Social And Corporate Responsibility Rompetrol Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2485 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? OMV is one of the leading companies in the world, that is why one of their main purposes is to have an encourage staff and employees to provide excellent service and attention to the customers. OMV company take special care about their staff by organizing a survey every year. The aim of this survey for OMV is to find employees` problems and to find possible solutions. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Social And Corporate Responsibility Rompetrol Finance Essay" essay for you Create order OMV`s goals are to have happy and satisfied staff. In addition they organize specific health programs, which are planned by experts to prevent possible physical or psychical problems at the workplace. Also OMV is organizing training and developing programs, supporting team building. A very important part of OMV social and corporate responsibility is to pay special attention to the environment and nature surrounding. OMV hold a company called Future Energy Fund, which goal is to participate in projects connected with renewable energy and reduction of emissions. In addition OMV has a special technology called Ad Blue, which save 60% of the costs and emissions, and is particularly set to reduce greenhouse gases. Social and corporate responsibility Rompetrol: Rompetrol is also a large cooperation, which is not so popular in the world, that is why their main task is to have a happy and polite staff, so their customers want to come back. Rompetrol is participating in many ways for social and corporate responsibility. Rompetrol respect their employees and organize often development opportunities and employment practices. In addition they mostly respect, protect and promote the human rights, culture, customs and values of the company. In 2009 Rompetrol organized a national program called Together for each and everyone, which focuses on healthcare and environment program. Rompetrol and Ghizii Romaniei supported and organized a project, which aim to include ecology, educational activities, civic and sport spirit. In the recent two years, OMV has made discoveries in Romania, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Australia. By this way they build that basis for future growth. This is the basis for future growth. In addition, many development pr ojects are in the pipeline in Yemen, Tunisia, and West of Shetland, for example. Assuming production levels in Libya and Yemen return to normal, EPs project portfolio will allow organic growth to increase from 318,000 boe/d in 2010 by around 2% per year to about 350,000 boe/d in 2016. In the current situation, Rompetrol say for them that the project they were planning is moving into action. Due to studies led by Rompetrol, they have estimated and increase of the current net USD 100 million margin over years 2007-2011. They benefit from the advice of Solomon partners and aim to realize maximum operational excellence upon minimal investments. Also, they are moving forward with the already started goal of being in the list of 25 European refineries. OMV will increase its EP business over the next years by two or four per cent per annum. Over two thirds of OMVs future investments will be directed towards the exploration, development, and production of oil and gas. What is more , the top executives of Rompetrol made a discussion about the future The leadership of the Rompetrol Group discuss a future co-operation with the Romanian state owning forty five present of the Rompetrol Groups Romania- based refining unit Rompetrol Rafinare. The working group will be consistent of the following executives: TRG Executive Manager Zhanat Tussupbekov. Moreover, Rompetrols strategic aim envisages co-operation its position in Bulgarian fuel market, with intensive and extensive development programs. However, they will enlarge retail network, by opening new franchised offices. Then Rompetrol will start many different programs to attract and retain client in their network. According to article which we find in the internet the Corporate Governance is highly essential to OMV. A good teamwork between management and the Advisory Board is important to respect and to work for the best interests of all shareholders and offer confidence to OMVs stakeholders. However OMV is r un are that Austrian government offers them lower taxes in order OMV to keep their head office in Vienna and in this way to save many working places. On the other hand the mission of Rompetrol is to offer reasonable fuel distribution answers to individuals and businesses, with the complete cost efficient supply channels, stimulating modernization and delivering return on investments to our shareholders. We stress to the vertical integration of its sole shareholder by providing access to European petroleum product markets. IAS 37 is the Provisions, Contingent Liabilities and Contingent Assets summaries the accounting for supplies (liabilities of uncertain timing or amount), together with commission assets and contingent liabilities. Some of the major investment are related with future investments and discover new reserves. Some firms formed consortium liked the biggest one in the world between Total OMV and Repsol. They have a huge progress in Romania by finding new reserves of petrol and natural gas. The interesting fact here is that they will start examining the Bulgarian part of the Black sea shore. Rompetrol is on the same way interested in future investment but the main target is the Turkish market. Their major reserves are related mostly with the Kazakhstan national oil and gas company KazMunayGas. IFRS 8 suggests the accounting and admissions required for an entitys working sections, goods and services, and the geographical parts in which it operates and its main clients. In every period end OMV and Rompetrol are obligated to shows their cash flow in the business registry and that is the official way of showing their revenues. Unofficially everyone can look for the annual report in the internet but there is no guarantee that it will legitimate. PART B Every company needs a detailed explanation of its financial performance, how their entity is running in the market. They can use information of quantitative and qualitative nature extracted from both internal and external sources. Ratio analysis is a major part of conducting a business, according to Dyson (2007) it is simply the division of one arithmetical amount by other arithmetical amount, and then expressed as a percentage or as a factor. Basically, ratio analyses are one of the most useful financial tools, because it compares one figure with another. Simply it expresses relationship between lots of amounts easily and simply. Ratio analysis is an important technique in the interpretation of account, and in this paper we will evaluate ten ratios for both companies for the last two years and the outcomes, results will be analyzed. All numbers, figures and calculations used below are used and can be find in Appendix 1. Firstly, we evaluated liquidity ratios, which contain C urrent Asset ratio and Acid-test ratio. When we evaluate current asset ratio, if the company is going well his current assets should excess its current liabilities, if this rule is not observed that means that the entity havent sufficient liquid resources. Which means that the company will not be ready to turn its currents assets quickly into cash. In our situation OMV has higher current assets that current liabilities, which show that this company is stable, liquid and running well. On other hand we have Rompetrol, which has some troubles, because in 2011 its current liabilities increased and they are more than their current assets, which tell us that this company havent sufficient liquid resources. According to the acid-test ratio OMV has strong position on the market, the main requirement here is acid-test ratio to be smaller than current ratio and this rule is observed. On annual report of the other company, Rompetrol has also lower acid-test ratio, but the problem here is that they have decrease in inventories in the last 2011 year than 2010. Secondly, we calculated efficiency ratio, which are an important part of conducting a business. As a whole, traditional accounting statements dont tell us how efficiently an entity is or how well its resources have been looked after, that is why there are many types of ratios, which are very important about conducting a business. Trade Payables Settlement Period show us that OMV has some small problems with paying suppliers, but in the next 2011 they really improve this and decrease the payment with 20 days. Rompetrol is showing bare problems with paying to suppliers although they have decrease also in days, it is from 72 to 60, which is according to us not satisfied period, but this can be due to the times if crisis. Inventory turnover period show us how their inventory policy is moving. OMV confirm their good policy and we can see decrease in their inventory turnover period. Rompetrol is also showing little decr ease in inventory turnover period and prove their improvement. Trade Receivables Settlement Period ratio confirm that both companies are running well, and according to this ratio they have enhanced credit system, because both of them decrease the debtors period settlement. Net Assets Turnover is a pointer showing how generated revenue per unit of investment is improved. Both companies show that they are strength and stable, because we observe that they increased their net asset turnover from 2010 to 2011. Next step was to check up how profitability ratios are going on. Profitability ratio show us how much profit a business/company has made and also this type of ratios give us a great opportunity to compare it with previous periods or with other entities., according to Dyson (2007). Gross Profit Margin is a ratio which shows us that both companies have not well developed trading success, because their GPMs have decreased from 2010 to 2011. Operating Profit Margin is clearly showin g the ongoing performance of the company, also it measures levels of and rates of profitability, whether a company is successful or not. OMV and Rompetrol`s operating profit margins decreased from 2011 to 2010. Return on Capital Employed is also a part of profitability ratios and its main concept is to show how the business earnings from its assets. An eventual increase here, can be due to increase in operating profit. In our situation we observe increase in both companies. A major part of how the business flow is the Gearing Ratio, where debt has to be less than equity. OMV obey this rule and their non-current assets are less than total equity, but on the other hand we can observe that Rompetrol`s non-current liabilities increase and are more than equity from 2010 to 2011 and that is why their gearing ratio increase. According to the analyzed data, we can conclude that OMV is running well and is also a strong and stable company, because their mission is to increase their tota l assets and to decrease their liabilities and they succeed, while Rompetrol is facing some troubles with conducting and running the business as a whole. PART C Currently, the company controlled by the Austrian group OMV, seems to have adopted the idea of diversifying activity by increasing the weight of hy-drocarbon exploration and energy production. The important level, firms belonging to this industry is strongly influenced by the macroeconomic cycle, mainly by means of fuels and energy required in industrial processes. Therefore, the best time to invest in stocks of the energy field is towards the middle of the economic expansion. However, starting from the hypothesis of an economic revival as of 2013 and estimated by the stock exchange market, we have kept a rising price target set against current values. The analysis for the macro and micro economic factors for the both companies OMV and Rompetrol are very similar because there are in the same branch. The policy of the both company is to invest I different securities on the stock exchange to maximize their profit. In the macro analyses basically there are demographic factors how the population in countries is changing, what is the population growth and also what is the average education of the population in the countries where these companies are located. But the main differences came from the average income of the people in the different countries and also what are their savings and also dose the population have many credits. Also here in the macro economic factors we can put the investment political campaign and also into new technologies and into ecological improvements of the refineries and to produce more pollution friendly products and also to invest in organizations which are dealing with environment savings. The micro economic factors are in general formed from the different suppliers and customers. Also for its analyze formation are very important and the employees and least but not last the creditors are also very important. Part D Meeting 1; Date, time, location: 06.01.2013, 11:00, IUC C-Lab Hemis numbers of those attending: Brief details of the work done and / or topics discussed: Choose two companies, which meet the requirements Make a plan, what should be written in the different parts Make some drafts of examples Finding all relevant ratios Finding annual reports for both companies for the recent years Details of any plans made or decisions taken: We decided to choose OMV and Rompetrol companies for our course work Peer Assessment Hemis number 0 and 8Â  [1] Tsvetan Iliev 678866 8 Valentin Fetvadjiev 678858 6 Daniel Filev 7 Milena Frateva 5 Meeting 2; Date, time, location: 07.01.2013, 11:00, IUC C-Lab Hemis numbers of those attending: Brief details of the work done and / or topics discussed: We started Part A We discussed how should we have to analyse the ratios We make a research gathering about interesting information about both companies Review of the work done to date, or since the last meeting: We finished part A We found hot and special information about both companies We are ready to start parts B and C, because we have the relevant ratios and we discussed to analyse them Peer Assessment Hemis number 0 and 8Â  [2] Tsvetan Iliev 678866 8 Daniel Filev 7 Valentin Fetvadjiev 678858 6 Milena Frateva 5 Meeting 3; Date, time, location: 14.01.2013, 11:00, IUC C-Lab Hemis numbers of those attending: 678866, 678858 Brief details of the work done and / or topics discussed: We are ready with evaluating all ratios for both companies We put them into an appendix We are ready to analyse them in the next meeting Details of any plans made or decisions taken: To analyse Part B and to start Part C in the next meeting Peer Assessment Hemis number 0 and 8Â  [3] Tsvetan Iliev 678866 8 Valentin Fetvadjiev 678858 7 Meeting 4; Date, time, location: 16.01.2013, 10:00, IUC C-Lab Hemis numbers of those attending: 678866, 678858 Brief details of the work done and / or topics discussed: We discussed how to analyse the ratios What does this results mean We finished part B We have a special meeting with people, who worked in the administration of both companies and asked them for interesting information, which will help us to finish part C We finish part C Details of any plans made or decisions taken: To make a meeting in Candy bar club (Kempinski Hotel Zografski) for the last part D Peer Assessment Hemis number 0 and 8Â  [4] Tsvetan Iliev 678866 8 Valentin Fetvadjiev 678858 7 Meeting 5; Date, time, location: 17.01.2012, 18:30, Candy bar club (Hotel Kempinski Zografski) Hemis numbers of those attending: 678866, 678858 Brief details of the work done and / or topics discussed: We finished Part D The course work is ready to be hand-in. Peer Assessment Hemis number 0 and 8Â  [5]

Essay To My One Love - 1256 Words

Facing death at any age is difficult, but for Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and John Sullivan, it came early, resulting in two essays retelling their experience. In their accounts of these situations, the author can see they both want to emphasise that death can come in very unexpected situations. To My One Love, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, begins on page 17 of 50 Essays by Samuel Cohen. In her essay, set in present day, she has flashbacks to her relationship with a boy â€Å"from the wrong side of town† named Nnamdi. They were in a loving relationship against their peers’ wishes. When it came time for them to separate due to education in separate locations, they had ended the relationship, but not before Nnamdi had promised that them†¦show more content†¦In addition to the brain scans, the article titled â€Å"Romance novel† on Wikipedia also shows support to my claim of the romance genre affecting the reader. The article states, â€Å"By the 2000s, romance had become the most popular genre in modern literature.†, and in speaking of 2008, â€Å"making up 13.5% of the consumer market.† With evidence of readers choosing romance genres, I believe the audience will also lean toward an essay containing a romance genre. Another way I believe To My One Love was more effective is because of the tone of her essay compared to Feet in Smoke. In To My One Love, Chimamanda recalls her experience in present day with flashbacks to when her and Nnamdi were together. In her present day, she presents herself with joy of just publishing poetry in a newspaper office. She says on page 17 of 50 Essays, â€Å"I swaggered and smiled, too full of accomplishment.† When she notices a picture on the wall of Nnamdi dead, the continuation of the essay is foreboding (the flashbacks) and somber (going through the rest of present day). 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Signal Transduction Exam 2018 Free Essays

