Mois : octobre 2008

.Linked with New thinking needs new direction. Continuer la lecture de « Mary Kaldor – England »

Andrew is Director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights ADH and a Professor of Public International Law at its Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He specialises in international human rights and has acted in several ECHR cases. He has been a special adviser on Corporate Responsibility to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, and was adviser on international humanitarian law to the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.  He was the Representative of Amnesty International at the United Nations in New York from 1991-1997, and has participated as the representative of Amnesty International in numerous inter-governmental meetings as well as in Amnesty International missions to Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi and Liberia. Andrew appeared in the case of Osman vs UK before the European Court of Human Rights … (full text).

… His current research relates to the role of non-state actors in international law and related questions in human rights and humanitarian law … (full text).

… He worked as Special Adviser on Corporate Responsibility to the former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to Sergio Vieira de Mello, Special Representative to the UN Secretary-General in Iraq. (full text).

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Andrew Clapham – England

Secession, terrorism and the right of self-determination, Andrw Clapham.

He says: … « The creation of the Council of Human Rights has been the catalyst. And in Berne, with Micheline Calmy-Rey, the interest around Geneva has increased. At the academic level, the creation of a new Institute for International Studies and Development and Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights has added to the momentum. It is now important to be inventive. In my report, I put forward other proposals to build momentum around Geneva: offering grants for young people from developing countries to study humanitarian subjects in Geneva or setting up an institute for human rights in order to build links between the two fields » … (full interview text).

Google download books:
Human Rights, by Andrew Clapham (Taking an international perspective and focusing on issues such as torture, privacy, health and discrimination, this book aims to help readers in understanding the controversies and complexities behind the vitally relevant issue of human rights. It also explains what our human rights actually are, and where the human rights movement is heading, also on kriso.ee, and also on OfTheSelf.ch;
Enforcing International Law Norms Against Terrorism, by Andrea Bianchi, Yasmin Naqvi;
Justice for Crimes Against Humanity, by Mark Lattimer, Philippe Sands;
International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, by Francisco Forrest Martin, Stephen J. Schnably, Richard … .

Continuer la lecture de « Andrew Clapham – England »

Linked with the University Research Priority Programm URPP, and with Meditation may increase empathy.

Bio: Tania Singer is Assistant Professor of Social Neuroscience and Neuroeconomics at the Center for the Study of Social and Neural Systems at the University of Zürich. She studied psychology and media at the University of Marburg and the Technical University of Berlin. She was Pre- and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, where she worked on cognitive development over the life span … Her main research interest is in the understanding of the foundation of human social behaviour and cooperation as well as social emotions such as empathy and fairness from the perspective of social neuroscience, developmental and social cognitive psychology as well as economics. In her spare time, she pursues interests in the arts, participating in drama and film productions as well as studying music, voice, and dance. (at congress.com).

More Bio on URPP; on Max Planck;

She is:

• Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London;
• Associate of the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, Geneva;
• Member of the Neuroscience Center Zurich ZNZ;
• Associate Fellow at the Collegium Helveticum, Zürich;
• Associate Member at the Institut Jean Nicod, Paris;
• The Cooperation with Mind and Life Institute;
• Advisory Board member of the Society for Neuroeconomics, New York;
• Consulting Editor of Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

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Tania Singer – Germany

She works for the URPP Foundations of Human Social Behavior, Altruism and Egoism.

Her work’s Main Goals/Keywords: Main Goals, Keywords: Investigation of the social brain including the study of the neuronal, hormonal and behavioural foundations of empathy, cognitive perspective taking, social learning, trust, and revenge. fMRI and behavioural studies of deficient social behaviour in pathologies such as Autism and Alexythimia. Development and plasticity of social emotions (social brain, Asperger, insula, pain, reward learning, empathy, pro-social behaviour, emotional plasticity, oxytocin) … Group Members, Previous ans Current Research, Future Projects, Techniques and Equipment … etc. (UZH / ETH Zürich).

She says: « My main research interest lies in the foundation of human social behaviour from the perspectives of social neuroscience, developmental, cognitive, and social psychology, as well as economics » … (full text).

How your brain handles love and pain.

Men’s vengeful brains.

Putative neurobiological substrates of punishment.

Empathy, Serious Drill, Placebo Effect, etc.

Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but not Sensory Components of Pain.

Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk from Tibet with a PhD in molecular biology, has been working with neuroscientists to find out. Brain scans of regular meditators, including Ricard himself, have shown that they have greatly increased levels of high-frequency brain activity called gamma waves. Does the secret of happiness lie in this unusual brain activity, and the meditation training that seems to produce it? … (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Tania Singer – Germany »

Linked with Definitions: The Intelligentsia, with Definitions: The proletariat, with Just East of Eden: Iran, images and reflections.

GAITHER STEWART: left journalism four years ago in order to write fiction full-time. Originally from Asheville, North Carolina, he has lived most of his life in Europe, chiefly in Germany and Italy. For many years he was the Italian correspondent of the Rotterdam daily newspaper, ALGEMEEN DAGBLAD. His has been a varied life: from university studies in Slavistics and political science in the United States and Germany, to intelligence officer in Europe, to correspondent for European and American radios, to public relations for Italian corporations, to full correspondent for a major European newspaper. Today, he lives in the hills of north Rome with his wife, Milena. His debut short story collection, Icy Current, Compulsive Course was released in March by Wind River Press. Its companion volume, To Be a stranger, will be published this winter. (on critique on writing II).

Gaither Stewart is a Senior Contributing Editor at Cyrano’s Journal and a seasoned professional journalist and essayist. He has lived in Europe for several decades, and currently resides in Rome with his family. In addition to Cyrano, his essays and reports are widely read on many Internet venues, including Online Journal, The People’s Voice, and other sites. His collections of short stories, « Icy Current Compulsive Course », « To Be A Stranger » and « Once In Berlin » are published by Wind River Press. His new novel, « Asheville, » is published by Wasteland RUNES.

Gaither’s daily scared blog.

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Gaither Stewart – USA

Impulso de hegemonia dos Estados Unidos no mundo.

Filosofia: SOLIDARIETA’ E UGUAGLIANZA, QUALCOSA IN CUI CREDERE.

He says: … “What is so bewildering is the conviction—and it is becoming more and more general—that in all the perils that confront us the direction of affairs is given over to a way of thinking that no longer has any understanding of itself. It is like being in a carriage, descending an increasingly precipitous slope, and suddenly realizing there is no coachman on the box.” … (full text).

Italy: Between Anarchy and Servility.

The German Woman and The Carpenter.

Bono Speaks Out Against Torture and Gets Censored.

Gaither Steward’s To Be A Stranger, a book review: Summary: Displacement, exile and return haunt the pages of Gaither Stewart’s second short story collection, To Be A Stranger. Though most of the sixteen stories are set in the author’s hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, the stories touch only lightly on the real Asheville, today’s renowned tourism destination. Stewart says, “The Asheville I depict rather hazily is the misty, intangible town I imagine from a distance or see when I visit there. It is a strange Asheville, an Asheville of great secrets, an Asheville of a distant past, an Asheville removed from the present. It is also an Asheville as a destination and a hope. It is the hometown of the exile, seen now close at hand, now in the past, now as in a dream … (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Gaither Stewart – USA »

Linked with The Audre Lorde Project ALP.

The Great Debate / Audre Lorde Project, Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 7:00pm – 9:00pm, Where: @ALP.

Audre Geraldine Lorde (February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an Caribbean-American writer, poet and activist. Lorde was born in New York City to Caribbean immigrants Frederick Byron Lorde and Linda Gertrude Belmar Lorde, who settled in Harlem. Nearsighted to the point of being legally blind, and the youngest of three daughters, Lorde grew up hearing her mother’s stories about the West Indies. She learned to talk while she learned to read, at the age of four, and her mother taught her to write at around the same time. She wrote her first poem when she was in eighth grade … Lorde set out actively to challenge white women, confronting issues of racism in feminist thought. She maintained that a great deal of the scholarship of white feminists served to augment the oppression of black women, a conviction which led to angry confrontation, most notably in the scathing open letter addressed to radical lesbian feminist Mary Daly … (full text).

BLACK./WOMYN.: CONVERSATIONS WITH LESBIANS OF AFRICAN DESCENT.

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Audre Lorde – USA (1934-1992)

Audre Lorde Scholarship Fund.

