POISONING THE WELL AND SILENCING IN ARGUMENTATION: ONLINE WORKSHOP - Student Commentators Needed!

WE ARE LOOKING FOR STUDENT COMMENTATORS FOR THE ONLINE WORKSHOP ON POISONING THE WELL AND SILENCING IN ARGUMENTATION.

The expressions of interest from student commentators deadline is November 15^th (the submission deadline for the associated Topoi issue is 15^th February) PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS!

 

What is this about?

Among the fallacies traditionally regarded as particularly dangerous, poisoning the well stands out. The literature describes poisoning the well as an argumentative move that consists in providing information about an interlocutor to diminish the credibility of what they have already said, or will say, thereby “poisoning” their ability to contribute - silencing them. Despite the fallacy’s importance, work on it and on silencing in argumentation is limited. 

 

The Poisoning the Well and Silencing in Argumentation Online Workshop (and the associated call for papers at Topoi) will contribute to filling this gap.

 

Student Commentators Needed!

We are now looking for student commentators! Student commentators will receive the paper they comment on two weeks before the workshop. Commentaries will be ten minutes long.

 

Look here (scroll down a little) to find the papers that will be presented at the workshop: 
Critical Thinking and Civic Engagement Lab.

 

If you are interested in commenting, please contact Amalia Haro Marchal/Katharina Stevens under 
ahmarchal AT fcsh.unl.pt and katharina.stevens AT uleth.ca by November 15th!

 

Make sure to state your first, second and third choice for papers to comment on with a short explanation, we will assign based on interest and compatibility!

 

My source (and via KS): Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ Messages to the list are archived at http://listserv.liv.ac.uk/archives/philos-l.html.

Socialism & Adult Education - Historical perspectives for a revived lifelong learning

Call for Papers

How important has socialism been to adult education? For most of history, adult education – structured learning, involving organised study and usually teaching – was restricted largely to social and religious elites. During the nineteenth century, however, as the industrial revolution tore apart the bonds of ‘traditional’ economies and societies, propelled migrants to towns and foreign lands, and demanded mastery of new skills, new popular democratic movements arose – most profoundly, the socialist movement.

In Britain, prior to the Elementary Education Act 1870, few working-class people had any formal education; even after that opportunities were limited. In response, a diverse range of non-statutory voluntary adult education organisations emerged. These included the Mutual Improvement Societies, the Young Adult Schools, the Education Settlements, the Mechanics’ Institutes, the Working Men’s College, University Extension, Co-operative Education, the Workers’ Educational Association (WEA), and Independent Working Class Education and the Labour College Movement. Some were deeply linked with socialism – others more tenuously, if at all – but together they made adult education in literacy, technical skills and knowledge, the liberals arts and politics accessible to many adults.

Through the twentieth century, at least until the neo-liberal era, the influence of socialist ideas and movements on adult education was deep. In the 21st century, however, the forces of global capitalism have systematically sought to marginalise socialist (and democratic) thought. As jobs, and much work that rewards the human spirit, are threatened by the advance of Artificial Intelligence, adult education is more and more expected to meet the objectives of “the economy” and the labour market. Wider educational purpose is ignored.

How have we come to this? The marginalisation of socialist perspectives is by no means confined to adult education. Yet so central was adult education to the emergence and growth of socialism – and the reverse is also true – as to pose essential and urgent questions. In what ways did adult education contribute to the development of socialism? Why did socialist perspectives play so central a role in the practice of adult education – and did they enrich or constrain it? What can we learn from examining the part that socialism, and socialists, played in adult education’s rich history?

We aim to revisit the topic of adult education and socialism in Britain in the 21st century through a special issue of the journal Socialist History. It seeks to revive the field of study, and to explore the idea to meet the diverse needs of a multi-cultural society more – rather than less – adult education is needed – and that the adult education needed should be broad rather than narrowly job-related. This is especially relevant to consider in connection with the new Lifelong Learning Entitlement which has the potential to transform how post-18 students fund and approach their studies throughout the course of their lifetimes.

What new research perspectives can academics – and scholar-practitioners and activists – from all disciplines bring to the history of adult education, and to the understanding of socialist approaches to improving economic, social and cultural welfare?

We invite submission of abstracts of approx. 300 words. They may explore any aspect of the interlinked history of adult education and socialism. We welcome contributions relating not only to Britain, but to Europe (western, central and eastern) and other locations around the world. Topics may include (but are not limited to):

• The experience of tutors and students of different forms of adult education
• The politics of adult education
• Organisations that provided adult education
• The impact of adult education on socialist ideology and movements
• Key figures in the adult education movement – tutors, students and organisers
• Gendered perspectives of adult education
• The buildings and spaces of adult education
• The organisation and delivery of adult education
• The content and curriculum of different forms of adult education
• Biographical and autobiographical accounts of adult education
• Local and regional case studies of adult education
• The consuming of adult education
• The role of socialism in colonial adult education
• The financing of adult education initiatives
• State support for adult education
• Local government and adult education provision

Please email abstracts with your affiliation, a short biography and contact information to:
john.holford AT nottingham.ac.uk and p.kumbhat AT staff.newman.ac.uk. 