This figure is from Labasque et al., 2008 (GPCR week). A) Describe the experiment shown here and what was learned as a result. We will write a custom essay sample on Signal Transduction Exam 2018 or any similar topic only for you Order Now B) Design a negative control for this experiment and describe why it is a good control. C) Design an experiment to confirm this result in living cells. Please include controls in your experimental design. Signal Transduction Exam 2018 A) The experiment was performed on human embryonic kidney (HEK 293) cell line. The extracts of solubilized proteins were taken under consideration for this experiment. These were then transfected with different vectors: CTL (empty vectors), co-transfected with GFP fused Calmodulin(GFP-CaM) and serotonin receptor either wild type 5-HT2C or 5-HT2CR376/377A which were treated with a vehicle or 5-HT for five minutes, they analyzed the binding reaction by Western Blot and Immunoprecipitation (IP) techniques. Immunoprecipitation was done of these soluble proteins with polyclonal antibody:anti-GFP. Furthermore, these immunoprecipitated proteins were blotted using a monoclonal anti-GFP antibody along with anti-5-HT2C receptor antibody.As a result of this experiment, it was found that the absence of agonist, 5-HT2C receptor did not co-immunoprecipitate with calmodulin in solubilized proteins that were co-transfected with Myc-5-HT2C receptor and GFP-CaM. However, serotonin receptor co-immunoprecipitated with GFP-CaM after treatment with 5-HT for 5 minutes. But the exposure with 5-HT2CR376/377A did not co-immunoprecipitate GFP-CaM with serotonin receptor. It proves that 5-HT2C receptors are linked with CaM depending on the presence of agonist. The experiment performed is to check the agonist dependent precipitation of GFP-CaM and serotonin receptors in the presence of Myc-5HT2C 5-HT exposure. So, the negative control to be designed here for this experiment can be simply of serotonin receptor and CaM. This would result in no immunoprecipitation and prove as a good negative control. On analyzing it through western blotting it could be proved that no immunoprecipitation had occurred in this control. To confirm the results in living cells the same experiment could be used to check the that whether the immunoprecipitation is agonist dependent or not. Take solubilized proteins from living cells and co-transfect them with GFP-CaM and 5-HT2C receptor followed by exposure to 5-HT, then analyze immunoprecipitation via western blotting. The negative control for this experiment will include only CaM and serotonin receptor, and further analyzing it with western blotting, the results of blotting will show no precipitation in negative.2. These figures are from Fig. 6A,C of Fan et al. (src kinase folder). (A) Explain the experiments shown here. What was being tested? What conclusions can be drawn? How can it be improved? (B) Design another experiment to test the same concept/hypothesis? Include your controls.4839335107886500A) In figure A: Human embryonic kidney cells were transfected with constructs for carrying out this experiment. Immuno-precipitation was carried out of tagged PAG with an antibody against regulator MYC, its interaction is studied here with SRC and BRK followed by immunoblotting analyzation. The result of this experiment was delaying in electrophoretic mobility of tagged PAG protein, when it was co-expressed with SRC. This delay is considered due to the hyper-phosphorylation. However, on co-expression of PAG and BRK this band shift was less evident. In figure C: Co-transfection of HEK 293 cells with MYC-PAG and SRC followed by treatment in the absence or presence of SRC kinase inhibitor SU6656 (5 M) for at least 1 hour. PAG was immunoprecipitated by antibody against MYC, and the binding of CSK was compared by immunoblotting. On the other hand, the disturbance of link b/w CSK and PAG was observed on weakening SRC activity by a small molecular inhibitor SU6656, this experiment concluded the importance of SRC kinase activity for functioning of CSK. Also, this study shows that distinct mechanisms have evolved to regulate the activities of two structurally similar and functionally related kinases, BRK and SRC, understanding of the signaling function of protein phosphatases, including definition of their substrate specificities, will allow us to exploit a greater spectrum of the changes in signaling in disease and to generate new and more effective strategies for therapeutic intervention in major human diseasesB) To test the same hypothesis with controls, take breast cancer frozen samples of different patients, divide the sample in two groups one will be the test group other the control group. The control group will be given doses of anti-tumor medication (like tamoxifen for breast cancer). RNA will be extracted from both groups using Trizol and will be followed by purification assay. The breast cancer cell lines will be transfected with empty vectors or pcDNA3-MKP3-V5. Furthermore, the transfectants will be placed in media like minimum essential media MEM with phenol red, followed by SDS PAGE electrophoresis, and transfer to nitrocellulose membrane. After transferring they will be incubated with primary antibody for an hour or more then with the secondary antibody to observe the chemiluminescence with a reagent. The cells will then be lysed in a buffer, phosphatase reaction carried out will be observed by assays and transfected cells will be compared with control ones to whom tamoxifen was given.36734750003. This is figure 4b from Gresset et al (phospholipases folder). (A) What is the hypothesis being tested in this experiment? (B) Describe how the experiment was done, including results. (C) Predict what might happen to PLC? activity if Tyrosine783 was ‘permanently’ phosphorylated and explain why. The hypothesis being tested here is the enhancement in the lipase activity of phospholipaseC-?1 via phosphorylation of one or both specified tyrosine residues (Y775 and Y783) in the downstream process of signal transduction.To perform the experiment, equal concentrations of purified phospholipase-C-?1 were set on incubation with the active kinase domain of the Fibroblast growth factor receptor FGFR2 and ATP in bovine serum albumin containing buffer, the samples of this reactions were tested for two activities: 1) for lipase activity in the phospholipid vehicles indicated in the figure on left Y axis. Secondly the phosphate incorporation in phospholipase-C-?1 was studied, illustrated at right Y axis of the figure. 4 moles of phosphate were added to each test samples, the Wildtype inactive PLC?1 was taken as a normal control with its basal phospholipase activity, active PLC?1 with wildtype FGFR2K served as a positive control with phosphate and PLC?1 knockout mutant served as negative control to quantify the phospholipase activity among the mutants. This was performed to check the phosphorylation of tyrosine and auto inhibition of PLC-? isozymes, 775/783 of PLC-?1 were substitutes at the place of phenylalanine, they could be used individually or together, but in the experiment tyr783 is used individually. Phospholipase activity of resulting mutant after purification was quantified with active domain of FGFR2K (helps in phosphorylation and activation of phospholipase). Certain known moles of phosphates were added into purified PLC-?1 in wild type under above mentioned conditions and observed that phospholipase activity was enhanced 10 times. The mutation of tyr783 completely nullified the kinase stimulated acceleration of phospholipase activity along with reduction in FGFR2K-promoted phosphorylation of PLC-?1. This experiment proves that, phosphorylation of Tyr783 is vital for relief of auto-inhibition.Studies reveal that Tyr-783 was essential for auto inhibition. As discussed above, permanent phosphorylation of tyr-783 will completely nullify the kinase stimulated and FGFR2K stimulated phosphorylation of PLC-?1. Lipase activity of PLC-?1 will be enhanced across its limits and over-expression of PLC-?1 can induce malignant transformation. The results could be leading to production of carcinoma cells. It has been found in various studies that activity of PLC-?1 is more in cancerous cells as compared to normal cells. So, permanent phosphorylation tyr783 could be a way leading to malignant cancers.3416300-254000004. This figure is from Tsui et al. 2015. (lipid raft folder). (A) Explain the relationship between GFR and Ret51 and what they are testing in this paper (the overall idea). (B) Explain the experiment shown in this figure and what was learned. (C) What is a negative control that could improve the conclusions from this experiment?GFR and Ret51 both are receptors, GDNF is found to promote PNS development and kidney morphogenesis through the receptor complex consisting of GDNF family receptor 1 (GFR1) and the other receptor tyrosine kinase (Ret). Ret signal transduction is increased by translocation of GFR. GFR-mediated Ret activation is essential too for the kidney morphogenesis and for various other functions of abdominal precursors that form abdominal nervous system. Also, GFR has many lipid rafts because its GPI anchorage, but Ret is expelled from lipid rafts. In this paper, the gene replacement for GFR in mice results GDNF resulting in Ret activation but prevented its translocation into lipid rafts. These mice showed renal agenesis, and other disorders including loss of the enteric nervous system, and defects in motor neuron axon path similar to GFR mice that was knocked out, all this provided evidence along with lipid rafts GFR is also needed for neurotrophic factor signaling.Primary considerate neurons secluded from Gfr1and Gfr1TM/TM mice were maintained in vitro for some days. Then they treated the neurons with GDNF or medium for exact time of 15 minutes. The Detergent-resistant membranes quarantined from the neurons were examined by immunoblotting for Ret51. The comparative purity of detergent resistant and detergent soluble fractions was confirmed by using immunoblotting for caveolin and transferrin receptor, respectively B, the experiments shown in A, were computed and graphed. Otherwise, Substantial decline in the amount of Ret51 was recorded statistically that translocated into lipid rafts while GDNF stimulation in Gfr1TM/TM neurons compared with Gfr1 neurons. Similar Results were obtained after performing the experiment four times .Moreover, Lipid raft translocation experiments were performed to prove the concept that GDNF/GFR1/Ret complex does not translocate into lipid rafts in Gfr1TM/TM mice. Primary sympathetic neurons from Gfr1/ and Gfr1TM/TM mice were used to extract detergent-resistant membranes. Upon stimulation of Gfr1/ neurons with GDNF, Ret translocated quickly into lipid rafts. This was a contrast to Gfr1TM/TM neurons that an evident reduced movement of Ret into the detergent-resistant was recorded because of GDNF exposure. A small portion of Ret that did translocate into lipid rafts while stimulation may be owing to Ret kinase-dependent translocation of Ret into rafts that occurs with slower movements. There was a significant, 75% reduction in the kinetics of the Ret receptor complex into lipid rafts during GDNF exposure in Gfr1TM/TM neurons according to computation made by these experiments. The negative control design here for confirming the results that Ret doesn’t translocate into lipid rafts during GFL activation in Gfr1TM/TM neurons, the primary sympathetic neurons isolated from Gfr1/and Gfr1TM/TM mice will be grown in the same way as test ones, with the only difference that there will be no treatment with GDNF or medium for 15 minutes, and the impact of this will confirm the result to much greater extent upon immunoblotting. How to cite Signal Transduction Exam 2018, Papers

Christian Ethics for Theological and Historical- myassignmenthelp

Question: Discuss about theChristian Ethics for Theological and Historical. Answer: The article The Centrality of Conscience in Eastern Orthodox Ethics by Father Stanley S. Harakas sheds light on the orthodox perspective of conscience through several perspectives. Conscience is perceived as the psychological phenomenon (Klanjek., Vazsonyi and Trejos-Castillo 2012). Conscience makes human psyche to segregate the morally right from the morally wrong. Conscience has a several types of interpretations, as it cannot be analyzed in a uniform manner. According to Socrates interpretation of conscience, Diamon, the conscience is forced phenomenon on human psyche condemning the wrong and praising the right (Klanjek., Vazsonyi and Trejos-Castillo 2012). The eastern orthodox ethics advocates the concept of Guardian Angel and Voice of God in depicting conscience. The centrality of conscience defines the God is absolute good. According to me, the concept of Guardian Angel does not stand. In reality there is no customary angel on anyone`s shoulder to instruct them towards the morally right path and on the hand the devil perched on other shoulder is restricted from doing the right (Bezzerides, Prodromou 2017). Conscience is regulated by the emotions of human being, which is influenced by the factors like, family, environment, and education and genetic. The Eastern Orthodox Ethics also draws the example of Adam and Eve in terms of covering the guilt the conscience is used as the excuse to escape the guilt. According to me conscience is a phenomenon restricts the human from committing wrong so that the guilt does not sting the human psyche (Bezzerides, Prodromou 2017). Lastly, the conscience does not work in a mechanical manner. One has to develop a sharp and enriched conscience. In the article Foundations of a Christian Ethic, the Christian Ethic is defined as a perception of Christian theology that segregates the morally good behavior from the immoral behavior. In terms of Christian Ethic Grenez suggests that there are several perspectives of Christian Ethics, which differ from each other (Glaw 2014). Ethics not always connected to spirit and word. The heteronymous perspective of Christian Ethic focuses on the written draft of scripture. Christian Ethic depends on the external sources, as it believes the God instructed people with the way of living a life (Glaw 2014). On the contrary, the Protestants believe the Bible as the ultimate source of ethereal guidance. In term of regulating human life the Protestant`s view is that Bible is the foundation of life. The law suggests there are some embargoes in leading the daily life, which is directly connected, to specific foods (Niebuhr 2012). According to Grenzs perspective about the foundation of Christian Ethic is related to the Bible, which is considered as the law book of leading a life. Grenz looks into the principles, which is written in the scriptures for primary source of specific laws. Grenz supports the heteronymous perspectives of foundation of Christian Ethics, though the heteronymous perspectives are formed from assumption of the divine revelation. According to Grenz the biblical definition of God is the ultimate creator and there is a fundamental relationship between the God and the earth and the heaven (Niebuhr 2012). Grenz suggest that declaration of the existence of God is the answer of many ethical questions of ethical value of Christianity. References Bezzerides, A.M. and Prodromou, E.H. eds., 2017.Eastern Orthodox Christianity and American Higher Education: Theological, Historical, and Contemporary Reflections. University of Notre Dame Pess. Glaw, A.M., 2014.The Holy Spirit and Christian Ethics in the Theology of Klaus Bockmuehl. Wipf and Stock Publishers. Klanjek, R., Vazsonyi, A.T. and Trejos-Castillo, E., 2012. Religious orientation, low self-control, and deviance: Muslims, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox-, and Bible Belt Christians.Journal of Adolescence,35(3), pp.671-682. Niebuhr, R., 2012.An interpretation of Christian ethics. Westminster John Knox Press.

