Hasil untuk "American literature"

M. Abrams

Justin Parks

Jesús Endara-Mina, Jesús Endara-Mina, Jesús Endara-Mina et al.

BackgroundMenopause is a universal biological event whose experience is shaped by cultural and ethnic factors. The available literature reveals a wide range of perspectives across contexts and population groups, including women from diverse ethnic backgrounds. However, differences persist in how symptoms are conceptualized, expressed, and managed according to sociocultural environments. This scoping review aims to map the existing evidence on menopausal experiences among different ethnic groups and to identify recurring thematic patterns.MethodsThe review followed the Joanna Briggs Institute methodology for scoping reviews and was reported in accordance with PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Articles were retrieved from seven databases—Medline/PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus—using database-specific search strategies. No language or time restrictions were applied. Studies were analyzed descriptively, and quality appraisal was conducted following the interpretive criteria proposed by Dixon-Woods et al.ResultsOut of 446 initial records, 374 remained eligible for title and abstract screening after duplicate removal; 63 full texts were assessed, and 20 studies met the inclusion criteria. Ethnic differences were observed in both the prevalence and interpretation of symptoms: African American and Hispanic women exhibited a greater emotional and vasomotor symptom burden, whereas Asian and Indigenous women tended to frame the menopausal transition as a natural or developmental process.ConclusionThis scoping review highlights that menopause is not merely a biological phenomenon but a culturally embedded experience shaped by ethnicity, belief systems, and social position. Substantial ethnic differences exist in the perception, reporting, and meaning attributed to menopausal symptoms.

Jessica Garratt

Sugar maple and Lucy Maud Montgomery, linked together through space and time via the Humber River Valley. Tree and author both searching for ways forward through precarious times in their lives. Finding vital links to sources of regeneration through written words and in black forest loam, enabling them to continue into the present and on, into the future. Apparently simple seeds and words, doing their things, wreathed in science and mystery. Leaving signs and certainties by which we may decipher some complexities of the lives of maple and Montgomery.

Eduardo Uribe

In Mexico, stand-up is emerging as a result of the reciprocal action between the audiovisual media, digital culture, the development of venues dedicated to this activity and the autonomy of the stand-upers dedicated to the genre. Although stand-up comedy was imported from the United States, where it has made its own way from the margins to the mainstream, it has not yet become part of legitimate culture. This cultural production takes place outside the institutions that validate culture, even as it benefits from massive distribution on Internet platforms, and even if it is entering on stages previously intended for theatre or music.This article analyses the genealogy of this cultural production, particularly in Mexico City, from the creation of an audience to its massification. Carlos Ballarta’s work is remarkable for its humour, which is characterised by the exhibition of marginality on different levels, thus restoring stand-up to its place as a mauvais genre, but in the mainstream.

Yuntao Yao, Yifan Liu, Tianyue Yang et al.

Abstract Background With increasing detection of small renal masses and accumulating evidence that nephron sparing surgery (NSS) could achieve oncological equivalence and functional superiority compared with radical nephrectomy (RN), NSS has become first‐line therapy for some patients with localized renal masses. Objective This study aims to review the publications in the kidney neoplasm and NSS field, exploring the research hotspots. Method Kidney neoplasm and NSS related publications before July 3th 2023 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection database. We then used bibliometric analysis to conduct performance analysis, citation analysis and co‐citation network of publications, together with keyword co‐occurrence analysis. Results Seven thousand five hundred and sixty‐four documents were finally retrieved, and the annual publications increased exponentially. The most productive authors were “KAOUK JH” and “GILL IS”, while USA, and 12 American affiliations such as CLEVELAND CLINIC FOUNDATION and MAYO CLINIC were far leading in this field. Journal of Urology and European Urology were journals with the highest citations and h‐index. Discussion Through literature reviewing plus co‐occurrence and clustering analysis, the therapeutic effects of partial nephrectomy (PN) versus RN on patients with localized renal cell carcinoma, different operative approaches of PN, and conservative NSS methods were deemed as the most focused topics. Conclusion Three aspects were the most important hotspots in this field. Firstly, how to provide the optimal management choices for different patients. Secondly, therapeutic effects of different management options and surgical techniques needed more prospective and randomized studies. Finally, more novel technologies and surgical techniques were required.

