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"To whom do the streets 'belong"'?' This question, formulated by Susan Buck-Morss in an article on Walter Benjamin, will serve as the starting point for an itinerary among some of Georges Bataille's writings between 1930 and 1941. The itinerary will be labyrinthine because following Bataille is never a simple process; but also because that decade was particularly tortuous in its historical unfolding, and I want to read Bataille's texts with and against the history of the 1930s. I will argue that as the decade moved toward its disastrous close, Bataille's thinking about politics and action turned increasingly inward and that, rather than constituting a major break in his thought, this inward turn--culminating in the publication of L'Expirience intirieure in 1943-offered a solution, albeit a paradoxical one, to the "outward" questions of politics and action that had preoccupied him throughout the 1930s. As to what this has to do with virility-wait and see.

Although medicalization of dementing disorders encompasses broad societal developments, such trends influence and are influenced by the context of everyday expectations and behaviors. This study provides evidence based on data from physicians in the medical community and family caregivers in the lay community that the medicalization process of Alzheimer's disease and related disorders remains incomplete. The findings suggest that physicians and families currently resolve the paradox between physician capability and family expectations by accepting the definition of Alzheimer's disease as a unique, highly variable, currently incurable illness.

Dear Raquel Portillo Bauman: Contrary to convention, I am addressing these remarks to you-knowing full well, of course, that our exchange is indirectly addressed to the readers of Signs. By addressing my reply to you directly, I hope to emphasize our similarities without losing sight of our differences. I am interested not in drawing sharp, uncrossable lines-between women and men, between women of different races, classes or ethnic groups, between you and me-but in finding areas of common concern and, where possible, common action. Lest you think that means I'm going to be "nice" and not voice any disagreements with you, let me reassure you that that is not the case! But a good argument, I hope you will agree, is an exchange of views from which both parties emerge the wiser, with mutual respect, not a sparring contest in which opponents try to get the better of each other. Besides describing your personal reactions to my essay and some of your own feelings about motherhood, your letter raises some important general questions. One of these is the relationship between collective responsibility and individual maternal responsibility for the well-being of children. Although you seem to believe that I adhere to the "exclusive maternal responsibility" view, I thought I had made more than clear in my essay that I consider collective responsibility both socially necessary and psychologically beneficial to mothers and children. Why did I argue, at the end of the essay, for universally available day care and emphasize Erik Erickson's notion of"trustworthy contemporary surroundings," if not precisely because I believe that mothers should not be made to bear child-rearing responsibilities alone? The "myth of maternal omnipotence" is, as I make clear (and as Nancy Chodorow and Susan Contratto, who coined that phrase in an article I cite, also emphasize), just that-a myth, not reality. At the same time, I recognize and try to account for the power of this myth, or fantasy, as it manifests itself in works of literature ranging from traditional fairy tales to modern novels like Mary Gordon's Men and Angels (New York: Random, 1985); and also as it manifests itself both in psychoanalytic theorizing about motherhood and in the life experience of mothers. Although I criticize, both here and in my earlier essay, "Writing and Motherhood," the

To examine the association between physical activity and inflammatory markers, with consideration for body fatness and antioxidant use.Cross-sectional study, using baseline data from the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study.Metropolitan areas surrounding Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Memphis, Tennessee.Black and white, well-functioning men and women (N=3,075), aged 70 to 79.Interviewer-administered questionnaires of previous-week household, walking, exercise, and occupational/volunteer physical activities. Analysis of covariance was used to examine the association between activity level and serum C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), and plasma tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha) with covariate adjustment. Antioxidant supplement use (multivitamin, vitamins E or C, beta carotene) was evaluated as an effect modifier of the association.Higher levels of exercise were associated with lower levels of CRP (P.01), IL-6 (P.001), and TNFalpha (P=.02) (e.g., CRP=1.95 mg/L for no exercise and 1.72 for180 min/wk). Adjustment for body fatness attenuated the associations somewhat. Use of antioxidant supplements modified the CRP (P(interaction)=.01) and IL-6 (P(interaction)=.08) associations such that concentrations were low in those taking supplements (e.g., CRP=1.79-1.84 across exercise levels) and higher in nonsupplement users who did no exercise (2.03) than in those who did the most (1.72). Among nonexercisers, higher levels of other physical activity were related to lower levels of CRP (P.01) and IL-6 (P=.02) but not TNFalpha (P=.36), even after accounting for body fat.Inflammatory markers are lower in older adults with higher levels of exercise and nonexercise activity and in antioxidant supplement users regardless of exercise level.