Female Genital Mutilation

Female genital mutilation is often practiced in Northern and sub-Saharan Africa. The opponents of this surgery believe that it is supposed to increase sexual attractiveness of women or young girls.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Female Genital Mutilation specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Moreover, there are no medical reasons to perform it. However, one cannot easily draw parallels between female genital mutilation and other procedures that women undertake in more developed countries. In order to illustrate this argument, one should focus on the social and cultural origins of this practice. To a great extent, it can be explained by considerable gender inequalities existing in many African communities in which women do not have any opportunity for expressing their disagreement with existing behavioral norms. Admittedly, one can say that in various advanced countries, women often undergo cosmetic surgeries that can not be explained by any medical reasons. To a great extent, these women attempt to reach the standards of physical attractiveness, established in the society. Moreover, these standards can be imposed on them through various agents of socialization such as mass media. However, there are some distinctions that should not be overlooked. First of all, female genital mutilation is widespread in the communities in which the rights of women are virtually non-existent (â€Å"Jane’s Story: Surviving Violence†). For instance, they can be beaten almost to death, and they cannot expect any protection from the community. Moreover, young girls do not give their consent for this surgery; in fact, they can be forced to undergo this procedure (â€Å"Jane’s Story: Surviving Violence†). They are not allowed to raise any objections or even speak about the painfulness of genital mutilation. Such protests are usually not tolerated. In contrast, women, who choose to undertake c osmetic surgery, do it voluntarily. Certainly, there is some social pressure which can prompt them to reach the standards of physical beauty. However, their informed consent is necessary. This is why it is difficult to compare female genital mutilation with other procedures that can be performed in more developed countries. Additionally, it is important to remember that female genital mutilation can be viewed as a rite of passage in many African communities (Ogega 3). In many cases, it implies that a girl passes into womanhood. So, this practice is a part of the cultural tradition. This is one of the reasons why the government finds it very difficult to eliminate this practice by legally prohibiting it (Ogega 3). This is one of the peculiarities that should be taken into account. In contrast the procedures undertaken by women in more developed countries are not ritualistic. This is another difference that should not be overlooked.Advertising Looking for essay on gender studies? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Overall, female genital mutilation can be regarded as an example of discrimination against women. In many cases, they can be denied the right to their own bodies. Moreover, one should not forget that this surgery can pose a great threat to the health or even lives of women since they can be exposed to the risk of infection. Nevertheless, one should not draw parallels between this practice and other procedures that are widespread in more advanced countries. Female genital mutilation is the result of great gender inequalities in African communities. Women and girls, who are subjected to this procedure, are not able to express their discontent. This is one of the main arguments that can be put forward. Works Cited â€Å"Jane’s Story: Surviving Violence†. MPANZI, n.d. Web. https://mpanzi.org/. Ogega, Jackie. Pervasive Violence: What Makes Female Genital Cutting Possible,  Even Inevitable ? New York: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012. Print. This essay on Female Genital Mutilation was written and submitted by user Colleen Wing to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here. Female genital mutilation Female genital mutilation is defined by the World Health Organization as a procedure that involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for no medical reasons. It is carried out without anesthesia and may involve injury of the genital area. This practice is usually carried out on girls who have just reached puberty or are a few days old into puberty.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Female genital mutilation specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The practice is usually carried out by a traditional circumciser or a person who is experienced in doing the mutilation in a traditional non-medical setting. The cut is made using a knife, scissors or razor blade. This practice is common in Western, Northern and Eastern parts of Africa and some parts of Asia and the Middle East. It is also practiced among some immigrant communities in Europe, Australia and North America. It is estimated that approximat ely 100-140 million girls around the world have undergone female genital mutilation. Out of the 140 million, 92 million are from Africa (Gruenbaum, 2001). There are four types of female genital mutilation. However, only three of the four types are commonly practiced. Type I involves removal of the clitoral hood. Usually this also involves removal of the clitoris itself. Type II involves removal of the clitoris and the inner labia while type three involves removal of the inner and outer labia, the clitoris, and stitching of the wound leaving a small hole for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. The stitches only come off during sexual intercourse and child birth. This usually involves tearing and bleeding. Type III is the most common of the procedures and is usually practiced in several countries such as Sudan, Somalia and Djibouti. Type IV involves symbolic pricking of the clitoris or labia or cutting of the vagina to widen it (Gollaher, 2000). Rationale Female genital mutilati on is considered to be a violation of the human rights of the girl child hence the reason for choosing this topic. Issues that have been raised about the practice focus on the human rights violations, lack of informed consent and health risks. Health risks include issues such as recurrent vaginal and urethral tract infections. In addition, complications during child birth are likely to occur. Several countries have made efforts to stop the practice following health concerns and medical risks associated with the practice. Previous studies An observation that 90% of Eritrean women had undergone circumcision in 2002 sparked an interest in understanding the trends, factors that lead to female genital mutilation and its consequences. This study used data collected from the 2002 Egypt Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) and the 2003 Female Genital Mutilation to determine factors that influence mothers to take their daughters through the practice and attitudes towards the practice (Woldmi cael, 2009).Advertising Looking for term paper on anthropology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The findings of the study found that female genital mutilation was more common among older women than it was among the younger ones. The younger women were less likely to take their daughters through the female genital mutilation process than the older women. The study also revealed that 89% of Eritrean women had undergone the practice. 39% had undergone the type III genital mutilation which is the most severe of the 4 types. When it comes to religion, neither Christianity nor Islam seems to have any significant influence on the practice (Woldmicael, 2009). The findings show that even the least severe form of genital mutilation leads to complications during birth and puts the victim at risk of other health complications. This study also showed that social acceptance also favored the practice. The practice is considered to be an hono r and earns the family respect. It also increases the girl’s chances of getting married. The society also believes that genital mutilation controls sexual promiscuity, protects the girl from potential seducers and rapists and also preserves her virginity (Woldmicael, 2009). The study shows that female genital mutilation is being practiced in parts of this world and therefore strategies to combat it have been put in place. However, for a practice that is considered to be a violation of human rights of the girl child, it is still being practiced among some communities. Governments have been urged to implement laws that incriminate this practice in regions where it is being practiced. However, it is very difficult to implement the law if the practice is a widely accepted vice. Very little research has been done in trying to establish why the practice still exists even when those who practice it have been educated and sensitized on the issue. Therefore this study will investigate further on the existing socio-cultural dynamics of female genital mutilation. Approaches to the study The most common question is why those who practice female genital mutilation actually do it. Some people have condemned the practice while others simply have tried to understand the practice. It is however important to understand the cultural history of the practice if one is to be able to understand the cultural dynamics. Most people attribute the practice to Islam but it has been shown that religion does not play a part in the practice. Several customs and beliefs contribute to female genital mutilation and these customs are often hard to get rid of.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Female genital mutilation specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More In Sudan, for instance, it is believed that the campaign against FGM was a sure way of changing women’s consciousness. If a woman allowed her genitals to be rem oved, a heightened level of motherhood is achieved because it would not be tainted by sexuality. As a result she earns respect in the community. She also becomes empowered because by going through the process, she gets to earn respect from society (Shell-Duncan Hernland, 2000). Other societies regard uncircumcised women to be unclean and unfit to handle food and water. Their status as a mother is regarded to be impure and is often looked down upon. Some communities believe that if a woman is not circumcised then her genitals will continue to grow and dangle in between her legs. In addition, they believe that if a man’s penis came into contact with a woman’s clitoris, he would die. Similarly, if a baby’s head came into contact with the clitoris, it would also die (Boyle, 2002). Conclusion Female genital mutilation is an issue that needs to be addressed in the world today. Statistics have shown that a good percentage of women around the world have suffered a type of female genital mutilation. This has struck controversy among human rights groups such as Amnesty international. Ways of trying to curb the practice have been proposed and in most parts of the world have been implemented. However, the practice is still persistent in our present day society. Understanding the cultural dynamics behind it is very important if we are to completely eradicate female genital mutilation. Therefore, this is a gap that needs to be researched on in order to be able to fully understand this practice as well as try to completely eradicate it. Reference Boyle, E. H. (2002). Female Genital Cutting: Cultural Conflict in the Global Community. Johns Hopkins University Press. Gollaher, D (2000). Female Circumcision Circumcision: A History of the World’s Most Controversial Surgery. Basic Books. Gruenbaum, E. (2001) The Female Circumcision Controversy. University of Pennsylvania Press.Advertising Looking for term paper on anthropology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Shell-Duncan, B Hernlund, Y (eds). (2000) Female â€Å"Circumcision† in Africa. Lynne Rienner Publishers Woldemicael, G. (2009). Female Genital Cutting in Contemporary Eritrea: Determinants, Future Prospects and Strategies for Eradication. A journal on Eastern Africa Social Science Research Review, 25(2): 1-29 This term paper on Female genital mutilation was written and submitted by user Muhammad S. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Spina Bifida essays

Spina Bifida essays Spina bifida is a congenital defect that is present at the birth of a child. It is caused by problems with early development of the spine with the main defect being the failure of the closure of the vertebral column that is the bony column that surrounds the spinal cord. Without this closure, the spinal cord is not afforded the usual protection of the vertebrae, and is left open to either mechanical injury or invasion by However, spina bifida may be treated with utero surgery. While this is a risky yet promising procedure, it appears to improve short-term outcomes (Worcester, 2003). Dr. Joseph Bruner, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Vanderbilt, states that, "To date, more than 250 surgeries to repair the lesions associated with spina bifida have been performed at centers such as Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of California, San Francisco, and Vanderbilt University." In utero repair has several advantages over postnatal surgery. They include potentially fewer urinary infections, less gastrointestinal reflux, improved fetal leg function and cognitive development, and less need for shunt placement with The most reoccurring type of spina bifida is an opening in the spine that appears in the body midline anywhere from the neck to the buttocks area. This may be detected before birth and a pediatric surgeon may be available to perform surgery upon birth. Since the spinal cord is not developed properly, the defect may be much more subtle, and may, in fact, be covered with skin, while in spinal rachischisis, the most severe form of spina bifida, the entire length of the spine may be open. The cause of spina bifida may be a combination of genetic factors along with environmental influences that bring about malformation of the spine and spinal column. While all of the reasons that contribute to the ...

