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The article is a book review of "Anonymous: The Performance of Hidden Identities" by Thomas DeGloma. The book explores the concept of anonymity and pseudonymity as performative practices and their connection to institutional structures. It discusses how performing anonymously can be both freeing and dangerous, protecting vulnerable individuals and groups while also emboldening harmful individuals and shielding powerful institutions. The book covers various examples of cover identities used for protection or subversive acts, as well as the anonymity of social systems and the impersonality of bureaucratic institutions. It also examines the anonymity of types and categories, particularly in relation to power dynamics and social institutions. The review praises the book for its scholarship, creativity, and engaging writing style, recommending it for graduate-level courses in social theory and formal sociology. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, we elaborate on both bread‐and‐butter and epistemological features of concept‐driven sociology (CDS). First, we highlight the specific link between this framework and Zerubavel's approach by outlining how CDS is especially suited to deepen the understanding of unmarked dimensions and intersubjective phenomena, reflexively re‐employing the insights of cognitive sociology while crossing thematic (as well as disciplinary) boundaries. Then, we examine four theoretico‐methodological linchpins of CDS, with particular attention to their relationship with symbolic interactionism: the primacy of analytic novelty (and the tool‐like character of sensitizing concepts); the distinct modus operandi regarding the theory‐and‐research‐integration conundrum; the Simmelian legacy of prioritizing geometric and formal dimensions of social features; and the "etic" perspective in re‐constructing sociological problems. Thus, after discussing why CDS should not be judged as appealing only to qualitative scholars, we proceed to present the contributions to the special issue. We conclude this article by briefly stressing the open character of CDS—its essential call for new conceptually guided empirical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Facta Universitatis: Law & Politics is the property of University of Nis, Serbia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article studies the philosophy dissertation as a cultural practice within the educational institution in France. It argues that this cultural practice has a strong association with the preservation and ongoing creation of French national identity. I present findings from a survey of pedagogic materials offering advice for students taking the philosophy exam at baccalaureate level. Having given an overview of the cultural importance of the philosophy dissertation, I present the ways in which the general principles of method and structure taught are justified. We then move into the advice given relating to the dissertation structure that is habitually recommended—an introduction and then three parts (most often thesis, antithesis, synthesis). The article considers the reasons why such pedagogic practices can seem to fall back into prescriptivism or formalism, but also seeks to draw out the ways in which the philosophy dissertation can be a more open, uncertain form of thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The form versus substance issue is not a new phenomenon in Islamic finance. Beyond question, one of the verses emphasising the superiority of substance over form is surah al-Baqarah: 'Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east or the west, but righteousness is one who believes in Allah, the last day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets and gives wealth, in spite of love for it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveller, the who ask for help, and freeing slaves...'(2:177) In the verse, it is stated that the true goodness and respect for Allah is not to turn its face towards east or west during the worship. Put differently, the Qur'an idealises an understanding wider than a mere formalism that is not based on the virtues of faith, religion, and morality. In this article, it is discussed whether the understanding of the substance over form, which is adopted in the sources of Islam, is fully implemented or not. In this article, first, prohibitions against riba (as a guiding principle of Islamic finance) in the Quran and its historical roots are examined to understand what the purpose of these restrictions is by looking at Islamic finance philosophy. Second, various contract types which have been used to circumvent the prohibition of riba through hilah and their historical origins are also be criticised. Lastly, some Islamic finance contracts, which are frequently used in Islamic finance, and which are similar to the contracts in conventional finance in terms of economic outcome, are examined. It is also evaluated to what extent the Islamic finance sector, which is structured in line with the classical view on riba, is unique. Also, the criticism of Islamic finance being same as conventional finance both economically and legally is examined. Islamic finance contributes to the expansion of financial inclusion and the growth of the financial industry. Islamic finance may enhance financial access by broadening the scope of available financial products and promoting the inclusion of individuals who lack access to financial services. Islamic banking has a strong emphasis on partnership-style financing, which may be helpful in enhancing access to capital for small businesses. It also contributes to enhancing financial stability due to its relatively uncorrelated financial products operating in line with the risk-sharing and avoidance of leverage principles. However, Islamic finance industry needs to develop new innovative products to differentiate itself from conventional banking and accommodate the concerns of investors regarding the authenticity of the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Supreme Court has entered a new era of separation of powers formalism. Others have addressed many of the potentially profound consequences of this return to formalism for administrative law. This Article focuses on an aspect of the new formalism that has received less