's] based on good, solid, academic research…Aboriginal languages are good for everyone, whether or not you look at it from an economic point of view, or you’re looking at it from an identity point of view, community wellbeing, mental health, or even from a human rights perspective.” • Anthropology and the interdisciplinarity movement The Guardian (UK) carried an article about how: ‘Interdisciplinarity is a buzzword in academic research and education, but few universities are able to pay more than lip service to this concept. Indeed, the very nature of academia resists interdisciplinarity. We are trained to become experts on the most minute aspects of our subject, and are chastised for being too broadly focused or having too many interests.” The article provides a few sentences about Joe Henrich, an anthropologist, who uses game theory rather than the more traditional ethnography to elucidate cross-cultural differences in gift giving and human behavior. Apparently, Henrich has not been embraced either by researchers in cultural anthropology or other fields. “Many anthropologists felt threatened by this methodological promiscuity, finding it ‘unethical,’ ‘heavy-handed and invasive.” [Blogger's note: referring to an " interdisciplinarity movement" in the header is likely an overstatement; apologies for my enthusiasm]. • Yorkshire celebrates 100 years of Bollywood Irna Qureshi (Source: Yorkshire Post). An exhibition in Bradford, Yorkshire, U.K.,  of film posters reveals the rich and changing heritage of India’s Bollywood film industry. Bollywood produces hundreds of movies a year, and  it has recently secured the services of Kylie Minogue, Sylvester Stallone and Denise Richards. Yet, widespread views are that Bollywood movies are less worthy than movies made by the mainstream western film industry. The exhibition at Bradford’s National Media Museum challenges this view, telling the story of Indian cinema through iconic posters produced by the industry’s powerhouse studios. The exhibit is curated by anthropologist and Bollywood expert Irna Qureshi: “People think Bollywood is high melodrama, song and dance and not much more than that… it is those things, but it’s so much more. Bollywood stars are now crossing over into Hollywood movies and the crossover is happening the other way round. Bollywood is a massive industry with a huge worldwide appeal.” • Come respectfully: When people become tourist attractions An article in the Travel Section of The New York Times describes six days of sailing, exotic destinations, snorkeling, and memorable sunsets…as well as an unsettling experience with “human tourism”:  “The next day, Thaingar [the tour guide] had scheduled an early-afternoon stop at Bo Cho Island, a place I felt uneasy about after reading this description in the itinerary: ‘Observe the daily life of the almost extinct sea-Gypsies.’ This was a reference to the Moken, a nomadic ethnic group of about 2,000 that has lived on boats in the archipelago for at least 250 years. Expert divers and beachcombers, they roamed around the Andaman Sea subsisting on fish, sea cucumbers, mollusks and sandworms. But in the late 1990s, the government settled some Moken on Bo Cho Island…I felt foolish standing around the village in a sun hat during the hottest part of the day with no real reason to be there…Most of the adults observed us indifferently from small restaurants, boat-repair shops and thatched-roof homes with satellite dishes. But two women eventually motioned for me to come sit with them on their porch. We could not talk with each other, so I shared some of my old family photos from the 1980s that I had stored on my phone. Those caused some laughs…I felt torn about the visit. The zoo-like aspect of it was unsettling, but I also felt that skipping it would have meant taking a stance that basically said, ‘We love visiting all your beautiful beaches, but we’d rather not see the human impact of your formerly oppressive government’s policies.’” The author later contacted Jacques Ivanoff, an anthropologist who studies the Moken. Ivanoff said: “Even if I don’t really like it, if foreigners come respectfully and aren’t asking the Moken to recreate ceremonial traditions, maybe it means that more people will become aware.” Ivanoff fears that Myanmar’s Moken will meet the same fate as that of a population of Moken the Thai government settled in the Surin Islands who are now only a tourist attraction. • Whose place is this? Lake Hawea Today ”the Neck” in New Zealand is known as not much more than a few steep bends on State Highway 6 between Wanaka and the West Coast. But this isthmus between Lakes Hawea and Wanaka has always been a sacred place to southern Maori. Two hundred years ago, a visitor to the Lake Hawea side of the Neck, north of the Lake Hawea township, would have found a Maori village called Manuhaea. Anthropology professor Peter Gathercole of the University of Otago recorded that 20 ”saucer-like” depressions thought to be house sites were seen in 1938. However, by 1956 they had been ”ploughed out” and since then the raising of Lake Hawea for hydro generation flooded the site of Manuhaea and the lagoon. This area may be accorded again the prominence it once had. • Global Art Forum in Dubai Dubai’s Global Art Forum is now the biggest annual art conference in the world. More than 40 prominent people are slated to participate including anthropologist Uzma Z. Rizvi. The forum also includes several commissioned projects and publications. • Warning: This film may make you queasy The Globe and Mail carried a review about a new documentary: “Leviathan is pure cinema verité pushed to a radical extreme: “Instead of one camera observing reality, scores of cameras – miniature HD models with tiny lenses – participate in reality, and force us, with queasy intensity, to join in. Queasy, because the subject here is a commercial fishing vessel bucking through the unforgiving Atlantic off the coast of New Bedford, Mass. – yes, the very port from which Melville set sail the doomed Pequod in Moby-Dick. The parallel is deliberate. Starting with its quote from Job, that patron saint of long-sufferers, the film is dark in tone and sobering in intention. Anyone who subscribes to the romance of the sea need not apply.” More about it from NPR. Co-directors are Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel, anthropologists at Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab. • Welcome to open access The Chronicle for Higher Education reported that the American Anthropological Association  will convert the journal Cultural Anthropology to an open-access format, free of charge to anyone, as of January 2014. In addition to current material, the new format will provide a 10-year backlog. Duke University’s Charles Piot, professor of cultural anthropology and editor of  Cultural Anthropology, said that the move was unprecedented in this field: “I don’t know of any other [open-access journals] in the interpretive social sciences…” • It’s about the people: Native California baskets reveal social relationships A trade basket (Source: Eureka Times-Standard). “Made for the Trade,” an exhibit at the Clarke Historical Museum in Eureka, Oregon,  brings together a collection of Karuk, Yurok and Hupa baskets that were created for sale, with the earliest examples from more than 100 years ago. Basketry made for the Arts and Crafts Movement between 1880 and 1929 has been relatively ignored within the scholarly literature until recently. The curators of this exhibit focus not on the ultimate purpose or destination of these commercialized baskets, but on the social processes that are created through weaving and circulation, exploring the relationships between the basket makers, dealers, anthropologists, and photographers. As you enter the gallery space, for example, you learn the story of Lila O’Neale, a University of California anthropologist, who in 1929 spent six weeks on the Klamath River, interviewing Yurok, Hupa, and Karuk basket weavers regarding traditional and commercialized baskets. Whereas many anthropologists of this era, including Alfred Kroeber, only researched and collected utilitarian, pre-contact basketry, O’Neale’s pioneer work in ethnoaesthetics paid r attention to the maker’s evaluations of basket weaving and the changes in the practice, which included “invented marks” and innovations in basketry types. • Take that anthro degree… …and become a successful novelist. Renata Adler, whose successful 1976 novel, Speedboat, has just been republished, earned a doctoral degree in Philosophy, Linguistics and Structuralism at the Sorbonne, where she studied with Claude Lévi-Strauss. …and become a famous sculptor. Richard Nonas trained as an anthropologist, lived among Indians from the Mexican desert to Canada’s Yukon Territory, and then became a renowned minimalist sculptor. There will be an exhibit of his work in New York City, 55 Delancey Street, through April 21. • Biophobia and anti-science: cultural anthropology not guilty as charged Alan Goodman, biological anthropologist and professor at Hampshire College,  writes in the Huffington Post about how Napoleon Chagnon wrongly accuses cultural anthropology of biophobia, or a hatred of the discipline of biology, especially the sub-area of sociobiology and its approaches to explaining human behavior, and, more widely, an anti-science view:  “…critiques of sociobiology are neither biophobic nor anti-science. They are legitimate scientific practices. I hope we are ready to recognize and move past false charges of biophobia and anti-science. Anthropology today is an inclusive discipline that rests on respect for ethics, the people we work with and explanations that follow from evidence. Rather than navel gaze at false controversies, wouldn’t we prefer to learn about insights that come from paying close attention to the daily lives of diverse individuals and communities?” • Let’s get together and talk about bigfoot According to the Dallas News, the 12th annual Texas Bigfoot Conference took place last Saturday in Fort Worth: “Spurred on by blurry visuals, chilling audio, eyewitness testimonies and their own experiences, they’re determined to prove the validity of a thing largely considered mythological.” Fact: The U.S. Pacific Northwest accounts for about a third of all reported sightings, but they are otherwise spread around the continent. Texas ranks seventh in national sightings, according to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, the country’s largest such group. Among the speakers at the conference are Josh Gates of the SyFy channel’s Destination Truth, Idaho State University professor Jeff Meldrum (author of the book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science) and U.S. Forest Service anthropologist Kathy Strain, author of Giants, Cannibals & Monsters: Bigfoot in Native Culture. • Very old coins in Australia An Indiana anthropologist is leading an expedition to find out how a handful of 1,000-year-old coins wound up on a beach on Australia’s northern coastline. Ian McIntosh of Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis is using a grant from the Australian Geographic Society to take a team that includes a historian and an archaeologist to survey the site where the coins were found. An Australian soldier found the coins in 1944 on the Wessel Islands. Some are from the Dutch East India Company and some came from Africa. • U.K. rock art endangered and what to do to save it Chatton rock art (Credit: Image courtesy of Newcastle University). Newcastle University experts say that urgent action is needed to prevent ancient art disappearing.  Writing in the Journal of Cultural Heritage Studies, they argue that, in addition to preservation efforts, understanding is needed about what causes rock art to deteriorate. Lead author of the article, Myra Giesen from the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies (ICCHS) said: “Urgent attention is needed to identify those most at risk so the rock art can be saved and preventative steps can be taken, such as improving drainage around the panels. We are developing a toolkit so landowners can do this themselves. This is really important as they are the first line of defence.” • Beer and civilization: the mis-use of archaeology [Blogger's note -- with apologies, my voice permeates the following piece]. What must be a playful piece in The New York Times Sunday Review, takes some archaeological findings about the invention of beer (an alcoholic drink fermented from grain) in the Middle East as the foundation for “civilization.” The argument is: bear and wine allowed people some wiggle room from the “rigid social codes” that had made us human in first place: it “freed up” people from the “biological herd imperative” so we could create a “vibrant civilization.” The author, Jeffrey Kahn, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital, is surely having some fun with the data. At one point, he gets more serious and reports that: “Current theory has it that grain was first domesticated for food. But since the 1950s, many scholars have found circumstantial evidence that supports the idea that some early humans grew and stored grain for beer, even before they cultivated it for bread. Brian Hayden and colleagues at Simon Fraser University in Canada provide new support for this theory in an article published this month (and online last year) in the Journal of Archeological Method and Theory. Examining potential beer-brewing tools in archaeological remains from the Natufian culture in the Eastern Mediterranean, the team concludes that ‘brewing of beer was an important aspect of feasting and society in the Late Epipaleolithic’ era.” Kahn goes on, ” Once the effects of these early brews were discovered, the value of beer (as well as wine and other fermented potions) must have become immediately apparent. With the help of the new psychopharmacological brew, humans could quell the angst of defying those herd instincts. Conversations around the campfire, no doubt, took on a new dimension: the painfully shy, their angst suddenly quelled, could now speak their minds.” [Blogger's question: So the only way to speak one's mind or be creative -- in our prehistoric past -- was to be under the influence of alcohol?] • Life and death before Twinkies A new study of 137 mummies from around the world indicates that hardening of the arteries goes back to nearly 4,000 years ago. Many doctors and others have long assumed that hardening of the arteries — or atherosclerosis, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes — was a disease of modern life. The new study suggests that hardening of the arteries may be a common, natural part of aging, said co-author Janet Monge, a biological anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania museum. More than one-third of the mummies sent through a CT scanner had calcification in their arteries. Findings are published in The Lancet. The mummies came from Egypt, Peru, the southwestern United States and the Aleutian Islands. [Blogger's note: in terms of the entire sweep of human prehistory, 4,000 years is just a blink in time]. • Oh my, what big eyes you have An article in ABC Science reports on the latest theory about the demise of the Neanderthals: their eyes (and eye sockets) were too big and led to an unfortunate organization of their large brains (which are as large, and sometimes larger than those of modern humans). Neanderthals’ bigger eyes and stocky bodies meant they had less room in their brains for the higher-level thinking required to form large social groups according to a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Neanderthals “would have required proportionately more neural matter” to maintain and control their larger bodies. So, it’s not the sheer size of the brain but its organization. [Blogger's note: most scholars of human evolution equate growing brain size with growing intelligence and other capabilities; Neanderthals raise problems for this model since their brains were as large, or larger, than those of modern humans. This new explanation addresses the size problem by bringing in the organization factor thus keeping Neanderthal brains at a pre-modern level of capability]. • Kudos Bruno Latour The Board of the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund has awarded the 2013 Holberg International Memorial Prize to anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour. He will receive the prizes at an award ceremony in Håkonshallen in Bergen, Norway on June 5, 2013. Latour has been described by the Holberg Prize Academic Committee as a creative, humorous, and unpredictable researcher. The Academic Committee justifies the award for this year’s Holberg Prize by stating that “Bruno Latour has undertaken an ambitious analysis and reinterpretation of modernity, and has challenged fundamental concepts such as the distinction between modern and pre-modern, nature and society, human and non-human. (…) The impact of Latour’s work is evident internationally and far beyond studies of the history of science, art history, history, philosophy, anthropology, geography, theology, literature and law.” Latour is currently Professor at Sciences Po in Paris. • In memoriam Masao Yamaguchi died of pneumonia at a hospital in western Tokyo at the age of 81 years. After graduating from the department of Japanese history at the University of Tokyo’s Faculty of Letters, Yamaguchi studied anthropology at the graduate school of (then) Tokyo Metropolitan University. He was head of the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies’ Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, and president of Sapporo University. He also taught at the University of Paris as a visiting professor. He was among the 2011 Persons of Cultural Merit named by the government. Yamaguchi is known for the center and periphery concept based on his fieldwork in Asia, Africa and other parts of the world, as well as his ethnological study on the role of tricksters.