Literature Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Literature Review - Essay Example In addition, domestic politics and international politics are perceived to be dissimilar, and their structures are also quite dissimilar. Also, the domestic political structure is defined by the rule of which it is ordered, the specifications of its functions, and the distribution of its capabilities. According to the article, domestic political structure is centralized and hierarchical. Hierarchical means that there are specified rules that impose laws onto the followers. Also, society in the domestic sense is functional and ordered. There are no world leaders who pass total laws onto the citizens. Every state has its specified rule and ideas on what it wants to undertake. The globe is disconnected because of the lack of an overall government. The author brings up a comparison to the economy to highlight how international political structures emerge even in their anarchic state. Waltz states that units’ own interests are individual and spontaneous in origin. Units converge wi th similar ones to enhance their productivity. In the existing world, this is consistent with the fact that some states unite with others for reasons such as security and safety. They are looking for their stability by depending on a different state. It is also argued that international political structures are found on the basis of states because states are the most significant actors in the world of politics. States play a tremendous part in foreign relations, foreign policy, and trade, so international politics is found on the basis of the states. Particularly, international politics resemble units and states following identical patterns of actions. Finally, it is argued that anarchic or international forms, similar to states or units interrelate with one another, while in hierarchic or domestic forms, different states or units interact (Waltz 47). Contribution to the Field The article has contributed to the field in a number of ways. The article explains that not all states are identical in their views of how international politics should be handled or in their forms of government. It also explains how different nations do not fight one another. This is achieved through the employment of power. In the view of the article, the states with the most supremacy are those with the utmost capabilities. This means that the whole structure of the political system can be altered with modifications in the capabilities of specific states. For instance, a country like Britain has sufficient technology, money, military arms, and intelligence. These are all the essential capabilities to solve problems or take over small nations (Waltz 38). The article shows that a state’s capacity to achieve so much is what gives the state power. In addition, the only way significant things can be achieved is by states with magnificent capabilities. This is one of the foremost reasons countries such as the United Stated of America and Britain get involved in peacekeeping missions in countries, for example the Middle East, Bosnia, among others. These unsafe states tend to battle more because they are not sure about other states. The article helps the students in the field to understand the actions of powerful states. Because these states are the most powerful and secure in the world, it is their responsibility to keep the world stable and satisfied (Waltz 39). It explains why they have the

Analysis of a Non-Profit Organization Assignment

Analysis of a Non-Profit Organization - Assignment Example According to the research study it is moral obligation of every individual to give back something to the community that has helped the individual to earn a living. Therefore, some people just contribute back to society by providing financial assistance while others dedicate their lives just to serve the ones in need. Non-profit organizations can operate in different fields like medical research, development programs, and health services and so on. The type of NPO that really interests me is Maryland Angels, which is a NPO that conducts research and treatments for cancer patients.   This paper stresses that  starting a non-profit organization is certainly one of the most inspiring way through which one can help those in need and give back to the community. The first and most important thing here is to always remember that serving community is more important than making money. Ironically, monetary contributions are equally important. Hence, the members serving the NPO will have to carefully balance monetary needs. This is also one of the reasons as to why it takes many years to sustain and grow a non-profit entity.  A non-profit organization’s success or failure is totally dependent on its foundations. The stronger the foundations the more people in the society would come forward to contribute.  Making a non-profit organization attractive to donors is probably the most difficult task. Not only has the very survival of the organization is depended on it but also an indication that the society is accepting it.

How Personal Can Ethics Get Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

How Personal Can Ethics Get - Essay Example She faced a dilemma, outweighed her options, made a choice, and based it, solely, on her personal situation. She ended up not enriching her organization’s ethics. On the other hand, her boss acted on his personal preference. He, too, faced a dilemma, made clearly unethical choice and kept acting on it. Therefore, he not only did not help develop ethics in his organization, he compromised its integrity. In this particular case individual differences and preferences proved to be more important than ethics. Here, the ethical principles were not enforced from the leadership level, or followed by the individuals within the organization. I see organizational ethics as a two way road. On the road, a car, driven by a manager, is heading to meet the other car, driven by an employee. The manager is supposed to give the employee a set of instructions how to deal with ethical questions. Unfortunately, in this case, they never meet. In recent years, with the discovery of unethical business practices in several big and â€Å"prominent† companies, the public started looking more closely into how business is conducted. The focus of this new interest became the ethics in business organizations and how ethical guidelines are followed. We perceive ethics as simply distinguishing right from wrong. On the organizational level this means treating employees and business partners fairly, and leaving no doubt or room for questions about implementation of organizational policies on ethics. Many organizations do have policies and procedures in place to guide individuals in confronting and resolving ethical dilemmas. But, often times that is not enough. What is needed is overall organizational culture in which top management leadership, by clear example, leads everyone else within the organization in navigating the rough waters of ethics. After all, managers and other leaders are the ones facing dilemmas more frequently than

Pro-utilitarianism and ethical decision-making

Pro-utilitarianism and ethical decision-making In its simplest form, utilitarianism presents the means of decision making as a process of elimination. When contemplating which choices are ultimately right or wrong, utilitarianism suggests that the most accurate decisions are those that offer the greatest net outcome, in contributing to the pleasure or happiness amongst a majority of people. Calculating the quantity of pain and pleasure in these decisions allows for the elimination of those that reveal the most negative ends, in order to arrive at a conclusion. In a situation where someone must weigh the consequences of killing one person to save a group of others, or save their own morals by allowing the group to get murdered by someone else, the blatant utilitarian answer tell us to kill the one person. This accounts for the greatest happiness principle, as it grants the maximum good to the maximum number of people. Arguments that could be posed against this would be that integrity and morality are alienated with this method of judgment, as ethics tells us that no one should ever kill anyone because it is morally wrong. Utilitarianism, however, counters these arguments though the simple calculation of weighing positives against negatives. Ultimately, when dealing with this dilemma, the person must choose the lesser of two evils. It is evident that both options are evil in themselves; it is simply a matter of evaluating which one provides a greater good for a greater number. Questionably, the individuals emotions are not taken into consideration and their integrity is relinquished when the lives that could be lost are weighed against, in terms of utilitarianism. Regardless of what the person decides to do, however, not everyone is given the opportunity to live. Utilitarianism advises us that since value is placed on outcomes rather than personal inclination, people want to save for the greater good because human nature suggests that we have the best interests of others at heart. Even if the verdict declares an action that is generally considered immoral through human nature, saving x number of people in contrast to the death of x number of people becomes morally valid from a different viewpoint. Ethically, one may argue that it is immoral to compare the significance of one persons life to somebody elses, as everyone has an equal right to live. Since the traveler must do this comparison, many questions arise from morality because they know for certain they will be left alive. It can be debated that morality is not preserved in utilitarianism, because of the frail distinction between the person committing the murder, and the act of allowing someone else to commit it because of them. From a utilitarian standing, refusing to kill the townsperson would be morally unjust, because it leads to the death of so many other people. This brings about the worst possible outcome. The traveler will either have to live knowing they committed a murder in order to save many, or refused to harm anyone, inadvertently killing many. Presumably, the notion of murder is immoral, but becomes justified because of the greater end result in this particular situation. The outcome of a choice determines i ts morality-where the ends validate the means-when taking into consideration the pleasures and pains of unknown strangers to draw conclusions. The way we think of life in general is mirrored through the idea of utilitarianism. Calculating the costs and benefits of the decisions we make is something we do without any second thoughts, where we gravitate towards those that benefit the most. On a larger scale, utilitarianism takes this to include the pleasure or happiness of the greatest amount of people, ultimately being the highest and noblest end a person can achieve in life. We cannot quantify human happiness in the way we assume Williams wants us to. In suggesting that we are only happy if we are satisfied morally for our own benefit, this seems to suggest a selfish lifestyle. In reality, if people make others happy, this sparks personal happiness. In order to make the right decisions, we must think about what will provide the greatest good for the greatest number, considering all persons involved. We must weigh pleasure and pain, coming to a calculation to determine the best outcome. Ultimately, utilitarianism pertains to a persons character and desires, and does not only consider the outcomes of particular decisions. Once it is distinguished that bad intentions may cause harm-whether it is to you or to others-even if the outcome are not bad acts, the utilitarian analysis widens into a further moral theory where it is able to relate far more directly with the idea of our moral intuitions. When analyzing the decision of whether to commit the murder or not, utilitarianism certainly provides an ethical answer to why killing the one person is the right thing to do. Not only does utilitarianism consider this valid by purely the outcome, but it also provides insight into how our morality plays a role in why we decide to do it as well. Although it can be argued that utilitarianism does not account the morality of the person making the decision-as they must always keep in mind the outcomes of not only themselves, but everyone else as well-morality surely plays a role in the situation provided. Contribution to overall utility is most significant when shaping the morality of choices. Of course, every individual is not obligated to serve the general population every day through this theory, but even if only one other person is profited, it is plausible that an even greater utility and benefit for humanity may arise jointly.

The main differences I am going to look at are the management styles :: Business and Management Studies

The main differences I am going to look at are the management styles related to each of the companies. Introduction This report is looking at the key differences between the two companies that I have been independently researching. The main differences I am going to look at are the management styles related to each of the companies. It also looks at the different structures within the company such as the hierarchy of the company and the range of managers. Ethics is also going to be a key difference between the following companies as they have very separate ideas of what are good/bad behaviors for a business. Both companies are worldwide and well-recognized businesses with thousands of employees and multimillion-dollar profits. Company X In 1975, two teenage friends formed a company. It sold a form of computer language for a self-assembly kit computer based upon Intel processors. The friends were Bill Gates and Paul Allen, they named the company Microsoft. Revenues and profits rose dramatically in the early years. Windows 95 was what really put Microsoft on the map as they started to make billions of dollars in profit each year. Now Microsoft is one of the most profitable companies in the world and Bill Gates is the wealthiest man in the world! Microsoft is now installed in nearly all computers around the world; personally I have never been on a computer that isn’t being run by Windows. That gives you an idea about how big Microsoft really is. Another big issue that concerns Microsoft is the fact that on your average high street there will not be a Microsoft shop. There are not many Microsoft shops in the whole of the U.K. but it is used in nearly every large companies and shops in the world. The Microsoft headquarters are found in the USA but also have separate smaller headquarters around the world. Company Y McDonalds is the world leading food services in the world today; it has 30,000 restaurants in 119 countries and serves 47 million customers each day of the week. It is also one of the most well recognized companies such as Microsoft. It all started in 1955 a good 20 years before the likes of Microsoft. McDonalds is a franchised company meaning a different person owns each restaurant but all have to pay McDonalds main company at one time or another. They’re about 2,800 employees under the McDonalds name. The headquarters for this company is just outside Chicago, in Oak Brook. Each country has its own individual headquarters but all report back to the one in Oak Brook. Even though these two companies seem the same they are very

Nietzsche and Foucault

Both Nietzsche and Foucault have similar ideas about the genealogy of punishment. On the one hand, Nietzsche argued that the initial public displays of punishment arose out of our basic primal instincts – to see the wrongdoer punished in a public manner so everyone who wanted to see their suffering (and according to Nietzsche this mob was composed of anyone who didn't repress their instincts and urges) could do so. Foucault, on the other hand, presents his account as a genealogy. His genealogy gives us an account of the shift from the old method of sovereign power towards the modern method of disciplinary power. In the older system of punishment, the power to execute and punish was held absolutely by the sovereign, and all public displays of punishment were displays of the sovereign's power over their subjects. In the modern system, this power relation between the state and the individual still exists, but is done so in a much more private way. Punishment now takes place behind closed doors, giving rise to the birth of prisons and correctional facilities, exhibiting a more disciplinary power. In other words, the system of punishment shifted from public displays of the sovereign's power over their subjects to private rehabilitative processes meant to change the criminal back to normal standards of society. In this essay I will explain each of the philosophers' ideas about the shift in the method and purpose of punishment, and I will explore how Nietzsche's genealogy of morals could further account for this shift. Foucault's investigation into punishment and the origin of punishment begins with his exploration into why people in society conform to standardized norms and how certain institutions correct people's deviance away from those norms through exercising their power. He explains that this â€Å"corrections† have been historically carried out in the form of two different types of power: sovereign power and disciplinary power. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault asserts that sovereign power is held by the leader or ruler of the land and the subjects, historically residing in the form of a king or other monarch, and the subjects of such a sovereign are made to abide by their laws and regulations. When a subject breaks a law, their punishment is characterized by extreme violence and made to be very public (DP, 7). The execution or punishment itself is most often carried out by a state-appointed executioner, working as a direct representative of the sovereign's power in order to further dissuade the public witnessing the execution of committing other crimes (DP, 9). Around a hundred years later, there was a shift away from these public displays of power and violence to a more corrective and rehabilitating process. Foucault defines disciplinary power as the power to return a wrongdoer to the normative standards of society (DP, 179). As the years go on, power is taken away from a central body and is exhibited through institutions such as schools, prisons, and hospitals where power and knowledge is maintained through the sciences (e.g. psychology, sociology, and psychiatry) rather than laws. This new form of power is exercised over the individual's soul rather by disciplining their body (DP, 30). In other words, these new houses of power prefer a correctional approach in order to rehabilitate the wrongdoer and cut down on the amount of individuals not adhering to the norms of society (DP, 19). By doing this, disciplinary power and punishment is exercised over subjects through hierarchical observation, correcting individuals based off of an accepted norm (DP, 171, 183), and examination, which is characterized by the merging of observation and normalizing in order to more fully understand the actions and thought-process of the individual, thereby gaining more power over them (191). Foucault further argues that this shift from sovereign to disciplinary power was instantiated by evolution of power the state held (or wanted to implement) over its subjects. The new Enlightenment system of punishment that emerged in the early 19th century, although on its face seems to be a reaction against the old system of linking together punishment with violence and spectacle is in fact just a new system of power for the state and a new way of exercising control over its subjects. This new system is supposed to be a more humane way of dealing with offenders – it is meant to be seen as a cure in fact – however, the opposite is true: no longer is it intended to punish the individual, rather it is set up to supervise and observe the individual. This system of disciplinary power is no longer torturing the body, rather it is characterized by the deprivation of some sort of rights and liberties, most often by housing them in some sort of correctional institution. However, for Foucault, this does not remove the harm and injury of corporal punishment for to deprive an individual their rights and freedoms is to inflict a different form of pain. With this current form of punishment, the State has shifted its power into the shadows so to speak. It has distanced itself from grand, gruesome public displays of its power to a more nuanced and covert system of private punishment that no longer sates the bloodlust of the crowds that used to watch the executions (because as we will see with Nietzsche, people began to suppress their natural instincts around the time of the slave-morality revolt) but rather focuses its energy on the degradation of the offender's soul. In his Geneology of Morals, Nietzsche presents his view of how morality (and through that, punishment) has developed over the course of history. Retributivists assert that the essential essence of punishment is contained in the fair and equitable deserts it presents the guilty offenders with. To this, Nietzsche claims that this punishment did not come from the thought that the crimes of the guilty must be punished—in fact, he claims that this judgement is a rather late form of human observation and condemnation. Punishment, in Nietzsche's mind, came about as the will of the masters over the slaves, to enable them to experience and revel in the feeling of condemning someone and being able to abuse someone beneath them. In other words, punishing a wrongdoer was a right of the masters to engage in cruelty, something that was viewed as a positive trait. However, these values changed after the emergence of Christian ressentiment which flipped the cruelty exhibited by the masters before from something good to something evil; this taught man to be ashamed and to reject his primal instincts (those of the masters) which told him that cruelty and abuse was essential to a happy life. Before this reversal, humans celebrated our cruel instincts: â€Å"[W]ithout cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches—and in punishment there is so much that is festival!†( Nietzsche, Genealogy , essay 2, section 6). Nietzsche believed that punishment as it was supposed to be practiced in the days of the masters is no longer how it is actually practiced in modern society. This is because if punishment still represented the sovereign power (as Foucault would put it) of those who punished, we would no longer punish. Originally, punishment came about as the direct expression of the will of the powerful (what Foucault called the â€Å"sovereign†). However, in our modern society, a change has taken places and the roles in punishment have been reversed. Being powerful in ancient times was likened to being cruel and happy; being powerful nowadays is the ability to suppress those instincts, to reject cruelty and through that, punishment. Being able to punish is no longer an act of power over those beneath you; those who now punish are too frail to be able not to punish. This Christian ideal of ressentiment irrevocably changed who punished and what punishment actually is. Those who are now the punishers take punishment as not being the imposition of their will over those weaker than them but rather as the defending of their idea of justice by retributive means, by curing the sick, or by preventing further breaches of this justice. Nietzsche asserts that our understanding of punishment in modern times is a contradiction of its beginnings. He believes that the implementation of punishment—the remains of the â€Å"will to power†Ã¢â‚¬â€now prefers the morality of the weak, and tells them of the importance of getting retribution for the crimes committed, or the importance of doing only that which has utility. Therefore the weak aren't creating a new institution of punishment, rather they are transforming the old version under their new masters, into something that directly goes against what punishment was initially supposed to mean. Taking this idea into the perspective of Foucault, Nietzsche would say that the change in the meaning of punishment from that which gloried in public displays of violence to a penitentiary system which targeted the rehabilitation of the prisoner or to gain some sort of retribution for the criminal's offence has less to do with the punished and more to do with the punishers. To Nietzsche, this shift is in accordance with a rejection and suppression of basic human instincts, where the reveling and celebration of cruelty has been transformed into the idea of retribution or justice.