attention-its implications for the constitutionality of administrative adjudication. The Court has not engaged in an extensive discussion or reformulation of its separation of powers jurisprudence concerning administrative adjudication since its highly functionalist decision in Commodity Futures Trading Commission v. Schor more than three decades ago, but recent opinions of individual Justices show signs that such a doctrinal restatement may be on the horizon. Despite the current lack of doctrinal clarity, administrative adjudication is generally valid under current law either because Congress may vest the determination of so-called "public rights" in non-Article III tribunals or because administrative agencies adjudicate cases as adjunct factfinders for the courts. The foundation for the emergent Article III formalism has been advanced most prominently by Justice Gorsuch in a pair of cases involving the legality of administrative adjudication of patent validity. His approach relies on a categorical rule that Article III requires an independent judiciary to have decisional authority in adjudications that affect private property and other protected rights, in much the same way that the unitary executive principle requires Presidential control over matters within the executive branch. Under this view, however, the judicial power is subject to a formalistic, historically defined exception for matters of public rights, which can be adjudicated without the involvement of the judiciary. This approach may be gaining traction as part of the broader resurgence of separation of powers formalism. Justice Gorsuch's approach is flawed because it does not account for the structural role of the Article III judiciary. Although the cases have long recognized that Article III has both structural and individual rights components, separation of powers is ordinarily understood primarily in structural terms. Article III analysis therefore must account for the structural role of the courts and protect the structural interests of the federal judiciary. Focusing on structure highlights the importance of the status and character of the non-Article III tribunal for separation of powers analysis and the essential role of judicial review as a means to enforce the rule of law even when an adjudication does not implicate any individual right to an Article III court. This Article argues that most administrative adjudication is fully consistent with separation of powers formalism because the initial implementation of statutory provisions by agencies using quasi-judicial procedures is executive in character. It is the availability and scope of judicial review that determine the extent of any encroachment on the exercise of judicial power under Article III. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using illustrative passages and comparisons with previous partial translations, this paper reports some problems of accuracy and tone in the complete English translation of Georg Simmel's sociological magnum opus, Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms. Placing these problems in the context of broader discussions of translation projects, it urges caution on the part of anglophone readers and suggests that some older translations remain valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the under-researched figure A.W. Rehberg in his exchange with Kant over the relationship between theory and practice in the philosophy of right. I argue that Rehberg raises, what I call, two problems of political matter which attempt to show that Kant's overly formal approach to political theory cannot justifiably determine political practice. The first problem is the problem of positive determinations of right, rather than merely negative prohibitions. Rehberg takes this to mean that Kant cannot determine us to a specific form of constitution (the republican constitution). I argue that Kant's innovation of intelligible property functions as a response to this critique in that it provides the possibility of synthetic propositions of right a priori. Second, Rehberg insists that an a priori system of right cannot relate to already formed historical communities. Here Kant's response comes close to agreeing with Rehberg as Kant takes prudential or historical reasoning to harmonize with the demands of a priori right in order to applied to the sensible world. Kant, in this instance, comes closer to Rehberg by denying centralized enlightened monarchy and the reliance on natural and historical development for the application of right. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aims of this article are twofold: (i) to propose an explanatory framework, focusing on law-making acts, for accounting for whether the formal requirements of the rule of law are fulfilled; and (ii) to propose two further models within this framework. One model, which I call 'rulebook formalism', pertains to Parliament's law-making acts; another model, which I call 'rights formalism', concerns the courts' law-making acts. This distinction results from the different modality of law, ie the different natures of law-making acts. Drawing on speech act theory, I give a general account of the formal requirements as the success conditions of law-making acts. Then, applying this framework, I discuss the formal requirements for Parliament's law-making acts and the courts' law-making acts respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Storytelling is a fundamental part of human interaction; it is also deeply social and political in nature. In this article, I explore reproductive storytelling as a phenomenon of sociological consequence. I do so in the context of donor conception, which used to be managed through secrecy but where children are now perceived 'to have the right' to know about their genetic origins. I draw on original qualitative data with families of donor conceived children, and bringing my data into conversation with social script theory and the concept of relationality, I investigate the disjuncture between the value now placed on openness and storytelling, and the absence of an existing social script by which to do so. I show the nuanced ways in which this absence plays out on relational playing-fields, within multidimensional, intergenerational relationships. I suggest that in order to understand sociologically the significance