A letter from the editors of a fellow AAA journal publication, Cultural Anthropology

Turkish PM views democracy as ‘bus ride,’ says Jordanian King Abdullah from Hurriyet Daily News Jordanian King Abdullah II has criticized Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Jordan’s King criticizes Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan from Hurriyet Daily News Jordanian King Abdullah II has criticized Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Turkish Political Intervention In Dutch Internal Affairs: lesbian couple raising Turkish boy for over 8 years go into hiding from Turkish Digest by EU-Digest A Dutch lesbian couple have gone into hiding with their foster son after the boy’s biological parents said on television in Turkey that they object to the pair taking care of their child. Turkish children, European same sex couples; who is to blame? from Hurriyet Daily News Millions of Turks live in Europe. So it is only natural to have different types of integration problems. Turkey and Israel: Is it an attitude or perception problem? from Hurriyet Daily News During the United Nations “Alliance of Civilizations” conference in late February, when complaining about.     Turkey joins world’s top five weapons importers from Hurriyet Daily News Turkey has become the fourth-largest comventional weapons importer of the world. Turkey rejects US Congress pressure over Zionism remarks from Yahoo News Photos ISTANBUL, Mar 15: Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu responded on Thursday to a letter by 89 members of the US Congress urging Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to retract his remarks describing Zionism as a crime against humanity, saying Turkey ‘s clean slate in rejecting anti-Semitism cannot be called into question.   Turkey’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan reacts during a joint news conference with his Greek counterpart Antonis Samaras (not pictured) in Istanbul March 4, 2013. REUTERS/Murad Sezer US senators, Congress members call on Turkish PM to retract Zionism comment from Hurriyet Daily News The U.S. Congress has penned a letter directed at Turkish Prime Minister Recep. Turkey responds to Greece’s note verbale to UN by issuing its own from Yahoo News Photos Turkey has forwarded a note verbale to the United Nations in response to a Greek one sent to the international organization on February 20, the Greek Foreign Ministry announced late on Tuesday.   Transforming Turkey-EU Relations: Ground for Hope by Acturca GTE Policy Briefs (Istituto Affari Internazionali) n. 6, 12 March 2013, 4 p. by E. Fuat Keyman and Senem Aydın-Düzgit * Both the EU and Turkey have followed a flawed, populist and identity-based policy towards each other since accession negotiations began as a result of which relations have reached a stalemate. Nonetheless, there has recently been Turkey’s New Drive to Reenergize EU Accession: Moving Beyond the Suboptimal Equilibrium? by Acturca German Marshall Fund of the United States, March 13, 2013 Saban Kardas * Turkey-EU relations under the Justice and Development (AK Party) have provided a good opportunity to observe the trends in Turkish domestic and foreign policies. Extensive focus on the government’s commitment misses a more relevant question: the changing nature and meaning of EU   Turkey’s Economy: An Example for the Middle East and North Africa ? by Acturca Chatham House (UK) 11 March 2013 Numan Kurtulmus * This is a transcript of a speech made by Numan Kurtulmuş, Vice President, AK Party, Turkey, at Chatham House on 11 March 2013. Dr Kurtulmuş focused on Turkey’s recent experience of economic progress and the government’s future agenda for economic and political transformation. He also discussed La Turquie à l’offensive sur le marché de l’armement by Acturca Agence France Presse Samedi 16 mars 2013, Ankara Un char d’assaut, un hélicoptère et maintenant, un drone. A l’heure où la crise rétrécit les budgets militaires en Europe, la Turquie a décidé de muscler ses industries d’armement, avec l’ambition d’afficher son indépendance technologique et de se faire une place sur le marché de l’exportation.   Kurdish deal would fuel Turkey’s goals from FT.com – World, Europe Negotiations at home could help extend Turkish sway into the oil and gas-rich lands of Northern Iraq and reduce its dependence on Russian fuel Related posts: foreign policy roundup: “Turkey steps up rhetoric on Syrian ‘massacre’, EU Affairs Minister Egemen Bağış suggests annexation for Cyprus… Turkey vs. Israel. A fresh new round with Erdoğan’s statements on Zionism… A FP roundup… Turkish politics roundup (2): CHP, Erdoğan and Kılıçdaroğlu meeting, Internal struggle at SP… The Peace Process in Turkey goes like this: PM criticizes media/threatenes media freedom, slams opposition leaders, Opposition insults back and labels him as traitor… Turkey today: YSK intervenes again

