Critical Thinking

""La cigogne (stork) est un oiseau qui ne chante pas, mais qui s’exprime d’une brutale façon. Comment cette absence de vocalisation a-t-elle été présentée au Moyen Age ? Quelles significations les moralistes en ont-ils tirées ?  Bref, que faire d’un oiseau qui n’était pas chanteur…

Conclusion:
1) Dans ce que retiennent les bestiaires et les œuvres morales, les caractéristiques physiques, hormis l’absence de chant et la puissance du bec, sont rares : rien (ou presque) sur le méléagrisme, sur la couleur de l’oiseau… ; rien sur leur grandeur ou sur leur poids. Son bec est en lui-même emblématique de la cigogne.

2) en revanche il y a insistance sur le comportement social : elle nourrit ses petits qui le lui rendent bien ; elle est fidèle, malgré des écarts ; elle protège le nid ; aime l’homme et sa proximité. Ce bec puissant et furieux accentuerait quelque peu son côté cruel, négatif donc. C’est ce bec qui accentue son ambiguïté. Oiseau pieux, mais cruel, et parfois sale.

3) Paradoxalement, elle annonce le printemps sans le chanter. Sa présence forte liée à des légendes autour de sa transformation en homme arrivé en Orient suffit à en faire, malgré l’absence de son chant, l’indicateur privilégiée du rythme des saisons.
""

Dans l'étude de la foudre et de ses effets, les exempla médiévaux forment une source non négligeable, même si ces documents devront se fondre parmi d'autres - textes hagiographiques, prières, images, encyclopédies, etc. - pour dresser l'histoire de l'attitude de l'homme devant la foudre et ses effets. D'ores et déjà l'on perçoit à travers ces récits que l'image de populations médiévales soumises aux caprices de la nature, impuissantes et passives, est à battre en brèche. Une certaine prévention, une solidarité villageoise bien réelle, voilà autant de facteurs qui prouvent que la résistance aux fléaux naturels fut plus forte au Moyen Âge qu'on ne le croit généralement.

"CALL FOR BOOK CHAPTERS: "MAPPING THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA IN TURKEY"

Editors: Barış Çoban & Bora Ataman

Extended Deadline for abstracts:
January 1st 2013

http://alternativemediamap.net/

We aim to map the alternative media in Turkey, which is varied in form, structure and working styles such as “cracks”, “rhizomes” and “fronts”. Similarly to what has occurred with the mainstream media, both large and small examples of the alternative media, alongside their widespread prevalence inside the country, have also already transcended the national borders. We argue that mapping the alternative media, embracing newspapers, radio and television channels, cinemas, blogs, forums and platforms, essentially the full range of conventional and new media organs and vehicles, is one of the most useful research approaches to comprehending the nature of alternative politics in Turkey.

The alternative media works as a source of memory and an archive helping to understand the historical and current structure of alternative politics in Turkey. IT also gives voice to alternative ideologies and politics and makes their political activities visible. In addition, the alternative media, which mainly represents the “otherised”, oppressed and marginalised groups, forms the vanguard of struggle against the hegemony and barbarism of the oppressive, globalized neo-liberal society.

Alternative media, as an umbrella term, applies to those media organs which are typically bottom up organisations. In principle, their organizational structures and decision making processes are democratic, participatory, polyphonic and dialogic. Their opposition to the mainstream media finds its roots, in its form and content, in social and political struggles and is based in radical ideologies such as anarchism, radical democracy and Marxism. The existence of alternative media indicates the struggle to construct a truly democratic and free sphere of communication from a number of broad perspectives, varying from the idea of simply being independent from either the state or capital, to being completely opposed to them. In this context, it is also possible to claim that every organ of the alternative media, as a centre of subaltern resistance, is part of a greater alternative communication network.

This so-called alternative network (or networks) is/are the voice of different political or social groups, communities, minorities or even individuals at the grassroots level. Thus, they open the way for these groups to actively participate in political and social life, as either real “agents” or as “spectacles” in the field of symbolic struggle. Therefore, individuals or groups can find opportunities to get involved in both real and symbolic struggles for hegemony, not only as consumers, but also as producers; as active agents.

Therefore, alternative media institutions either on the micro- or macro-scale cannot be considered as combatants solely at the informational level. In addition to their struggle to gather, record and spread news and ideas concerning local, national and transnational problems, they also provide a response to the establishment through real political actions. It is not unusual to see their active participation in protests, or even note that they hold the leadership positions in the organisation of some of these dissident political actions. Therefore, their active struggle with the hegemonic powers can also be considered as an effort to create alternative political forms. More commonly however, alternative media operate as the symbolic production centre of alternative politics and as an incubation ground for the intellectual and ideological constructs of social movements.