and process of reproductive storytelling, it is vital to keep both the role of social scripts, and embedded relationality, firmly in view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Georg Simmel set himself the goal of defining the origins and character of modern society, evaluating the meaning it takes on for individuals. His sociology is open to dialogue between disciplines and develops the individual and collective levels together. With this approach, he studied society as a dichotomous, contradictory, and syllogistic world without arriving at a conclusive synthesis. This aspect makes his perspective very current in a world that radicalizes traits of modernity (Giddens 1990) and for which an interpretative key may be in abandoning all attempts at synthesis. A central theme of Simmel's thinking is about the "forms" of modern society. Money is central to these forms, and the metropolis is their setting. These forms lead to a world of contradictions and help define the origins and traits of capitalism, as seen in Max Weber's producer cities (1921, 1924). Capitalism does not have a spirit, but it is a spirit that interacts with the animal spirits of Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1942), Émile Zola's Saccard (1891), and Sombart's (1938) bourgeois spirit. After so many years, today more than ever, Simmel's meditation on capitalism suggests very actual challenges for our present and future societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the governance project of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) oscillates between rule-based formalism and anti-formalist scepticism about rule-based governance. In this dichotomy, anti-formalist arguments support CCP leaders' efforts to maintain and increase the Party's influence over the judiciary and other state organs, which is a key justification for the Party's power. Formalist language, in contrast, supports Party leaders' attempts to constrain lower-level cadres' uses of power within the Party. Formalist language is particularly prominent in the writings of Party ideologues on the interpretation of the Party's internal regulations, including the CCP Constitution. At the same time, Party ideology also provides for various anti-formalist arguments about rule-based governance within and outside the Party. Paradoxical as it may be, the Party leadership seeks to exert rule-transcending political leadership through formal rules. While the focus of this article is on China, it argues that other illiberal regimes may also be studied in terms of similar, potentially incoherent approaches to rule-based governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The heroic notion of international law as a distinct discipline is often challenged by interdisciplinary scholarship, particularly by those who are committed to highlighting the legacy of colonialism on colonised peoples. This article will highlight the entrenched formalism in international law histories. This article laments ways in which orthodox work fails to canvass histories beyond the text of the covenants and treaties that constitute international law. This article will examine key examples that highlight the importance of individual actors and sociological concepts in framing historical issues. These examples show how interdisciplinary investigations allow for a holistic understanding of the nature of international law histories. In doing so, this article aims to provide a pathway to negate the direct and indirect censorial effects of a discipline such as international law on the rendering of international law histories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent paper, Thomas Carnes develops a novel argument for reparations for historical injustices. This Reply shows that Carnes succeeds only at the cost of invoking an implausible formalism. The Reply also presents in brief a simpler argument for reparations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, any number of troubling government pathologies-a lawless presidency, a bloated and unaccountable administrative state, the growth of an activist bench-are associated with the emergence of a judicial philosophy that disregards the "plain meaning" of the Constitution for a loose, unprincipled "living constitutionalism." Many trace its origins to the Progressive Era (1890-1920), a time when Americans turned en masse to government as the solution to emerging problems of economic modernity-financial panics, industrial concentration, worsening workplace conditions, and skyrocketing unemployment and inequality-and, the argument goes, concocted a flexible, new constitutional philosophy to allow the federal government to take on vast. new regulatory powers. As this Article argues, this account is misleading. The Progressive Era did witness an outpouring of criticism towards the century-old Constitution, which many viewed as outdated, exclusionary, and countermajoritarian. Yet the idea of interpreting the text to make it evolve to fit "the spirit of the age, as Woodrow Wilson called for, was anathema to millions of progressive Democrats who turned to the formal channels of Article V to update the Constitution. Far from a progressive innovation, reformers sawflexible constitutional construction as the tool of conservative interests and courts dangerously "usurping" the legislative power by reading into the law-especially the Fourteenth Amendmentunwritten principles of contract and property belonging to a bygone era. Instead, a vigorous reaction against the "unwritten constitution" of the Lochner era led to a burst of democratic mobilization around the idea of using the amendment power to make the People, not courts, the ultimate constitutional authority. Besides the four amendments that were ratified during the Progressive Era, over 1,700 amendment proposals were floated in Congress, many of them targeting countermajoritarian features of American democracy like the indirect election of Senators, the Electoral College, and lifetime judicial tenure. Some even proposed to override Supreme Court decisions by popular vote and to amend Article V itself. After a string of successes, this formalist strand of progressive constitutionalismfaded in the early decades of the twentieth century. a victim of postwar pessimism and fatigue, and most importantly, fissures between Progressives who continued to fight for formal revision and those who, just decades after Lochnerism faded from the bench, turned their energies to developing a different slate of unwritten constitutional rights deemed "essential to the concept of ordered liberty." Today, distant though we are from the progressive formalists' hopes to channel ambitious political reform through routine, democratic, andformal constitutional change, revisiting this Era serves several purposes. First, it puts into context the text's relative immobility in the last hundred years. Second, it illuminates the fact that many of our current constitutional dilemmas are the result of a living constitutionalism practiced by interpreters on the leB and right alike. Finally, it may also help us envision what a return to truly democratic constitutional politics would look like. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists often imagine society as spaces, yet how social spaces are related remains ambiguous in most theories. In developing his field theory, Bourdieu used extensively the concept of homology to describe the structural similarities across fields, but he had not taken seriously the spaces between fields or how fields are related to each other. Adopting the Simmelian approach of formal sociology, this article outlines six basic social forms by which social spaces are related. It argues that relations between social spaces can be understood along two dimensions: heterogeneity and social distance. In terms of heterogeneity, social spaces can be kindred, symbiotic or oppositional. In terms of social distance, they can be linked, nested or overlapping. These social forms of interspatial relations are constituted by the boundary work of a variety of actors, including guardians, brokers and space travellers. The article provides a general vocabulary for thinking about how social spaces are related and how they interact across boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent experiments and theories of human decision-making suggest positive and negative errors are processed and encoded differently by serotonin and dopamine, with serotonin possibly serving to oppose dopamine and protect against risky decisions. We introduce a temporal difference (TD) model of human decision-making to account for these features. Our model involves two critics, an optimistic learning system and a pessimistic learning system, whose predictions are integrated in time to control how potential decisions compete to be selected. Our model predicts that human decisionmaking can be decomposed along two dimensions: the degree to which the individual is sensitive to (1) risk and (2) uncertainty. In addition, we demonstrate that the model can learn about the mean and standard deviation of rewards, and provide information about reaction time despite not modeling these variables directly. Lastly, we simulate a recent experiment to show how updates of the two learning systems could relate to dopamine and serotonin transients, thereby providing a mathematical formalism to serotonin's hypothesized role as an opponent to dopamine. This new model should be useful for future experiments on human decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Graphene on hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) can exhibit a topological phase via mutual crystallographic alignment. Recent measurements of nonlocal resistance (Rnl) near the secondary Dirac point (SDP) in ballistic graphene/hBN superlattices have been interpreted as arising due to the quantum valley Hall state. We report hBN/graphene/hBN superlattices in which Rnl at SDP is negligible, but below 60 K approaches the value of h/2e2 in zero magnetic field at the primary Dirac point with a characteristic decay length of 2 μm. Furthermore, nonlocal transport transmission probabilities based on the Landauer-Büttiker formalism show evidence for spin-degenerate ballistic valley-helical edge modes, which are key for the development of valleytronics. By interfacing graphene with other materials it is possible to break the intrinsic inversion symmetry and observe interesting quantum transport phenomena. Here, the authors conduct transport measurements of encapsulated graphene at different alignment angles and find evidence of nonlocal resistance above and below 60 K suggesting the existence of a quantum valley Hall state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers Denton Welch's autobiographical novel In Youth is Pleasure (1945) as a queer response to the classic bildungsroman design. It argues, first, that the novel exists structurally within Welch's oeuvre as an instance of failed development or maturity, evidencing his inability to move beyond the 'precious', adolescent stories of his youth. I turn in this context to consider In Youth is Pleasure as a novel that is itself about immobile, unproductive forms of living. While the novel is structured around a common bildungsroman premise – a sensitive, isolated boy yearning for independence – it also resists the generic movement toward maturity and resolution. This is especially marked in the novel as a question of sexuality. In contrast to queer 'coming of age' stories that emphasise a progression toward sexual identification, Welch's novel ultimately refuses the narrative logic of the closet. There is no single, illicit desire at the centre of the novel waiting to be exposed and claimed, but rather, an unlimited copia of pleasure that exists 'beyond' the terms of sexual identity altogether. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I place Fran Ross's dazzling, unjustly neglected novel, Oreo, at the centre of contemporary discussions of race, gender, and the politics of laughter in the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic regime that includes but that is not limited to the post-Obama United States. This apparently anachronistic move elaborates on the insight of the few critics who have attended to Ross's novel and who, accounting for its failure to win an audience in the 1970s, have described it as 'ahead of its time'. In its very untimeliness, I argue, Ross's novel has surprising lessons for those of us who would look to both comedy and the novel, especially the Bildungsroman, for advice on how to live in hard times. Demonstrating how this comic Bildungsroman from the 1970s speaks to us today, I also address its implications for our understanding of the past and future of the Bildungsroman as genre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How does the form of the Bildungsroman reflect the drive to decolonisation? If the world or postcolonial Bildungsroman is concerned with figuring the development of human personality (as Joseph Slaughter has argued), it is at one and the same time concerned with the allegorisation of national development. Yet, the political exigencies that urge on the writing of decolonisation can equally be served by realism. Perhaps the paradigmatic postcolonial Bildungsroman, Tsitsi Dangarembga's Nervous Conditions is also notable for the tension it presents between realism and allegory. This article makes an intervention in the politics of such formalist debates within the Bildungsroman as the tension between allegory and realism or the temporality of its narration in order to gauge their relation to decolonisation. In so doing, it examines Dangarembga's Tambudzai trilogy—including the two sequels The Book of Not and This Mournable Body—and its intertexts, such as the work of Frantz Fanon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The celebrity novel seeks to cordone a ground of protected or heightened speech by demarcating that speech as literary and formal, with the privileges that literary form provides. A novel genre such as Bildungsroman serves this purpose especially well since its generic affordances both bolster claims to literary distinctiveness and arguably mechanise or at least facilitate the reorientation of historical events and facts into literary plot and character. I focus on Ivana Trump's 1992 celebrity novel object For Love Alone and the telemovie made of it several years later. Trump's storyline centres on the novelistic 'private' experience of adultery and the reaction to it registered in public action. As such, its calculation of the formation of identity is an important registration of what Corey Robin describes as the 'reactionary mind'. The novel object offers 'bad Bildung' in generic, psychical and political terms. The mise-en-scene of the telemovie motivates and expresses the formation of 'bad' character and a more social conceptualisation of Bildung as shared enterprise. That sharing is mediated through the article as a variety of social media, televisual collaboration, and the financialisation of the family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of Malinowski's ethnographic theory is inscribed in a wider modernist environment, which set the ground for the emergence of new epistemological projects. Viktor Shklovsky's attempt to inaugurate a scientific study of literature was one of these. The article juxtaposes Shklovsky's early works ("Art as device" and Resurrecting the word), where he interprets the descriptive style of Lev Tolstoy, with Malinowski's experiments with storytelling and narrative technique (in Argonauts , but also in his letters to James Frazer). These two intellectual projects have common ancestors (folklore studies and comparativism), arose in the same modernist age, and came into contact again when, later on, structuralist theory redefined both linguistics and anthropology. The likeness between the respective scientific endeavors posits an immediate question: why is Russian formalism left out when anthropologists reconstruct their disciplinary kinship diagram? Not merely an attempt to spot non-Western European traces in the history of social anthropology, the paper considers Shklovsky's contribution to contemporary debates on ethnographic writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Models have evolved into a major tool to analyse, understand and shape the world we live in. Ubiquitous as they are in the sciences, engineering and in public discourse, models are rarely reflected on or even used in literary studies, as testified by their conspicuous absence in most dictionaries of literary and cultural theory. This essay, first of all, provides a rough survey where models have been applied in literature, literary studies or theory. It traces the use of models from a strong start with the rise of formalism and structuralism in the twentieth century to some occasional resurfacing in the context of narratological research and literary pedagogy which, however, appears to be restricted to German academia. After a brief evaluation of these instances, new departures in the use of models in literary studies are charted before a general assessment of the prospects and profits of bringing models into the field of literature brings a conclusion with the hope of opening up new lines of research.1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on political process theory and institutional realism and the challenges it pose to democracies. It cites John Hart Ely's "Democracy and Distrust" which addressed political-process problems. It presents Stephen Gardbaum's approach encouraging courts to adopt process-oriented judicial review to open up the legislative process to make a realistic assessment of matters bringing the broader tension in judicial review between institutional formalism and institutional realism.

Similarly to the bosonic Liouville theory, the |$\mathcal{N}=2$| supersymmetric Liouville theory was conjectured to be equipped with the duality that exchanges the superpotential and the Kähler potential. The conjectured duality, however, seems to suffer from a mismatch of the preserved symmetries. More than fifteen years ago, when I was a student, my supervisor Tohru Eguchi gave a beautiful resolution of the puzzle when the supersymmetry is enhanced to |$\mathcal{N}=4$| based on his insight into the underlying geometric structure of the |$A_1$| singularity. I will review his unpublished but insightful idea and present our attempts to extend it to more general cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about Paranoid Reading, often seen as the starting point for the debates, especially given their central concern with the limitations of suspicion as both method and mood, reading posture and affect; and discussion about method have been less interested in the mood or ethos of the practitioner than in the object of study and the techniques required to capture it, as in the case of arguments for distant reading (Moretti), descriptive or "thin" reading, and the new formalism.