Sleep has been in the news for the past decade or so as a matter of growing concern. Along with this popular, medical and scientific attention, social scientists have been increasingly interested in sleep as an object or process of study. The first major sociological book published on sleep was Simon Williams’ Sleep and Society (Routledge, 2005), after which a number of other monographs and edited collections followed, including Williams’ latest book on The Politics of Sleep (Palgrave, 2011). In 2012, Matthew Wolf-Meyer published the first anthropological study of sleep in the United States, The Slumbering Masses (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). In the conversation that follows, Williams and Wolf-Meyer assess the field of social studies of sleep, discuss their commonalities and differences, and think about the future of sleep and its place in the social sciences and humanities.  The conversation will appear in three posts for the purpose of comments and responses.  Once the third post appears, the entire interview will also be available here as a PDF.   1. Can we speak of a ‘turn’ to sleep matters within the social sciences and humanities today, and if so why? MWM: There does seem to be broad interest in sleep these days – from the Huffington Post, to documentaries like Alan Berliner’s Wide Awake, to This American Life and Radiolab episodes, to humanities and social science scholarship – but I’m a little hesitant to say that we’re on the other side of a turn where the study of sleep from within the humanities or social sciences makes immediate and necessary sense.  We have a number of people across the humanities and social sciences writing about sleep – particularly pre-modern sleep and the late 20th century medicalization of sleep – but we haven’t really reached the point where studying sleep isn’t considered novel, nor have we reached the point where scholars are seeking out increasingly obscure topics to discuss in relation to sleep. We are, instead, really at the tip of the proverbial iceberg of sleep-related research (particularly of the critical kind) and are in the position of waiting for quite a bit of novel work to be done. Beyond just having sketches of what sleep looks like in a number of places around the world (of which we really have little scholarly documentation), there’s quite a bit of material to cover and we haven’t really reached the critical mass of scholars where it seems that this will happen in the short term. There is some really great work that’s been published in the recent past and a lot of stuff that I’m looking forward to. In the first camp, people like Roger Ekirch and Kenton Kroker have provided the foundation for people to start thinking about comparative histories of sleep – both lived experiences of it, in terms of Ekirch’s work on the pre-industrial day, and its scientific genealogies, in terms of Kroker’s work on American sleep science (I really hope to see people start working on sleep science in Japan and Italy, which both seem to have some notable differences from dominant sleep science).  Brigitte Steger’s work on Japanese sleep – which is voluminous but not yet entirely in English – is one of the few cases of real ethnological documentation, and Hannah Alheim’s work on sleep in Germany and Benjamin Reiss’ research on 19th century sleep in the United States should help fill in more ethnological and historical gaps. But I’ve yet to hear of people conducting research in the global south on sleep (other than Australia), and so it seems that the relationship between colonialism and sleep is being largely ignored (outside of Reiss’ work). The one sort-of exception is Maryinez Lyons’ research on ‘sleeping sickness’ (or trypanosomiasis) in Zaire, which really isn’t about sleep per se, but addresses the medicalization of a set of symptoms that get interpreted as related to sleep. It seems to me that where most of the attention is focused is on adding depth to the scientific understanding of particular disorders – a humanist strain that works against contemporary medicalization efforts. Shelley Adler’s work on nightmares and Eluned Summers-Bremner’s book on insomnia immediately spring to mind here. I’m not sure that obstructive sleep apnea and restless legs syndrome can hold up the same kinds of projects – they’re comparatively newer and there isn’t anything particularly romantic about their symptoms – and there’s a short list of possible topics here, but narcolepsy seems to be an obvious target.   SJW: I am inclined to agree with you on this count. Despite the wider turn to the body and affect in the social sciences and humanities today, and despite the promising green shoots of work on sleep matters so far, we are still a long way off from anything approaching a ‘turn’ of this kind to sleep within the social sciences and humanities as yet, or in the foreseeable future I suspect. Sleep indeed, in the main, remains a neglected or marginal matter within the social sciences and humanities even now, as if this vital third of our individual and collective lives was somehow ‘off-limits’, a ‘step too far’ or of limited relevance to social science and humanities scholarship ‘proper’ given its predominant waking concerns, commitments and values. We are still then at an early stage in these developments and debates, including the case making stage as to why ‘sleep matters matter,’ so to speak, for the social sciences and humanities. That’s why I welcome the chance to have this discussion and debate with you in Somatosphere, given sleep is clearly a rich, fascinating and indeed vital issue for the social sciences and humanities to study. This for example, as I argue in The Politics of Sleep, includes sleep as both ‘problem’ and ‘prism’: the former involving a more direct focus on sleep matters as such, the latter taking sleep as novel vantage point from which to explore any or all other aspects of social, cultural, historical and political life. As for the examples of promising scholarship on sleep matters you mention so far, I would add two related points. First, the discipline which has arguably witnessed the greatest critical mass of work on sleep-matters so far has been sociology. Second, this work extends far beyond the concern with the ‘medicalization’ of sleep that you mention. On the one hand, for example, there have indeed been important strands of sociological work on the medicalicalisation of sleep and associated matters to do with healthicisation, an admittedly clumsy term, or healthism. But even here, this work has often sought to explore the limits of any such medicalization to date, and/or to think beyond any such terms of reference or concepts of this kind, including my own work on the politics or biopolitics of sleep and alertness, and the work of other sociologists such as Steve Kroll-Smith — who has also of course done some other very illuminating and valuable work on the changing fate and fortunes of the workplace nap, as have scholars like Brigitte Steger whom you mention and Megan Brown too within the humanities. On the other hand, much of this recent sociological work has not really engaged directly with medicalization debates very much, if at all. The main focus has instead been on the ‘doing’ and ‘disruption’ of ‘normal’ sleep in everyday/night life, including the sleep of children and young people as well as adults. In doing so this sociological work has emphasized the fact that much of this doing is both gendered and relational through processes of ‘negotiation’ with significant others, be they partners or parents. So we might term this a ‘relational’ emphasis on sleep matters in everyday/night life, if you like. But another related strand of sociological work here of late has also looked at the ‘bigger picture’ in terms of the wider social and cultural patterning of sleep and health across the life course in terms of factors such as socio-economic status, gender and age: what we might call the ‘social patterning and life course’ approach. I am thinking here for example, on both counts, of the work of Sara Arber and colleagues who has really been at the forefront of these sorts of sociological ‘relational’ and ‘social patterning’ approaches and agendas on sleep matters in recent years. Further anthropological as well as sociological examples of this sort of work, of course, can also be found in the recent special issue of Social Science and Medicine on ‘sleep, culture and health’; a collection which further underlines the critical importance of social science contributions to the study of sleep and health which extend far beyond medicalization agendas. So all in all then, this amounts to ‘progress,’ of sorts, but much still remains to be done nonetheless.  Perhaps too, on this latter count I could add to your list of possible candidate sleep disorders in need of deeper, richer, cultural histories, sleep walking and sleep paralysis as well as narcolepsy. Antonio Melechi’s work on sleep walking certainly springs to mind here, for instance, as does Corrine Weisgerber’s study of sleep paralysis, but I am not aware of anything much else to date within the social science and humanities, though I may be wrong there. Let me however, end here with a final important point or qualifier to our discussion and considerations so far, namely the multiple references to sleep that may be read or recovered in philosophical texts and traditions, from Aristotle to Kant, Plato to Levinas. Readers, in this regard, may find Simon Morgan Wortham’s valuable and welcome new book, The Poetics of Sleep: From Aristotle to Nancy (Bloomsbury 2013) an engaging and instructive text on sleep and the philosophical imagination.   2. What do these recent engagements add to prevailing understandings of sleep within sleep science and sleep medicine? SJW: Well, leaving aside any quibbles one may have with the very assumptions or terms of reference embedded in this question – is ‘add’ the right word or relevant criteria here, for instance, and can we not just as validly and valuably pose the question the other way round? – the answer I think, succinctly stated, is that engagements of this kind help to further contextualize and enrich our (social, cultural, historical and political) appreciation and understanding of sleep matters in all their complexity and multiplicity. By this, for example, I mean both a greater appreciation and understanding of: (i) the diverse meanings and metaphors, practices and places of sleep or sleeping around the world, both past and present  (i.e. the what, how, when, where, with whom of sleep matters) and; (ii) the social, cultural, historical and political dimensions and dynamics of sleep science and sleep medicine itself, including of course its own changing construction or shaping through time and culture as well as its social and political implications for how we come to ‘know’ and ‘govern’ sleep, of which more shortly no doubt. There are also I think, as this suggests, different roles the social sciences and humanities may play here on these counts, ranging from what one might term more ‘complementary’ or ‘convergent’ if not ‘collaborative’ ventures with sleep science and medicine — as in say some of the studies included in the aforementioned special issue of Social Science and Medicine on ‘sleep, culture and health’ – to other more ‘critical’ agendas – as in say your own work on sleep medicine in America, which as I read it poses critical questions about the degree to which ‘variations’ in sleep have come to be regarded, through the capitalism-medicine complex or nexus, as ‘disorders’ or ‘problems’  in contemporary times. Both agendas have valuable contributions to make of course, but in the former case there is more of a concern to document and elucidate, often through large scale survey research, the relationship between social and cultural factors, sleep problems and health in ways that add to, broaden or complement public health research on the problems and risks of poor sleep for health. In the latter case, in contrast, there is more of an attempt to critically analyze these very ‘problematisations’ of sleep today, and to reflect on their wider social, cultural and political significance, including alternative possible positions and perspectives on these very matters, radical, romantic or otherwise. In either case however, as I argued in my book The Politics of Sleep, there is I think a need to be more reflexively aware about the role the social sciences and humanities themselves are playing here in the ‘co-production,’ to borrow a useful term from science and technology studies (STS), of the very issues they seek to study. So, whether ‘complementary,’ ‘critical’ or whatever, we too are participating in part in the very problematisation and indeed politicization of sleep matters today, including ironically perhaps the risk of further raising public concerns and anxieties about their sleep, even if or when our message is to challenge or question any such problematisation. Perhaps too I should add, as a sort of addenda to this last point, that it is not simply these engagements with sleep matters in the social sciences and humanities to date that are implicated here. So too is the majority of scholarship in the social sciences and humanities which continues to dismiss or disregard sleep matters: a neglect, that is to say, which itself reproduces and reinforces, unintentionally or otherwise, dominant sleep negating attitudes, ideologies and values in the wider 24/7 society far beyond academe. The main point nevertheless is that the social sciences and humanities do indeed have a lot to ‘add’ or contribute here I think, both on their own terms and through their multiple roles and relations with sleep science and sleep medicine inside and outside the sleep laboratory or clinic.   MWM: The one class that I teach that has some sleep-related content is a lecture course called ‘The Biology of Everyday Life.’ I’ve been reticent to teach a class that’s just about sleep, in part because I’m worried about precisely what you outline at the end of your answer – there’s a way that it might just reify dominant conceptions of normal sleep by looking at a series of ‘abnormal’ or culturally-marked forms of sleep. What the rubric of the biology of everyday life does is to put sleep into conversation with other biological functions that get wrapped up in cultural interpretations – sex, eating, breathing, defecating, death – and treats it on equal footing. I mention this because one of the examples I often talk about with students is the scholarly study of sex, which is very rarely about sex itself and more often about second-order treatments of sex (e.g. sexual identity, reproduction, pornography, etc.). But studying sex for the past 50 years (I’ll just go with a genealogy that starts with Foucault and Kinsey) has opened up a vast array of theory and analysis, not limited to identity, but surely indebted to it. I do think there is an additive function to the study of sleep, at least in this modest respect: sleep is so often a part of subjectivity that attending to it opens up another way to think about people, bodies and the social. Like you mention regarding the emergent sociology of sleep, sleep is the basis for a number of social interactions, and not attending to it leaves a rather dubious gap in our knowledge about individuals and society. True, it may be rather limited, but as you mention, totally ignoring this third of our lives is perverse. We might know that we’ve collectively gone through a turn towards sleep when scholars start including chapters about sleep (or biological processes more generally) alongside chapters devoted to gender, sexuality, class, race, and the other identity markers we so readily accept as meaningful. Extending the biology of everyday life discussion though, I find it also really important for scholars to actually address biology and physiological experiences in their research and theorization, since the dismissal of actual biological experiences doesn’t really get us anywhere. The challenge facing many of the scholars working on sleep in the social sciences and humanities is what we might give back to science, beyond simply debunking through critique. Maybe we need to think about what we can ‘add’ to the science and medicine of sleep. Part of this is developing theoretical models and language that cut across disciplines and build more robust conceptions of self and society, biology and culture. Epigenetics seems to be one bridging mechanism, although I fear that it may already be over-determined. Until we start to find robust and supple ways to talk across disciplines, we’ll be stuck in our present situation where the study of sleep (and everything else) is primarily ethnological rather than deeply critical.   3. Has this led to any genuine advances in the social sciences and humanities themselves in your view? MWM: Answering this question makes me feel a little dour. This is not to slight any of our colleagues who we discussed above, but I don’t really think we’ve gotten to the point where studying sleep is opening new theoretical or methodological vistas. As I mentioned above, it seems that much of the extant studies of sleep and society have really worked to expand and deepen the theoretical models that already exist, and have not bothered so much with wholly new theorizations or methodological models – although we might get there. It seems to me that we’re still in the first wave, and that until we’ve laid a robust foundation we might not really be able to ‘advance’ – first scholars needed to theorize nationalism before they could start to talk about transnationalism, after all. But maybe in saying such, I’m betraying my naïve assumption about what counts as an ‘advance’ – that it should be something rather new or surprising. That being said, one of the things that the modest turn to sleep seems to be indicative of is an interest in the banal. So often, I find that scholars are drawn to the exception rather than the rule – sort of following Georges Canguilheim’s interest in the study of the normal through the pathological. I often suggest to people that we’ve too often been drawn to the second-order representations of things and processes rather than the things and processes themselves – that is, like I mentioned above, there’s the critical study of food, but not of eating; there’s the study of sexuality but not sex. Surely the study of sleep also traffics in this interest in the symbolic and representation, but the phenomenological work on sleep – like your own – helps us strip away some of the cultural layers that might be distracting. But this depends upon a couple basic tenets: that, contrary to Foucault et al., we can come to understand (or at least posit) a human biology prior to discourse; and, secondly, that there is merit in accepting some scientific conceptions of the human, at least instrumentally, in order to reach other goals. Across the scholars working on sleep, I can’t think of one who’s so bold as to argue that there’s no such thing as sleep and that it’s pure social construction. Given that, it seems like we’re collectively on board with these two tenets, however temporary our acceptance of each of them is. We might think about this in terms of what seems to be one of the most profound advances that the study of sleep has turned up so far, namely Ekirch’s rediscovery of non-consolidated sleep in Europe and North America (which I provide a footnote to in The Slumbering Masses). That we used to sleep differently and that consolidated sleep might be socially constructed has the potentially to radically unsettle the science and medicine of sleep – and to open up possibilities for thinking about what else has been shaped so thoroughly by the civilizing process (to invoke Norbert Elias) as to totally escape notice or critique. I think about this move towards temporary foundationalism in the social sciences as running parallel to the demise of basic science in the U.S.: just as social scientists are starting to get interested in basic biological processes, the government funding for the scientific study of these basic processes is disappearing (in favor of ‘translational’ science and medicine and epigenetic research). But maybe that’s just the nature of the pendulum: science moves one way, so social science moves in the opposite direction, never to meet. Or only to meet briefly in the middle, sometimes with dubious results, sometimes with more promising ones. So maybe the advance that we’re making is that we’re taking a step back (so to speak) in order to see a broader canvas of social and physiological experiences. But, again, these seem to be early days in the social and humanistic study of sleep, and as we move forward, there should be an ever-widening and deepening set of perspectives. And one of the effects of these moves should be the critique of our assumptions about sleep itself. Once things get to that point, it seems like we’ll pass the first rubicon on the way towards more profound advances in the social sciences and humanities more generally.   SJW: I have argued much the same thing as to what scholarship in the social sciences and humanities on sleep has, or hasn’t, added to our existing theories, concepts and methods so far. And there is no small irony in this current state of play, of course, when it comes to sleep of all topics: engagements, that is to say, however interesting and illuminating, which further reinforce rather than problematize our concepts and concerns with waking life, even when allegedly studying sleep. We are also pretty much on the same page I think regarding the biological (as well as the  banal) matters you mention, which are clearly critical issues in my view for scholars in the social sciences and humanities to further engage with and attend to. Having said that, we can point to few notable examples of work of this kind which does I think break some new ground in relation to sleep ‘itself,’ so to speak, including (as you mention) both Ekirch’s work on segmented slumber in pre-industrial times and other more phenomenological explorations of sleep (such as Drew Leder’s) and my own work extending these insights further to embodied questions of sleep, vulnerability and human rights. Again however, we might add here some of Sara Arber and colleagues recent work too, which utilizes watch actigraphy to explore the dyadic and disruptive elements of sleeping together in everyday or every night life. Now watch actigraphy, of course, is a measure that has long since been used by sleep researchers interested in tracking sleep beyond the lab or clinic – and debates continue as to its merits as a sleep measure at all given its proxy status – but incorporating such measures into sociological research on the gendered dynamics of sleep across the life course does at least represent another attempt to get at sleep as such (or sleep itself), as well as all the other more familiar (or second-order in your terms) sociological and anthropological stuff that surrounds or embeds it. And yes too, as you suggest, we can perhaps reasonably expect more work that breaks genuinely new ground here in future in the social sciences and humanities after this ‘first wave,’ particularly if one considers the broader turn to biological and corporeal-material matters in the social sciences and humanities today, and associated calls for new engagements with the life sciences today, in sociology and beyond. Like Nikolas Rose, I think engagements of this kind are quite literally vital for the future of the social sciences and humanities, and sleep is a good place to explore and develop some of these issues, in terms of the ‘always already’ complex, reciprocal, relations between biology, biography, culture, self and society. Finally let me say in this light, harking back to some of your qualms in response to the previous question and anticipating some of the issues we will doubtless be discussing shortly, that there is surely plenty of scope here, in both our research and our teaching, for problematizing or challenging (rather than reproducing, reaffirming or ‘reifying’) dominant conceptions of ‘normal’ sleep, as your mention of Ekirch and the position taken in your own book surely demonstrate. So I would encourage rather than dissuade you from teaching classes of this kind on sleep, as I am now starting to do myself with both sociology and medical students, as another valuable if not vital way to get your message across!

