Critical scholars and intellectuals are often viewed as vanguards of intellectual rigor, moral integrity, and left-leaning/left-liberal politics. In particular, their trajectories tend to be examined from a sympathetic lens: as supporters of lower-class social movements. Unfortunately, this approach overlooks the varied agency of these critical scholars and their complex relationship with the very movements that they often claim to represent. It obscures their potentially unequal socioeconomic status and cultural gap with the movements they engage with. This is not to dismiss their contribution or deny the reality of state repression against some of them, but a more grounded, sober approach to studying these cognitive workers is needed.

This study investigates the value-appropriating, politically-moderating, status-seeking tendency in some parts of critical knowledge production and activism. It advances several claims. First, the increasing neoliberalisation of the research sector exacerbates the process of class differentiation among critical scholars and intellectuals. The majority join the swelling rank of precarious cognitariat, whereas a selected stratum becomes part of the professional managerial class. Second, the latter stratum contains new intellectual actors who enjoy economic, cultural, and, political benefits from their advantaged position at the expense of precarious scholar-activists and marginalised communities, as exemplified in their public celebrity status or appointment into policymaking decisions. Lastly, as an illustration, and a form of self-criticism, I interrogate my position as an early-career researcher of Indonesian politics, show my own role and complicity in the neoliberal research industrial complex, and reflect on possible ways out of this politico-intellectual impasse.

Argumentation is often conceived as a rational response to disagreement, even when it does not resolve differences of opinion. Arguing in the face of disagreement has, however, distinctive epistemic effects. Sometimes argumentation achieves convergence of opinion or at least the mutual recognition that a more thorough inquiry is required. But facing disagreement, participants of argumentative exchanges quite often remain steadfast in their initial views or even radicalize them. Can we make sense of these latter situations? To account for their occurrence, it is common to point out that people’s ability to argue is flawed, that an “argumentative culture” is lacking, and that emotional and other non-rational factors often interfere in confrontative situations. But these suggestions do not amount to a thorough satisfactory explanation. In this paper, I provide the outline of a purely epistemic account of these peculiar effects of argumentation in the face of disagreement. I argue that probabilistic models of degrees of confidence (or “credences”) can shed light on the conditions that give rise to several of these effects. This could provide some guidance on how to avoid them.

This article examines the practice of post-mortem examination in the Royal Navy during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). The professional medical logbooks kept by ship’s surgeons as part of their mandated practice reveal that they turned to pathological anatomy to diagnose their patients – a technique typically associated with French anatomy during this period. I show that these post-mortem dissections blended medicine and surgery together by correlating clinical signs and symptoms of disease with pathological manifestations of disease in the bodies after death. This article also considers the medical culture that existed on these ships that enabled this research, specifically how captains, officers and crew responded to, and interpreted, such medical enquiry on board. By resituating the naval ship as a site of medical experimentation and enquiry, I explore how naval surgeons participated in medical research within the Royal Navy and used the ship space to engage in pathological anatomy before their British civilian counterparts flocked to French hospitals after the wars.

Disinformation is a growing epistemic threat, yet its connection to understanding remains underexplored. In this paper, I argue that understanding – specifically, understanding how things work and why they work the way they do – can, all else being equal, shield individuals from disinformation campaigns. Conversely, a lack of such understanding makes one particularly vulnerable. Drawing on Simion’s (2023) characterization of disinformation as content that has a disposition to generate or increase ignorance, I propose that disinformation frequently exploits a preexisting lack of understanding. I consider an important objection – that since understanding is typically difficult to acquire, we might rely on deferring to experts. However, I argue that in epistemically polluted environments, where expertise is systematically mimicked, deference alone provides no reliable safeguard. I conclude by briefly reflecting on strategies for addressing these challenges, emphasizing both the need for promoting understanding and for cleaning up the epistemic environment.

Automatization is the learning process by which controlled, effortful second language (L2) processing becomes automatic, fast, and effortless through practice – a critical transition for L2 development. Achieving automaticity allows learners to progress from laborious language use to fluent, real-time communication by freeing limited cognitive resources. This research timeline synthesizes four decades of laboratory and classroom research on automatization, bridging cognitive learning theories with pedagogical practice. We trace five key research strands: (1) cognitive mechanisms, including the explicit-implicit knowledge interface; (2) skill development trajectories across phonological, lexical, morphosyntax, and pragmatics domains; (3) instructional approaches promoting automatization of knowledge and skills through deliberate and systematic practice; (4) methodological advances in measuring automaticity (e.g., reaction time, coefficient of variation, neural measures); and (5) individual differences in long-term memory systems (declarative and procedural memory). This timeline offers a comprehensive perspective on how automatization research has significantly advanced our understanding of L2 learning.