How Scholarly Articles Broaden the Students Understanding of Any Given Subject

How Scholarly Articles Broaden the Students Understanding of Any Given Subject Scholarly Articles Broaden the Students Outlook The student in higher education may ask: Beyond being required to incorporate them into my essays and papers, how are academic articles important? How exactly can they enhance my understanding of a subject? And don’t I get plenty of information from a course’s textbook? So Why Are They Important? A scholarly article is a short document written by an expert to convey and explore new information on a given subject. They are sources of high-quality information written by experts in a certain field – experts, by the way, who may have dedicated their entire life or career to exploring a subject. Scholarly articles, usually published by an academic press, are most always subject to a peer-review process, which means that in order for an article of this sort to be published a specialist or expert in the field must first evaluate its content, sources, and argument or analysis for quality and originality. This means that ALL the information conveyed in a scholarly article is credible, accurate and therefore beneficial to the student’s understanding of a subject and its real-world relevance and current applications. To put it plainly, scholarly articles, which are found in academic periodicals, are very advantageous to the student. Indeed most students will familiarize themselves with scholarly articles because students are generally required to include them in their research, their essays and their papers; students are usually required to evaluate an article’s content to expand on the topics they themselves are making in their academic work. But scholarly articles can also provide the student – perhaps one who may be struggling with grasping a subject or topic – with a general understanding of a subject. In some cases a textbook may only provide a student with a limited perspective on a topic or issue – while the scholarly article may offer differing viewpoints on a subject, perhaps providing both sides to a controversial subject, as well as explaining which side is more practical and why. They provide the student with the most up-to-date information on a subject, are good sources for generating ideas for papers and presentations, and are often briefer and sometimes easier to comprehend than maybe a textbook’s stale, one-sided and outdated approach in explaining a subject. Rather than providing a simple overview of the subject, which is the case with most textbooks, scholarly articles examine a subject, topic or issue in a practical way. An article of this sort reports on original research or experimentation, the kind usually only generalized in a textbook, and expands on that information and looks at a subject more in depth. The enduring purpose of these kinds of articles is to be made available to the rest of the scholarly or academic world. Scholarly articles can broaden a student’s understanding of a given subject or topic because those writing them are required to list the sources they used to write their article, in the form of footnotes, endnotes, and bibliographies. The student looking to expand their knowledge on a subject can then look up any combination of these used sources, read them thoroughly, and as result will begin to familiarize themselves with a topic on several different levels. always strives to utilize top quality scholarly articles in its work. This ensures maximum quality and relevance of information that gets incorporated into our projects. For most disciplines the requirement is that all information should be no older than five years and from this stand, scholarly articles are an invaluable source of information. Feel free to contact us anytime and we guarantee you will get a quality product. is the service you can trust!

Essay on Health Care Reform ExplainedEssay Writing Service

Essay on Health Care Reform ExplainedEssay Writing Service Essay on Health Care Reform Explained Essay on Health Care Reform ExplainedThree different groups of people include elderly people, families and children, and government. Each of these groups will be impacted by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Kaiser Family Foundation).   The negative effects of the Act will include the effects of health care costs on annual family income and problems with coverage. Nevertheless, there will be positive effects, such as free services, prevention of discrimination and other benefits. For example, children will have the privilege to remain on their parent’s health care insurance plan until 26. As the Act has the major goals to protect patients, increase the quality and affordability of health insurance, reduce the uninsured rate and the costs of healthcare, each of the above mentioned groups will benefit from this reform as coverage and affordability will be increased. I believe that more people will benefit as a result of this policy. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), due to the Act, the cost of healthcare will be reduced. This fact means that more people will be able to get health care services (Onie, 2012). As the Act will provide about 95 percent of Americans with health insurance, preventative healthcare services will be more accessible to different groups.   In addition, people with pre-existing conditions will be not denied in receiving coverage by insurance companies. Besides, insurance companies will not drop insurance plan members when they get sick (Kaiser Family Foundation ,2010).   In general, people who cannot afford health insurance will be allowed to use Medicaid’s program. Besides, due to the Act, budget gaps will be reduced. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) states that the Act will reduce the national budget deficit by $143 billion by 2019 because of taxes and fees. In general, this policy will benefit many people as the coverage will be increased.

Total Quality Management (Case Study) Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Total Quality Management (Case Study) - Essay Example Slight Sports, a sports equipment and hosiery manufacturing firm that has been operational for the last 40 years is one of the top organizations in the area of sports. The firm which started its operations from a single room became one of the top exporter of the sports equipment and accessories of the country. The major products included were footballs, basketballs, volley balls, tennis balls, sports hosieries and all the related equipment to these sports. Initially, Slight Sports catered to the local market for almost five years. The owner of the company, Mr. (XYZ) however, realized the potential of the foreign market and started looking for partners on foreign soils. With his untiring efforts, he found partners in different countries of the world and was able to create strong relationships with them. This was the start of the successful journey that Slight Sports enjoyed for almost thirty odd years. A major characteristic of Slight Sports products was that they were all handmade wh ich ultimately increased the value of their products worldwide. The visionary thinking and leadership characteristics of (XYZ) were instrumental in making Slight Sports earn its success. In the starting years of 2000, XYZ died due to heart disease. His death left a big hole in Slight Sports. The reins of the company were then transferred to his wife who started to look for new partners to modernize the firm in technological terms. The poor management skills and inexperience of Ms. XYZ proved extremely damaging for the firm. Kite Inc. who had been a major collaborator of Slight Sports in different countries ended their contract with Slight Sports sighting the declining quality of products and elimination of unique characteristics that were once forte of Slight Sports (Goldman, 100). The poor order management also played its part in ending of the contract. This was one of the major contract endings in the list which contained few other contract endings as well. Just in a couple of years Slight Sports had to cut back from all the major foreign deals and limited their operations to the local market. It is imperative to note that leadership is a key aspect in deciding a f irm’s success. The strategy, order management, client handling, etc, are important parts of any business, but there is no denying that they all come under the umbrella of leadership (Karni, 59). A firm with strong leader and few resources can attain the unattainable but a firm with huge resources and a weak leader cannot even attain the attainable. Findings, Recommendations & Conclusion The new owner did not realize the actual potential of slight sports. Her inexperience decided the firm’s downfall. She looked for new customers not realizing the company was not in the position to fulfill orders exceeding its capacity. She also cut down the unique characteristic Slight Sports had of â€Å"handmade† products by installing new machines. The installation of machines which should have been a good step proved damaging for them as it eliminated their point of major strength (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 75). The new owner needs to focus on constant quality management t echniques such as implying six sigma concepts in the business after the business gets stable. This is important because for quality to remain consistent, it needs to be maintained on a constant note by strong supervision of policies and procedures. Six sigma concepts may take time to embed in the firm's policies but nevertheless it should be implied as soon as

Cultural Competency in Medicine Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Cultural Competency in Medicine - Case Study Example The University of Nalanda, built in the 4th century, was also one of the greatest achievements of ancient India. Ayurveda, the system of traditional medicine, has its origins in India. Today there are 28 states and 7 Union territories in the country. The Government of India has introduced various health programs and policies. But most of the development indicators paint a grim picture, especially of the remote rural parts, where access to proper health care is still a major challenge. Rural poor often resort to alternative medicines and home remedies, which are cheaper than visiting qualified and trained health professionals. Religious beliefs and superstitions also add to their reluctance. Among many others, diabetes is one of the fastest growing health problems in India. Estimates show that India is home to around 40 million diabetics. This number gives India the dubious distinction of being home to the largest number of diabetics in any one country. The high rate of prevalence of complications is disturbing. The picture becomes all the more gloomy with reports that many patients already have these complications at the time of diagnosis. It is a widely accepted fact that more than 35-40% of people show the presence of some diabetes related complications at the time of diagnosis. India has a distinct need for a comprehensive diabetes care program. ... Most of the health budget is focused around immunization, providing clean drinking water and sanitation to the majority of the people. The government does not seem to have the finances to undertake any major program for non communicable diseases in general and diabetes in particular. Studies show that diabetic foot syndrome, which is a common yet preventable complication of diabetes, is even more neglected aspect of the disease in India. Peripheral sensory neuropathy, improper footwear, lack of patient knowledge about foot care and uncontrolled diabetes are some of the factors contributing to this syndrome. In India, footwear practices vary widely. Apart from a significant proportion of people walking barefoot outdoors, a majority of Indians walk barefoot indoors. While visiting religious shrines, people always go barefoot. In a tropical country like India, where the pavements or asphalt roads become very hot, and the rural pathways are uneven and dusty, walking barefoot can lead to injury. Furthermore, use of footwear like Hawaian chappal, which has a rubber sole supported by a strap in the first inter-digital space, but no back strap, exposes the feet to injury. Shoes, when worn by either sex, are often pointed and thus further expose the foot to injury. Also, the practice of not wearing socks, particularly in Indian females can result in a hyperkeratotic and fissured heel or a callosity of the first interdigital space or injury to the great toe. Overview of the case Murali, 60, has migrated to the US recently from the southern part of India. He has spent most part of his life working as a postman in a remote Indian village. Ever since his wife died two years back, he has been having constant health problems. With no proper medical facilities in