The newest addition to our syllabus collection is Mariana Mogilevich’s An Atlas of Urban Waste from New York University. The course introduction: From nineteenth-century neighborhoods built on landfill to the proliferation of parks on top of dumps today, waste defines the geography of the American city. Processes of consumption and destruction are at the heart of urban development. … Continue reading »

CALL FOR PAPERS American Anthropological Association Meetings. Chicago, November 20-24, 2013. Ethnographies of Exposure: Rethinking the Body-Environment Relation A slew of contemporary phenomenon underscore emerging conceptions of the human condition as one of existential exposure to its surrounds: environmental toxicity, meteorological conditions, contaminated commodities, and global pandemics. These emerging conditions of exposure suggest a conception of a human body as … Continue reading »

The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is pleased to announce that the Society for Economic Anthropology (SEA) has merged with the AAA. The merger of the two groups became official on March 13 of this year, and former SEA members will now form a new section within the AAA, the Society for Economic Anthropology.  In December, [...]

Promise. I'll be back soon.SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this.

The high social price of media and humanitarian dissimulation in North Lebanon. by Estella Carpi In the aid provision sphere of North Lebanon, international media in close connection with humanitarian agencies often hasten to show how North Lebanon’s hospitality of Syrian refugees coming in large numbers to flee destruction, scarcity, repression, chronic fear and instability is huge. Such hospitality is actually a product of a quite complex picture with an up-close look, unlike the idyllic scenario humanitarian practitioners and local people usually provide. In addition, social dynamics are normally depicted in the media in ethnicized terms: that is to say Lebanese versus Syrians. A few months ago, while conducting my fieldwork in Lebanon, I was told that some Lebanese threw stones to humanitarian workers during the food kits’ distribution for Syrian refugees in a town in Akkar, the northern region. The episode had been interpreted by local people themselves as an outburst of tension because of the sudden massive presence of humanitarian organizations in the area, which has always been neglected by state and non-state actors due to lack of political interests. The latter, in fact, were slightly more localized in Beirut and in the south of the country, vexed by Israeli occupation and by a consequent local impoverishment (1978-2000). The humanitarian agencies operating in that town decided not to let journalists publish about the episode. Others published about it by contending that local people in North Lebanon would definitely stop “hostilities” and warm up if aid were provided to them too. The main reason behind the omission and amendment of this kind of information is apparently the intention not to generate further frictions between the local community and the Syrians. (more…)

Anyone who has crossed from Shekou to Tun Mun via the Shenzhen Bay Western Corridor Bridge has seen the clear line that demarcates the Shenzhen-Hong Kong borridor. South of the border are floating… Read More →

David Brooks, "The Progressive Shift", NYT 3/18/2013: There is a statue outside the Federal Trade Commission of a powerful, rambunctious horse being reined in by an extremely muscular man. This used to be a metaphor for liberalism. The horse was capitalism. The man was government, which was needed sometimes to restrain capitalism’s excesses. I recently claimed that David Brooks has an unparalleled ability to shape an intellectually interesting idea into the rhetorical arc of an 800-word op-ed piece. The trouble is, a central part of his genius is choosing the little factoids that perfectly illustrate his points. No doubt he's happy enough to use a true fact if the right one comes to hand, but whenever I've checked, the details have turned out to be somewhere between mischaracterized and invented. So I thought I'd put in a few minutes today as Mr. Brooks' metaphor-checker. I'll spare you the full "Ask Radio Yerevan" treatment, but here's the gist: Brooks writes that the horse was capitalism and the man was government; but according to the sculptor, the horse was trade and the man was, well, man. (Or, in these less gendered times, humanity.) According to "Lantz", The New Yorker (Talk of the Town), 2/26/1942: You may have read in the newspapers a couple of weeks ago that a young sculptor named Michael Lantz had been awarded a $45,600 commission to do two groups of statuary for the recently completed Federal Trade Commission Building in Washington. […] The figures which Lantz will do for the F.T.C. Building will be in two groups — one at each end of the building. In each group will be a man holding in check a powerful workhorse. "Man controls trade," he explains. "Trade is an enormous thing. But man, by his intelligence, controls the horses." The Smithsonian's page on the sculpture confirms that it is called "Man Controlling Trade". Also, as Timothy Noah in the New Republic notes, and Bill W reminds us in the comments below, Mr. Brooks originally located the statue outside the Department of Labor rather than the Federal Trade Commission — the NYT correction notice reads So, as expected, the convenient Brooksian factoid is sort of semi-true.