Alternative media, along with other dissident institutions, are seen as paving the way for a brighter and more just future by being the voice of the voiceless and contributing to the imagining of a different world. Threatening so-called representative democracy by supporting participatory social, cultural and political activities is also deemed useful to this end. By engaging in such activities, they may be able to cause the transformation of political culture in general. More importantly, however, the ways in which subordinate constituents of the society interpret politics and their own means of participation could change in a positive manner. Moreover, such efforts may also lead to the construction of efficient counter-public spheres alongside the more common examples of alternative spaces.
Diverse anti-systemic, reformist and revolutionary ideological orientations, varied political discourses and different modes of action constituting the alternative media landscape mostly open up an opportunity for the “oppressed” to actively participate in these alternative political spaces that are, to a certain extent, diverse, colourful, vivid and, most importantly, innately dialogic.
In this context, we argue that the “duty” of academia should be to understand these alternatives without stigmatizing them as the source of conflicts within the prevailing social system. After all, we as editors, would like to study these initiatives since the imagining of an alternative world may only be possible by embracing the oppressed and their voice, even though the world around us is not particularly welcoming.

Abstracts of papers are sought on topics such as:
• Radical- militant media (affiliated with revolutionary organizations)
• Radical media (Struggling within legal parameters to push the limits of the existing system
• Identity and rights-based media (Human rights, labour and trade-union rights, gender, environment, ethnicity, struggles based on faith or denomination
• Transnational and diaspora-based alternative media
• Independent, objective, opposition media
• Dissident voices, “cracks” in the mainstream media

However, it should be noted that the categories above do not refer to independent categories with clear differences. It is possible to say that; most examples of the alternative media operating in Turkey can be included under more than one of the rubrics mentioned above. Nevertheless, the alternative media organs in Turkey, despite a degree of permeability in the boundaries that separate them, may be seen as belonging more to one or another of the above-mentioned classifications, therefore, these categories will constitute the book’s chapters.

Furthermore, we are mainly interested in the case studies (comparative if possible) and empirical research possessing theoretical and methodological clarity, and focusing on at least one of three basic dimensions of media studies; such as “Production”, “Text”, or “Audience”, without missing the multi-layered and intertwined relationships between these dimensions.

Abstracts of a maximum of 250 words in Turkish and English outlining the topic, theoretical and methodological approach as well as the research question, should be submitted to either Barış Çoban (bcoban@dogus.edu.tr) or Bora Ataman (bataman@dogus.edu.tr) until January1st 2013.

Announcement of the abstracts selected will be made by February 1 2013.

The deadline for full paper submissions is August 1, 2013

The editors are planning to publish book in Turkish and English and have made an agreement with Yordam, to publish in January 2014.

After the evaluation of the abstracts, negotiations with foreign publishing houses will begin for the English version.
Barış Çoban & Bora Ataman (Eds.)
Extended Deadline for Research Proposals: January 1st, 2013"

The article first describes characteristics of major infrastructure projects. Second, it documents a much neglected topic in economics: that ex ante estimates of costs and benefits are often very different from actual ex post costs and benefits. For large infrastructure projects the consequences are cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and the systematic underestimation of risks. Third, implications for cost–benefit analysis are described, including that such analysis is not to be trusted for major infrastructure projects. Fourth, the article uncovers the causes of this state of affairs in terms of perverse incentives that encourage promoters to underestimate costs and overestimate benefits in the business cases for their projects. But the projects that are made to look best on paper are the projects that amass the highest cost overruns and benefit shortfalls in reality. The article depicts this situation as ‘survival of the unfittest’. Fifth, the article sets out to explain how the problem may be solved, with a view to arriving at more efficient and more democratic projects, and avoiding the scandals that often accompany major infrastructure investments. Finally, the article identifies current trends in major infrastructure development. It is argued that a rapid increase in stimulus spending, combined with more investments in emerging economies, combined with more spending on information technology is catapulting infrastructure investment from the frying pan into the fire.

"During their entire disciplinary lives, psychology and
social psychology have treated work as a naturalized
fact and an inevitable part of human existence. Whilst
themes such as working conditions, decent work, work
and subjectivity, work and vocation, guidance and
careers may be discussed in a critical manner, the
overall centrality of the work discourse is left untouched.
In this essay it is argued that the multiple forms,
possibilities, contradictions and restrictions present in
contemporary economic relations are pointing to the
weakening, or even fragmentation, of the articulating
role of work and in third world countries like Brazil,
where the western model of salaried wage employment
was never extensive to more than a part of the
population, this process becomes doubly complicated.
In these circumstances it is important to seek a different
starting point for the social psychological discussion of
economic activity, which can give greater visibility to the
multiple ways in which people “get by” in order to keep
their homes together, sustain households and develop
family collectives."