Biopsychosocial Case Study Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Biopsychosocial Case Study - Research Paper Example She provided a delightful, detailed impressive discussion of her past which was in no way connected to her present situation. She discussed irrelevant topics in a cute and charming manner and if the psychiatrist expressed irrelevance and changed the topic, she would become irritated and petulant. Another feature characteristic of histrionic personality disorder in Hilde was her attitude of putting the blame and responsibility of her present difficulties on some one else, other than herself. For example, Hilde stated that her husband was indifferent to her and that she suspected that he was seduced by one of his secretaries. She attributed her somatic symptoms to her husband's indifference towards her. Persons with histrionic personality disorder have interpersonal relationships that are often disrupted, shallow and insincere and emotionally, they overreact to even ordinary situations (Bienenfeld, 2009). When Hilde was pressed hard about her husband's interactions, she could not provi de any meaningful account of his relationship with the suspected secretary or the indifference attitude with her. Persons with histrionic personality disorder are excessively emotional and the emotions are labile. They exhibit attention-seeking behaviour. They are very dramatic and are frequently seductive or sexually provocative. They often suffer from somatoform disorders (Bienenfeld, 2009). Hilde suffered from frequent headaches and the physician has found it difficult to diagnose and treat the disorders Persons with histrionic personality disorder are usually emphatic and also socially perceptive. Hence, they tend to elicit new relationships easily. However, due to their emotionally insensitive nature, they lack the insight of their role in their own relationships and hence to do accept any blame for the inevitable problems in their relationships. Thus, they are closer to the defense mechanism of paranoid patterns of personality. In a parallel interview with Hilde's husband, he admitted that originally, he was attracted towards Hilde because of her physical attractiveness, social status and lively nature. However, over a period of few years, he realized that her love towards him was just a chronic flamboyance and that she never had an integrated personality. It was clear to him that her liveliness was not exuberance and her physical attractiveness was declining naturally, although, Hilde was spending enormous time and money to keep it up. Hilde's husband felt that Hilde was childish and superficial Individuals with this personality are often flirtatious and seduce others sexually (Bienenfeld, 2009). But, for those who follow such clues from these individuals, they do not get paid off much. Histrionic personality is more common in females and in males and infact, they appear ultrafeminine. Intellectual accomplishment is very low in these individuals. As far as analysis thought is concerned, there is deemphasis and hence these individuals are gullible, drama tic and impressionable. While Hilde described her children as wonderful and exceptionally bright and happy, Hilde's husband provided a picture that their behaviour was analogous to that of Hilde and they were spoilt and had academic difficulties. Biological, psychological, and social factors involved in the case Several factors probably contributed to the development of histrionic person

