scholarly journals Brooklyn Gentrification and the Act of Settling in Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles

Humanities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 26
Author(s):  
Carl White
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
The Us ◽  
New Nation

Contemporary Brooklyn fictions, as a genre, are centrally concerned with gentrification and authenticity. This article situates literary Brooklyn and these concerns in relation to the United States at the national level. Thinking about Brooklyn’s gentrification demands one to be necessarily cognizant of the borough as a social, cultural, economic, and psychological space within the context of the US as a colonial nation-state. I argue that Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles (2016), whose titular characters are enactors of both Brooklyn gentrification and a romanticized act of settlement in a fictional new nation-state, exemplifies this link between gentrification at the local level and a search for authenticity at the national level. Through a reading of the novel, I argue that Brooklyn gentrification is intimately bound with US settler colonialism, which in The Mandibles is sustained by the novel’s representations of finance and the whiteness of its narrative focalization.

scholarly journals Underneath Kyoto: Emerging Subnational Government Initiatives and Incipient Issue-Bundling Opportunities in China and the United States

2008 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Koehn
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Stress Reduction ◽  
Traffic Congestion ◽  
Local Level ◽  
National Level ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Healthy Human ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Stabilization Policies

At present, progress in mitigating global GHG emissions is impeded by political stalemate at the national level in the United States and the People's Republic of China. Through the conceptual lenses of multilevel governance and framing politics, the article analyzes emerging policy initiatives among subnational governments in both countries. Effective subnational emission-mitigating action requires framing climatic-stabilization policies in terms of local co-benefits associated with environmental protection, health promotion, and economic advantage. In an impressive group of US states and cities, and increasingly at the local level in China, public concerns about air pollution, consumption and waste management, traffic congestion, health threats, the ability to attract tourists, and/or diminishing resources are legitimizing policy developments that carry the co-benefit of controlling GHG emissions. A co-benefits framing strategy that links individual and community concerns for morbidity, mortality, stress reduction, and healthy human development for all with GHG-emission limitation/reduction is especially likely to resonate powerfully at the subnational level throughout China and the United States.

Why Two Parties? Ambition, Policy, and the Presidency

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 275-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
John H. Aldrich ◽  
Daniel J. Lee
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Party System ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
New Parties ◽  
The Us ◽  
Duverger's Law ◽  
National Electorate

Duverger’s Law suggests that two parties will dominate under first-past-the-post (FPTP) within an electoral district, but the law does not necessarily establish two-party competition at the national level. United States is unique among FPTP countries in having the only durable and nearly pure, two-party system. Following this observation, we answer two questions. First, what contributes to the same two parties competing in districts all across the country and at different levels of office? Second, why is the US two-party system so durable over time, dominated by the same two parties? That is, “Why two parties?” As an answer, we propose the APP: ambition, the presidency, and policy. The presidency with its national electorate and electoral rules that favor two-party competition establishes two national major parties, which frames the opportunity structure that influences party affiliation decisions of ambitious politicians running for lower offices. Control over the policy agenda helps reinforce the continuation of a particular two-party system in equilibrium by blocking third parties through divergence on the main issue dimension and the suppression of latent issue dimensions that could benefit new parties. The confluence of the three factors explains why the United States is so uniquely a durable two-party system.

scholarly journals Other People’s Cabins: German Inversions of Onkel Tom’s Hutte

Lateral ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristin Moriah
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Housing Projects ◽  
Uncle Tom's Cabin ◽  
The Us ◽  
Archival Work

Kristin Moriah’s essay is rooted in extensive archival work in the US and Germany, examining the transatlantic circulation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin through markets of performance and literature in and between Germany and the United States. The essay follows the performative tropes of Uncle Tom’s Cabin from its originary political resonances to the present-day restaurants, train-stops, and housing projects named for the novel. Moriah reveals how the figurations of blackness arising from these texts are foundational to the construction of Germanness and American-German relations in the early 20th century and beyond.

scholarly journals Bicycling, Birding and #BLM across America in a Summer of Chaos

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Edwards
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
National Level ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
The United States ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Rural America ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
The Us ◽  
White Violence