In the six months since PopAnth was launched, we’ve collected an amazing group of volunteers. In the beginning, there were just Gawain Lynch, John McCreery and myself developing the website. We hoped that other people would be interested in what we’re trying to do and become involved. We haven’t been disappointed. Today we have twenty-one volunteers helping us to run PopAnth. All of these people donate their time generously because they believe in the value of popularizing anthropology. (I suspect that they also have fun doing it.) We’d like to welcome, and thank: Our Editors, who provide invaluable feedback on new articles submitted to the site: Jolynna Sinanan, Laura Miller, Ted Fischer, David Slattery, Elizabeth Challinor, Melanie Uy and Gillian Bowan Our Community Advisors, many of whom participated in discussions on the topic of popularising anthropology, and who field our doubts and flashes of inspiration: Greg Downey, Daniel Lende, Keith Hart, Gabriela Vargas-Cetina, Steffan Igor Diaz, Jason Antrosio, Paul Mullins, Lauren Knapp and Isabelle Rivoal Our Interns, David Thompson and Claire Cerda, who work on all aspects of the website, including writing articles and helping with our social media and marketing Our Marketing Liaison person, Belinda Taylor, who is developing our marketing strategy, helps design promotional materials, and is generally responsible for making PopAnth go “pop” Our Translations Coach, Larry Stout, who is on standby to help non-native English speakers edit their articles for PopAnth, but whom is immensely valuable as a discussant! And from me, a special thanks to John for his coaching and general support, and to Gawain for inventing, designing and running the website. Great job, everyone. Thanks for helping us to make PopAnth happen! Author informationErin TaylorPost Doctoral Research Fellow, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, University of Lisbon at Research Fellow, Digital Ethnography Research CentreErin originally studied fine art, but she defected to anthropology when she realised that she was far better at deploying a pen for writing than for drawing. She is a cultural anthropologist who is currently living in Lisbon, Portugal, where she has a full-time research position at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS). TwitterFacebookGoogle+Original article: Meet our volunteers!©2013 PopAnth - Hot Buttered Humanity. All Rights Reserved.

The latest collection of "lost in translation" signs from the Mail Online offers some doozies: But wait a minute! Though the English may sound strange, neither of these signs is mistranslated. That's what the Chinese really says: yóuyú mǒuxiē yuányīn yánwù 由于某些原因延误 "delayed due to some reasons" The plane is going to Amoy. wénmíng jīchǎng 文明机场 "civilized airport" This type of sign is standard throughout China. These two signs are examples of what might be called "un-Chinglish". Technically, their "lost" quality is due not to mistranslation but to unfamiliarity with the sociocultural expectations of the circumstances in which they are found. But this new Mail Online collection does have plenty of prime Chinglish samples, of which I here offer a small selection of the best: qǐng bùyào bǎ yānhuī tánrù cǐchù! 请不要把烟灰弹入此处! "Please don't bomb into the ash here!" –> "Please don't flick ashes here!" The translation error arises from the fact that 弹 can be read both as dàn ("bomb") and tán ("flick; pluck"). xǐngxīn lóu 省心楼 THERETRDSPECTIENTOWER –> "tower / pavilion for introspection" The first Language Log reader to figure out what the sign maker intended by "THERETRDSPECTIENTOWER" will receive a big brick of Puer tea. huángdì jìng fáng jīzhǐ 皇帝净房基址 "The former address of the emperor's toilet" –> "Site / ruins of the emperor's bathroom". The translators seem to have trouble with the English word for huǒ 火 and expressions that include it: FLRE, FIRO, FIRE FYDRANT. One expression that gives the translators fits is bùkě huíshōu 不可回收 "organism", "unredeemable", "unrecycling" –> "non-recyclable" I've seen this one done in many other different ways, e.g., " irrecoverable", "no may reclaim", etc. At the end of the photographs is a video which has dozens more instances of outstanding Chinglishisms. Keep your finger ready on the pause button because they pass by too quickly for full appreciation. Also, since many of the good parts are under the control bar, move your cursor to the bottom left for better visibility of important portions of the signs being shown. [Tip of the hat to M. Kaan]

Tarih: 25 Mart 2013, Pazartesi Saat: 14.00-16.00 Yer: santralistanbul Kampüsü, Enerji Müzesi-Seminer Salonu 49. Kütüphane Haftası (25-31 Mart 2013) kapsamında İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi tarafaından düzenlenen etkinlik ilgilenen herkesin katılımına açıktır. Moderatör: Sami Çukadar, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Kütüphane ve e-Kaynaklar Müdürü Panelistler: Vildan Orancı, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Kütüphane e-Kaynaklar Teknik Hizmetler Sorumlusu İsmet Mazlumoğlu, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Kütüphanesi Otomasyon Yöneticisi Cem Özel, Sabancı Üniversitesi Bilgi Merkezi Bilgi Hizmetleri Sorumlusu Erol Gökduman, EBSCO Publishing Türkiye & Arnavutluk Bölge Yöneticisi Ebru Tekin, ProQuest Türkiye Satış Yöneticisi   Telefon:  (0212) 311 73 99 kutuphane@bilgi.edu.tr Related posts: Bilgi’de 27 Mart’ta konferans: HER YÖNÜYLE E-KİTAP (Erkan da konuşuyor) 16 Mart’ta bir Panel: “İnternet Yasaklarını Tartışıyoruz” Bilgi’de kütüphane haftası: 27 Mart’ta “E-kitap hakkında bilmek istediğiniz her şey”oturumu Yarın panel: “Medya Etiği ve Wikileaks” Teun van Dijk 12 Ekim’de Bilgi’de! Panel: Ayrımcı Dil ve Medyanın Rolü