Aryuda Fakhleri Fallen, Yudi Sukmayadi, Tati Narawati

This article tryes to initiate the concept of Minangkabau rhythm syllables, which is a method in music learning related to audiation in rhythm learning, the urgency in this study explores the basic elements of the audiation system that can be applied to music learning related to rhythm syllables based on local approaches, taking into account previous concepts that have been popular in recent schools. In West Sumatra, the concepts of syllable rhythm such as Zoltan Kodaly, Kannokol, American Style Syllables, and Edwin Gordon are not so popular, but environments such as schools and art studios have their own ways of approaching learning music related to pronouncing sounds, so that in this study it is addressed as an interesting and crucial thing to study and formulate further into formulations. The method used in this research uses a qualitative paradigm with a literature review approach. Where the concept of previous rhythmic syllables is used as a reference in analyzing, bringing up findings, and juxtaposing the findings with the initiated Minangkabau rhythmic syllable formula, so that the Minangkabau rhythmic syllables can be generalized and adapted, but still referring to the habits of the local community material. Based on the results of the analysis, like Gordon’s concept, it is found that syllables or audiation appear after the formation of rhythms, patterns and sound colors from an instrument, which can then strengthen the form of audiation into verbal form.

Christina Mac, Kylem Cheung, Tala Alzoubi et al.

(1) Current literature on ethnic minorities, comorbidities, and COVID-19 tends to investigate these factors separately, leaving gaps in our understanding about their interactions. Our review seeks to identify a relationship between ethnicity, comorbidities, and severe COVID-19 outcomes (ICU admission and mortality). We hope to enhance our understanding of the various factors that exacerbate COVID-19 severity and mortality in ethnic minorities in Canada and the USA. (2) All articles were received from PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and Ovid EMBASE from November 2020 to June 2022. Included articles contain information regarding comorbidities among ethnic minorities in relation to COVID-19 severity and mortality. (3) A total of 59 articles were included that examined various ethnic groups, including Black/African American, Asian, Hispanic, White/Caucasian, and Indigenous people. We found that the most examined comorbidities were diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and chronic kidney disease. A total of 76.9% of the articles (40 out of 52) found a significant association between different races and COVID-19 mortality, whereas 21.2% of the articles (11 out of 52) did not. (4) COVID-19 ICU admissions and mortality affect various ethnic groups differently, with Black patients generally having the most adverse outcomes. These outcomes may also interact with sex and age, though more research is needed assessing these variables together with ethnicity.

SAKSHI SEMWAL, SMITA JHA

This paper intends to explore Magical Realism in the Indian context through O. V. Vijayan’s novel, The Legends of Khasak, initially published in Malayalam in 1969; later in 1994, Vijayan himself translated it into English. This regional novel might not have fetched global recognition, but it remains one of the most influential magical realist texts in Malayalam literature. Intriguingly though, the novel was published just two years after García Márquez’s magnum opus, One Hundred Years of Solitude, and almost a decade and a half before Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children. Salman Rushdie’s commercial success in this genre popularized South Asian Magical Realism in the West. However, many regional writers from India had employed Magical Realism’s stylistic paradox in their works before the term officially originated in the European and Latin American contexts. Through Vijayan’s novel, this study explores how, in the Indian context, the paradoxical impulse to naturalize the supernatural deeply exists in realism’s stylistic undercurrents. The research further uses the critical framework of trauma and memory to analyze how the author attempts to recuperate the indigenous cultural identity of the natives, lost due to colonialism and capitalism, and simultaneously historicize the onset of colonial modernity and industrialization in India.