The evolution of the temperature and mass balance of first-year (FYI: Site S1) and second-year (SYI: Site S2) land-fast sea ice (LFSI) in May–November were investigated using high-resolution thermistor-string-based ice mass balance buoys, borehole measurements and a numerical sea ice model. In May, the growth rate of a 0.55 m FYI ice floe (9.2 mm day−1) was twice that of 1.08 m SYI (4.7 mm day−1) in snow-free conditions. After snow accumulation on 10 June, the growth slowed down and both reached 3.5 mm day−1 by 20 July. The observed/modelled ice thicknesses were 1.38/1.47 m for S1 (26 November) and 1.70/1.84 m for S2 (30 November). The correlation coefficients between the modelled and observed average ice temperature profiles were 0.8(vertical)/0.9(temporal) for S1 and 0.89/0.97 for S2. SYI had a higher winter cold content (32.78 MJ m−2) than FYI (21.01 MJ m−2). The modelled and observed snow depths were comparable when 50% ERA5 precipitation was used as the forcing. Snow–ice and superimposed ice formation were most sensitive to the precipitation pattern, followed by the initial snow depth and initial ice thickness. The net ice growth of both FYI and SYI were inversely related to the initial ice thickness and snow depth.

Ostrinia furnacalis Guenée (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) is a key lepidopteran pest affecting maize production across Asia. While its general biology has been well studied, the phenomenon of pupal ring formation remains poorly understood. This study examined the factors influencing pupal ring formation under controlled laboratory conditions. Results showed that pupal rings were formed exclusively when larvae were reared on an artificial diet, with no ring formation observed on corn-stalks. Females exhibited a significantly higher tendency to participate in ring formation than males. Additionally, male participation increased proportionally with the number of rings formed, a pattern not observed in females. The size of the rearing arena significantly influenced ring formation, with smaller arenas (6 cm diameter) promoting more frequent pairing, particularly among females. Temperature also played a significant role: lower participation rates were recorded at 22 °C compared to 25 °C and 28 °C, although the number of rings formed did not differ significantly across temperatures. Developmental stage and sex composition further influenced pairing behaviour; pupal rings formed only among individuals of similar maturity, and male participation was significantly reduced in all-male groups compared to mixed-sex groups. These findings suggest that pupal ring formation in O. furnacalis is modulated by dietary substrate, larval sex, environmental conditions, and developmental synchrony, offering new insights into the behavioural ecology of this pest.

Extensive research showcases that authoritarian propaganda can cultivate support and deter protest during “normal” times. This study examines authoritarian propaganda’s efficacy during crises and policy changes when the regime needs it most. We posit that various propaganda strategies, including “hard” and “soft” rhetoric, have significant limitations during crises. Hard propaganda’s heavy-handed slogans could signal regime strength but may also legitimize “rightful resistance” against local authorities, limiting its protest-deterrence effects. Soft propaganda may lose persuasiveness due to presenting contradictory arguments during policy changes. We leverage the turbulent period of China’s COVID policy reversal to conduct an original survey experiment in December 2022. Our findings reveal that pro-reopening hard propaganda weakens its protest-deterrence effects by reinforcing belief in protest righteousness. Moreover, inconsistent soft propaganda lowers public evaluations of China’s COVID response, diminishing its persuasive effects. Our study highlights significant limitations of authoritarian propaganda during crises and policy changes.

From global tourism and free movement to refugees and climate-related displacement, human mobility is both a driver and an effect of what we think of as globalisation. Yet, the role of international law in constituting human mobility remains critically undervalued. In this contribution, we call for a radical rethinking of the role of international law in shaping our globe through the tenets of the mobilities paradigm in the social sciences. More specifically, we argue for the adoption of a mobile ontology of international law, which pits the constant flow of persons, goods and capital against dominant globalisation narratives predicting the end of place to take a focus on re-territorialisations of power. Taking human mobility as our starting point, we first show how mobility has been central to the foundation of key building blocks of international law. Second, we turn to the example of the global tourism regime to explore how law recursively disperses mobility around the world. Third and finally, we argue that the relationship between international law and human mobility is co-constitutive, as constant shifts in mobilities create unexpected effects, which in turn prompt further evolutions in law. We conclude by reflecting on the space for empirical and critical investigation that may open up by re-imaging (international) law as quintessentially mobile.

The systematic investigation of individual glacier surges across a large statistical sample is key to a better understanding of surge mechanisms. This study introduces a consistent framework for identifying glacier surges from diverse remotely sensed datasets: NASA ITS_LIVE velocity fields, glacier thickness changes digital elevation models and surface roughness from SAR backscatter. We combined these diverse datasets using Gaussian process modelling and signal processing approaches to generate the first worldwide inventory of glaciers with active surges between 2000 and 2024, identifying 261 surge events on 246 glaciers. We performed validation against reference data and conducted a quantitative analysis of key surge metrics - surge duration and peak surface velocity. Our results confirm 12 surge-type glaciers in the Randolph Glacier Inventory (v7). We further evaluated climatological influences on the distribution of surge-type glaciers and assessed the predictive capabilities of existing theories for surges, including hydrological and thermal controls as well as the enthalpy balance theory. In addition, we present the first global analysis of velocity time series from individual surge events and discuss terminus-type dependent dynamics. Our findings strongly support the unified enthalpy balance theory in explaining the breadth of observed surge behaviours. Finally, we report new surge onsets in glaciers quiescent since the 19th century.