The deadline for submission of abstracts is Friday 30th October 2026.

We hope to convene a symposium on this theme on Wednesday 7th April 2027 at Birmingham Newman University, where contributors can discuss their draft papers and ideas. The symposium will provide an opportunity to share work in progress, receive feedback, and develop papers to be considered for publication in the Socialist History special issue in autumn 2027. The April symposium will be an in-person event, although authors based outside the UK will have the option of presenting remotely via Microsoft Teams.

My source: Bob Foster, Admin: https://www.raymondwilliamsfoundation.org.uk/

"Poetics of Relation" by Édouard Glissant

'The Slave Trade came through the cramped doorway of the slave ship, leaving a wake like that of crawling desert caravans. It might be drawn like this:

African countries to the East; the lands of America to the West. This creature is in the image of a fibril.

African languages became deterritorialized, thus contributing to creolization in the West. This is the most completely known confrontation between the powers of the written word and the impulses of orality. The only written thing on slave ships was the account book listing the exchange value of slaves. Within the ship's space the cry of those deported was stifled, as it would be in the realm of the Plantations. This confrontation still reverberates to this day.' p.5.

'Not just a specific knowledge, appetite, suffering, and delight of one particular people, not only that, but knowledge of the Whole, greater from having been at the abyss and freeing knowledge of Relation within the Whole.' p.8.

 
Édouard Glissant. (1990, 2025) The Open Boat. Poetics of Relation. Dublin: Penguin.

The above image runs within the text in the book.

My image source: https://annstreetgallery.org/Nolan-Oswald-Dennis

Leapspace ii - References

Of the references listed by LEAPSPACE #6 stood out:

Merritt, M.K., Procter, N. (2010) Conceptualising the functional role of mental health consultation-liaison nurse in multi-morbidity, using Peplau's nursing theory. Contemporary Nurse. https://doi.org/10.5172/conu.2010.34.2.158 

Had I missed this? When I hear (read) of new citation for Hodges' model, it is added to the blog's bibliography. So, what about this one?

I could not access the full-paper initially, but did so at:

https://lmscontent.embanet.com/MVU/NURS600/Readings/W3_Peplau.pdf

I can see that Merrit and Proctor reference the following [#16 of 1-46]:

Jones, P. (1998). Hodges’ health career – Care domains – Model, nursing – Art or science? Retrieved October 4, 2009, from http://www.pjones.demon.co.uk/holsci.html

This additional cognitive and motivational nourishment is welcome. They are spot on with '1998', the year the former website (p-jones.demon.co.uk) went live. 

Pre-2015 and indicative of (what will increasingly follow) from AI, LLMs, agentic ai - LEAPSPACE found a page on the now archived website:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150409004111/http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/index.htm

While a positive, perhaps (again) we should worry about regurgitation? Although on another level perhaps the definition of 'grey literature' is also being (has been) redefined?

There is a positive in the author's acknowledgement of Hodges' model on several counts, being associated with:

• Highlighting the need for inclusion of mental health/illness (parity of esteem);
• Peplau's seminal work;
• A search to link mental health with other specialities (emergency, liaison, burns);
• Recognition of the inverse (psychological care within medicine); 
• The fact of being listed with Phil Barker (Tidal Model). 

Negatively, on the archived homepage (above) many links to content may not work:

The (rather short but referenced) page Merrit and Proctor list is available here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20111018204743/http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/holsci.html

I will insert this paper in the bibliographical listing; and revisit this.

Typologies in nursing - Macduff (2007)

This paper was brought to my attention by the author Colin Macduff (now retired) who was Principal Investigator in a project [2018-2020] RIPEN. This included a series of workshops to which I was able to contribute. I knew this would be useful and must find the paper (in 14,1) also mentioned.

"What are typologies?

In relation to this initial question. Patton (2002) offers a useful definition and  distinction: 'Typologies are classification systems made up of categories that divide some aspect of the world into parts along a continuum. They differ from taxonomies, which completely classify a phenomenon through mutually exclusive and exhaustive categories, like the biological system for classifying species. Typologies, in contrast, are built on ideal types or illustrative  endpoints rather than a complete and discrete set of categories'." p.41.

'Most commonly, typology constructors such as Roberts-Davis et al  (1998) and Nolan et al (1995) present them as ways of clarifying thinking  rather than as rigid structures that are universally applicable. The difficulty  here is that within nursing discourse a number of other devices such as conceptual frameworks and models are also commonly used to this end.' p.42.

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

Box 1: Typology of family care (Nolan et al 1995) Anticipatory care Preventive care   Supervisory care   Instrumental care   Protective care   Preservative care   (Re)constructive care   Reciprocal care p.44.