Place Essay Example for Free

Place Essay When we visited them, we ate in their simple kitchen built with bamboo floors. They came wearing traditional Filipino dresses. They looked so beautiful for me (in their old age and single blessedness), and the kitchen smelled like fresh flowers. The other kitchen I can remember is the kitchen of my grandmother in a far remote place, along the Pacific Ocean. My grandmothers kitchen is a big kitchen built of wood. Imagine how old houses looked. There was firewood, big cooking utensils, as if theyre always serving 100 people everyday. There were sacks of rice piled on top of the other. Chickens were roaming in the backyard, down the back kitchen door. I dont know why I can always remember kitchens, even when I go to other homes, in different places. I love that kitchen part of the house. Many people say The kitchen and the toilet are very important rooms in the house. They must be kept clean and orderly at all times. Now, I have my own kitchen where I raised my kids. And as theyre grown ups, I like to work and write here. When I read Afred Kazins The Kitchen, it delighted me by what Kazin saw in the life of her mother. He focused on the kitchen room as the largest room and the center of the house. It was in the kitchen where his mother worked all day long as home dressmaker and where they ate all meals. He writes: The kitchen gave a special character to our lives; my mothers character. All the memories of that kitchen were the memories of my mother. In his essay, Alfred Kazin remembers how her mother said, How sad it is! It grips me! though after a while, her mother has drawn him one single line of sentence, Alfred, see how beautiful! Article Source: http://EzineArticles. om/4722428 This sentence-combining exercise has been adapted from The Kitchen, an excerpt from Alfred Kazins memoir A Walker in the City (published in 1951 and reprinted by Harvest Books in 1969). In The Kitchen, Kazin recalls his childhood in Brownsville, a Brooklyn neighborhood which in the 1920s had a largely Jewish population. His focus is on the room in which his mother spent much of her time working on the sewing she took in to make extra money. To get a feel for Kazins descriptive style, begin by reading the opening paragraph of the selection, reprinted below. Next, reconstruct paragraph two by combining the sentences in each of the 13 sets that follow. Several of the setsthough not allrequire coordination of words, phrases, and clauses. If you run into any problems, you may find it helpful to review our Introduction to Sentence Combining. As with any sentence-combining exercise, feel free to combine sets (to create a longer sentence) or to make two or more sentences out of one set (to create shorter sentences). You may rearrange the sentences in any fashion that strikes you as appropriate and effective. Note that there are two unusually long sets in this exercise, #8 and #10. In the original paragraph, both sentences are structured as lists. If you favor shorter sentences, you may choose to separate the items in either (or both) of these lists. After completing the exercise, compare your paragraph with Kazins original on page two. But keep in mind that many combinations are possible. The Kitchen* In Brownsville tenements the kitchen is always the largest room and the center of the household. As a child I felt that we lived in a kitchen to which four other rooms were annexed. My mother, a home dressmaker, had her workshop in the kitchen. She told me once that she had begun dressmaking in Poland at thirteen; as far back as I can remember, she was always making dresses for the local women. She had an innate sense of design, a quick eye for all the subtleties in the latest fashions, even when she despised them, and great boldness. For three or four dollars she would study the fashion magazines with a customer, go with the customer to the remnants store on Belmont Avenue to pick out the material, argue the owner downall remnants stores, for some reason, were supposed to be shady, as if the owners dealt in stolen goodsand then for days would patiently fit and aste and sew and fit again. Our apartment was always full of women in their housedresses sitting around the kitchen table waiting for a fitting. My little bedroom next to the kitchen was the fitting room. The sewing machine, an old nut-brown Singer with golden scrolls painted along the black arm and engraved along the two tiers of little drawers massed with needles a nd thread on each side of the treadle, stood next to the window and the great coal-black stove which up to my last year in college was our main source of heat. By December the two outer bed-rooms were closed off, and used to chill bottles of milk and cream, cold borscht, and jellied calves feet. Paragraph Two: 1. The kitchen held our lives together. 2. My mother worked in it. She worked all day long. We ate almost all meals in it. We did not have the Passover seder in there. I did my homework at the kitchen table. I did my first writing there. I often had a bed made up for me in winter. The bed was on three kitchen chairs. The chairs were near the stove. 3. A mirror hung on the wall. The mirror hung just over the table. The mirror was long. The mirror was horizontal. The mirror sloped to a ships prow at each end. The mirror was lined in cherry wood. 4. It took the whole wall. It drew every object in the kitchen to itself. 5. The walls were a whitewash. The whitewash was fiercely stippled. My father often rewhitened it. He did this in slack seasons. He did this so often that the paint looked as if it had been squeezed and cracked into the walls. 6. There was an electric bulb. It was large. It hung down at the end of a chain. The chain had been hooked into the ceiling. The old gas ring and key still jutted out of the wall like antlers. 7. The sink was in the corner. The sink was next to the toilet. We washed at the sink. The tub was also in the corner. My mother did our clothes in the tub. 8. There were many things above the tub. These things were tacked to a shelf. Sugar and spice jars were ranged on the shelf. The jars were white. The jars were square. The jars had blue borders. The jars were ranged pleasantly. Calendars hung there. They were from the Public National Bank on Pitkin Avenue. They were from the Minsker Branch of the Workmans Circle. Receipts were there. The receipts were for the payment of insurance premiums. Household bills were there. The bills were on a spindle. Two little boxes were there. The boxes were engraved with Hebrew letters. 9. One of the boxes was for the poor. The other was to buy back the Land of Israel. 10. A little man would appear. The man had a beard. He appeared every spring. He appeared in our kitchen. He would salute with a Hebrew blessing. The blessing was hurried. He would empty the boxes. Sometimes he would do this with a sideways look of disdain. He would do this if the boxes were not full. He would bless us again hurriedly. He would bless us for remembering our Jewish brothers and sisters. Our brothers and sisters were less fortunate. He would take his departure until the next spring. He would try to persuade my mother to take still another box. He tried in vain. 11. We dropped coins in the boxes. Occasionally we remembered to do this. Usually we did this on the morning of mid-terms and final examinations. My mother thought it would bring me luck. 12. She was extremely superstitious. She was embarrassed about it. She counseled me to leave the house on my right foot. She did this on the morning of an examination. She always laughed at herself whenever she did this. 13. I know its silly, but what harm can it do? It may calm God down. Her smile seemed to say this. v John d. hazlett Repossessing the Past: Discontinuity and History In Alfred Kazins A Walker in the City Critics of Alfred Kazins A Walker in the City (1951)1 have almost always abstracted from it the story of a young man who feels excluded from the world outside his immediate ethnic neighborhood, and who eventually attempts to find, through writing, a means of entry into that world. It would be very easy to imagine from what these critics have said that the book was written in the same form as countless other autobiographies of adolescence and rites-of-passage. One thinks imme- diately, for instance, of a tradition stretching from Edmund Gosses Father and Son to Frank Conroys Stop-Time, as well as fictional auto- biographical works such as James Joyces Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. We are encouraged in this view by the publishers, Har- court, Brace World, who tell us on the cover that A Walker in the City is a book about an American walking into the world, learning on his skin what it is like. The American is Alfred Kazin as a young man. Even the most thorough of Kazins critics, John Paul Eakin, writes of A Walker that the young Kazins outward journey to America is the heart of the book. 2 One of the few reviewers who noticed those elements that distin- guish this memoir from others of its kind was the well known Ameri- can historian, Oscar Handlin. Unfortunately, Mr. Handlin also found the book unintelligible: If some system of inner logic holds these sec- tions together it is clear only to the author. It is not only that chronol- ogy is abandoned so there is never any certainty of the sequence of events; but a pervasive ambiguity of perspective leaves the reader often in doubt as to whether it was the walker who saw then, or the writer who sees now, or the writer recalling what the walker saw then. Epi- 326 biography Vol. 7, No. 4 sodic, without the appearance of form or order, there is a day-dreamy quality to the organization, as if it were a product of casual reminis- cence. 3 Handlins charge that the memoir lacks a system of inner logic is incorrect, but he does identify a number of qualities that dis- tinguish A Walker from other coming-of-age autobiographies. One option that is not apparently available to autobiographers, as it is to novelists, is the removal of the authors presence from the narra- tive. And yet autobiographers do manage to achieve something like this removal by recreating themselves as characters. That is, we can distinguish between the author as author and the author as character (an earlier self). In some autobiographies of childhood, where the nar- ration ends before the character develops into what we might imagine to be the autobiographers present self, the writer may never appear (as writer) in the narrative at all. The earlier selves in such autobio- graphies remain as characters. Where the autobiographer appears as both character and writer, however, the distinction is by no means always clear. If the autobiographer actually follows the progress of his earlier self to the narrative present, then the distinction disappears somewhere en route. One can, in fact, distinguish between types of autobiographies according to the strategies they employ to achieve this obliteration of distance between earlier self (as character) and present self (as writer). Kazin has complicated this aspect of his autobiography by recreat- ing two distinct earlier selves: his child self and an adult self, the titu- lar walker. It is this aspect of his memoir that sets it apart from other coming-of-age autobiographies. In none of the conventional works in this sub-genre is the present narrative I so conspicuous a figure (not only as a voice, but as an active character) as it is in Kazins book, and in none of them is the chronological reconstruction of the past so pur- posefully avoided. His memoir, unlike most autobiographies of adoles- cence, is just as much about the efforts of the adult walker to recapture his past self as it is about his earlier attempts to go beyond that self. By granting his present self equal status with the re-creation of his child- hood, he has produced a hybrid form. The central characteristic of that form is the parallel relationship between the quest of the young Kazin to achieve selfhood by identify- ing himself with an American place and a portion of its history, and the quest of the older Kazin to resolve some present unrest about who he is by recovering his younger self and the locale of his own past. The former quest is that story hich critics say the memoir is about, but the latter is located in the memoir on at least two levels. Like the Hazlett repossessing the past 327 childs quest, it is narrated, in that Kazin actually tells us of his return, as an adult, to Brownsville, but its significance is manifest only on an implicit level; we must infer why the quest was undertaken. 4 Kazin emphasizes the symmetry of these two quests by describing each of them in phrases that echo the other. In the first chapter of the memoir, the adult Kazin, walking through the streets of the Browns- ville neighborhood in which he grew up, describes what it means to him: Brownsville is that road which every other road in my life has had to cross (p. 8). By going back and walking once again those familiarly choked streets at dusk (p. 6), he is reviewing his own his- tory in an attempt to settle some old doubts about the relationship between his past and present selves. In similar language, Kazin describes at the very end of the memoir how the boys search for an American identity finally expressed itself in a fascination with Ameri- can history, and in particular with the dusk at the end of the nine- teenth century which was, he thought, that fork in the road where all American lives cross (p. 171). The parallels that we find in language are repeated in the means by which the young boy finds access to America and the adult finds access to his younger selfA—by walking and by immersing himself in the his- torical ambiance of an earlier period. I could never walk across Roe- blings bridge, he says of himself as a boy, or pass the hotel on Uni- versity Place named Albeit, in Ryders honor, or stop in front of the garbage cans at Fulton and Cranberry Streets in Brooklyn at the place where Whitman had himself printed Leaves of Grass, without thinking that I had at last opened the great trunk of forgotten time in New York in which I, too, I thought, would someday find the source of my unrest (p. 72). The young Kazin initially found his way out of Brownsville and into the America of the nineteenth century by walk- ing into an historical locale. It is again by walking, by going over the whole route (p. 8), that the adult Kazin sets out to rediscover his child self in the streets of Brownsville. One may detect, however, an ironic tension between these two quests. The childs search is the immigrant scions search for an Amer- ican identity. It is, in part, the psychological extension of the parents literal search for America, and, in part, the result of his parents ambivalence about their own place in the New World. The most sig- nificant frustration of the young Kazins life was over the apparently unbridgeable discontinuity between them and us, Gentiles and us, alrightniks and us. . . . The line . . . had been drawn for all time (p. 99). This discontinuity represented to him the impossibility of choos- 328 biography Vol. 7, No. 4 ing a way of being in the world. Eventually, it takes on larger meaning in the childs mind to include the distance between the immigrants past in Russia and the late nineteenth century America of Teddy Roosevelt, between poverty and making out all right, between, finally, a Brownsville identity and an American identity. In the childs quest, these petty distinctions I had so long made in loneliness (p. 173) are overcome through a vision of the Brooklyn Bridge that allowed him to see how he might span the discontinuities that left him outside all that (p. 72); and through the discovery of a model for himself as a solitary singer in the tradition of Blake, my Yeshua, my Beethoven, my Newman and a long line of nineteenth century Americans (p. 172). The final element of his victory over them and us, however, was the substitution of Americas history for his own Brownsville history and his familys vague East-European his- tory. His parents past, he said, bewildered him as a child: it made me long constantly to get at some past nearer my own New York life, my having to live with all those running wounds of a world I had never seen (p. 9). To resolve this longing, he says, I read as if books would fill my every gap, legitimize my strange quest for the American past, remedy my every flaw, let me in at last into the great world that was anything just out of Brownsville (p. 172). The adult walker, on the other hand, is searching for the child he once was and for the world in which he grew up; his intention is to re- create his old awareness of the adolescents gaps so that he might resolve them. By the time Kazin begins his retrogression to childhood, ten years have elapsed since his final departure from Brownsville (p. ) and (assuming that the narrative present is also the writers present) some twenty years have elapsed since the final scene of the book. Dur- ing that period, the writer has undergone a peculiar transformation. The adolescents strange quest for an American identity through the substitutio n of Americas past for his own has culminated outside the frame of A Walker in the writing of On Native Grounds,5 a book that is obsessively and authoritatively alive with American history. The young boy has grown up to become one of Americas established literary spokesmen; he has become one of them. In becoming the man, the child has not, however, closed the gaps; he has simply crossed over them to the other side. As a child, Kazin thought of himself as a solitary, standing outside of America (p. 172); as an adult autobiographer, he stands outside of his own past. The adults attempt to imagine his own history, there- fore, begins with the significant perception of his alienation from his Hazlett repossessing the past 329 wn child self and from the time and place in which that self lived. Brownsville is not a part of his present sense of himself, it must be given back (p. 6) to him; and going back reveals a disturbing dis- continuity. The return to Brownsville fills him with an an instant rage . . . mixed with dread and some unexpected tenderness (p. 5). He senses again, he says, the old foreboding that all of my life would be like this (p. 6) and I feel in Brownsville that I am walking in my sleep. I keep bumping awake at harsh intervals, then fall back into my trance again (p. 7). The extent of his alienation from his former self is attested to in the last of Kazins memoirs, New York Jew, where he writes that A Walker was not begun as an autobiography at all, but simply as an exploration of the city. Dissatisfied with the barren, smart, soulless6 quality of what he was writing, Kazin kept attempting to put more of himself into the book. Finally, he says, I saw that a few pages on The Old Neighborhood in the middle of the book, which I had dreamily tossed off in the midst of my struggles with the city as something alien to me, became the real book on growing up in New York that I had wanted to write without knowing I did. 7 There is, naturally, a good deal of irony in this, as well as some pathos, for although Kazin does not expressly acknowledge the rela- tionship between the two quests, it seems clear that the young boys search for an American identity entailed the denial of his own cultural past. Ultimately, this denial necessitated the writing of the book, for the adults search is for the self he lost in his effort to become an Amer- ican. The adults problem is not resolved within the narrative, how- ever, but by the narrative itself. It is the writer who establishes the con- nection between his earlier, lost self and his adult self. In doing this, he completes the bridge to America. The writer in this sense may be distinguished from the adult walker who is, like the young Kazin, merely a character, a former self, within the memoir. In formal terms, the two quests that comprise the narra- tive material of the memoir make up its fabula; the resolution of both quests is to be found only in the coexistence of these two selves in the narrative as narrative. The resolution, in other words, is accomplished by formal, literary means. It is enacted by the memoirs sujet. Given these two quests as the key to the memoirs form, the general structure of the book may be schematized as follows: Chapter I: The walker returns literally to his childhood neighbor- hood and imaginatively to childhood itself. Chapter II: The walker stops and the autobiographer (distinguished 330 biography Vol. 7, No. 4 here from the walker) contemplates the psychological/symbolic cen- ter of childhood, the kitchen. Chapter III: The walker literally returns to the scenes of his adoles- cence and imaginatively to adolescence. Chapter IV: The walker stops and the autobiographer (again, distin- guished from walker) contemplates the psychological/symbolic cen- ter of adolescence, the rites of passage. The use of this structure naturally gives rise to some difficulties of perspective. Mr. Handlins observation that there are at least three dif- ferent points of view: the walker who saw then, or the writer who sees now, or the writer recalling what the walker saw then was apt, even though he could not see that the complexity of perspectives fol- lowed a fairly careful pattern. An analysis of what those points of view are, and how they work together, must begin with the recognition that all earlier perspectives, both the walkers and the childs, are recreated in the writers voice, which mimics them in a very complex form of lit- erary ventriloquism. Given this, one may recognize that within the narrative the writer, the single informing point-of-view, speaks in three different voices: his own as writer, the voice of the adult walker, and the voice of the child. Each of these voices gives rise to variations in narrative technique. In chapters one and three, the writer uses a fictive device to create the illusion that no recollection of the adult walkers perspective is neces- sary in the act of transferring his walking thoughts to the written word. The voice of the adult walker, an earlier self who made the trip, is identified with that of the writer by the frequent use of the present tense: The smell of damp out of the rotten hallways accompanies me all the way to Blake Avenue (p. 7). In these chapters, the walkers memories of childhood are emphasized as memories because his physi- cal presence and voice call attention to the context and the mechanics of remembering. Thus, from the moment the walker alights from the train at Rockaway Avenue in chapter one, the text is sprinkled with reminders that this is the story of the adult walker pursuing the past through cues from the present: Everything seems so small here now (p. 7), the place as I have it in my mind I never knew then (p. 11), they have built a housing project (p. 12), I miss all these ratty wooden tenements (p. 13). Similarly, in chapter three, after Kazin steps away from the more disembodied memory of his mothers kitchen: the whole block is now thick with second hand furniture stores I have to fight maple love seats bulging out of the doors (p. 78), I see the barbershop through the steam (p. 79). Hazlett repossessing the past 331 In both of these chapters, the writer/walkers imagination seizes upon and transforms the landmarks of an earlier period of his life. The literal journey back to Brownsville becomes a metaphorical journey backward in time so that the locale of the past becomes by degrees the past itself: Every time I go back to Brownsville it is as if I had never been away. It is over ten years since I left to