er...some classy work

Since I am currently burdened with term papers I've decided to cut and paste some of my academic work (no need for laxatives!). Before I do this, here's a painful list of what needs to be done by December 7th:

• 15 page research essay for Lowman comparing the Swedish legal model (punish the John)which addresses the prostitution 'problem' to that of the current Canadian legal system (too confusing to explain - prostitution is legal in Canada per se, but all activities surrounding it are not). This essay needs to be impressive as Lowman (or JLo as Robb C. affectionately calls him) has agreed to be my Crim. thesis supervisor next year.
• 15 page research proposal for my qualitative research methods course. I am proposing a study where male prostitutes' (or 'Hustlers' as they call themselves) views about the police and prostitution law are examined using the in-depth interview method. I will be accessing my sample population using snowball sampling (a non-probabilistic sampling technique) and then be using content analysis techniques to to examine the data.
• 10 page research essay examining gender inversion the Old English poem Judith.
• 18 pages worth of Journal entries regarding various issues in Restorative Justice for Crim 315.

And here is a treat:

Journal #2: Criminal Justice in Post-Industrial Society
The second week’s readings about restorative justice concern corrections as an industry and the legitimization of current correctional practices, such as the vast increase in the U.S. prison population. Welch argues that the government resorts to “fraud” (2003: 228) in order to deceive the public into supporting “tough law and order measures [which they believe] are necessary to protect citizens” (2003: 228). Thus, the government lies to the public in order to gain its acquiescence to imprison a growing number of its citizens. My problem with Welch’s argument, as with Christies (2000), is that they assume that the public, who votes these deceptive politicians into government, is completely passive and gullible. While the media does “loop[]…film footage of violent street crime [which] is constantly being reframed and reshown” (Welch, 2003: 229), resulting in excessive fear of crime (Glassner, 1999 in Welch, 2003), it should not be assumed that viewers are tied to their chairs with their eyes pealed open. On the contrary, various television programs and networks are heavily reliant on ratings. High ratings reflect a large audience watching a particular TV program. In sum, it is the audience (i.e.-this supposedly passive public), which strongly influences what is being shown on television, probably more so than by “the media under the influence of government news sources” (Welch, 2003: 229). As Surette[1] astutely observes, crime in the media “allows audiences voyeuristic glimpses of rare and bizarre acts, [and, indeed] portrayals of crime has been a rich source for the entertainment media” (1998: 25). In part, it is the public which demands to see crime.
If the public is to be considered (at least somewhat) impassive, one must wonder why it is willing to accept “tough on crime” political rhetoric. Welch not only points to the media for creating public acquiescence with this rhetoric, but also the powerful economic forces that promote the corrections industry (2003: 227). Once again, he seems to ignore the fact that politicians are voted into government by the public, and therefore must have some vested interest in “Get Tough” policies. What I’m getting at here is that Welch ignores other cultural forces that contribute to a crime control-oriented society which actively favours mass imprisonment. More attention to what Elliot calls “social distancing” (Lecture #2), might explain the public’s willingness to promote a crime control approach.
Elliot asserts that social distance desensitizes people, making it possible for individual’s to objectify others (Lecture #2), as an “us/them” perspective pervades individuals’ conceptions of strangers and groups of people unlike them. I would add that it is not only social distancing which produces this effect, but also social isolation. In modern society, communities are disintegrating, extended families are broken up into several, cross-continental nuclear family units, and technology has reduced potential face-to-face contact between individuals. Often it is the case (although not in Liz Elliot’s case), that we do not know our neighbours, we travel to our various commitments in single occupancy vehicles (SOVs), and we spend more time watching the boob-tube than engaging with other members of society. The warning we received as children to “never talk to strangers” seems to have pervaded our approach to ‘others’ as adults. Because we spend so much time in our various cubicles (the office/study carrel, the car, the security-protected house, the anonymous supermarket), we deny ourselves “experienced reality, one’s directly experienced world” (Surette, 1998: 6). That is, instead of taking a walk in the park at night to find out if were going to get mugged, we watch TV and take the news anchors word for it (that we will be mugged if we take a walk in the park), echoing Surette’s thesis that “we depend heavily on the social reality created by the media” (1998: 7).
Social isolation further contributes to a crime control society as it promotes an atmosphere of distrust. It is this atmosphere of distrust that encourages the use of surveillance by individuals and organizations to make sure others can’t hurt them. While Welch observes that political ‘tough on crime rhetoric’ “justifies [the government’s] greater use of coercive mechanisms for social control” (2003: 231), I would add that the corresponding ‘tough on crime’ public is inverting and exercising social control on itself. We are, in effect, shifting the panoptic gaze on one another because we no longer trust one another. The ‘nanny-cam’ is certainly symptomatic of this phenomenon, demonstrating that we trust more an electronic machine than another person.
Thus, it is not only the government who desire’s greater control over the public. Since society is willing to accept and participate in a crime control society (through mutual surveillance, for example), it becomes evident that the emergence of “tough law and order measures” (Welch, 2003: 228) in the criminal justice system are the product of more than just government and media fraud. Instead, other forces are at work in producing this phenomenon, one of these being the isolationist character of modern Western society. While I feel that Welch’s argument is warranted, I am very cautious of any assumption that denies the interplay of power between the government and the public. Certainly, someone has to vote the bastards in.
[1] Surette, R. (1998). Media, Crime, and Criminal Justice: Images and Realities (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.

