Fo(u)nts of etymology: abstraction and the absolute in Derrida’s 'Faith and Knowledge…'

The political philosopher Hannah Arendt actively engaged in the problem of a Jewish homeland and the politics of Zionism in the years 1941–1948. She advocated a Binational solution to Palestine – a single political commonwealth with two national identities, Jewish and Arab, integrated in a federation with other countries in the region. In the crucial period leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel, Arendt became increasingly disillusioned with the Jewish Agency and the Zionist movement for failing to organize a Jewish response to Nazism (a Jewish Army) and rejecting the Palestinian right to a homeland.     

The association of affective and continuance commitment with correctional staff life satisfaction

Previous research suggests that life satisfaction is a stronger predictor of job performance than job satisfaction, and life satisfaction is negatively associated with absenteeism and a desire to retire early. Despite the fact that employees with high life satisfaction are essential for organizations’ optimal efficiency, little empirical research exists to determine the individual and workplace factors that shape and maintain high correctional staff life satisfaction levels. This study investigates the impact of two types of organizational commitment, continuance and affective, on correctional staff life satisfaction at two Midwestern prisons, one private and one public. Continuance commitment was negatively related and affective commitment was positively related with life satisfaction for staff in both prisons. Possible methods to increase affective commitment and life satisfaction for correctional staff are discussed.     

Longitudinal Test of a Multiple Domain Model of Adolescent Condom Use

A comprehensive multiple domain model (MDM) to understand condom use in adolescents was proposed and tested using structural equation modeling of data at three time points. The proposed model integrates social psychological theory, demographic and personality factors, social environment, and situational/contextual variables. Adolescents who were sexually active at time 2 (6 months after baseline) and time 3 (1 year after time 2) and completed surveys at all three time points were included in the analyses (N = 511). An iterative process of model testing resulted in a structural equation model that provided a good fit to the data (CFI = .92, RMSEA = .04). Models comparing gender and race as moderators also were calculated and supported the generalizability of the model. Results provide support for an MDM that goes beyond traditional social psychological models for a broader understanding of condom use in adolescents. Implications for further theory testing and safer sexual interventions are discussed.     

Increased Family Involvement in School Predicts Improved Child–Teacher Relationships and Feelings About School for Low-Income Children

ABSTRACT

Family involvement in school, children's relationships with their teachers, and children's feelings about school were examined longitudinally from kindergarten through fifth grade for an ethnically diverse, low-income sample (N = 329). Within-families analyses indicated that changes in family involvement in school were directly associated with changes in children's relationships with their teachers and indirectly associated with changes in children's feelings about school, with student–teacher relationships mediating this latter association. Increases in family involvement in school predicted improvements in student–teacher relationships, and, in turn, these improvements in student–teacher relationships predicted improvements in children's perceptions of competency in literacy and mathematics as well as improvements in children's attitudes toward school, more generally. These results are consistent with systems theories of child development and help answer why family educational involvement matters for low-income children. This research was supported by a grant to the authors from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (5R03HD052858-02). Principal investigators of the School Transitions Study were Deborah Stipek, Heather Weiss, Penny Hauser-Cram, Walter Secada, and Jennifer Greene, who were supported in part by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Foundation for Child Development, and the William T. Grant Foundation.     

The Indian Ocean travels of Sheikh Yusuf and Imam Ali Ali: literary representations in Ishtiyaq Shukri’s The Silent Minaret and Achmat Dangor’s Bitter Fruit

This article investigates the narrative function of prominent Muslim travellers (both historical and fictional) across the Indian Ocean to South Africa in the seventeenth and nineteenth century respectively. Ishtiyaq Shukri, author of The Silent Minaret, juxtaposes the figure of Sheikh Yusuf with the protagonist Issa Shamsuddin of the narrative present to critique contemporary politics, both in post-apartheid South Africa and in the global North and its ‘war on terror’. Similarly, Achmat Dangor’s novel Bitter Fruit sheds light on the difficult choices faced by the main protagonist, Michael Ali, by drawing on the migration narrative of the Sufi Imam Ali Ali from India to South Africa in the 1890s. Both authors highlight the continuous history of imperial pursuits in the Indian Ocean world and their devastating effects in the past and the narrative present.     

Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic

David L. Smith, Richard Strier and David Bevington (eds), The Theatrical City: Culture, Theatre and Politics in London, 1576–1649 (1995), xvi + 288 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00/$49.95).

John Smail, The Origins of Middle Class Culture. Halifax, Yorkshire, 1660–1780 (1994), xvi + 241 (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, N.Y., $39.95).

Anna Clark, The Struggle for the Breeches. Gender and the Making of the British Working Class (1995), xv + 416 (University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, $35.00).

Deborah Valenze, The First Industrial Woman (1995), ix + 251 (Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, hardback $39.95/£25.00).

Leonore Davidoff, Worlds Between: Historical Perspectives on Gender and Class (1995), x + 276 (Polity Press, Cambridge, £45.00, paperback £12.95).

Mary Poovey, Making a Social Body: British Cultural Formation 1830–1864 (1995), x + 255 (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, $34.00/£27.25, paperback $12.95/£10.25).

Christopher Parker (ed.), Gender Roles and Sexuality in Victorian Literature (1995), xiii + 194 (Scolar Press, Aldershot and Vermont, £39.95).

David Northrup, Indentured Labor in the Age of Imperialism, 1834–1922 (1995), xii + 186 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, $49.95/£30.00, paperback $14.95).

Hermann Beck, The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare State in Prussia. Conservatives, Bureaucracy and the Social Question 1815–70 (1995), 285 (University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, $47.50).

Vivian Bickford‐Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town: Group Identity and Social Practice 1875–1902 (1995), xxiii + 281 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £40.00).

Joy Damousi and Marilyn Lake (eds), Gender and War: Australians at War in the Twentieth Century (1995), viii + 351 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York and Melbourne, $59.95).

Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent (eds), Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (1994), xix + 377 (University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC, $18.95).