scholarly journals Matter Unmoored: Trash, Archaeological Consciousness and American Culture and Fiction in the 1980s

2016 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 553-571 ◽  
Author(s):  
TIM JELFS

This article considers the cultural significance of the garbage panics of the 1980s, including the voyage of the infamous Mobro 4000 “garbage barge.” The article argues that the trash at the centre of these panics is important to our understanding of both the 1980s and the present because it demanded – and still demands – that Americans see and understand it as a class of matter unmoored from temporal as well as spatial boundaries. The alarming durability of the supposedly ephemeral refuse of a culture of mass consumption invoked an “archaeological consciousness” prone to muse upon the longevity of material remains. This consciousness was expressed in various cultural and discursive arenas throughout the 1980s, revealing that durable detritus was not just a pressing public policy issue but a marker of cultural anxieties emerging out of the operations of archaeological consciousness. From concerns about contingency of the mass-consuming culture of the late twentieth-century United States to reflections on trash's own epistemological complexity, trash spoke in unexpected ways throughout the 1980s, raising important questions about the relationship between producers of culture and their audience, whose receptiveness to the urgencies of archaeological consciousness suffers from a frustrating transience as far as trash is concerned.

1993 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Craig Andrews ◽  
Richard G. Netemeyer ◽  
Srinivas Durvasula

The authors examine an important public policy issue, namely, the effectiveness of federally mandated and proposed alcohol warning labels. Specifically, warning label cognitive responses are tested as mediators of effects of five different alcohol warning label types on label attitudes. On the basis of requirements for ANOVA-based mediation, net support arguments mediated 76% of the warning label treatment effect on label attitudes. Following requirements for regression-based mediation, net support arguments mediated the relationship from attitude toward drinking to label attitudes. Public policy implications and future research directions are provided.


1999 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 393-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Fox

Union democracy was a preoccupation of the federal legislature from the 1920s to the 1970s. It was quiescent as a public policy issue for two decades until revived by the Howard government in 1996. Examination of the statutory provisions for union democracy reveals deficiencies in terms of the benchmarks provided by both liberal pluralist and Marxist models. The traditional rationale for state intervention in union government is found to have been significantly weakened. At the same time, union democracy has been reinstated as a principal object of the statute. A new rationale for intervention is needed, as is a review of current regulation to assess its capacity to facilitate the achievement of tbe statutory objects. In analysing the relationship between regulation for union democracy and for participation in collective bargaining we can identify otber anomalies. These include: different standards for participation in the arbitration spbere (consent awards) from the bargaining sphere ( certified agreements); variation in the degree of regulation of different decisions—high-level regulation for elections and for merger decisions, and low-level regulation of decisions relating to the primary union function of improving wages and conditions; and extension of participa tion rights to non-unionists in the negotiation of union agreements, that is, elevation of an 'employee constituency' at the expense of a 'union-member constituency'. The industrial citizenship paradigm serves to highlight the anomalies and also resonates with the currently espoused value of employee choice. This model could provide a theoretical foundation for a more comistent and principled approach to public policy concerning participation in collective bargaining.


Author(s):  
Katherine Eva Maich ◽  
Jamie K. McCallum ◽  
Ari Grant-Sasson

This chapter explores the relationship between hours of work and unemployment. When it comes to time spent working in the United States at present, two problems immediately come to light. First, an asymmetrical distribution of working time persists, with some people overworked and others underemployed. Second, hours are increasingly unstable; precarious on-call work scheduling and gig economy–style employment relationships are the canaries in the coal mine of a labor market that produces fewer and fewer stable jobs. It is possible that some kind of shorter hours movement, especially one that places an emphasis on young workers, has the potential to address these problems. Some policies and processes are already in place to transition into a shorter hours economy right now even if those possibilities are mediated by an anti-worker political administration.


Author(s):  
James Tweedie

Like the tableau vivant, the cinematic still life experienced a stunning revival and reinvention in the late twentieth century. In contrast to the stereotypically postmodern overload of images, the still life in film initiates a moment of repose and contemplation within a medium more often defined by the forward rush of moving pictures. It also involves a profound meditation on the relationship between images and objects consistent with practices as diverse as the Spanish baroque still life and the Surrealist variation on the genre. With the work of Terence Davies and Alain Cavalier’s Thérèse (1986) as its primary touchstones, this chapter situates this renewed interest in the cinematic still life within the context of both the late twentieth-century cinema of painters and a socially oriented art cinema that focuses on marginal people and overlooked objects rather than the hegemonic historical narratives also undergoing a revival at the time.


2013 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-202
Author(s):  
Duncan Reid

AbstractIn response to the contemporary ecological movement, ecological perspectives have become a significant theme in the theology of creation. This paper asks whether antecedents to this growing significance might predate the concerns of our times and be discernible within the diverse interests of nineteenth-century Anglican thinking. The means used here to examine this possibility is a close reading of B. F. Westcott's ‘Gospel of Creation’. This will be contextualized in two directions: first with reference to the understanding of the natural world in nineteenth-century English popular thought, and secondly with reference to the approach taken to the doctrine of creation by three late twentieth-century Anglican writers, two concerned with the relationship between science and theology in general, and a third concerned more specifically with ecology.


1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mira Wilkins

A great deal of attention has recently been focused on the extent of Japanese direct investment in the United States. In the following historical survey, Professor Wilkins details the size and scope of these investments from the late nineteenth century, showing that Japanese involvements in America have deep historical roots. At the same time, she analyzes the ways in which late twentieth century Japanese direct investment differs from the earlier phenomenon and attempts to explain why it has aroused such concern among both business leaders and the general public.


2015 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-330 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas Cumming ◽  
Grant Fleming

We examine the formation and growth of the distressed asset investment industry during the late twentieth century, with specific focus on the strategies of the leading firms. The distressed asset investment industry is dominated by firms based in the United States and is relatively concentrated, due in large part to early movers developing distinctive investment capabilities through participation in landmark transactions, relationship-specific resources, and exploitation of scale effects. We argue that the participation of these firms in the bankruptcy and corporate restructuring markets has resulted in private-sector workouts becoming more competitive and more efficient over the last thirty years, especially in the United States.


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