And here are some more bee dogs:

"But Dunny, you're Queer": Transgressing Heteronormativity in Robertson Davis' Fifth Business

V.Kowalewski

Robertson Davies’ Fifth Business is a text concerned with the unknown. The novel tracks the search to uncover the unknown by the narrator and protagonist, Dunstan Ramsay. In his quest of self-discovery, Ramsay uncovers many different facets that constitute the unknown in his world. One of the spheres of the unknown has to do with sexuality. Indeed, the prevalence of sexual images throughout the novel indicates that sexuality is a dominant motif. This sexual theme is present from the beginning. The birth of Paul Dempster is the first defining moment in Dunstan’s life, and even though Dunstan is still a child, he asserts, “I was directly responsible for a grossly sexual act –the birth of a child” (Davies, 17, my emph.). Thus, the reference to a gross sexuality sets the stage for the theme of sexuality to be presented in a non-normative sense. The most obvious example of a subject that practices non-normative sexuality is the character of Liesl. Thus, the chapter in which Liesl tries to seduce and rape Dunstan (Liesl, chapter 5, pages 224-231), is the most potent in which to examine this theme of non-normative sexuality. Queer Theory will be the guiding force used to explore this theme in the novel. Before dissecting the sexual (mis)adventures of Dunstan Ramsay, however, a brief explanation of queer theory is required in order to set definitional parameters.
Queer theory asserts that sexuality, like gender, is not the result of biology, but instead constructed and manipulated by social and cultural forces. (Quinn, 268, Hedges, 35). Thus, for queer theorists, homosexuals and heterosexuals are not born, they are made. In the same vein, queer theory contests the simplistic binary between a homosexual and a heterosexual definition of sexuality (Hawthorne, 285). Instead, queer theorists, such a Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, argue that sexuality is fluid, indeterminate and ambiguous; it cannot be categorized in a simplistic binary opposition of gay/strait (Hedges, 35). It is t also this indeterminacy and ambiguity that best characterizes queer sexuality. Often, the term ‘queer’ is equated with homosexuality. This is a mistake, as queer is used in the sense “of meaning unusual, or not ordinary” (Quinn, 268). As will be applied to Fifth Business, queer sexuality encompasses sexual acts and perspectives that cannot be placed within the realm of what normal sexual behaviours such as, monogamy, heterosexuality, and missionary-style sexual intercourse done solely for the purpose of love and procreation. Using this definition of queer sexuality then, Dunstan Ramsay’s explosive meeting with Liesl, which is described as having taken place on a “battlefield’ (Davies, 228), is the central climactic scene of the novel where Dunstan is ‘outed’ as a queer.
At one point during the perverted seduction scene, Liesl suggests that sex between herself and Dunstan would be “unusual[ly] savour[y]” (226) as she is “grotesque” and he is “not all there” (226). While Liesl may be suggesting that Dunstan is mentally incomplete, she is also noting his physical deformity. Dunstan is a modern Quasimodo in the sense that he is half-formed: he is missing a leg and part of an arm. Reducing Dunstan’s sexuality merely to his physicality, Liesl’s suggestion implies that sex with Dunstan will always be “unusual” as long as he is physically deformed. This logic explains why Dunstan rejects Diane’s offer of a heterosexual land monogamous married life. Dunstan knows that, at the basest level, he is queer as he is physically incapable of behaving in a sexually