In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man , Friedrich Schiller draws a striking connection between aesthetic value and individual and political freedom, claiming that, 'it is only through beauty that man makes his way to freedom'. However, contemporary ways of thinking about freedom and aesthetic value make it difficult to see what the connection could be. Through a careful reconstruction of the Letters , we argue that Schiller's theory of aesthetic value serves as the key to understanding not only his view of aesthetic engagement, but also his distinctive account of individual and political freedom. In Part I, we develop a reconstruction of Schiller's view that aesthetic value is the only path to individual freedom and in Part II we analyze how Schiller connects aesthetic value to political freedom. In the end, we show that Schiller defends a non-hedonic, action-oriented, communitarian theory of aesthetic value and a theory of freedom that makes the aesthetic not just supererogatory but fundamental for any fully autonomous life. Although we have lost touch with this way of thinking about aesthetic value and freedom, we submit that it is illuminating for contemporary thinking about both. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Comparative Literature students as well as students from several other disciplines asked for talking about and readily admitted to having no idea about surface reading. Topics include examines that English graduate students burst onto the scene with elaborate explanations of surface reading, distant reading, post critical reading, descriptive reading, and various new formalisms.

Formalism has a bad name. It is often seen as a naive and unsophisticated approach to the adjudication of legal disputes. This negative view of.formalism is widespread in American legal culture and has been particularly influential in contract law. This Article challenges this prevailing view and argues that aformalist theory Of adjudication is the best approach to resolve contractual disputes. The argument of this Article starts from the assumption that contract law is not morally justified because of its enfbrcement of promissory rights or some other dimension of interpersonal morality. Instead. like contemporary law and economics, this Article assumes as its starting point that the law of contracts is an instrumentallyjustified legal institution (i.e., an institution justifed because of its valuable social consequences). Starting from this assumption, this Article asks what approach to the adjudication of contractual disputes facilitates the achievement of contract law's instrumental goals. Against the common assumption, the answer is that a formalist approach-the specific contours of which are set out below-would be instrumentally best. This is because formalism. with its commitment to an ex-post, rule-bound, doctrinalist, and modest approach to legal adjudication, has important instrumental benefits. Formalism contributes to simple, generalizable, and cost-elTective decision-making; it is consistent with the institutional competence of courts; reduces the risks and overall costs of legal mistakes: and increases predictability, protecting contractual parties' legitimate expectations. Moreover, formalism is an adequate means to deal with value pluralism and is consistent with the main values served by the law of contracts, such as autonomy and elliciency. Thus, encouraging judges to make socially optimal decisions in contractual disputes might not be the optimal strategy. The overall socially optimal outcome might, instead, be achieved through a decision procedure that directs judges to decide by applying pre-existing doctrine and expanding it incrementally. If that is the case, then, despite their disagreement about contract law's foundations, instrumentalist and formalist theorists might agree about the narrower question of how judges should decide contractual disputes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formalism is one of the most widely applied but misunderstood features of law. Embroiled in a series of conflicts over the course of the twentieth century, formalism's meaning has become confused as formalism has been enlisted by both proponents and opponents of specific legal methodologies. For some, formalism has simply become an epithet used to describe virtually anything they dislike in legal thinking. Used often and inconsistently as a stand-in (and frequently a strawman), formalism's distinct identity has been lost, its meaning merged with whatever methodology it is being used to support or attack. This Article seeks to separate formalism from those debates, identifying formalism for what it is: a commitment to form in legal thinking. Form is critical to understanding law; because law is a shared enterprise, it can only be understood and applied as it exists in some form. Formalism recognizes the form-bound nature of law and expands on that recognition by engaging with law in its various forms rather than as an abstraction. The Article makes three main contributions to understanding formalism: First, it provides a modern definition of formalism, separating it from confusion over formalism caused by its invocation in a series of debates over law in the twentieth century. Second, it describes how formalism operates in methodologies and contexts beyond textualism and originalism, the two methodologies with which formalism is usually identified. Third, it explores the power of formalism beyond its value in determining the content of law. The form of law is what drives the various ways the law categorizes conduct, and law's categories in turn give meaning to conduct beyond just the application of enforceable legal constraints. It is time for us to bring formalism into the twenty-first century and recognize it for its distinct role in understanding law and legal institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ius Novum is the property of Sciendo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the testamentary rescue provisions contained in the statutes governing wills in Manitoba, British Columbia and South Africa, as well as some of the jurisprudence on the interpretation and application of these provisions. The article thus provides an instructive legal comparative analysis of how formally irregular wills are judicially rescued and, therefore, how testamentary formalism is tempered to ensure that testamentary intentions embodied in informal documents are effectuated in the three jurisdictions under discussion. The article also evaluates (in broad terms) the efficacy of Manitoba's, British Columbia's and South Africa's respective testamentary rescue dispensations, and attends to some lessons and possible solutions to challenges arising from these jurisdictions' engagement with testamentary rescue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently a matrix model with non-pairwise index contractions has been studied in the context of the canonical tensor model, a tensor model for quantum gravity in the canonical formalism. This matrix model also appears in the same form with different ranges of parameters and