Sleep has been in the news for the past decade or so as a matter of growing concern. Along with this popular, medical and scientific attention, social scientists have been increasingly interested in sleep as an object or process of study. The first major sociological book published on sleep was Simon Williams’ Sleep and Society (Routledge, 2005), after which a number of other monographs and edited collections followed, including Williams’ latest book on The Politics of Sleep (Palgrave, 2011). In 2012, Matthew Wolf-Meyer published the first anthropological study of sleep in the United States, The Slumbering Masses (University of Minnesota Press, 2012). In the conversation that follows Williams and Wolf-Meyer assess the field of social studies of sleep, discuss their commonalities and differences, and think about the future of sleep and its place in the social sciences and humanities.  The conversation is appearing in three posts for the purpose of comments and responses.  Part 1 is available here. Once the third post appears, the entire interview will also be available here as a PDF.   Q4. What role have capitalism and medicine played in the problematisation and politicisation of sleep over time? SJW: Well you should really be kicking off here I guess, given the line you take in your new book on sleep, medicine and American life. Perhaps then I should discuss where I think we converge and diverge on these matters in terms of your line in the book. Your main argument as I read it, focusing on the U.S. in the main, seems to be that human sleep is variable in ways that capitalism and medicine (as a mechanism of contemporary capitalism) fail to recognize or allow for — given its new sleep regimen and preferred ideal of eight hours consolidated sleep per night – and instead seeks to ‘pathologize.’ Hence the need, in your view, to think beyond any such pathologization in order to account for these differences on the one hand, and to think about other more flexible institutional structures to accommodate these variations on other hand, thereby ensuring people get a good night’s sleep without recourse to medicine. This, granted, is to grossly simplify but it seems to get to the nub of what you are arguing in the book. So where then if my reading is correct, do we converge and where do we differ or diverge on these matters? Well, like you, I understand capitalism as a complex assemblage, which is deeply implicated in how we sleep and the sort of ‘problems’ people experience, both past and present. Whilst these sleep problems, moreover, may prove costly for capitalism in terms of accidents, lost productivity and performance and so on, we also agree I’m sure that sleep is big business for capitalism, including an ever expanding market of sleep related goods, products, and services designed to sell us the dream or promise of a good night’s sleep. The transformation of sleep itself furthermore into a form of ‘capital’ or a ‘productive act,’ if not the ultimate performance enhancer and secret to success, is something I find particularly intriguing if not ironic about the workings of capitalism today, as writers such as Steve Kroll-Smith and Megan Brown have ably documented in the case of practices such as the workplace nap or the power nap — what my colleagues and I have recently termed the ‘customisation’ of sleep (Williams et al. 2013) in contemporary times whereby corporeal needs and corporate demands are further realigned in these and countless other ways. Similarly, we both seem to be trying to work beyond the medicalization thesis these days (and nights no doubt) in seeking to more fully explore medicine’s complex if not contradictory roles and relations within all this. The medicalization thesis undoubtedly casts some important light on these issues, but it obscures or omits much in the process too, rendering at best a partial if not problematic picture, particularly when it comes to the newly forged links between sleep, enterprise and enhancement of the kind I alluded to above. My preference instead is to refer to the biopolitics of sleep, which includes of course some of the issues you raise in the conclusion of The Slumbering Masses under the, unfortunate in my view (if you will forgive me for saying so) rubric of a ‘multibiologism’; unfortunate, that is, given the ‘biologism’ bit carries too must past baggage to be a useful social scientific term however much you wish to revamp or rehabilitate it. So perhaps we should be thinking about a better term of reference here to capture and convey these multiple forms of sleep as human variation rather than medical pathologies, though I don’t have one ready-to-hand for you I am afraid! Margaret Lock’s notion of ‘local biologies’ perhaps might be useful here, or maybe something from the Nikolas Rose and Paul Rabinow stable on biosocialities? But here anyway we begin to run up against some of my other potential qualms or quibbles with you on these matters, as I don’t think your thesis in the book, suggestive as it is, can be pushed too far, or to put it another way perhaps, it is surely only part of the story, albeit an important part of the story, even when restricted to America. So yes of course these models and classifications of sleep you document and detail matter in terms of what is or isn’t defined as problematic or pathological at any given historical point in time.  And yes of course, to repeat, capitalism is deeply implicated or imbricated in all this in terms of how our sleep has changed over time: the colonization or subsumption of sleep as a vital lifeworld matter by capitalism you might say. But we also surely need to acknowledge or accept that at least some of this problematisation or pathologisation of sleep is not simply the product of a failure to conform to the new sleeping regimen under capitalism you discuss, but a consequence of the fact that these ‘variations’ are in fact genuine problems, whatever the norm, model or regimen, that people struggle with and suffer from day in, night out; problems moreover, as an accumulating body of contemporary evidence in sleep science and sleep medicine suggests, with short and long-term risks for health, safety and wellbeing. Now the emergence of these latter risk discourses, to be sure, is important for us social scientists and scholars in the humanities to document, discuss and debate, but we also I think, harking back to some of the points I raised earlier about the need for a new more constructive and open relationship to the medical and the life sciences today, need to heed or take on board at least some of what these findings have to tell us. So there are problems I think with pushing your variation not problematization or pathologization thesis too far here, though perhaps to be fair you never intended to. Either way, I can’t quite see how conditions like narcolepsy, or other conditions like obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) or restless leg syndrome (RLS) say, fit in with your overall arguments here, despite an illuminating STS paper by Tiago Moriera (2006) on the emergence of OSA, and various critiques of the ‘marketing’ of the latter from the ‘disease mongering’ stable (Woloshin and Schwartz 2006). As for relations between medicine and capitalism, well these are close to be sure, but they are also complex if not contradictory given medicine too of course, like capitalism itself, is an assemblage of many parts, including elements or strands of sleep science and medicine that may to varying degrees, implicitly if not explicitly, be more or less challenging or critical of contemporary capitalism, not least its inflexible institutions which pay like heed to our circadian or chronobiological ‘rhythms of life.’ So yes capitalism and medicine are intimate bedfellows, but the relationship is not always a happy and harmonious one even so. Thirdly and closely related to this second point, your analysis I think underplays the valuable indeed vital role which medicine and public health may still play here, particularly those aforementioned strands which lend themselves to critiques of contemporary capitalism in various guises. Downstream medical or medicalised solutions, to be sure, can only achieve so much when the real or root causes of many sleep problems today ultimately lie ‘upstream’ in the wider global dynamics and drivers of contemporary capitalism and the ‘wired’ world, but we should be careful nevertheless, not to throw the proverbial (medical) baby out with the (capitalist) bath water here. Medicalisation indeed, we should remember, may be positive rather than negative, involving both gains and losses which need to be judged on a case-by-case basis. Hence it is certainly not all, or always, bad news or wrong-headed. Finally, on a wider political note, another important aspect of all this that greatly interests me here, beyond the issues documented and discussed in your book, concerns not simply the problematization or pathologisation of human variations in human sleep, but the politics of sleep in terms or inequalities, inequities, justice and human rights. We now have a fairly sizeable body of evidence from social epidemiology, public health and the social sciences, for example, that suggests an inverse relationship between social position, particularly socio-economic position and sleep problems (duration and quality). I quite like Benjamin and Lauren Hale’s recent work in this vein, indeed, which poses the pertinent and provocative question of whether social justice is good for sleep — and answers in the affirmative. Sleep is also a basic human right of course, as I discuss in my book on the politics of sleep, including violations both past and present in the name of interrogation if not torture, and the vulnerable sleep of those without bed or abode sleeping rough on our streets and in other poverty stricken parts of the world. So the politicization of sleep I think is quite literally a vital global matter with many faces and facets, some darker and more disturbing than others. Anyway, perhaps these comments and concerns are unfair or wide of the mark, in which case apologies in advance, but here is your chance to correct me and set the record straight for other prospective readers too, so over to you…   MWM: I think you do a pretty good job of getting to the crux of the argument in The Slumbering Masses, which I’ll simplify even more: the institutions that frame American everyday life are indebted to the particularities of American capitalism, which includes the historical industrial and colonial contexts in which American capitalism came to be the hegemonic economic form in American social life. Among those institutions, medicine is clearly important, but on equal footing with other social forms like work, school, and the family. Like all social forms, medicine exerts force on individuals, which might be disciplinary (or controlling) in its aims. And so, I forward the argument that we need to think about human variation more than pathology, which leads me to ‘multibiologism’ (which, yes, is a pretty clunky neologism), akin to earlier models of multiculturalism. The multibiological stance, which I’m sure I’ll have to defend at length in the not too distant future, leads me to argue for more flexible (less disciplinary or controlling) institutions, which might result in less medicalization and more attention to the differential capacities of humans – both in terms of sleep, but potentially in other realms as well. That summary aside, clearly the smoking gun in my argument is capitalism, both in the sense of industrialization forcing certain changes in human life (namely, the move to consolidated sleeping), and also in respect to the profit motive (both for individual workers earning a wage and doctors, scientists and corporations making profit off of labor and the sale of pharmaceuticals). Pushing back against this problemitization of sleep requires a pretty broad set of actors, which I try to gather together in The Slumbering Masses: non-compliant patients, social movements (like Take Back Your Time), and physicians who choose to find social rather than chemical solutions to disorderly sleep – and social scientists. My cynical Marxian thinking really leads me to the position that we’re stuck with capitalism, but that we might be able to tinker with it from within. But that depends on drawing actors together across disciplinary and social divisions – hence ‘multibiologism.’ I wanted a word that made sense to a wide variety of people, and, due to the discourses of multiculturalism, multibiologism seemed to fit. And, for most people, it’s relatively free of any over-determining genealogy (we might see problems with ‘bio,’ but, in my experience, clinicians have even more problems with the ‘politics’ in ‘biopolitics.’) So it may be clunky, but as a tool its lack of finesse might lend itself to more immediately instrumental critiques. We’ll see… But this is all to say that we’re in agreement that medical professionals – whether clinicians or public health researchers – can do more for improving sleep, but they need more tools to do that work with, since science alone clearly isn’t getting us very far. As an example, one might look at the constant debate about school start times in the U.S.: parents really believe that kids can be good students any time of day despite the evidence that adolescents need more sleep and school start times are directly at odds with their sleep needs. We might dismiss or critique the science, but if public health officials can embrace an idea like more flexible institutions, the result might be the same: we might end up with schools that allow students to attend when they’re best able and not when they have to. My more optimistic side tends to think that this is a real possibility – especially if we can link it up to discourses about efficiency! (However much we might internally deride ‘efficiency.’) And we’re in total agreement about sleep and social disparities, which is research that really needs to be done among social and laboratory scientists. To forecast my answer to #5, I briefly mention it in The Slumbering Masses (and its at the heart of an article I’m working on), but I find one of the functions of a lot of contemporary medicalization to be the ‘whitening’ of individuals; that is, medicine becomes one of the mechanisms by which disorderly individuals come to be orderly and brought into the fold of white, mainstream Western society (and I follow Douglas Holmes here in his discussion about race in Europe). More work definitely needs to be done on non-white disordered sleepers and sleep in non-white contexts – although I’ll be slippery here and say that I don’t want to delimit what counts as ‘white’ here and would rather leave it open ended to think about sleep across a variety of class and colonial (and postcolonial) contexts. My hope in pushing the study of sleep outside of whiteness is to get a more robust sense of what normative sleep really looks like, as well as getting a more robust picture of the social forms that privilege certain people and certain kinds of sleep.   Q5: What normative questions and issues does this raise? MWM: As I mentioned above, medicine is one of the control mechanism through which individuals become more orderly, both in a top-down sense (clinicians disciplining individuals through medicalization) and bottom-up sense (of individuals wanting to be normal and seeking recourse through medicine). The most straightforward example here is the eight hours of consolidated sleep that individuals are induced to desire, and which drugs like Ambien and Lunesta take as the goal for their chemical structure. That consolidated model – at least as I argue it – is really about producing both orderly individuals and an orderly society. When people aren’t sleeping as expected, problems arise. And this goes for work, school, family and romantic relationships (and so on). But at the heart of this conception of order is really the unexceptionality of heteronormative whiteness. The extension of this is the ordering of society itself, and one of the things I track are the ways that normative models of sleep and society in the U.S. and Western Europe are forcing other societies to align with them temporally. Sometimes this is just about aligning communities in nearby time zones for their collective convenience, as in the case of Spain in the E.U. But the stranger cases are those in which dominant societies force subordinate ones to meet them temporally across wide time zones – as in the case of the U.S. and India. U.S. businesses functionally preserves normal sleep for their employees while subjecting Indian workers to non-normative sleep schedules (by both American and Indian standards), which results in Indian employees being exposed to the possibility of Shift Work Sleep Disorder and social estrangement. So, while the normal is clearly at work here, it’s working in perverse and uneven ways. It’s important here – and this takes us back momentarily to our discussion of capitalism and sleep – to think about the consequences of our spatiotemporal orders, both locally and globally, and how these are producing new forms of inequality and risk. One of the places where we diverge is human rights and sleep, which might be one of the ways that we might tackle these concerns about disparities in sleep. I’m constantly wary of human rights, since it places the human into often static terms, and often traffics in human exceptionalism. One of the generative things for me about sleep – and this might be a gesture towards work in the future – is that all life sleeps (or is dormant in some way). Tackling sleep from this perspective helps to decenter the human as the foundation for analysis – and, might also, lead to new models of thinking about sleep, as we come to consider why humans alone consolidate their sleep. That being said, I do think that taking a stance on human rights, torture and sleep in your The Politics of Sleep is a necessary step to take, in part because it helps us look towards the next horizon.   SJW: It is interesting to me that you’ve chosen to answer things that way in terms of emphasizing the normative (consolidated) models of sleep and trying to get people to conform to them. That’s unsurprising and understandable, of course, given the line taken in your book, but I guess there is a prior or at least another question for to ask here as to whether or not our own stance on these matters (in the social sciences and humanities) might or should be normative, and if so, what exactly a normative stance of this kind might involve or entail. And that of course is itself simply another instance or iteration of a long-standing or running if not raging debate in the social sciences and humanities. Your stance then, in the book, is kind of doubly normative if you like. Normative, that is, in the sense of a critique of the consolidated sleep norms we are supposed to conform today (and hence the pathologizations this creates) in favour of a multibiologism on the one hand, and normative in terms of the stance you take as a consequence or corollary on the need for institutions to be more flexible on the other hand so as people don’t need to turn to medicine so much or so often (for chemical solutions to problems of capitalism). Now whilst I have some problems, as I have already indicated, with pushing your pathologization (and hence your medicalization) critique or thesis too far, I am certainly with you on the need to stress the need for ‘upstream’ (institutional) rather than just, or ‘as well as’ I would say, ‘downstream’ (individual) responses to our sleep ‘problems’ today. As for your ‘de-centred’ if not ‘slippery’ stance on human rights, well, my answer to that is both yes and no. You are right of course to be wary of, if not to problematize, any such appeals and I am, to be sure, mindful of those critiques too myself, including as you rightly say the fact that all life sleeps or is ‘dormant’ in some way. But I still want to hold on to some such notion that getting adequate or sufficient sleep is a basic or fundamental human right nonetheless, whether people choose to exercise that right or not. Hence depriving people of adequate or sufficient sleep for whatever reason is a violation of that right, and an important violation at that. So I started off, in The Politics of Sleep, trying to ground these claims (through recourse to Bryan Turner’s work on human rights) in notions of bodily vulnerability, but I now find it more productive or useful to do so through recourse to the human development or capabilities approach of writers like Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum on human flourishing. But the flip side of any such appeals to rights of course is responsibilities, particularly when or if we factor ‘risk’ into the equation too. So yes, as I have already indicated, we might wish to critique or problematize in some way contemporary discourses that construct sleeplessness and sleepiness as ‘at risk’ states, and yes we may also wish to appeal to the notion that people have a right not to sleep if they so wish — or to sleep in ways that don’t conform to the prevailing sleep ‘norms’ or models you document and discuss — but to the degree that this places others as well as ourselves ‘at risk’ then this also involves an obligation or responsibility to get sufficient sleep on the part of us all surely: one, I hasten to add, that is not akin to downstream victim blaming but also, returning to your stance on these matters, places responsibilities on institutions too in helping facilitate this.