If you can obtain a copy^, do check out Box 2 and Figure 1, plus the discussion and conclusion.

Macduff, C. (2007). Typologies in nursing: A review of the literature. Nurse Researcher, 14(2), Article 2.  https://doi.org/10.7748/nr2007.01.14.2.40.c6020 (^Paywall)

The invention of language

7 After the Fall

'Adam's one task in the Garden had been to invent language, to give each creature and thing its name. In that state of innocence, his tongue had gone straight to the quick of the world. His words had not been merely appended to the things he saw, they had revealed their essences, had literally brought them to life. A thing and its name were interchangeable. After the fall, this was no longer true. Names became detached from things, words devolved into a collection of arbitrary signs; language had been severed fom God. The story of the Garden, therefore, records not only the fall of man, but the fall of language.' 

    Paul Auster

In, Robert C. Stalnaker (2008) Our Knowledge of the Internal World. Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press. hb. p.132.

Auster, P. (1985) The New York Trilogy (New York: Penguin Books). p.52.

Hodges' model: An algebra for care - seeking axioms?

Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature.
                                                                                    
- Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

Coady, C. A. J. (1990). Hobbes and “The Beautiful Axiom.” Philosophy, 65(251), 5–17. 
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3751240

"It is an axiom in therapeutics that the more remedies there are proposed for a disease the less likely is any of them to be effective."

[- William Osler]

Mountin, J. W. (1943). Nursing: A Critical Analysis. The American Journal of Nursing, 43(1), 29–34. https://doi.org/10.2307/3416264

Individual

|

     INTERPERSONAL    :     SCIENCES               

HUMANISTIC  --------------------------------------  MECHANISTIC      

 SOCIOLOGY  :    POLITICAL 

|

Group

'One of the core tenets of pragmatism, despite its various formulations by William James, Jane Addams, John Dewey, and neo-pragmatists like Rorty, Habermas, and Putnam, is an epistemological axiom first formulated in 1868 by Charles Sanders Peirce. This maxim, often dubbed the pragmatic maxim, states that the meaning of our ideas is best expounded when we can spell out the implications or the effects of these ideas in real-world experience and practice (Peirce 1878).' pp.105-106. (Racine, 2024).

physical - SELF - My body[?]

'The lack of consideration of downside risks applies to all COVID-19 countermeasures, including mass-masking (e.g. the social and psychological consequences of mask-wearing for all kinds of social interaction, most notably in educational and childcare settings) and to the accelerated approval of vaccines. The latter is particularly noteworthy because the need for rigorous testing of new medications to guard against the risk of side effects is a standard axiom of contemporary ethical medical practice. Given that the vaccines in question employed novel mechanisms, not testing them sufficiently to assure their longer term safety was stratospherically risky: it meant that the possibility that this vaccination programme would do more harm than good could not be excluded. Yet, the medical establishment stood foursquare behind it, insisting on the safety and efficacy of the vaccines and pillorying any, including those within it, who demurred.' p.55. (Kelly, 2023).

'“Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless”: this, according to Bauman, is the paradox of our time. Verhaeghe writes with a variant: “Never before have we in the West had it so good, and never have we felt so bad.”33 Because neoliberal axioms determine the standards of what is healthy and normal, society sees those who do not want to participate as sick or abnormal.' pp.97-98. (Vanheste, 2023).

My emphasis

Racine, E. (2024). What Participatory Research and Methods Bring To Ethics: Insights From Pragmatism, Social Science, and Psychology. Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 34(1), 99-134. 
 https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ken.2024.a943431.

Kelly, M.G.E. (2023). Securing the Pandemic: Biopolitics, Capital, and COVID-19. Foucault Studies 35, 46-69. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/940834.

Vanheste, J. (2023). Half a Century of Exhaustion and Madness: The Fiftieth Anniversary of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 106(1), 87-109. 
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/950363.

See also: 'axiom' : 'algebra' : 'pragmatism'

Person-centred care = care axiomatics at a collective and individual level?

The first rule (axiom?) of first aid is...?

Half-turns ... to orbit

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic -------------------------------------------  mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group-population

	"If you can get your ship into orbit, you're halfway to anywhere."

See: Where did Heinlein say "Once you get to Earth orbit, you're halfway to anywhere in the Solar System"?

The poetry of presence c/o Kenner's 'Mechanic Muse'

'... Eliot's poetry responds to yet another of the new century's pervasive experiences, that of being talked to by people we cannot see. This happens whenever we pick up a telephone, a thing we do so many times a day we quite overlook the strangeness of what lappens next. A character in The Cocktail Party remarks that you can't tell the truth on the telephone, meaning probably that you lose three quarters of your communicative power when you cannot be seen and your breathing body is absent, and you must fabricate mere semantic sequences. Your words are only a fraction of what you say, and the telephone throws you back on nothing but words. It is in Sweeney Agonistes, the play that gives the telephone bell a wholly metrical speaking part, that we hear the famous phrase, "I gotta use words vhen I talk to you."
    When the phone rings in that play - 

    Ting a ling ling 

    Ting a ling ling

Dusty snatches it up and says,

Hello Hello are you there?' 