normal fashion when he says, “to me at least there seemed something unseemly about the union of my scarred and maimed body with her unblemished beauty” (82). This scenario is repeated when he tries to make light of his physical deformities, and Agnes Day Gloria Mundy, Libby Doe do not understand his queer/strange humour (117) as they reside in the realm of normal sexuality. Furthermore, Dunstan resists engaging in sex with Leola when his artificial leg reminds him of his foreignness to normative sexual practices when it gives “an ominous croak” (189). Thus, Dunstan is not prevented from engaging in heterosexual activities because women find him repulsive, but because his body itself does not meet the physical prerequisites of hetero-normative sexuality. While Dunstan fails to engage in normal behaviour, other instances demonstrate his willingness to engage in queer behaviour.
At first Dunstan fervently claims that he “was not going to be ravished by a Swiss gargoyle” (227), asserting himself as a normal heterosexual male who would only engage in sexual activities with an attractive woman. Later, he characterizes his sexual encounter with as Liesl as delightful, healing, and tender (231). Not only does Dunstan ‘give in’ to queer sexual activity, he enjoys it. Even though the encounter with Liesl is portrayed as an initiation into the realm of queer sexuality, as there is a battle of wills beforehand, it is not the first time Dunstan has engaged in non-normative sexual activities. When Boy Staunton insists that Dunstan look at erotic photos of Leola in his and Leola’s presence, Dunstan engages in such queer activities as a sexual threesome and voyeurism. After their ‘sexual encounter’, Boy asks Dunstan if he found “it too hot” (158), while never specifying what it was, except to add that it was “a bit unusual” (158). Furthermore, prior to his sexually tempestuous encounter with Liesl, he engages in a second act of voyeurism when he spies Faustina and Liesl having sex (223), indicating that queer sexual encounters are not only thrust upon him (as Liesl has done), but that they are also something he seeks (spying on Faustina) and something he acquiesces to (Boy’s photos). Perhaps the most notable aspect of Dunstan’s queer sexuality has nothing to do with those sexual encounters he engages in, but the fact that he chooses, for the most part, to avoid having sex.
As the title of the novel indicates, and as Liesl insists, Dunstan is Fifth Business. For Liesl, Dunstan is the “odd man out, the person who has no opposite of the other sex” (231). Her assertion is generally true; Dunstan remains a bachelor throughout the novel. Interestingly, it is this bachelor lifestyle that prompts Boy Staunton to inform Dunstan that he is “queer” (198). While Boy uses the term queer as “strange, funny, not like other people” (198) to characterize Dunstan, Dunstan’s automatic reaction to the term “queer” is suspicious. For Dunstan, queerness is equated with “the Sin of Sodom” (198), implying that he views his bachelorhood as a sexual kind of queerness. This sexual view of his strangeness is obvious as it contrasts with Boy’s nonsexual definition of queer. Another reference to Dunstan’s bachelorhood as queer occurs when he rejects Leola’s offer of sexual liaisonship. Dunstan speaks of his single life using the bed metaphor: “I had made my bed and I intended to lie on it, and there was no room for Leola in it” (190). Since he equates his bachelor lifestyle with a bed, an object where copulation often takes place, it is evident that he regards his bachelorhood as a sexual choice, a sexual choice that has to be defended from being defined as queer. © Victoria A. Kowalewski. 2005.

And that is all for today.