María, Cristino and family in their Santo Domingo homeIn the Dominican Republic, el campo (the countryside) holds a positive value due to its important role in the cultural history of the nation. In contrast, el barrio (meaning a poor urban neighbourhood) is viewed as characterized by material and social degradation. Migrants from the countryside to Santo Domingo’s barrios find that they lose their moral status, instead being cast as criminals and delinquents. To counter their displacement, migrants must negotiate a more prestigious place in social imaginings of the city’s present. Although barrio residents generally agree that the barrios— and the city—are dangerous, they reject totalizing representations of barrio residents as immoral. They assert a morality that is bound up with traditional rural values: family life, hard work, and religiosity. Memories of their rural past form an integral part of their imaginings of themselves as moral people with a legitimate place in the city. In this sense memory can offer a form of resistance to the urban moral order, albeit one that is ultimately bounded by normative understandings of space and morality[Read the rest of the article]: Rural nostalgia as an urban coping strategyAuthor informationErin TaylorPost Doctoral Research Fellow, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, University of Lisbon at Research Fellow, Digital Ethnography Research CentreErin originally studied fine art, but she defected to anthropology when she realised that she was far better at deploying a pen for writing than for drawing. She is a cultural anthropologist who is currently living in Lisbon, Portugal, where she has a full-time research position at the Instituto de Ciências Sociais (ICS). TwitterFacebookGoogle+Original article: Rural nostalgia as an urban coping strategy©2013 Erin B. Taylor. All Rights Reserved.

Çiçek’ten Nevruz ve Anayasa açıklaması netGazete Bir gecede anayasa yazılmaz. Ama ucu açık bir zamanda da anayasa yapılmaz. Biraz daha fazla gayret göstermek bu işi belli bir zaman dilimi içerisinde bitirmemiz gerekiyor. İşin tabiatında özünde zaten bir tarih var. Arka arkaya 3 seçim yapılacak.   Altan Tan: Yeni bir formatla, yeni bir Anayasa yazılıyor Haber X BDP Diyarbakır Milletvekili Altan Tan, Anayasaya ilişkin değişiklik düşüncesinin yanlış olduğunu belirterek, “Yeni bir Anayasa yazılıyor. Girişinden tutun, en son bitiş maddelerine kadar madde sıraları da dahil olmak üzere, konu başlıkları da dahil   Cemil Çiçek’ten anayasa açıklaması! HABERTURK ”Bunlar Cumhuriyet’in kazanımlarıdır. Dolayısıyla hepimizin kazanımlarıdır. Bunda hiç tereddüt yok. Ancak ilk üç maddenin yazılış şekli itibarıyla bir çok Anayasa hukukçusunun itirazları vardı. İlke ve özüne değil, düzenleniş tarzına itirazları vardır   AK Parti’den Anayasa’nın 3 maddesi’e yalanlama Haber7.com Şentop, AA muhabirinin sorularını yanıtlarken, Anayasa’nın ilk üç maddesiyle ilgili TBMMAnayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu’nu oluşturan partiler açısından sorun olacağını sanmadığını belirterek, ”Türkiye’nin demokratik, laik, sosyal, hukuk devleti olduğu .   Yeni anayasa ve özerklik şartı Sabah Halkın büyük çoğunluğu yani yüzde 76′sı referandumla bir anayasa istiyor ve bu anayasaönündeki en büyük engel olarak da (yüzde 45.7′si) siyasi partilerin anlaşamamasını görüyor. Yani halk, terör sorununu bile (yüzde 16.9) siyasiler kadar engel görmüyor.   Anayasa Süreci İçin Denge ve Denetleme Ağı Haber Diyarbakır Türkiye’de daha demokratik, şeffaf ve katılımcı bir yönetim sistemi için çalıştıklarını belirten 88 sivil toplum örgütünün bir araya gelerek kurduğu Denge ve Denetleme Ağı Yeni Anayasahazırlık sürecine katkı yapıp, pozitif anlamda müdahil olmak için   Haşim Kılıç’tan anayasa açıklaması! HABERTURK Barış için gerekli olan iklimi oluşturmadan güce dayalı yapılacak anayasal düzenlemeler ‘ben yaptım oldu” anayasası olur. Bu yaklaşım toplum barışının en büyük tehdidi olmak yanında, sorunları büyütmekten başka sonuç doğurmaz. Bütün dinlerin ortak   Haşim Kılıç’tan yeni anayasa uyarısı CNN Türk Yeni anayasa sürecinde barış için gerekli iklimin oluşturulması gerektiğini vurgulan Haşim Kılıç şunları söyledi; “Bu toplum, kurduğu 90 yaşındaki cumhuriyetinin 45 yılını terörle mücadele etmekle geçirdi. Yarım asırdır kaybettiğimiz ekonomik, sosyal   Yeni Anayasa Sempozyumu -İstanbul Üniversitesi Öğretim Üyesi Doç. Dr. Yanık … Haber 3 “Yeni Anayasa Sempozyumu” -İstanbul Üniversitesi Öğretim Üyesi Doç. Dr. Yanık -”Bölgesel güç olmayı hedefleyen Türkiye’nin bu hedefine başkanlık sisteminin dışındaki herhangi bir sistemle ulaşması mümkün değildir” -Gazi Üniversitesi Ö   Anayasa” tartışması CHP’yi de böldü CNN Türk Anayasa çalışmalarında AK Parti’nin ilk üç madde ile ilgili çalışma yürüttüğü tartışmasına şimdi bir de CHP’nin kendi içindeki görüş ayrılığı eklendi. Komisyonun CHP’li üyelerinden Süheyl Batum ile Atilla Kart arasında vatandaşlık tanımı üzerinden   Yeni Anayasa’da hakimler için 67 yaş şartı Hakimiyet MHP; ”hukuka uygunluk” kavramının Anayasa ve kanun gibi kavramları da kapsadığı gerekçesiyle fıkrada yer almasını gereksiz gördüğünü ifade etti. Maddeye, ”Tarafsız kelimesi hakimlerin objektif ve sübjektif tarafsızlığını birlikte anlatır. Sübjektif   Milli Anayasa Platformu Karacabey’de Toplandı Haberler Söylemez, “Milli Anayasa Forumu parti gözetmeden gönüllü olarak bir araya gelinen Demokratik Kuva-i Milliye hareketidir. Bu öyle bir hareket ki, bizlere yağmur gibi talepler yağmakta. Doğudan batıya her yere gittik. Burada bulunan arkadaşlarımız   Türkeş: Anayasa süreci ve terörist ile müzakere çakıştırıldı Bugün MHP Genel Başkan Yardımcısı Tuğrul Türkeş, “Türkiye’de bir anayasa süreci ve terörist ile müzakere çakıştırılmıştır. Bir ülkenin anayasası orada yaşayan insanların tümüne mutlu, refahlı ve çağa uygun yaşayış temin etmek için yapılır. Terörist başı ile     ‘Anayasanın ruhunu gömmek lazım’ Mynet Haber KÜTAHYA (İHA) – AK Parti Genel Başkan Yardımcısı Mustafa Şentop, şimdiye kadar gelinen süreçte, anayasaya aykırı olmamasına rağmen yapılan çok sayıda kanuna oligarşik bürokrasi “Anayasa’nın ruhuna aykırı olduğu” gerekçesiyle engel olduğunu .   Prof. Özbudun: AK Parti’nin anayasa önerisi mevcut demokrasiyi daha geriletir T24 2007′de AKP’nin Anayasa Taslağı’nı hazırlayan ekibin başında yer alan, anayasa hukukçusu Prof. Ergun Özbudun, “AK Parti’nin önerileri aynen gerçekleşirse, Türkiye klasik tipte bir otoriter sisteme değil ama daha otoriter ya da daha yarı demokratik bir .   CHP’li Süheyl Batum, anayasa görüşmelerine 2 ayda 1 kez katılmış T24 (Basın Bildirisi) CHP’de Atilla Kart’ın, ‘vatandaşlık’ tanımında sürpriz açıklaması Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu’nun bir diğer üyesi Prof. Süheyl Batum’la görüş ayrılıklarını iyice su yüzüne çıkarırken başka bir konuyu da gündeme taşındı. Batum’un, komisyon toplantılarına Anayasa referandumu çok tehlikeli Vatan Sevgili okurlar; geçen haftayı da “nasıl olacağı” yine söylenmeyen “barış” nutuklarıyla geçirdik. İktidar ve yandaşları yine topu taca atarak “En iyisinin yeni anayasa ile tüm sorunları gidermek” olduğunu ve yapılacak referandumla son kararı halkın   Anayasa Komisyonu’nda partilerden farklı teklifler Haber7.com TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu bünyesindeki Yazım Komisyonu, yeni anayasada ”yargı” bölümünde yer alacak maddeler üzerindeki çalışmalarını sürdürdü. Komisyon, AK Parti Ankara Milletvekili Ahmet İyimaya’nın başkanlığında toplandı. Komisyon   Anayasa Çalışmaları Kitapçık Haline Getirildi Son Dakika Meltem Yılmaz – CHP, TBMM Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu’nda bugüne kadar yürütülen çalışmaları kitapçık haline getirdi.”Anayasa Taslak Metni” başlığı altındaki kitapçık, CHP Parti Meclisi’nin hafta sonu yapılan toplantısında da üyelere dağıtıldı.   Yeni anayasanın yapımı ve katılım Milliyet Anayasa, az sayıda madde içerdiği ve öz olduğu müddetçe daha özgürlükçü nitelik kazanıp, her müessese ve konuyu düzenleme alışkanlığına dayalı otoriter kimliğinden uzaklaşacaktır. Yeni Anayasada; yasama organının yetkileri ön plana çıkarılmalı   CHP anayasa çalışmalarını kitapçık yaptı Haber7.com ”Anayasa Taslak Metni” başlığı altındaki kitapçık, CHP Parti Meclisi’nin hafta sonu yapılan toplantısında da üyelere dağıtıldı. Kitapçık, ”Temel haklar ve hürriyetler”, ”Yasama”, ”Yürütme”, ”İdare ve kamu hizmetleri” başlıklarıyla 59 sayfadan .   ‘Anayasa Sürecinde Vatandaşlık ve Kimlik’ Paneli Haberler Atatürk Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Anayasa Hukuku Anabilim Dalı Öğretim Üyesi Prof. Dr. Tevfik Gülsoy, “Türkiye Cumhuriyeti döneminde de Osmanlı döneminde de vatandaşlıkla ilgili düzenlemeler din, ırk, mezhep veya herhangi bir farklılığı reddederek .     Related posts: Yeni Anayasa Gündemi: İsmet Berkan: Yeni anayasa çıkmaza mı giriyor? Yeni Anayasa Gündemi: “Muay Thai’ Federasyonu Yeni Anayasa Ve Başkanlık Sürecine Destek verdi… Yeni Anayasa gündemi… Kılıçdaroğlu’nun ‘yeni anayasa’ tarifi…Erdoğan’ın anayasa için B ve C planı Yeni Anayasa Gündemi.. Kuzu ilan etti: Seçim sürecinde yeni anayasa çıkmaz… Öcalan’dan Habermas referanslı anayasa tartışması… Yeni Anayasa gündemi. TESEV Anayasa İzleme Komitesi ve diğer haberler…