Kenner, H. (1987) The Mechanic Muse, Oxford: OUP. pp.34-35.

The compact: a knowledge project

Some things don't change . . .

 'Doctor Faustus'

'FAUSTUS discovered in his study.

     FAUSTUS. Settle thy studies, Faustus, and begin
     To sound the depth of that thou wilt profess:
     Having commenc’d, be a divine in shew,
     Yet level at the end of every art,
     And live and die in Aristotle’s works.
     Sweet Analytics, ’tis thou hast ravish’d me!
     Bene disserere est finis logices.
     Is, to dispute well, logic’s chiefest end?
     Affords this art no greater miracle?
     Then read no more; thou hast attain’d that end:
     A greater subject fitteth Faustus’ wit:
     Bid Economy farewell, and Galen come,
     Seeing, Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus:
     Be a physician, Faustus; heap up gold,
     And be eterniz’d for some wondrous cure:
     Summum bonum medicinae sanitas,
     The end of physic is our body’s health.
     Why, Faustus, hast thou not attain’d that end?
     Is not thy common talk found aphorisms?
     Are not thy bills hung up as monuments,
     Whereby whole cities have escap’d the plague,
     And thousand desperate maladies been eas’d?
     Yet art thou still but Faustus, and a man.

        ...'

THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF DOCTOR FAUSTUS
By Christopher Marlowe
From The Quarto of 1604
Edited by The Rev. Alexander Dyce

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/779/779-h/779-h.htm

Film - Doctor Faustus ( 1967)

https://archive.org/details/doctor-faustus-1967-1080p-classic-older-hollywood-films

See also:

'Camp Concentration' by Thomas M. Disch

'AI' - Humanity's Faustian compact?

#individual #collective #power #safety #governance #ethics #morality

The 'animal' in Hodges' model ii

The two pairs of eyes in Hodges' model are provided through the model's two axes

HORIZONTALLY: the humanistic and mechanistic.

VERTICALLY: the individual and the group.

Hodges' model: Axes & Domains
Structure AND Content :: Fight OR Flight

Before delving into this though, let's revisit the model as a template.

Structure aside, Hodges' model acts as a conceptual blank sheet. Overall, the model is also an aide-mémoire. It can prompt us to 'where' we've been, where we need to go in our data gathering, assessment, planning, interventions, evaluations: personal history, family, work and leisure. In an interview how does the patient, client, carer, student ... negotiate the domains of Hodges' model? The model can guide us in what is said, what is omitted - for whatever reason, what is significant within all this; AI-assisted or not.

These two 'horizontal' eyes prompt us to attend to safety, your own, the patient / client and other people in the vicinity. In terms of responding to 'fight', obviously this does not mean you are looking for a fight, but of course you have to be able to defend yourself. Metaphorically, Hodges' model can represent the sword and shield. We are in a fight for justice to secure health services for individuals, families, and the population.

On the side - vision for flight, what is humanistic and mechanistic.

Then, in the vertical axis, there is vision for fighting, for the individual, and the group - population.

In this interplay of person and collective, I'm reminded of Odysseus and the shout "Nobody did it!" (with other sources). It never ceases to amaze, the frequency of this conclusion throughout local, national and global politics?

The individual nightmare of Cyclops; and collective nightmare of the Panopticon.

In mental health nursing you quickly learn about the anatomy^, physiology and psychology of anxiety. Not necessarily simultaneously, but the jig-saw is there to be completed, at least as far as you can as a 1st year student - whatever your health discipline. The pieces that matter (literal keys to action) are provided by the patient, client, carer. ...

In a way it is too late when people are referred to mental health services. Too late for prevention, but given the incoherence between:

• health systems (as usually found & founded)
• government policy -
• state of nutrition - food
• advertising of foods, beverages
• life style choices
• education - health literacy
• individual
• family
• community
• national (curricula)
• NHS? National Health Illness/Disease Service

- this isn't a surprise.

Whatever an individual's sensory capacities and abilities we need to do better. With tools to facilitate situational awareness, and realise an individual's and community's potential to learn and prosper.

^Anatomy? How many of us take for granted our limbs are 'there': ready to react?

Previously: The 'animal' in Hodges' model i

Original source - prompt:
Doniger, Wendy. The Rise and Fall of Warhorses. The New York Review of Books. April 10, 2025. Volume LXXII, Number 6. pp.17-19.

Benjamin Zephaniah Day

Benjamin Zephaniah

Festival of Rhythm, Unity and Revolution Honouring Benjamin Zephaniah

Previously: poetry :: Black :: racism

My source: BBC Radio 4 Today

New network in Environmental Humanities: H-EcoLit

supported by H-Net

Dear colleagues, 

Hello. Sorry for cross posting as I am sharing with you the below that may be of your interest. 

