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Allen’s critique of current Frankfurt School theory presents the joint methods of “problematizing genealogy” and “metanormative contextualism” as alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. Through a close reading of Allen’s critique, I investigate whether Allen’s identification of philosophy of history is an accurate diagnosis of the problems of the normative grounding of current Frankfurt School theory, whether Allen’s distinction between metanormative and normative levels is tenable for critical theory, and whether Allen’s methodology constitutes a viable alternative for the normative grounding of critical theory. As an alternative, I suggest scrutinizing the grounding strategies of current Frankfurt School theory to expand beyond their genealogy in Enlightenment thought, and address the question of what made the affirmative form of thought underlying current Frankfurt School theory a historical possibility. Expanding on Allen’s reiteration of the mediated nature of categories, I suggest that the stark contrast between forms of thought underlying first- and second-generation Frankfurt School critical theory needs to be understood not in relation to philosophy of history but against the backdrop of the specific context of the European historical present that informs its normative universe.

This review of Amy Allen’s book, The End of Progress (2016), first addresses the structure of the book and focuses on specific points made in individual chapters, including the affinity between postcolonial theory and the approaches of Adorno and Foucault in subjecting the notion of historical progress to “withering critique,” and Allen’s alternative approach to decolonization; Habermas’ aim to put critical theory on a secure normative footing; Honneth’s stance that the history of an ethical sphere is an unplanned learning process kept in motion by a struggle for recognition; Forst’s attempt to reconstruct Critical Theory’s normative account through a return to Kant rather than Hegel; and Allen’s claim that her approach is fully in the spirit of Critical Theory and could be seen as continuation of Critical Theory’s first generation, as in Adorno, and how it is a “genealogical” approach that draws on Adorno’s negative dialectics and critique of identity thinking, as well as on Nietzsche’s conception of genealogy, as developed by Foucault. The second part of my response raises three issues: (1) Allen’s partial compromise with the idea of progress; (2) whether critical theory would profit from engagement with other critical theories and theories of ethics, beyond postcolonial theory; and (3) nonwestern theories shed a different light on the question of Allen’s critique, a theme that also draws attention to the gesture of decolonizing, the distinctions between colonialism and empire, and the sociology of knowledge production.

In The Changing Body (Cambridge University Press and NBER, 2011), we presented a series of estimates showing the number of calories available for human consumption in England and Wales at various points in time between 1700 and 1909/1913. We now seek to correct an error in our original figures and to compare the corrected figures with those published by a range of other authors. We also include new estimates showing the calorific value of meat and grains imported from Ireland. Disagreements with other authors reflect differences over a number of issues, including the amount of land under cultivation, the extraction and wastage rates for cereals and pulses and the number of animals supplying meat and dairy products. We consider recent attempts to achieve a compromise between these estimates and challenge claims that there was a dramatic reduction in either food availability or the average height of birth cohorts in the late-eighteenth century.

This introduction provides an overview of the discourse on alternative agrifood movements (AAMs) to (1) ascertain the degree of convergence and divergence around a common ethos of alterity and (2) context the chapters of the book. AAMs have increased in recent years in response to the growing legitimation crisis of the conventional agrifood system. Some agrifood researchers argue that AAMs represent the vanguard movement of our time, a formidable counter movement to global capitalism. Other authors note a pattern of blunting of the transformative qualities of AAMs due to conventionalization and mainstreaming in the market. The literature on AAMs is organized following a Four Questions in Agrifood Studies (Constance, 2008) framework. The section for each Question ends with a case study to better illustrate the historical dynamics of an AAM. The literature review ends with a summary of the discourse applied to the research question of the book: Are AAMs the vanguard social movement of our time? The last section of this introduction provides a short description of each contributing chapter of the book, which is divided into five sections: Introduction; Theoretical and Conceptual Framings; Food Sovereignty Movements; Alternative Movements in the Global North; and Conclusions.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Australian universities commemorated the First World War, with a focus on the University of Melbourne as an institution with a particularly rich history of wartime participation and of diverse forms of memorialisation.

A case study approach is taken, with an overview of the range of war memorials at the University of Melbourne. These include memorials which acknowledged the wartime role of individuals or groups associated with the University, and took the form of architectural features, and named scholarships or academic positions. Three cross-campus war memorials are examined in depth.

This paper demonstrates that there was a range of war memorials at Australian universities, indicating the range of views about the First World War, and its legacies, within university communities of students, graduates and staff.

University war commemoration in Australia has not been well documented. This study examines the way in which the particular character of the community at the University of Melbourne was to influence the forms of First World War commemoration.

Although the concept of duty has a historic and philosophical foundations dating back to Aristotle, there is very little theory and research in this area of scientific inquiry. In an effort to address this lack of scholarship, a theoretical foundation and a model are presented that clearly delineate the construct of duty, and the nature of its development within an individual-organization relationship. Using social exchange theory and the three-component model of organizational commitment as the conceptual foundations, the proposed duty development model explains the individual-level antecedents and the phases of commitment that individuals may progress through during their tenure in an organization. The various types of exchanges and transactions inherent in the social exchange theory provide the basis for each phase of commitment individuals experience. It is proposed that certain antecedents make individuals more likely to form a sense of duty toward an organization, but the development of this type of relationship requires an organization to focus on commitment building efforts, such as perceived organizational support and organizational culture. Contributions to theory and research, organizational implications, and directions for future research are discussed.

To understand whether the three dimensions of work–family culture, namely managerial support, negative consequences and organizational time demands relate in different ways with different types of commitment; affective, continuance and normative. The relationships were examined in a three-country cross-national context.

Questionnaire survey was conducted in India, Peru and Spain among executives and managers drawn from both the manufacturing and the services sectors.

The three countries were both similar and different with Peru and Spain more similar to each other than with India. Managerial support dimension of work–family culture predicted affective commitment across all the three countries. Differences were found with respect to predictors of normative commitment. Managerial support predicted normative commitment for Spain. Lower negative career consequences resulted in decreased normative commitment among the managers in Peru and Spain.

The study has limitations of generalizability and common method variance.

Human resource managers will find the study useful to determine which dimensions of work–family culture would predict the outcomes desired. The study has implications for the design of human resource practices in the industry.

The study is the first that addresses the three dimensions of work–family culture and organizational commitment in a cross-national context. The study suggests that the way in which work–family culture is conceptualized and experienced by employees may vary even among countries classified as “collectivist.”

This paper constructs real wage series for nineteenth-century Algeria and Tunisia, and compares them with existing Egyptian and Syrian series. Archival sources are used for price and nominal wage data. Following Allen (2001), nominal wages are deflated with a consumer price index. The series are tested for robustness. Real wages were initially dispersed, but converged to similar levels by the end of the period. There is no evidence of a broad-based improvement in living standards over the period, with real wage series declining in Algeria, and stagnating in Egypt, Tunisia and Syria. The findings paint a less optimistic picture of living standards compared to other measures like GDP per capita and compared to some of the historical literature. Data for the Maghreb are scarce, and more work will need to be done on finding more wage and price observations.