From 6 June to 20 August, 2020, I undertook a 76-day, ~3800 mile bicycle trip across the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. In this talk I will share with you some of the amazing people, landscapes and birds I encountered, mostly in rural towns and along blue highways. The gradually changing birdscape, both in sight and sound, underscored the sensitive ecological gradients to which birds respond, as well as the ability of some species to thrive in agricultural monocultures. Rivers large and small regularly benchmarked my progress, as well as the western journey of Lewis & Clark over 200 years ago. The recent incidents in the US involving African Americans as targets of white violence inexorably caused me to festoon my bicycle with #BlackLivesMatter (#BLM) signs and share my experiences on social media. I encountered a variety of reactions, often positive and occasionally sharply negative, in a sea of generosity and extraordinary kindness as I wheeled my way through towns on the brink of collapse, vast private ranches and the occasional city. Rural America exhibits an abundance of loyalty and empathy for local communities, yet it is sometimes hard for Americans – myself included – to empathize with people they have never met in person. Two imperatives I took away, with ramifications for both biodiversity and political stability, were the need to somehow bring divergent communities together and to encourage empathy at the national level, among communities that otherwise experience each other only on TV.

scholarly journals Novel Coronavirus, Old Partisanship: COVID-19 Attitudes and Behaviours in the United States and Canada

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 357-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Pickup ◽  
Dominik Stecula ◽  
Clifton van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Early Response ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Us ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
American Case ◽  
Conservative Media ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

The novel coronavirus reached the United States and Canada almost at the same time. The first reported American case was January 20, 2020, and in Canada it was January 15, 2020 (Canada, 2020; Holshue et al., 2020). Yet, the response to this crisis has been different in the two countries. In the US, President Donald Trump, prominent Republicans, and conservative media initially dismissed the dangers of COVID-19 (Stecula, 2020). The pandemic became politicized from the early days, and even though Trump and Republicans have walked back many of their initial claims, there continue to be media reports of partisan differences in public opinion shaped by that early response. At the same time, the response in Canada has been mostly characterized by across-the-board partisan consensus among political elites (Merkley et al., 2020).

scholarly journals NEGOTIATING VIRTUE AND REALPOLITIK IN ISLAMIC GOOD GOVERNANCE

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asma Afsaruddin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Good Governance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Us Constitution ◽  
Democratic Nation

These words of John Lewis represent a scathing criticism of the contemporary failures of the United States, the oldest and possibly most vibrant democratic nation-state in the world. The words also express a deep disappointment that the principles of equality and justice enshrined in the US constitution have been honored more in the breach when they pertain to African-Americans, many of whose ancestors arrived on these shores long before those of their Euro-American compatriots.

scholarly journals Utilizing Multi-Sensor Fire Detections to Map Fires in the United States

2014 ◽  
Vol XL-1 ◽  
pp. 161-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. M. Howard ◽  
J. J. Picotte ◽  
M. J. Coan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Landsat Imagery ◽  
Local Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Burn Severity ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Fire Occurrence ◽  
Cooperative Effort ◽  
The Us ◽  
Occurrence Records

In 2006, the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project began a cooperative effort between the US Forest Service (USFS) and the U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) to map and assess burn severity all large fires that have occurred in the United States since 1984. Using Landsat imagery, MTBS is mandated to map wildfire and prescribed fire that meet specific size criteria: greater than 1000 acres in the west and 500 acres in the east, regardless of ownership. Relying mostly on federal and state fire occurrence records, over 15,300 individual fires have been mapped. While mapping recorded fires, an additional 2,700 "unknown" or undocumented fires were discovered and assessed. It has become apparent that there are perhaps thousands of undocumented fires in the US that are yet to be mapped. Fire occurrence records alone are inadequate if MTBS is to provide a comprehensive accounting of fire across the US. Additionally, the sheer number of fires to assess has overwhelmed current manual procedures. To address these problems, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Applied Sciences Program is helping to fund the efforts of the USGS and its MTBS partners (USFS, National Park Service) to develop, and implement a system to automatically identify fires using satellite data. In near real time, USGS will combine active fire satellite detections from MODIS, AVHRR and GOES satellites with Landsat acquisitions. Newly acquired Landsat imagery will be routinely scanned to identify freshly burned area pixels, derive an initial perimeter and tag the burned area with the satellite date and time of detection. Landsat imagery from the early archive will be scanned to identify undocumented fires. Additional automated fire assessment processes will be developed. The USGS will develop these processes using open source software packages in order to provide freely available tools to local land managers providing them with the capability to assess fires at the local level.