 

• newly launched network in Environmental Humanities: H-EcoLit supported by H-Net

You are welcome to register for free as member of our newly launched network called "H-EcoLit", supported by the H-Net of the Michigan State University:

https://networks.h-net.org/h-ecolit 

H-EcoLit is an international network of academics and researchers of all levels who study the fields of Environmental Humanities, Literary Theory and Cultural Criticism. The network seeks to explore issues beyond the traditional binary of nature-culture, and examines the changing status of subjectivity, agency, and citizenship, while envisioning matters for sustainable futures in a more-than-human world. H-EcoLit is aligned with the H-Net’s aims for supporting open access research, interdisciplinary projects, and ‘unites’ different voices across the globe. The intended audience includes academics, scholars of all levels and policy makers who are working on the Environmental Humanities, Literary and Cultural Studies, and related to Environmental Humanities areas.

Welcome to join us! Thank you!

• Publications edited and co-authored by Professor Peggy Karpouzou and Dr. Nikoleta Zampaki

1. Special Issue: "Critical Green Theories and Botanical Imaginaries: Exploring Human and More-than-human World Entanglements" published in Open Cultural Studies:

https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/culture/8/1/html  

2. Special Issue: "Ecologies of Life and Death in the Anthropocene" published in Lagoonscapes. The Venice Journal of Environmental Humanities: 

https://edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4/riviste/the-venice-journal-of-environmental-humanities/2024/2/  

3. Special Issue: "The Digital Environmental Humanities: Towards Theory and Praxis" published in HJEAS:

https://sciendo.com/issue/HJEAS/30/2  

4. our open access chapter titled "Toward Posthuman Aesthetics: The Flesh of the World in Auguste Rodin’s Le Penseur and The Thinking Robot" published in Nidesh Lawtoo's volume titled Mimetic Posthumanism. Homo Mimeticus 2.0 in Art, Philosophy and Technics at Brill:

https://brill.com/display/title/63101 

5. our chapter titled “The Poetics of Zombification in Ryan Mecum’s Dawn of Zombie Haiku” In Zombie Futures in Literature, Media and Culture. Pandemics, Society and the Evolution of the Undead in the 21st Century edited by Simon Bacon, published by Bloomsbury: 

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/zombie-futures-in-literature-media-and-culture-9781350285491/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR2ke9BRjbumYjBJu_Pc9RJdnHVdnagHuCfHbyf9YOYcKp8YEELC0zSpKYQ_aem_Ah1fwQ0N-t8hZfEJlaY8Dw

[I note online events are included in an announcements page:

https://networks.h-net.org/group/12251094/announcements

PJ ]

We will keep in touch. Thank you!

Best regards, 

on behalf of the Editors

Nikoleta

--

Dr. Nikoleta Zampaki

Postdoctoral Researcher

Faculty of Philology, School of Philosophy, 

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

E-mail: nikzamp AT phil.uoa.gr

My source: SOPHERE list

Are you planning a health* study in 2025?

New Year - new project perhaps?

*nursing, mental health, theory, practice, management, workforce, medicine, allied health professions, social work, psychology, labs, diagnosis, palliative, end of life, diseases, public health, public MENTAL health, -isms, prevention, protection, education, learning disability, parity in care, informatics, information, literacIES, AI, arts, policy, leadership, migration, history, future, women, children, men, LGBTQ+, ethics, rights, health economics, social care, systems, services, climate change, refugees, conflict, law, leadership, resources, commerce, fraud, self-care, UN, WHO, UNESCO, regional, national, global, or planetary ..., ...

Is there a 'space' for Hodges' model in your study?

IF NOT, IMHO YOUR STUDY MAY BE INCOMPLETE!

Is this statement ...?

INDIVIDUAL

|

   INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

 SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

GROUP

utter nonsense and arrogance a psychological threat^ it's either a great joke, or a grand delusion look - get real, we can't cover all the bases calling attention to the high-degree of subjectivism in academia and health research no, actually it is blatant evidence of bias and a lack of objectivity! Who is Hodges? shamefully egotistical our project does not need to consider: reflection - reflective practice critical thinking holistic - integrated care: parity of esteem person-centredness the curricula (however 'expressed') methods - methodology - philosophy a sign we've found the true 'meta-' tool (Yes, this is interesting!)

to the Nth degree! a physical threat^ a fact - when critiqued using Hodges' model limited apprehension of 'HEALTH'.. sheer ignorance proof of an incomplete (grey) literature search proof that 'not invented here' prevails identification of relations and relationships is catered for, as are ... safety, situational awareness, scoping, mapping, evaluation, analysis, synthesis, diagrams - graphical approaches, project mangement potentially supporting inter- multi- transdisciplinarity a sign that ('fashion') science, evidence have moved on: get over it!

a soul in search of a community of practice? demonstrating much effort is falling on deaf ears? time to listen, with all that's going in the world Hodges, did you say? Sorry not here!

not commissioned/funded by a 'us'.  what? No Doctorate? Go away: please! who does that person think they are!    fao project/research management group/committee?