It is with great sadness and loss that I report the death of Audre Lorde, black lesbian feminist, poet, essayist, warrior and mother.  Audre, who was a personal heroine of mine, died Tuesday night, November 17, at her home in St. Croix, Virgin Islands. She was 58 years old.  She had been fighting cancer for the past 15 years; first breast and finally liver cancer. Audre was born in New York City of West Indian parents in 1934. At the time of her death, she was New York State Poet for 1991-1993 (Walt Whitman Citation).  She was Professor of English at Hunter College and was a founding member of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press as well as Sisterhood in Support of Sisters in South Africa (SISA). My girl lectured in Russia, Australia, Africa, (among other countries) and taught frequently in Berlin (where there are black German sisters and brothers and Africans, too).  It was there in Germany she received alternative cancer treatments for 8 years … (full text, Nov. 25, 1992).

Some of her books:

• Sister Outsider, 2007, 190 pages;
• Making Sense of Women’s Lives, 2000;
• Zami, a New Spelling of My Name, 1982, 268 pages;

… Her first volume of poems, The First Cities, was published in 1968. In 1968 she also became the writer-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where she discovered a love of teaching. In Tougaloo she also met her long-term partner, Frances Clayton. The First Cities was quickly followed with Cables to Rage (1970) and From a Land Where Other People Live (1972), which was nominated for a National Book Award. In 1974 she published New York Head Shot and Museum. Whereas much of her earlier work focused on the transience of love, this book marked her most political work to date … (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Audre Lorde – USA (1934-1992) »

inked with In the Time of the Right, Reflections on Liberation, with October is Domestice Violence Awareness Month, with Southerners On New Ground S.O.N.G., with LESBIAN INFORMATION SERVICE; and with The Enemy Without and Within.

Suzanne Pharr: she sees herself as Organizer, Strategist, Educator, Author, and Political Handywoman.

She writes: … My work is focused on building a broad-based, multi-racial, multi-issued movement for social and economic justice in the United States. Major themes are intersectional issues and strategies, anti-violence, racial and gender equality, cross-generational collaboration, democratic participation, economic justice, and human rights based on equality and justice. At the center of every effort is the question, “How can we make it possible for everyone to live as a whole person, to have self-determination, to be treated with dignity and respect, and to have access to material necessities as well as joy?” … (full text).

Arkansas Women’s Project Collection, M95-03: The Arkansas Women’s Project was founded in 1980, as a grass roots organization intended to promote support for women’s issues in the state of Arkansas.  Originally called The Arkansas Women’s Training Project, it was operated under the direction of Suzanne Pharr.  The funding was issued from the Methodist Board of Global Ministries and focused on issues such as; abuse, rape, non-traditional employment, minority rights, and gay and lesbian rights … (full text archives.uca.edu).

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Suzanne Pharr – USA

The video: USSF Plenary Liberating Gender and Sexuality, 5.51 min, Jul 8, 2007.

Google download books:

• Eyes Right! By Chip Berlet, Matthew N. Lyons, Suzanne Pharr, 1995, 398 pages;
• Making Sense of Women’s Lives, (cited on page 424), 2000;
• Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, (writing from page 450), 2000;
• Feminist Foremothers in Women’s Studies, Psychology, and Mental Health, (writing from page 373), 1996;
• The WomanSource Catalog & Review, (cited on page 403), 1996;
• Following Sexual Abuse, (cited on page 6),2008;
• Just Sex, (cited on page 169), 2000.

She writes also: It is virtually impossible to view one oppression, such as sexism or homophobia, in isolation because they are all connected: sexism, racism, homophobia, classism, ableism, anti-Semitism, ageism. They are linked by a common origin-economic power and control-and by common methods of limiting, controlling and destroying lives. There is no hierarchy of oppressions. Each is terrible and destructive. To eliminate one oppression successfully, a movement has to include work to eliminate them all or else success will always be limited and incomplete … (full long text, March 31, 2006).

Elements of Oppression.

… Pharr has spent her entire adult life working to build a broad-based social and economic justice movement, founding the Women’s Project in Arkansas in 1981, co-founding Southerners on New Ground in 1984 and serving as the director of the prestigious Highlander Research and Education Center from 1999-2004. She is also the author of two books — “Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism” and “In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation” … (full text).

Continuer la lecture de « Suzanne Pharr – USA »