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An extension of the anti-visual turn of twentieth-century Continental philosophy, listening-based ethics is frequently presented as at odds with traditional ethics and is said to be more effective in promoting inclusiveness, care, respect for difference, and other progressive values. These discussions typically present listening as uniquely sensitive and open to otherness and encouraging of acceptance, mutuality, and sympathy. The paper examines these claims, as well as the analogy between listening and reading, in relation to the understanding of listening by the champions of the Russian 1864 Judicial reform, and in relation to the story and the narrative situation of 'Akul'ka's Husband,' an inset tale in Dostoevsky's Notes from the House of the Dead. The paper argues that 'Akul'ka's Husband' and reformers' discourse challenge the analogy between reading and listening, as well as the twin claims that listening to another and being made aware of the particulars of her story cannot but provoke a sympathetic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Cruelty to Animals Act 1876 was an important but ambiguous piece of legislation. For researchers it stymied British science, yet ensured that vivisection could continue under certain restrictions. For anti-vivisection protestors it was positive proof of the influence of their campaigns, yet overly deferent to Britain's scientific elite. In previous accounts of the Act and the rise of anti-vivisectionism, scientific medicine central to these debates has been treated as monolithic rather than a heterogeneous mix of approaches; and this has gone hand-in-hand with the marginalizing of provincial practices, as scholarship has focused largely on the ‘Golden Triangle’ of London, Oxford and Cambridge. We look instead at provincial research: brain studies from Wakefield and anthrax investigations in Bradford. The former case elucidates a key role for specific medical science in informing the anti-vivisection movement, whilst the latter demonstrates how the Act affected the particular practices of provincial medical scientists. It will be seen, therefore, how provincial medical practices were both influential upon, and profoundly affected by, the growth of anti-vivisectionism and the passing of the Act. This paper emphasises how regional and varied medico-scientific practices were central to the story of the creation and impact of the Cruelty to Animals Act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vigilantism appeared in the last decades of the nineteenth century in some Western territories of the United States in process of colonization. These movements were consequence of the way such territories were organized, as well as of the absence and/or ineffectiveness of a formal legislation or authorities enforcing the law. Thus, the purpose of vigilantism was to protect the life and property of the settlers, who actually took the law in their own hands with some degree of violence. This paper examines the characteristics of the vigilante movements in order to trace their impact in the process of territorial organization undergone by Western areas of the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]