Brian E. Hodges (1942-2022) RIP

"Hi! I'm new to Hodges' model - and this blog - what's it about?"

^No threat is implied, on the contrary frustration ... If Hodges' model may be of use, please do get in touch. Thanks to all for your visits and best wishes with your respective projects, studies and careers.

forms of Hygiene

A gift for Hodges' model:

 'good prose is like a windowpane'

George Orwell, WHY I WRITE

https://www.ft.com/content/83625fad-f101-4712-ba2b-483b87ef0e12

'How is it that Orwell has become the single answer to so many questions, in so many different subjects, for so many people? His name conjures an amorphous idea of fair play and “common sense”; his spare prose supposedly brings cool nonpartisanship to a world of impassioned blusterers. In keeping your sentences clean, the theory goes, you practise intellectual hygiene (“good prose is like a windowpane” and all that). A single word, “Orwellian”, evokes the great man’s foresight about the dangers of an overweening nanny state, a censorious far-left or whatever else may be getting your goat that day.'

Naoise Dolan, Why weak thinkers love Orwell, FT Weekend Magazine, October 19/20, 2024, pp.16-18.

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

GROUP

INTELLECTUAL MENTAL - EMOTIONAL - SPIRITUAL (Coping with the 21st Century) SELF-LIFE SKILLS (control anxiety - being organised) Health Literacy: Knowledge and aptitude for forms of HYGIENE	PERSONAL ENVIRONMENTAL DOMESTIC FOOD HANDS (How to sneeze, cough) ORAL - DENTAL CLOTHES BODY HAIR (frequency?) Sustainability - balance
SOCIAL COMMUNITY/RACIAL HYGIENE Insertion of memory lest we forget Insertion of a hook to do - think as we tolerance for x,y,z	POLITICAL HYGIENE aka. The Paradox To Vote : To be counted CIVIC

 

Reflecting about this in some contexts, more than others(?) I'm struck by the overlap between hygiene and literacy.

Completing, or attending to, being motivated to undertake - complete hygiene duties depends on knowledge and ability to act. Having basic needs met.

'

'Opening windows always ...'

literature : window

ii "Nye" | Full Show [now ended] | National Theatre at Home

Watching yesterday on YouTube, I enjoyed NYE and was challenged by it personally and as a grandfather, son, nurse and tax-payer.

It wasn't all sweetness and light regards Aneurin "Nye" Bevin's character. Politically, he clearly pushed boundaries in response to the values he carried on his sleeve. As the family's of many health care professionals may recognise, needs outside the family can be prioritised at the family's cost. The theory-practice gap is expressed in so many ways. 

Whether by intent, or accident, the play points to the timeless challenge of social care and women's role in delivery of this care. This strikes home in the drama not just as care of the elderly, but being confronted (alone) with the slow, painful dying of a loved-one; and the reality of occupational diseases - 'black lung'. Women are exploited as carers, their hearts and feet may as well be bound; in the same way the mine owners exploited the workers. There was a stark reminder for me, of how continuity of care is often lacking today.

Nye becomes personal, as even up to 1970s working class parents would have worried, did worry about the prospect of their (invariably male - with some exceptions?) offspring going down the pit, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Watching and listening to this you can appreciate how education was seen a passport to alternative white-collar work. My paternal grandfather worked in a slate quarry. I recall many invites to punch him in the 'stomach': a slate wall. He walked quite a few miles to work and wasn't that old when he died; although he (soon) followed grandma J.

For quite a while I've been drawn to the theatre. Aged 15 I was Francis Nurse - yes, the irony - in the school play, Arthur Miller's, The Crucible. It was Miss Smith, a drama teacher who first brought my attention to the idea of 'social awareness'. I recall Miss Clayton too who was a student teacher. On visits to London I've been struck by the relevance of Ibsen today. 

If there were to be a play in me, perhaps 'Axes and Crosses' must be-up-there as a working title? For  my father the 11+ exam was the icon to ward off the evil that was work down a mine; or lying under a an excavator / crane at 0400 to get the machine fixed for the shift due to start. The 11+ and need to pass this has provided its own anxiety, burden, and it must be said - motivation not just for me, but many more senior adults. I can see this now. So thank you Tim Price, National Theatre and Nye (2025!) for many further insights into stagecraft. 

