The high volatility of the venture capital industry is well documented. This volatility manifests itself in a number of ways: the funds flowing to venture capital firms, the investments firms make in portfolio companies, and the financial performance of portfolio companies and venture capital firms (Gompers and Lerner, 2004). Much of this volatility appears to be tied to valuations in public equity markets. An increase in IPO valuations leads venture capital firms to raise more funds (Gompers and Lerner, 1998b; Jeng and Wells, 2000), an effect that is particularly strong among younger venture capital firms (Kaplan and Schoar, 2005). Moreover, returns of venture capital funds appear to be highly correlated with the returns on the market as a whole (Cochrane, 2005; Kaplan and Schoar, 2005; Ljundqvist and Richardson, 2003).
More than half of U.S. adults are overweight or obese, and more than one-third of U.S. adults are trying to lose weight. Increasingly, they are turning to weight loss supplements for help. The most widely used weight loss supplement is ephedra, or ma huang. The active ingredients in ephedra-ephedrine alkaloids—are compounds with potentially powerful stimulant effects on the nervous and cardiovascular systems. The dietary supplement industry estimates that as many as 3 billion servings of ephedra are sold each year in the United States and approximately 12 million individuals were using ephedra in 1999.
FDA regulates dietary supplements under DSHEA, which covers vitamins, minerals, herbs or other botanicals, amino acids, certain dietary substances, or derivatives of these items. A product that contains any active ingredient not on the preceding list—such as synthetic ingredients that are sold in over-the-counter drugs and prescription medications—may not be marketed as a dietary supplement. DSHEA requires that dietary supplement labels include complete lists of ingredients and the amount of each ingredient in the product. Products may be labeled as “proprietary blends” and must list all ingredients but do not need to list the amount of each ingredient. In addition, dietary supplements cannot be promoted as a treatment, prevention, or cure for a specific disease or condition. To the extent that therapeutic claims are made, FDA may take action.
In the revolutionary period of the eighteenth century, Britains transatlantic colonies resisted political, social, and religious control in order to establish a government controlled by the people, which allowed freedom and equality for all citizens. However, this ideal form of freedom did not extend to women and slaves within the newly formed American colonies. Until the middle of the twentieth century, critics often have overlooked, or ignored, the erasure of female history and the crucial position women, regardless of race, occupy within the colonial and republican societies. This project aims to (re)examine race and gender within the Caribbean and early American context, reinstating the role and struggle of women. Aphra Behn, in Oroonoko, and William Earle, in Obi, reveal the potential threat and rebellious spirit of female slaves within the Caribbean. In The Coquette, Hannah Foster questions the freedom and equality of women in the republican society, and she draws a comparison between the republican marriage contract and the institution of slavery. Leonora Sansay?s Secret History places two American women in the Caribbean to illustrate the importance of female community and collectivity in removing women from patriarchal control. Using the Haitian Revolution as her backdrop, Sansay uses the slaves? success to provide an example for women to follow. Americans, as former inhabitants of England, become Creoles in the American colonies, undergoing a process of creolization that resembles that experienced by Caribbean colonists. However, as the early United States formed its own independent nation, its citizens adopted British colonial ideology and, at the same time, distanced themselves from the perceived limitations of Creole subjectivity. This project attempts to illustrate this contradiction between the ideals of freedom and equality and the reality of the colonial and republican societies in the transatlantic colonies and to illustrate the influence and interconnection between Europe, America, and the Caribbean.
Peter Hulme?s description of postcolonial theory coincides with my own reading of race within the Caribbean and early United States. He regards the relevance of postcolonial theory to America as underdeveloped; since Hulme?s acknowledgement of this problem, critics have not only begun to reassess the eighteenth century in terms of postcolonial theory, but also to include the formation of the early United States within the context of the racial revolutions occurring within the transatlantic. With my thesis, I will contribute to this reassessment and also address the problem of overlooking the early United States in regards to race. Given the complexities attending the formation of the early United States, particularly those grounded in ambivalent and often contradictory ideas about race, I examine the literature produced during the eighteenth century in order to tease out the implications of race within the transatlantic. The concept of America as a colony of the European nations resembles the European Caribbean colonies; we can identify the inhabitants of America, like those in the Caribbean, as Creoles. The term Creole denotes various definitions in different contexts, and for my thesis, I will use Sean Goudie?s understanding of this term. Goudie sees “Creole” as more than the birth of a colonial subject outside of his or her national origins. In addition, he uses this term “to account for admixtures, or syncretisms, between Old and New World „races? and cultures” (8). Using Goudie?s understanding of “Creole,” I will expose the cultural influences of the revolutionary Atlantic and argue that this Creole position allowed certain subjects to form a collective community and distance themselves from the political control of England.
In this thesis, I will explore how ideas about women and slaves in early transatlantic writings informed and were shaped by notions of Creole identity at once contributing to the “collective community” described above and challenging its hegemonic status. Texts like Aphra Behn?s Oroonoko, William Earle?s Obi, Hannah Foster?s The Coquette, and Leonora Sansay?s Secret History demonstrate the significance of the transatlantic traffic not only in relation to the colonies and slaves but also in relation to the cultures attendant on such commerce. The transatlantic routes did more than transport slaves and Europeans to the American colonies; these routes brought along various cultures as well as various assumptions about race and gender. For example, the British, the group of Europeans I will focus on in my study, had pre-nscribed notions concerning the role of women in their country. And while the early American colonists laid claim to notions of equality, a defining characteristic of their “new world,” these gender biases remained intact. Also, the master-slave relationship, established in Britain?s Caribbean colonies, infiltrated the minds of American colonists and shaped their opinions on slavery. The ideas and people that both crossed over on various routes in the Atlantic Ocean left the American colonies in a contradictory state. On one hand, “America” promoted equality and freedom to all; however, women and the enslaved, stood outside of this equality. Neither group could participate in the political realm even though they both contributed to and were affected by the political decisions occurring within the colonies.