variables, when the replica trick is applied to the spherical |$p$| -spin model (⁠|$p=3$|⁠) in spin glass theory. Previous studies of this matrix model suggested the presence of a continuous phase transition around |$R\sim N^2/2$|⁠ , where |$N$| and |$R$| designate its matrix size |$N\times R$|⁠. This relation between |$N$| and |$R$| intriguingly agrees with a consistency condition of the tensor model in the leading order of |$N$|⁠ , suggesting that the tensor model is located near or on the continuous phase transition point and therefore its continuum limit is automatically taken in the |$N\rightarrow \infty$| limit. In the previous work, however, the evidence for the phase transition was not satisfactory due to the slowdown of the Monte Carlo simulations. In this work, we provide a new setup for Monte Carlo simulations by integrating out the radial direction of the matrix. This new strategy considerably improves the efficiency, and allows us to clearly show the existence of the phase transition. We also present various characteristics of the phases, such as dynamically generated dimensions of configurations, cascade symmetry breaking and a parameter zero limit, and discuss their implications for the canonical tensor model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reconstructs and defends the judicial doctrine variously called 'rationality review', 'formal equality', 'discrimination', or 'arbitrariness'. The doctrine is renamed underinclusiveness and is reconstructed as a distributive doctrine of moral rights. It is then defended against claims of formalism and conservatism by showing that it is a substantive, institutionally legitimate doctrine of equality and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although a number of authors have used diagrams extensively in their studies of Navya-Nyāya, they have done so to explain and illustrate concepts, not with the goal of reasoning with the diagrams themselves. Adherents of diagrammatic reasoning have made claims for its potential by pointing to key structural correspondences between diagrams and logical concepts, arguably lacking in sentential representations, and describing these relations using concepts such as "well matchedness" and "iconicity". A canonical example of this iconicity is the use of Euler diagrams to depict categorical syllogisms. Since the meaning of expressions in Indian logic differs in so many important ways from logic in the Western tradition, the use or adaptation of diagrams developed in the latter would seem to preclude iconicity. Thus, the development of diagrams which reflect the nature of inference in Navya-Nyāya, which centres on the anumāna inference schema, is motivated. In this paper we extend Ganeri's method of depicting the Vaiśeṣika ontology with graphs to include syntax intended to expose the nature of anumāna. The diagrams are given a formal basis: i.e. abstract syntax, inference rules defined abstractly and a graph-theoretic semantics. These are the first formalised logical diagrams that aim to reflect the nature of the anumāna inference. This paper lays the way for further work in extending the formalism to cover more of Navya-Nyāya, and in exploring a dialogue between properties of the formalism and of Navya-Nyāya. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that it is productive to combine cognitive literary studies and postcolonial criticism, and that this constitutes a new formalist approach. Drawing on insights from cognitive science, it describes how Antjie Krog's 1998 book Country of My Skull facilitates processes of empathetic engagement and identification. It proposes that postcolonial writing, because it is often particularly experimental, is a crucial area of focus for cognitive literary studies, inviting elaboration of existing models about the phenomenology of reading. Moreover, the article argues that attention to the way narrative strategies are linked to cognitive processes allows us to form scientifically grounded and contextually situated hypotheses about how postcolonial texts function as agents in their socio-historical contexts, and to show how their formal, aesthetic dimension is crucial for their ethical, critical, and political force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We develop a formalism for the exciton scattering (ES) approach to calculation of the excited state electronic structure of branched conjugated polymers with insignificant numerical expense. The ES approach attributes electronic excitations in quasi-one-dimensional molecules to standing waves formed by the scattering of quantum quasiparticles. We derive the phenomenology from the microscopic description in terms of many-electron excitations. The presented model can be used to compute both excited state frequencies and transition dipoles in large molecules after the ES ingredients are extracted from smaller molecular fragments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking into account electron scattering with confined plasmon-phonon coupled modes in a many-body formalism, the dark currents in a quantum well structure based on the Al0.27Ga0.73As/GaAs heterojunctions have been calculated The nonparabolicity of the conduction band, finite temperature, and applied bias has been included in the calculation of the scattering rates. Good agreement with the experiments has been obtained by the inclusion of the nonparabolicity of the conduction band in the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work presents derivation, implementation, and the first applications of the restricted-unrestricted approach based on restricted Kohn-Sham formalism for evaluation of hyperfine coupling constants. By using the spin-restricted Kohn-Sham method the well-known spin contamination problem existing in the unrestricted Kohn-Sham formalism is avoided and a proper description of spin polarization is achieved via the restricted-unrestricted approach without introducing spin contamination into the evaluation of the hyperfine coupling constants. The performance of the proposed formalism is evaluated for a set of organic radicals and transition metal compounds. The results of this investigation indicate promising accuracy of the restricted-unrestricted approach for calculation of the isotropic hyperfine coupling constants in organic radicals as well as transition metal compounds. © 2004 American Institute of Physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an antirealist moral account of sport and shows that such an account is rationally and normatively superior to its realist moral rival. It can be debated through four views. Formalism argues that sport should be assessed by the governing rules. Conventionalism claims that sports should be judged by the views of the practice community. Subjectivism holds that judgments about sport should take theft cue from the individual desires and aims of its participants as they vie with one another to define the contest in ways that privilege their particular talents and skills. Broad internalism or interpretivism argues that sport should be evaluated by reference to rational principles regarding the nature and purpose of sport.