See also:
https://www.bohs.org/media-resources/press-releases/detail/deadly-lung-disease-in-uk-kitchen-worktop-workers-is-avoidable/

September 2024: 'The Lightest Element'
https://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/2024/the-lightest-element/

Previously:
What wright to care?

drama (theatre), arts

THE GRID by Eli Payne Mandel

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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group

[125] 'Therefore, a mathematician babbles when he refers to cutting a given line in two. The actual line that he shows to us on the abacus has length and width. But the line he has in mind is a stroke with length and no width. What is drawn on the abacus cannot be such a stroke, and he who goes about cutting it cuts not the line that is but the line that is not.' (Sextus Empiricus, Against the Mathematicians 9.282) (n.b. The above is printed upside-down on the page.) Scatter the trace of the vessel from the ash. Pythagoras here is riddling about confusion and mental cloudiness, for if one wants to do philosophy one must pass over physical and sensible demonstration in favor of abstract argumentation. The ash is analogous to the dust on the abacus in which diagrams are delimited and proofs brought to an end.  (Iamblichus, Exhortation to Philosophy 34)' p.55

'[1] In ancient Greek, an abacus is a sand table. 'The abacist draws lines and maybe moves pebbles around the lines. When done, she wipes the sand blank.  [2] A board or slab for drawing, computation, games; a cutting board. Technical term, likely to be a loanword, but conjectured origin in Hebrew abãq "dust" remains unproven. --  Pierre Chantraine, Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue greque.' p.10.

'[122] The abacus computes and it erases. It tells a life. Then gambles it away. Achilles and Ajax sit down to play a game of dice. They have hung up their shields. They lean on their spears. They are tired. The Anatolian air is cold off the water. Attendants wrap them each in wool cloaks thick with eight-pointed stars. The stars wander along eddies and meanders. The only straight lines are servants of error. Their fingers are on the abacus, but Achilles and Ajax do not play, do not speak, lost in the maze of their cloaks. [124] The first reference in Western literature to written language is in the Iliad. An unsuspecting  man in a story is carrying semata lygra / grapsas en pinaki ptukto thymophthora polla: baleful signs written on a folded tablet, utterly soul-  destroying. The words, which some scholars conjecture to be Linear B, spell out the man's death, and the reader murders  the unreading man. After the murder, Death Wipes the tablet  blank and folds it back again.' p.54.

'[3] Because dust blows away and only the slab remains, an abacus is also the part of a column in immediate contact with what it supports. If that structure no longer survives, the abacus upholds the edifice of the sky.' p.10.

THE GRID by Eli Payne Mandel, Carcanet Press. 2023.

https://www.elipmandel.com/

Previously on W2tQ (with overlap):

arts :: drama :: poetry :: literature :: narrative

Laughter and Medicine Conference

Manon, Laughing Gas, 2019, installation, Kunsthaus Zürich
photographer: Franca Candrian, 2022.

British Academy/Wellcome Trust Conferences bring together scholars and specialists from around the world to explore themes related to health and wellbeing.

'Connecting knowledge across the disciplines, this conference will put practicing doctors in direct dialogue with researchers in the humanities – especially scholars of literature, cinema and cultural history. Together, they will seek to understand the social, diagnostic, therapeutic and physiological implications of laughter, inside and outside the clinic. Laughter is not always the 'best medicine', nor is it linked only to comedy and enjoyment. 'Healing laughter' differs markedly from pathological laughter, hysterical laughter, forced or bitter laughter, laughter aimed at mitigating awkwardness in unsuccessful communication, laughter intended to deceive, or laughter signifying fear, discomfort or aggression. Irony and other double-coded signifiers that abound in comic and parodic representations of medical practitioners and their patients often reveal medicine’s paradoxical place in various cultural imaginaries and in individual and collective experience.

This conference will study the diverse forms of laughter occurring around medicine in particular eras and cultural environments alongside comparative analysis of patterns and problematics over the long history of Western medicine and its representations.'

         https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/british-academy-conferences/laughter-and-medicine/

individual

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SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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I don't find this funny!	I laughed so much it hurt!
"All the world's a stage"	Politics is a running joke - that's never funny. The human epic of triumph and tragedy.

Previously (with overlap):

arts :: drama :: poetry :: literature :: narrative

Health & Care results in mountains of data: c/o Burke & Cao 2024

"When medical schools train medical students, they teach them to treat patients as collections of various data points. They are laboratory tests and results, each measured to a standard number of significant figures. Notes students write hack down the richness of patients' identities and experiences: unemployment increases suicide risk while having a religion diminishes it. Each positive result that an interview or physical exam reveals adds another data point to the growing mountain, while a negative result erases a branch of possibilities in a treatment algorithm. It is a familiar process for every doctor, almost second nature, and yet it creates a chasm between patients and providers. Learning about a patient and their life becomes a process of deleting what's seen as irrelevant, and a patient's humanity gets lost in the chaos of data. ..."