live in the cityA— everything just out of Brownsville was always the city. Actually I did not go very far; it was enough that I could leave Brownsville. Yet as I walk those familiarly choked streets at dusk and see the old women sit- ting in front of the tenements, past and present become each others faces; I am back where I began (pp. 5-6). This is, in fact, what gives the book that quality of casual reminis- cence that Mr. Handlin found so unsatisfactory. Kazins technique in chapters one and three is much like that of a person rummaging through an attic full of memorabilia. Each street, each shop serves to spark a particular memory. There is, of course, a danger in this kind of writing. It teeters constantly on the brink of random sentimentalism. The walker always presents the past in a hypermediated form, never through the coolly objective (and hidden) eyes of the impartial self- historian that characterize most conventional autobiographies. This is particularly true when he indulges in nostalgia, as he does when the walker inspects that part of his neighborhood which has been rebuilt as a housing project. There he subjects us to a series of iterated fondnesses, each beginning with the nostalgic I miss (p. 3). But in spite of this flirtation with sentimentality, the walkers presence is not merely an occasion for self-indulgence. In the context of the whole memoir, it clearly serves instead to highlight the drama being played out between the quest of the child and the quest of the adult. As the walker nears the two significant centers of childhood and adolescence, in chapters two and four respectively, he underg oes a transformation. The mediatory presence of the walker disappears, leaving only the disembodied autobiographical voice of conventional memoirs. Unlike the first and third chapters, in which each memory was sparked by actual relics from the past, these chapters take place entirely in the autobiographers imagination. To mark this change, chapter two opens with the writers memory of a previous memory of his mothers kitchen which he compares with his present recollection of it: the last time I saw our kitchen this clearly was one afternoon in London at the end of the war, when I waited out the rain in the entrance to a music store. A radio was playing into the street, and standing there I heard a broadcast of the first Sabbath service from 332 biography Vol. , No. 4 Belsen Concentration Camp (p. 51). This is the voice, not of a rum- maging memory, but of pure disembodied memory. The vision of the kitchen is not sparked by another visit there. In fact, at the opening of chapter two we lose sight of the walker for the first time. The adult Kazins presence is signalled in chapters two and four, not by reference to his present surro undings, but by verb tense alone: It was from the El on its way to Coney Island that I caught my first full breath of the city in the open air (p. 37); although at times, he intrudes into the narrative by referring to his present feelings: I think now with a special joy of those long afternoons of mildew and quiet- ness in the school courtyard (p. 136). The adult walker, however, does not appear in these chapters at all. This transformation, from walker to disembodied memorial voice, draws the reader along the path followed by the adult quester: from the streets of the walkers Brownsville to the streets of the childs Brownsville. As the quester nears his goal, the present Brownsville fades from view. The narrative strategy of A Walker recreates the adults quest by revealing the increasing clarity and intensity of his perception of the childs world. The walkers mediatory presence, initially so conspicu- ous, deliquesces at crucial points so that memory becomes a direct act of identification between rememberer and remembered. The present tense of the walkers observations becomes the past tense of the walkers recollections which becomes the past tense of the writers memory which, finally, becomes the present tense of the childs world. The final identification of writer and child occurs in the two most intense moments of the memoir: at the end of The Kitchen (chapter two) and toward the end of Summer: The Way to Highland Park (chapter four). The first instance follows immediately upon the writers recollec- tion of the power of literature to bridge the gaps between himself and another world. He recalls the child reading an Alexander Kuprin story which takes place in the Crimea. In the story, an old man and a boy are wandering up a road. The old man says, Hoo! hoo! my son! how it is hot! (p. 73). Kazin recalls how completely he, as a young boy, had identified with them: when they stopped to eat by a cold spring, I could taste that bread, that salt, those tomatoes, that icy spring (p. 73). In the next and final paragraph of the chapter, the writer slips into the present tense: Now the light begins to die. Twilight is also the minds grazing time. Twilight is the bottom of that arc down which we have fallen the whole Hazlett repossessing the past 333 long day, but where I now sit at our cousins window in some strange silence of attention, watching the pigeons go round and round to the leafy smell of soupgreens from the stove. In the cool ofthat first evening hour, as I sit at the table waiting for supper and my father and the New York World, everything is so rich to overflowing, I hardly know where to begin, (p. 73) The place and the vision in this curious passage are the childs, but the voice is clearly the adults. Just as the child once tasted the bread, salt and tomatoes of his literary heroes, so now the adult writer achieves an intense identification with his own literary creation: his child self. He sees with the childs eyes, smells with the childs nose, feels the childs expectant emotions, but renders all these perceptions with the adults iterary sophistication. The intensity of expectation which the writer attributes to the child is amplified by the intensity of the writers expectation that the forthcoming richness is as much his as it is the childs. The childs expectations are, ultimately, of that New York world which he discovers in the following chapter. The writers expectations are of a comple tion of identity which can be accom- plished only through the mediation of form. Twilight and the New York World have become formal touchstones in the literary recreation of his self. The second instance takes place toward the end of the memoir and like the first, it immediately precedes a significant passage through to a world beyond the kitchen. Like the first, it also is a recollection of his home, at twilight, in the summer. And to emphasize its signifi- cance as a literary act, the writer echoes the Kuprin passage here: The kitchen is quiet under the fatigue blown in from the parched streetsA—so quiet that in this strangely drawn-out light, the sun hot on our backs, we seem to be eating hand in hand. How hot it is still! How hot still! The silence and calm press on me with a painful joy. I cannot wait to get out into the streets tonight, I cannot wait. Each unnatural moment of silence says that something is going on outside. Something is about to happen, (p. 164) The pages which follow this merging of writer and child, and which end the book, complete the childs emerging vision of his bridge to America. In these pages; the writer employs a new method of recap- turing and re-entering the past. The walk to Highland Park is under- taken by the adolescent and is recalled by the adult in the past tense, but it is given immediacy by the frequent interjection of the adverbial pointers now and here: Ahead of me now the black web of the 334 biography Vol. 7, No. 4 Fulton Street El (p. 168). Everything ahead of me now was of a dif- ferent order . . . Every image I had of peace, of quiet shaded streets in some old small-town America . . . now came back to me . . . Here were the truly American streets; here was where they lived (p. 169). The effect is peculiar, but appropriate. By using the adverbial pointers, here and now, together with the adults past tense, Kazin is able to convey the eerie impression that he is, finally, both here, in the adults present, and there, in the childs past. The bridge between them is complete. The complexity of perspective and structure in Kazins memoir caused Mr. Handlin to observe that chronology is abandoned so there is never any certainty of the sequence of events. In most autobio- graphies, the inevitable discontinuities between present and past selves are overcome by the construction of a continuous, causally developed, and therefore meaningful, story. By purposefully avoid- ing such a reconstruction with its solid assumptions of the reality of the selfs history and the ability of language to convey that reality with- out serious mediatory consequences, Kazin refocuses our attention on the autobiographer/historianA—not the past as it was, but history as recreated by the imagination. Self-history in A Walker is not continu- ous and linear, but spatial; the past is not a time, but a place. For the youth, it was a place from which he wanted to escape. For the adult, it is a place to which he fears to return (the old foreboding that all my life would be like this) and to which he feels he must return in order to complete and renew himself. The childs world seems timeless; it is frozen in a tableau, like a wax museum, in which the adult can explore, in a curiously literal manner, his own past. That some of the figures are missing or that the present may actually have vandalized the arrangement of props, only intensifies its apparent isolation from adult, historical life. This difference between the timelessness of childhood, as we per- ceive it in the memoir, and the adults implied immersion in history may illuminate the nature of the quest upon which the autobiographer has embarked. We can see, for instance, that the motivation which lies behind the quest for identity is grounded upon assumptions about the nature of life in history. The discontinuity felt by both the child and the adult is not simply between a Brownsville identity and an Ameri- can identity, but between the Timelessness which childhood repre- sents and History. Burton Pike, writing from a pyschoanalytic perspective, has sug- gested that autobiographies of childhood in general reveal a fascination Hazlett repossessing the past 335 with states of timelessness: the device of dwelling on childhood may also serve two other functions: It may be a way of blocking the ticking of the clock toward death, of which the adult is acutely aware, and it may also represent a deep fascination with death itself, the ultimately timeless state. 9 The adults return to Brownsville becomes, in this view, a journey motivated not simply by a desire for completion of identity, but also by a desire to escape the exigencies of historical life- death, as Pike asserts, and, perhaps more obviously, guilt. The writing of A Walker, Kazin says in New York Jew, was a clutch at my old innocence and the boy I remembered . . . was a necessary fiction, he was so virtuous. 10 What is of particular interest in Kazins memoir, however, is the manifest content of the childs quest whic h offers a counterpoint to Pikes useful analysis. The fascination in A Walker, works both ways: the adult longs for the childs timeless world and the child longs for the adults sense of history. Moreover, as the adolescent stands outside of America, he longs not only to possess a history of his own, but to enter history. The child is never interested in the past for its own sake; he wishes to be one of the crowd, to be swept along in the irrevocable onward rush of political and social events. Entering history for him is the clearest and most satisfying form of belonging. Kazins memoir is not, therefore, reducible to a psychoanalytical model. Since he always handles the issue of life in history consciously, it is difficult to approach the relationship between the autobiographer and time as though the writer were himself unaware of the implica- tions of his subject matter. His escape from history through the recovery of childhood was, at least on one level, a very conscious rejec- tion of the autobiographical form dictated by Marxist historicism and chosen by many leftist writers during the 30s, the period of his own coming-of-age. Writers in this older generation felt that successful self re-creation, both autobiographical and actual, could be accomplished only by determining ones position vis A vis a cosmic historical force. 11 Kazins choice of autobiographical form was partly a response to the effect that this philosophy had had on him as a young man. In his sec- ond memoir, Starting Out in the Thirties, Kazin recalls, with disillu- sionment, the sense of exhilaration that accompanied his own histori- cism during the Great Depression: History was going our way, and in our need was the very life-blood of history . . . The unmistakable and surging march of history might yet pass through me. There seemed to be no division between my efforts at personal liberation and the appar- ent effort of humanity to deliver itself. 12 One might argue, of course, that as an autobiography of childhood, 336 biography Vol. 7, No. 4 A Walker does not deal with the historical world, and therefore can- not address the problems of historicism. But to do so would be to ignore the overwhelming importance which Kazin places upon the relationship between the individual and history in all of his writings, and in particular in his autobiographical work. By emphasizing the adults role in the reconstruction of the child, and by creating a paral- lel between the older mans reconstruction of his childhood and the childs reconstruction of the American past, Kazin locates the source of historical meaning, whether personal or collective, in the historian and undermines historicisms claim that the past possesses meaning independent of human creation. Kazin does not, however, advocate a view of identity divorced from collective history, nor does he value the personal over the collective past. More than most autobiographers of childhood, Kazin has the sensibilities of a public man, a writer very much in and of the world. As we descend with him into the vortex of his reconstructed past, the larger world that he is leaving is always present or implied. More- over, Kazins return to his lost innocence provides more than a mere escape from history because the childhood he reconstructs was full of a longing for history, as we have seen. The childs Whitmanesque dream that he could become an American by assimilating Americas past was born of a belief that the collective past might somehow deliver him from us and them, from the feeling that as isolated indi- viduals (outside of history) we are meaningless. By 1951, when he wrote A Walker, he had indeed been delivered by his dream out of iso- lation, but the post-War, post-Holocaust America in which he found himself was not the one which his history had promised. It is in this context that the return to childhood must be read. The young Kazin had dreamed that collective history would be the salvation of the self; the older Kazin, even while remaining committed to collective history, realized that history, far from providing our salvation, was the very thing from which we must be saved. The power of A Walker ulti- mately derives from the tension between this commitment to our col- lective fate and the belief that our only salvation from that fate lies in a consciousness of the past. The adult walkers reconstruction of his childhood may have begun as an effort of the historical self to connect with an apparently ahistorical self, but the ironic achievement of that effort was the discovery that the earlier self had, in fact, been firmly grounded in history, the history of first generation immigrant Jews. The peculiar intensity with which Kazin identifies his personal past with the collective past raises questions about the relationship of both Hazlett repossessing the past 337 o the larger question of life in history and makes A Walker an interest- ing example of the options available to contemporary American auto- biographers. A Walker rejects the historicism of the 30s and the forms of the self that such historicism produced, but nevertheless maintains the belief that the self is never fully realized until it has defined its rela- tionship to the issues of the times; that is, to historical issues. It is precisely this belief which distinguishes Kazins autobiogra phy from other coming-of-age memoirs. On the surface, it appears to appeal to a private and psychological explanation of the self, but finally it relies firmly upon the belief that only the determination of our relationship to collective experience can provide our private selves with worth. This belief provides the motivation for the two quests discussed in the first half of this essay. In a Commentary article published in 1979, Kazin wrote that the most lasting autobiographies tend to be case histories limited to the self as its own history to begin with, then the self as the history of a particular moment and crisis in human history . . 13 In its presenta- tion of the latter, A Walker reflects not only the struggle of a first-gen- eration immigrant son to become an American, but also the struggle of the modern imagination, which has lost faith in either a divine or a cosmic ordering of history, to recreate a meaningful past. The life of mere experience, Kazin says in that article, and especially of history as the suppo sedly total experience we ridiculously claim to know, can seem an inexplicable series of unrelated moments. In A Walker, the child and the adult are both motivated by the autobiographical belief that history still constitutes meaning and identity; both yearn for con- tinuity. But by focusing on the context in which the past is reclaimed, Kazin emphasizes the difficulties and limitations of his task and places it on the insecure basis which attends every human effort to create meaning. Such an approach to the relationship between history and the self demands finally that the walker be able to tread a tightrope between the reality of the past and the solipsism toward which a reliance on imagination and language tends. Burton Pike has stated that as the twentieth century began, belief in History as a sustaining external principle collapsed, and suggests that the term autobiography cannot accurately be said to apply to twentieth century forms of self-writing since it might best be regarded as a historical term, applicable only to a period roughly corre- sponding to the nineteenth century; that period when, in European thought, an integrity of personal identity corresponded to a belief in the integrity of cultural conventions. 14 By using as his examples 338 biography Vol. 7, No. 4 authors who had come to autobiography from the Modernist move- ment (he mentions Musil, Stein, Rilke, Mailer), Pike has certainly overestimated the impact of Modernism (which relativized and internalized time) on our basic conception of history. Even within the literary community (and particularly among those, like Kazin, who were raised in a leftist political tradition), there was widespread resis- tance to ideas of time that impinged upon the nineteenth century notions of history. The weakest point in Pikes argument is, in fact, his failure to acknowledge the strength of the Marxist legacy in twentieth century thought, and in particular the effect of historicism on modern autobiographies. Even Kazins A Walker, in spite of its rejection of ideological historicism and its attention to the subjectivity of the self- writer, retains a belief in history as fate. Perhaps the significance of Kazins book lies in its revelation of one mans response to the dilemma of his generation: their vision of the self, which was shaped and sustained by historicism, collapsed just when they were about to enter upon the stage of history. Confronted with the collapse of this sustaining external principle autobio- graphers committed to the idea of life in history were faced with the difficult task of defining anew how one might transcend the inexplic- able series of unrelated moments that constitute our daily experience. Kazins return to childhood in A Walker is one answer. Other autobio- graphers are still trying, with varying degrees of success, to find sub- stantial historical movements and directions with which to structure the past, give meaning to the present, and help predict the future. Even a cursory glance at contemporary autobiographical writing reveals that there are many ways to do this; most clearly it can be seen in the increasing numbers of autobiographies written by members of newly self-conscious groupsA—Blacks, women, gays, a generation. The belief held by each of these groups that their time has come is a form of historicism (frequently unconscious) that allows the individual autobiographer to transcend mere experience by identifying him/herself with the historical realization of the groups identity. They provide ample evidence that autobiographies, even at this late post- Modernist date, remain both a literary and a historical form. 15 University of Iowa NOTES 1. A Walker in the City (New York: Harcourt Brace ; World, 1951). AU subsequent references to this book will be given in the body of the text. Hazlett repossessing the past 339 2. John Paul Eakin, Kazins Bridge to America, South Atlantic Quarterly, 77 (Win- ter 1978), 43. This article provides an excellent summary and discussion of the coming-of-age aspect of the memoir. Readers interested in a thorough reading of the memoir are referred to Sherman Paul, Alfred Kazin, Repossessing and Renewing: Essays in The Green American Tradition (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. , 1976), pp. 236-62. 3. Oscar Handlin, rev. f A Walker in the City, Saturday Review of Literature, 17 November 1951, p. 14. 4. One might add that most autobiographies are structured in this way: on the one hand, the explicit journey of the youthful I toward manhood, and, ulti- mately, toward a complete identification with the narrative I; on the other hand, the implicit journey of the adult, narrative I backward in time to find an earlier self, Kazins memoir is distinguished by the wa y in which it makes this second journey such an important and explicit aspect of the narrative. . (New York: Harvest, 1942). 6. New York Jew, (New York: Vintage, 1979), p. 313. 7. New York Jew, p. 320. 8. Kazins loss of his childhood is reflected indirectly in On Native Grounds, the monumental literary history that culminated his search for an American past. That work conspicuously omits any discussion of the contribution of Jews to American literature. Thus, Robert Towers remarks in Tales of Manhattan (New York Review of Books, May 18, 1978, p. 2): The great immigration of East European Jews passes unnoticed, as though it had never happened as though it had not deposited Alfred Kazins bewildered parents on the Lower East side. So powerful has been the subsequent impact of Jewish writing upon our consciousness that it seems incredible that Kazin should have found noth- ing to say about its early manifestations in a history so inclusive as On Native Grounds. 9. Time in Autobiograph y, Comparative Literature, 28 (Fall 1976), 335. 10. New York Jew, pp. 232 and 321 respectively. The return to childhood as renewal through reconnection with an earlier, innocent self is common to many auto- biographies and most eloquently expressed in William Wordsworths The Prel- ude: There are in our existence spots of time,/That with distinct pre-emi- nence retain/A renovating virtue, whence . . . our