Self-Constructing Women: Beyond the Shock of Baise-moi and A ma soeur!

Following the release of the French films Baise-moi (2000) by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, and A ma soeur! (2001) by Catherine Breillat, the debate surrounding film pornography and censorship in France has escalated to vertiginous heights. This paper aims to situate the work of these radical female film-makers within the context of a changing cultural and social climate in contemporary France. It draws on the theories espoused by sociologist Henri Mendras, who posits the idea that French society has emerged from its “second revolution” as one that is free of fundamental conflict – a society in which women are better positioned than men to resist stereotype and create dynamism both collectively and personally. The argument revolves around the way in which the controversial films of Despentes and Breillat not only inform and challenge the theories espoused by Mendras, but also subvert conventional cinematic representations of heterosexual sex and female sexuality. These ground-breaking films are therefore invaluable for the questions they raise about the role of sex in the cinema in France and the existing boundaries between eroticism and pornography. More importantly however, they represent a rebellion against a male-dominated cultural reality – or in the words of the film-makers themselves, they are effectively a “declaration of war.

First year student expectations: Results from a university-wide student survey

Although much has been written on the first-year experience of students at higher education institutions, less attention has been directed to the expectations of students when they enter an institution for the first time. This paper provides additional insights into the expectations of students at an Australian university and highlights areas in which students’ expectations may not necessarily align with the realities of common university practices. By providing opportunities for students to articulate their expectations, staff are able to use the responses for a constructive dialogue and work towards a more positive alignment between perceived expectations and levels of student satisfaction with their experience.Geoffrey Crisp, Edward Palmer, Deborah Turnbull, Ted Nettelbeck, Lynn Ward, Amanda LeCouteur, Aspa Sarris, Peter Strelan, and Luke Schneide

Rearing-group size determines social competence and brain structure in a cooperatively breeding cichlid.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from The University of Chicago Press for The American Society of Naturalists via http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/681636Social animals can greatly benefit from well-developed social skills. Because the frequency and diversity of social interactions often increase with the size of social groups, the benefits of advanced social skills can be expected to increase with group size. Variation in social skills often arises during ontogeny, depending on early social experience. Whether variation of social-group sizes affects development of social skills and related changes in brain structures remains unexplored. We investigated whether, in a cooperatively breeding cichlid, early group size (1) shapes social behavior and social skills and (2) induces lasting plastic changes in gross brain structures and (3) whether the development of social skills is confined to a sensitive ontogenetic period. Rearing-group size and the time juveniles spent in these groups interactively influenced the development of social skills and the relative sizes of four main brain regions. We did not detect a sensitive developmental period for the shaping of social behavior within the 2-month experience phase. Instead, our results suggest continuous plastic behavioral changes over time. We discuss how developmental effects on social behavior and brain architecture may adaptively tune phenotypes to their current or future environments.We acknowledge financial support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (31003A_133066 to B.T. and P2BEP3_155614 to S.F.), the Foundation Pierre Mercier, and the Austrian Science Fund (J 3304-B24 to A.K.