UN Palestinian agency will turn page on ethics scandal

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
The Us ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
East Jerusalem ◽  
Agency Management ◽  
Management Issues

Subject Fallout from UNRWA ethics scandal Significance Last month, the UN Security Council voted overwhelmingly to renew the mandate of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), responsible for assisting Palestinian refugees, for three years. The agency has been under pressure following the US withdrawal of funding in 2018, and a scandal that broke last summer over alleged abuse by agency management, which led several nation-state donors to suspend payments. The officials implicated have now left UNRWA. Impacts Allegations that the UN was slow in responding to concerns may raise questions over unaddressed management issues in other agencies. Having already withdrawn all funding, the United States lacks leverage to push for any changes to UNRWA’s work. Without support at the diplomatic level, Israeli pressure on UNRWA may now focus on restricting its activities in annexed East Jerusalem.

A Legacy of Exclusion: The Geopolitics of Immigration and Latinas/os in the South

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yalidy Matos
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Settler Colonialism ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
The South ◽  
Us South ◽  
Immigration Legislation ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Past

“A Legacy of Exclusion” briefly traces the historical migration of Latinas/os to the US South, countering the myth that the migration of Latinas/os to the region is new. Additionally, the piece argues that the exclusion Latinas/os face in the region is a continuation of racist policies and unequal power dynamics in the South that link Latina/o presence to a longer historical past and legacy. Through an examination of Alabama’s anti-immigration legislation, HB 56, I make two interrelated arguments. First, I argue that although there is nothing new about Latina/o migration to the region, what is new is the geopolitics of immigration — specifically, the proliferation of immigration enforcement within the interior of the United States. Second, these kinds of racist exclusionary projects have historical precedent. The contemporary regulation of nonwhite bodies is part of a much longer legacy of social control in the United States. Moving forward, I urge scholars of Latina/o studies and related fields whose focus is on the US South to engage with the history of settler colonialism, the displacement of native peoples, and the African American history of this region as a way to make important historical connections among and across racialized and otherized groups.

scholarly journals Estimating the early death toll of COVID-19 in the United States

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel M. Weinberger ◽  
Ted Cohen ◽  
Forrest W. Crawford ◽  
Farzad Mostashari ◽  
Don Olson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
United States ◽  
Health Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Complete Picture ◽  
Public Health Impact ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Us ◽  
Novel Coronavirus

ABSTRACTBackgroundEfforts to track the severity and public health impact of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, in the US have been hampered by testing issues, reporting lags, and inconsistency between states.Evaluating unexplained increases in deaths attributed to broad outcomes, such as pneumonia and influenza (P&I) or all causes, can provide a more complete and consistent picture of the burden caused by COVID-19.MethodsWe evaluated increases in the occurrence of deaths due to P&I above a seasonal baseline (adjusted for influenza activity) or due to any cause across the United States in February and March 2020. These estimates are compared with reported deaths due to COVID-19 and with testing data.ResultsThere were notable increases in the rate of death due to P&I in February and March 2020. In a number of states, these deaths pre-dated increases in COVID-19 testing rates and were not counted in official records as related to COVID-19. There was substantial variability between states in the discrepancy between reported rates of death due to COVID-19 and the estimated burden of excess deaths due to P&I. The increase in all-cause deaths in New York and New Jersey is 1.5-3 times higher than the official tally of COVID-19 confirmed deaths or the estimated excess death due to P&I.ConclusionsExcess P&I deaths provide a conservative estimate of COVID-19 burden and indicate that COVID-19-related deaths are missed in locations with inadequate testing or intense pandemic activity.RESEARCH IN CONTEXTEvidence before this studyDeaths due to the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, have been increasing sharply in the United States since mid-March. However, efforts to track the severity and public health impact of COIVD-19 in the US have been hampered by testing issues, reporting lags, and inconsistency between states. As a result, the reported number of deaths likely represents an underestimate of the true burden.Added Value of this studyWe evaluate increases in deaths due to pneumonia across the United States and relate these increases to the number of reported deaths due to COVID-19 in different states and evaluate the trajectories of these increases in relation to the volume of testing and to indicators of COVID-19 morbidity. This provides a more complete picture of mortality due to COVID-19 in the US and demonstrates how delays in testing led to many coronavirus deaths not being counted in certain states.Implications of all the available evidenceThe number of deaths reported to be due to COVID-19 represents just a fraction of the deaths linked to the pandemic. Monitoring trends in deaths due to pneumonia and all-causes provides a more complete picture of the tool of the disease.

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