Bootstrap equations for conformal correlators that mimic the early theory of conformal bootstrap are written down in frames of the AdS/CFT approach. The simplified version of these equations, that may be justified if Schwinger–Keldysh formalism is used in AdS/CFT instead of conventional Feynman–Witten diagrams technique, permits to calculate values of conformal dimensions in the O (N) symmetric model with conformal or composite Habbard–Stratonovich field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ethical frameworks of consequentialism and formalism predict moral awareness and behavior in individuals, but current measures either do not treat these frameworks as independent or lack sufficient theoretical underpinnings and statistical dependability. This paper presents the development and validation of a new scale to measure consequentialism and formalism that is well grounded in prior research. The Ethical Standards of Judgement Questionnaire (ESJQ) is validated via six studies (total n > 2400). Measurement items are developed in the first three studies, which also confirm the need to eliminate a unidimensional measure and evaluate these frameworks separately. The fourth study addresses discriminant validity and the two remaining studies provide insight into how consequentialism and formalism predict the degree to which behaviors are deemed acceptable by individuals in the context of consumer beliefs and religious beliefs. Suggested uses for the scale in both academia and organizations are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present article we consider a new generalization of classical Fibonacci sequence and we call it as Fibonacci-Like sequence (Vk,n) and then we study Fibonacci-Like sequence (Vk,n) and k-Lucas sequence (Lk,n) side by side by introducing two special matrices for these two sequences. After that by using these matrices we obtain Binet formulae for Fibonacci-Like sequence and for k-Lucas sequence, we also give Cassini's identity for Fibonacci-Like sequence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In general, the scientific literature handles those categories of crisp and fuzzy sets that have static structures. We investigate a generalization of them such that the membership degrees are time dependant; therefore they have dynamical structures. We show that, to this aim, an adequate algebraic formalism can consist of double Kleisli constructions. We also show how to build equivalent categories from a pair of monads with related units. Finally, we investigate the existence of crisp abstractions of fuzzy-set categories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a time where the executive branch continues to grow in size and strength, reviving the nondelegation doctrine has become more important than ever. Judicial enforcement of this abandoned rule that Congress cannot delegate its legislative power serves three vital functions. It preserves the separation of powers, prevents tyranny, and promotes democratic accountability. But even if we acknowledge that enforcement of the doctrine is necessary to preserve the American form of government, a more difficult question is how the doctrine ought to be enforced. This Article rejects the formulations of the nondelegation doctrine proposed by both functionalists and formalists and proposes "pragmatic formalism" as a solution that carves a path between the two existing theories. After explaining the theory and applying it to the facts of the Supreme Court's major nondelegation cases, the Article also proposes a solution to one of the most difficult challenges facing the nondelegation doctrine: delegation during times of national emergency. By advocating for the use of pragmatic formalism to enforce the nondelegation doctrine, I hope to provide a rule that preserves the separation of powers, prevents tyranny, and promotes democratic accountability, but that also takes into account the realities and difficulties of lawmaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online harassment and various subcategories of it, like doxing and swatting, have attracted enormous interest for several years now--and particular interest in the world of game studies in the wake of 2014's GamerGate harassment campaign. Such protracted, crowdsourced campaigns remain undertheorized, however. Using contemporary research to modify Georg Simmel's formal sociological method, I provide researchers and the wider public with an easily visualized structure that most harassment campaigns follow: the form of an inverted pyramid bearing down on an individual target, stratified into three orders of harassment, each defined by level of severity and invasiveness. With this form, the public can more clearly visualize online harassment as a structural rather than individual phenomenon. This form makes a significant contribution to social media research by providing an approachable theoretical framework for future studies and can also frame design interventions on harassment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]