"This volume publishes for the first time an untitled anti-Hasidic manuscript, which the editors have called Reshit Hokhmah (The Origin/Beginning of Wisdom), from the Joseph Perl Archive in Tarnopol. The manuscript was copied in 1819, the year that Perl’s Megale Temirin was published. It is housed today in the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. The identity of the author is unknown, but he probably came from Galicia and was associated with Mitnagdim and Maskilim. The book expresses harsh and detailed criticism of the hagiographic work, Shivhei ha-Besht (In Praise of the Baal Shem Tov, Kapost 1815), which is the first extensive engagement with this book. Moreover, the work is erudite and anticipates the views of Isaac Baer Levinson in his work Te‘udah be-Yisrael (A Warning to Israel, Vilna and Grodno 1828). The manuscript was read by many Maskilim in Galicia and it seems to have influenced both Joseph Perl and Isaac Baer Levinson. This work is therefore of great importance as an example of anti-Hasidic literature, which influenced nineteenth-century Haskalah literature. A transcription of the manuscript is presented in this volume, accompanied by explanatory notes, references to literature that influenced the author, references to anti-Hasidic literature, and an introduction that describes the character of the work and its reception.

Table of Contents

Early Manuscripts in Joseph Perl Archive / Jonatan Meir
Introduction / Shmuel Werses

Reshit Hokhmah (1819): Critical Edition
Introduction • The History of Heresy • In Praise of Wisdom and The Sages • On the Ways of the Fools • Hasidic Tales and their Secrets • On the Besht’s Path • The Besht’s Family • The Secret of Healing a Barren Woman • A Hasidic Sermon on Wine and Sons • Another Question and a Sermon on the Secrets • A Question and Sermon on Hasidic Tales • A Story about the Wonders of the great Tzaddik • On the Besht and a Priest who had an Accidental Emission • Another Story on the Besht and a Priest • The Besht and Wine • The Besht and Adultery • The Besht and the Messiah • Exaggerated Praise Concerning the Besht and the Origins of Praise • An Elegy on the Heretics, the Besht, and the Hasidim • A Reproach against the Besht’s Sayings Concerning the Messiah • Stories of False Tzaddikim • Two Types of Hasidic Rabbis • On the Tzaddikim and the Damage They Cause • Praising Wisdom and Work

Bibliography
Indexes


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"This study aimed at examining the extent to which metacognitive self-regulation and chemistry
self-efficacy predicted critical thinking. Three hundred sixty-five university students participated
in the study. Data were collected using appropriate dimensions of Motivated Strategies for Learning
Questionnaire and College Chemistry Self-Efficacy Scale. Cronbach’s alpha coefficients
ranged from .77 to .88. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results indicated
that metacognitive self-regulation was found to be positively and significantly related to chemistry
self-efficacy for cognitive skills and chemistry self-efficacy for everyday applications. In addition,
there was a positive and significant relationship between chemistry self-efficacy for everyday applications
and critical thinking, whereas there was no significant relationship between chemistry
self-efficacy for cognitive skills and critical thinking. Overall, the tested model explained 68.5% of
critical thinking. Findings provide suggestions in order to enhance critical thinking in chemistry
classes."

"As human beings we marvel at a dance performance, a musical
recording, a novel, a film. For instance, take pieces of metal that come together to form a free-standing sculpture. Metal, as in music, dance or film, is a free-flow matter (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). As it stands there, what does metal do? It takes on expressiveness. Similarly, multiple literacies that involve reading the world, word and self take on expressiveness. Words on paper, musical notes on a staff take on sense, expressiveness."

“We hope you will find these thoughts of ours both interesting and useful.” These are words spoken to express an intention, a bearing in the mind of a person toward an object which is yet to be achieved. The readiest moment of human life involves the interplay of signs, ideas, and objects — more explicitly, the interrelation of signifying expressions, states and dispositions of the mind or person, and objects or objectives either actual or potential. Our work designing instruments to enhance the play of inquiry has attuned us to the themes of interpretation and intentionality which every inquiry seems to involve. We hear what sounds like familiar strains reaching us from the hermeneutic quarter. The purpose of this essay is to trace to their sources a few of these potentially common themes, to draw out one line of their historical development, and to gather what consequences they inspire for educational practice and continued inquiry.

What is a ‘clever object’? An introduction to this special issue, this essay takes up the art-historical stakes of that alluring if baffling phrase. As a term ‘good to think with’, we argue, the clever object sits on the threshold of recent work in material culture, science and technology studies, and anthropology. The essay shows how this interdisciplinary nexus has variously come to imagine artefacts as possessing robust lives of their own. Organised around an insect-filled diagnostic instrument, a picture on (and about) cloth painted in colonial Mexico, and a contemporary, sculptural feint of Renaissance painterly illusion, the text follows in cleverness’s tricky trail, drawing out shadow histories of this sinister twin to art’s valorized ‘intelligence’. As it surveys the collection’s aims and contents, the essay seeks to show how engaging with clever objecthood brings art-historical studies into dynamic conversation with both interdisciplinary theory and contemporary art practice.

"The lecture will treat the relationship of various maskilim in Eastern
Europe (especially Isaac Bear Levinsohn)  to kabbalistic literature and will focus on their assumption about the authenticity of part of Jewish esoteric literature. This assumption not only sparked the active resistance of those maskilim to the Hasidim but also fostered certain forms of historical and textual criticism of kabbalistic literature. This observation will uncover new facets of the Haskalah movement and will demonstrate its affinities to
romantic literature. It will further expose certain precedents for kabbalah scholarship in the Scholem's scholarship and those who followed his lead.

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