Fighting and Flying: Archival Analysis of Threat, Authoritarianism, and the North American Comic Book

In this archival study, themes of authoritarianism ( Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, & Sanford, 1950 ) were content coded in American comic books. Comic books produced during years of relatively high social and economic threat (1978–82 and 1991–92) contained more aggressive imagery, more conventional themes, less intraception, and fewer spoken lines by women characters relative to comic books produced during years of relatively low threat (1983–90). Unexpectedly, speaking roles for characters of color did not differ due to the influence of threat. Discussion focused on the theoretical relationship between threat and manifestations of authoritarianism at the societal and individual levels.     

Text and Tune,Speaking and Listening: Musical Resources in Pastoral Care

This article examines the power of music to help transform suffering. It draws on insights from the work of music theorist David Schwarz (1997) that bridges psychoanalysis, music, and culture; and from Daniel Levitin’s (2008) work on music and human nature, especially as it pertains to religion, ritual and songs. Schwarz describes listening to music as a process of retrospective fantasy and as a type of transference experience. If how we listen to music is shaped by traces of past experiences, then music as a resource in pastoral care has the potential to assist ministers in the process of guiding their parishioners to re-trace painful experiences in ways that “re-sound” with thoughts and feelings which have become an impediment to healing. A “case study” in which the author was a “player” (or more accurately performer) is briefly examined, and the role of music in the lives of Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers (Lopez 2008) is explored to demonstrate how music—specifically religious music or song associated with religious ritual—is an overlooked resource for pastoral care. The article concludes with an illustration of how individuals’ personal associations with a hymn may have implications for pastoral care.     

The school psychologist in a non-school setting

School psychologists may be found in non-school settings which allow them to use training and experience gained in a school psychology doctoral program. This article briefly describes one such setting and emphasizes the need in multidisciplinary clinics for more psychologists with this training, since it enables them to make unique contributions to education, interdisciplinary communication, clinical diagnoses, and research. Children's clinics need a person who is knowledgeable in both education and psychology and who is trained to work effectively with other disciplines.     

Individual,Pre-Migration,and Post-Settlement Factors in Predicting Academic Success of Adolescents from Refugee Backgrounds: a 12-Month Follow-Up

The current study investigated the role of individual, pre-migration, and post-settlement factors in predicting academic success of 62 adolescents from refugee backgrounds with self-reported ages of 11 to 18 years at a 12-month follow-up. Academic success was defined in terms of school retention and academic achievement. School retention was predicted by pre-migration academic English proficiency, whilst engagement in vocational training was predicted by age and pre-migration trauma. Academic scores on elective subjects were predicted by gender and pre-migration trauma. Learning support required was predicted by psychological distress. The findings have important implications for schools and policy-makers in providing resources to facilitate the academic success of adolescents from refugee backgrounds in Australia.     

Punishment,Forgiveness and Reconciliation

It is sometimes thought that the normative justification for responding to large-scale violations of human rights via the judicial appararatus of trial and punishment is undermined by the desirability of reconciliation between conflicting parties as part of the process of conflict resolution. I take there to be philosophical, as well as practical and psychological issues involved here: on some conceptions of punishment and reconciliation, the attitudes that they involve conflict with one another on rational grounds. But I shall argue that there is a conception of political reconciliation available which does not involve forgiveness and this forms of reconciliation may be the best we can hope for in many conflicts. Reconciliation is nevertheless likely to require the expression of what Darrell Moellendorf has called ‘political regret’ and the denunciatory role aspect of punishment makes it particularly well-suited to this role.     

Epicurean Wills,Empty Hopes,and the Problem of Post Mortem Concern

Many Epicurean arguments for the claim that death is nothing to us depend on the ‘Experience Constraint’: the claim that something can only be good or bad for us if we experience it. However, Epicurus’ commitment to the Experience Constraint makes his attitude to will-writing puzzling. How can someone who accepts the Experience Constraint be motivated to bring about post mortem outcomes?

We might think that an Epicurean will-writer could be pleased by the thought of his/her loved ones being provided for after his/her death. Warren has argued that this does not dissolve the puzzle, since it involves a hope which the Epicurean should take to be empty just as the fear of death is empty. However, if it is a necessary condition of an emotion’s being empty that it involve accepting a claim which is not only false but also harmful it is not clear that this hope is indeed ‘empty’: there is a crucial disanalogy between fearing death and hoping for the prosperity of one’s children here. And if emptiness does not require harmfuless, an Epicurean has no need to rid themselves of the emotion.