Paolo Lucchesi, "AQ’s Matt Semmelhack and Mark Liberman to open Bon Marché in Market Square", Inside Scoop SF 2/22/2013: Matt Semmelhack and Mark Liberman — the team behind the celebrated AQ in SoMa — are the first restaurant tenants of the big Market Square development (a.k.a. the Twitter building), where they plan to open a street-level, all-day brasserie and bar named Bon Marché. Also, AQ here apparently doesn't stand for "Autism Quotient": The term “AQ” (“As Quoted”) often appears on classic restaurant menus to describe fresh, seasonal or specialty items. For this restaurant we extended this concept one step further—As we update the menu to reflect the freshest produce, we also gradually transform the interior of the restaurant to reflect the palette and tone of the current season. Screen shot:

In the comments section of the London (Ontario) Free Press, there was a frank exchange of views on the grammaticality of the headline "Man wandering in traffic arrested with gun" (3/20/2013). A small sample follows. Susan Franks complained: Please, as journalists try to write headlines that make sense. Try "Man With Gun Wandering in Traffic Arrested" I am not putting you down, I just would like to see and hear a little better grammar from professionals. Evan Harper responded: Speaking as a practical full-time unpaid Free Press copyediting complainer, I'm at a loss to understand what you think is ungrammatical about the headline. louderthebetter supported Ms. Franks: The headline is grammatically incorrect because it implies that the perp was arrested for wandering in traffic and that the gun was a tool used in the arrest […] Evan Harper came back: Try searching Google for "arrested-with-*" and tell me with a straight face that all of those headlines are implying that "stolen gun in downtown Seattle," "more than 8 pounds of pot," "credit card of shooting victim", etc are tools of arrest. It may shock you to learn this but natural language depends on cultural and contextual knowledge shared between communicants, not tortured attempts at "logical" syntax, to resolve ambiguities. There are at least two issues here, it seems to me. One involves the syntax and semantics of the prepositional phrase "with gun"; and the other is the idea that bad writing must be bad grammar. Susan Franks, louderthebetter, and those who take their side apparently think that "with gun" is meant to be an extraposed modifier of "man wandering in traffic", as the sentence-final prepositional phrases are in e.g. Information is available about that topic. A rumor is circulating of unexpectedly missing funds. This construction (where a clause-final PP is syntactically and semantically linked with the subject) is relatively rare, probably because the PP is so easily misinterpreted as linked with the verb or with another post-verbal element. Thus A woman with an umbrella opened the door is not felicitously reworded as A woman opened the door with an umbrella. But this would be unwise, or perhaps we should say inconsiderate, not ungrammatical. And in any event, as Evan explained, that's not what's happening in this case.  Not all verb-associated with-phrases are instrumental — there are plenty of other available meanings. The Merriam-Webster online entry for with gives 28 senses, only one of which is the instrumental 6 a —used as a function word to indicate the means, cause, agent, or instrumentality <hit him with a rock> <pale with anger> <threatened with tuberculosis> <he amused the crowd with his antics> Although "arrested with X" is very common, in news stories as well as headlines, these examples are never instrumental. Rather, they seem to be the M-W possessive sense 8 a (1) : in possession of : having <came with good news> (2) : in the possession or care of <left the money with her mother> A few examples from headlines in today's Google News: Man arrested with suspected stolen credit cards Man arrested with multiple bags of marijuana in his car Man arrested with explosives Woman arrested with BAC more than 3 times the legal limit Piscataway man arrested with gun, hollow-point bullets Mesa man arrested with war paint, multiple weapons Man arrested with fake CIA badge Two Midland Men Arrested With Drugs Brandon man arrested with $10K cash, bayonet 2 separate travelers arrested with loaded guns in carry-ons Orlando Middle Schooler arrested with two guns Man with DUI warrant arrested with drugs Felon arrested with gun in downtown Seattle Juvenile Arrested with Marijuana at High School Using "arrested with" to mean "arrested while in possession of" seems to be so much the norm, in fact, that it would be bad practice to write a headline of the form "X arrested with gun" to mean that X was arrested at gunpoint. Now, I don't think there's any Zombie Rule lurking in the shrubbery about "clause-final with-phrases". And if the reaction to this headline were a consequence of a general objection to potential ambiguity, no written or spoken sentence would be safe. So it seems likely that something about the specific headline "Man wandering in traffic arrested with gun" was problematic for Susan Franks and some others. Perhaps "wandering in traffic" offers a reason for the arrest, and so readers look for some other role to assign to "with gun"? But the syntax of this headline is simple and absolutely standard: And the "arrested with gun" part is not only syntactically normal, it's semantically and pragmatically common to the point of being a cliche. So the immediate leap from "something about this bothers or confuses me" to "it's ungrammatical" was unusually inappropriate in this case.

In 2010 I had the privilege of participating in an international conference in Vienna on camels (not on camelback, of course). A book from this conference has now appeared. This is: Eva-Maria KNOLL – Pamela BURGER, editors, Camels in Asia and North Africa. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on their Past and Present Significance. 2012, 290 p., with 26 articles, 33 graphs/maps, 111 pictures, and an index. My article is on what camels eat, for which I have created a website. Here is how the editors describe the book: Humanity’s history is closely linked to those of camels. Without these remarkable animals we could not have inhabited the arid zones of Asia and North Africa, nor could we cope with today’s challenges of increasing desertification. Researching interactions between humans and camels therefore has been established at the Austrian Academy of Sciences ever since its foundation more than 160 years ago. The present publication is committed to this research tradition. This book assembles insights upon current and historical interactions between humans and camels. Thereby it is international and interdisciplinary from the outset and aims at intensifying a camel-related knowledge exchange between the natural sciences and the humanities. The here presented discussions of Old World camels (dromedary, Bactrian, wild camel) include such diverse topics as camel origin, domestication, breeding, raising and commerce. Moreover, camels’ significance is also discussed regarding socio-cultural and economic factors, music, folk medicine and veterinary medicine, as well as saving the last remaining wild camels. With an afterword by Richard W. Bulliet (New York), one of the world’s leading authorities on the camels’ history.