"How would Nan Shepherd treat a mountain without her vision being mangled by medical training? She would probe it, palpate its surface, and listen to it rather than trying to comprehend it by reading reams of surveyor data. She would build a portrait of it in her mind beyond solely that which was intended to slot into the criteria of the IC-10. Perhaps she'd write a sensuous physical exam: ..."  

individual

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INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

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"CONSTITUTIONAL: a granite mountain range, millions of years old, overall stable and solid, teeming with living, breathing organisms CARDIOVASCULAR: its rivers are patent, low and high turbulence at turns, its veins crisscross the surface RESPIRATORY: the wind carves through it in mighty exhales MUSCULOSKELETAL: its stone carries a range of lives, and the wind, the snow, the sun slowly bend the range of its form GI/GU: it slowly digests, grows, evacuates, and seethes as its wastes give rise to new life NEUROLOGICAL: the mountain is awake but dreaming with you"

The Living Mountain

Burke, R., Cao, E. To Care for a Mountain - What medical practitioners can learn from Nan Shepherd. Oxford Review of Books, Summer 2024, Volume 8, Issue 2. p.14. In association with Stanford. Ack. length of quotations in relation to length of author's article.

Nan Shepherd 1893 - 1981:  Scottish Poetry Library 2024.
https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poet/nan-shepherd/

Cover image: Allen and Unwin

Call for Papers for Special Issue "Philosophy and Disability"

"HUMANA.MENTE Journal of Philosophical Studies"

https://www.humanamente.eu 

Call for Papers for Special Issue "Philosophy and Disability"
Editors: Brunella Casalini; Chiara Montalti

deadline for submissions: 30th September 2024

In the past fifty years, the concept of disability has productively transcended the medical, psychiatric and rehabilitative domains. It has been defined, to name some examples, as the result of social exclusion, as a cultural trope, as a territory of political struggle and resistance, as a multi-faceted experience that emerges from the several inter-relational aspects of daily life, or as a neutral or even positive space.

Since Disability Studies is a trans-disciplinary area, the research on disability has benefitted from the contributions, methodology, and conceptual tools of many different fields. Disability has been explored from the perspectives of Sociology, Art, Anthropology, Law, Literary and Cultural Studies and the Humanities at large.

Regarding the latter field, it has been pointed out that disability, even though not always explicitly addressed, “pervades” nonetheless “language and literature”: as a concept, as an image, or as a metaphorical crutch (Mitchell, Snyder, 2000; Snyder, Brueggemann, Garland-Thomson, eds., 2002). Despite this intrinsic abundance, however, disability is still largely unrecognised as a topic of academic interest, especially in the Humanities, in what David Bolt and Claire Penketh define as a form of “disciplinary avoidance” (2015) – the reasons for which should be investigated.

The scholars and researchers would therefore be invited to deepen our understanding of the possible intersection between Philosophy and disability. They would be invited, on one hand, to examine how Philosophy can be a suitable starting platform in order to address several issues related to disability, and, on the other hand, to explore how the analyses on disability may significantly impact Philosophy. We aim therefore to bring forth philosophical inquiries that investigate, among the possible topics, disabled people’s lived experiences; emerging ethical challenges; social and political implications of ableism; theoretical foundations of disability, examined through a philosophical lens.

The Special Issue aims to explore a wide range of philosophical topics related to disability, including but not limited to:

I) Examinations of various philosophical perspectives and frameworks for understanding disability, including the social model, the cultural model, the relational model and the capabilities approach.

II) Ethical considerations concerning disability, such as questions related to autonomy, dignity, justice, violence, and the ethics of care.

III) Epistemology inquiries into how disability affects knowledge, perception, and cognition.

IV) Explorations of disability's influence on art, aesthetics, and the perception of beauty.

V) Discussions on disability rights, social policies, and disabled people’s participation or exclusion from citizenship.

VI) Phenomenological analyses of lived experiences, that include the embodiment of disability and the material encounters with the world. Philosophers’ first-person experiences and accounts would also be positively valued in this regard.

VII) Analyses of the role of disability in language, in the discursive realm, in the creation of meaning, and in the construction of metaphors, including the investigation of how philosophical language and theorization could contribute to ableism, disablism, and disabled’s people exclusion.

VIII) Investigation of disability through the lens of humanism and/or its critical stances (Anti-Humanism, Philosophical Posthumanism, Transhumanism, New Materialisms, and so on).

Intersectional analyses, which explore how disability interacts with, and impacts, other social categories such as race, gender identity, sexuality, and class, would be greatly welcomed. Furthermore, contributions could cover a wide array of historical and geographical frameworks, from Ancient Philosophy towards Contemporary Philosophy – not only from a Western perspective.

Information

Deadline for submissions: 30 September 2024

Publication of the Special Issue: July 2025

We anticipate that submissions will come both through solicitations and this open Call. Papers should be between 8000 and 10,000 words (including abstracts, footnotes, and references). Only papers in English will be accepted. For further information do not hesitate to contact the editors (brunella.casalini[at]unifi.it; chiara.montalti[at]unisalento.it).

My source: 

Philos-L "The Liverpool List" is run by the Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/philosophy/philos-l/ 

Follow the list on Twitter @PhilosL. Follow the Department of Philosophy @LiverpoolPhilos