To examine the relationship between indicators of inflammation and the incidence of mobility limitation in older persons.Prospective cohort study: the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study.Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Memphis, Tennessee.A total of 2,979 men and women, aged 70 to 79, without mobility limitation at baseline.Serum levels of interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNFalpha), and C-reactive protein (CRP) and soluble cytokine receptors (IL-2sR, IL-6sR, TNFsR1, TNFsR2) were measured. Mobility limitation was assessed and defined as reporting difficulty or inability to walk one-quarter of a mile or to climb 10 steps during two consecutive semiannual assessments over 30 months.Of the 2,979 participants, 30.1% developed incident mobility limitation. After adjustment for confounders (demographics, prevalent conditions at baseline, body composition), the relative risk (RR) of incident mobility limitation per standard deviation (SD) increase was 1.19 (95% confidence interval (CI)=1.10-1.28) for IL-6, 1.20 (95% CI=1.12-1.29) for TNFalpha, and 1.40 (95% CI=1.18-1.68) for CRP. The association between inflammation and incident mobility limitation was especially strong for the onset of more severe mobility limitation and when the levels of multiple inflammatory markers were high. When persons with baseline or incident cardiovascular disease events or persons who were hospitalized during study follow-up were excluded, findings remained similar. In a subset (n=499), high levels of the soluble receptors IL2sR and TNFsR1 (per SD increase: RR=1.23 (95% CI=1.04-1.46) and RR=1.28 (95% CI=1.04-1.57), respectively) were also associated with incident mobility limitation.Findings suggest that inflammation is prognostic for incident mobility limitation over 30 months, independent of cardiovascular disease events and incident severe illness.

A major historical phenomenon of our century, exile has been a focal point for reflections about individual and cultural identity and problems of nationalism, racism, and war. Whether emigres, exiles, expatriates, refugees, or nomads, these people all experience a distance from their homes and often their native languages. Exile and Creativity brings together the widely varied perspectives of nineteen distinguished European and American scholars and cultural critics to ask: Is exile a falling away from a source of creativity associated with the wholeness of home and one’s own language, or is it a spur to creativity? In essays that range chronologically from the Renaissance to the 1990s, geographically from the Danube to the Andes, and historically from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, the complexities and tensions of exile and the diversity of its experiences are examined. Recognizing exile as an interior experience as much as a physical displacement, this collection discusses such varied topics as intellectual exile and seventeenth-century French literature; different versions of home and of the novel in the writings of Bakhtin and Lukacs; the displacement of James Joyce and Clarice Lispector; a young journalist’s meeting with James Baldwin in the south of France; Jean Renoir’s Hollywood years; and reflections by the descendents of European emigres. Strikingly, many of the essays are themselves the work of exiles, bearing out once more the power of the personal voice in scholarship. With the exception of the contribution by Henry Louis Gates Jr., these essays were originally published in a special double issue of Poetics Today in 1996. Exile and Creativity will engage a range of readers from those whose specific interests include the problems of displacement and diaspora and the European Holocaust to those whose broad interests include art, literary and cultural studies, history, film, and the nature of human creativity. Contributors. Zygmunt Bauman, Janet Bergstrom, Christine Brooke-Rose, Helene Cixous, Tibor Dessewffy, Marianne Hirsch, Denis Hollier, Henry Louis Gates Jr., Linda Nochlin, Leo Spitzer, Susan Rubin Suleiman, Thomas Pavel, Doris Sommer, Nancy Huston, John Neubauer, Ernst van Alphen, Alicia Borinsky, Svetlana Boym, Jacqueline Chenieux-Gendron

Caught in the middle of a sabbatical leave, the author resists the friendly pressure of the editor at first, arguing that Paris is the wrong place for him to write about exile. He finally indulges in a series of bittersweet recollections that lead him to map the ever more global geolinguistic divide that is currently pulling two "French" cultures apart, one domestic and one foreign (not to say estranged), one that circulates through speech and the other through print among the so-called reading knowledge communities.

Contemporary Jewish Writing in Hungary features works by twenty-four of Hungary's best writers who have written about what it means to be Jewish in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe. This volume includes work by Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz and other internationally known writers such as Gyorgy Konrad and Peter Nadas, but most of the authors appear here in English for the first time. This anthology features poetry, long and short stories, and excerpts from memoirs and novels by postwar writers. Some of these authors were well known in Hungary before World War II, some were children or adolescents during the war and began publishing in the 1970s, some were born to survivors in the years immediately following the war and grew up during the decades of Communist rule, while others started publishing chiefly after the fall of Communism in 1989. Unique among Eastern European countries, Hungary still has a large and visible Jewish population, many of them writers and intellectuals living in Budapest. This anthology introduces English-speaking readers to outstanding works of literature that show the wide range of responses to Jewish identity in contemporary Hungary. The editors' introduction provides a historical and critical context for these works and discusses the important role of Jews in Hungarian culture from the late nineteenth century to the present.