Enrico Davanzo

L’articolo proposto consiste in un’analisi della storia breve “The Sorge Spy Ring” (1996) dello scrittore bosniaco-americano Aleksandar Hemon, inclusa nella raccolta The Question of Bruno (2000, pubblicata in Italia da Einaudi con il titolo Spie di Dio). La struttura del racconto, composto da due diverse linee narrative, esemplifica l’idea di duplicità ricorrente nella maggior parte della produzione letteraria di Hemon. All’esposizione principale, dove il narratore rievoca la traumatica materializzazione delle sue fantasie infantili di spionaggio nella Sarajevo di fine anni Settanta, vengono infatti sovrapposte le reali vicissitudini dell’agente segreto Richard Sorge attraverso un complesso sistema di note a piè di pagina. I continui parallelismi conferiscono all’ambiguo personaggio di Sorge, sospeso tra culture e ideologie apparentemente contrapposte, una particolare aura metaforica, quasi elevandolo a simbolo di un’identità migrante transnazionale. Esaminando la peculiare organizzazione del testo, è mia intenzione studiare come l’apparato peritestuale si configuri come una sorta di piano narrativo ulteriore, arricchendo le chiavi di lettura del racconto. Le strategie adottate da Hemon saranno inoltre poste a confronto con la sua esperienza di immigrant writer, diviso tra gli Stati Uniti e la frammentata realtà post-jugoslava. Nel corso della mia analisi mi richiamerò in particolare alle considerazioni espresse da Gérard Genette nel suo fondamentale Soglie (Seuils, 1987), e alle riflessioni di Linda Hutchinson sulla concezione postmoderna della Storia (A Poetics of Postmodernism, 1988). Un ulteriore contributo sarà apportato dal confronto con gli autori alla cui influenza è stata spesso ricondotta l’opera di Hemon, in particolare Vladimir Nabokov e il serbo Danilo Kiš.

Mariana Mayumi Shiroma Ikeda, João Vinícius de França Carvalho

ABSTRACT The aim of this article was to evaluate the viability of Universal Life insurance (UL) in Brazil from two perspectives: from the individual viewpoint of policyholders, considering different client profiles and investment scenarios; and from the company viewpoint, verifying whether insurers see sales advantages in UL. Thus, despite the lack of definition of the regulations on these contracts by the Superintendence of Private Insurance (Susep), this article’s contribution lies in evaluating UL - a typically American product - in Brazil, using an entirely actuarial methodology, for policyholders and insurers, according to local parameters. The relevance of the article lies in strengthening the support for individuals, companies, and authorities to evaluate the product and discuss its implementation, even identifying the most favorable profiles and scenarios for its development. Although the UL is an individual modality that is widespread in several countries and its design exploits well-defined attractions, the product has not been explored in the national literature. The methodology adoted in this study used fully actuarial modeling, the internal rate of return (IRR), and profit testing. The study reveals that the Brazilian market for UL is viable, especially due to the higher interest rates compared to countries where the product is already widespread. From a demand perspective, the results indicate that the policyholder would be in a more advantageous position acquiring UL than buying life insurance in the private market and investing the surplus in financial assets, due to the hybrid characteristic of the contract, which enables the use of financial returns as discount factors in the insurance portion and operational charges, reducing the opportunity costs linked to the product. With regard to companies, the profit testing results suggest there are stimuli for the supply of UL, provided the operation has a long-term bias. Altering the mortality pattern, policy type, and the company’s investment profile, all the results point in a similar direction.

Mordecai Lee

Public administration history often notes the seminal role of Harold D. Smith, FDR’s budget director (1939–1945), in the professionalization of the field and his principles for public budgeting. He was a cofounder of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) and its second president (1940–1941). Smith came to Washington after a longer career in nonprofit management. This exploratory historical case study fills in a gap in the literature. Specifically, it examines his nonprofit management record at the Michigan Municipal League (1928–1937). He successfully grew the nonprofit in the teeth of the Great Depression. This success, among others, can be seen as providing two possible applications. First, his record suggests some commonalities between nonprofit management and public administration. Second, leading a nonprofit during the Great Depression may suggest applicable lessons for longer-term problems caused by COVID-19 regarding organizational management strategies during another severe economic contraction.

Mark Brown

Don DeLillo’s White Noise is often taught as an exemplar of postmodern literature because of its concern with the postmodern themes of identity and spectacular commodification. There is much in the text, however, to suggest that DeLillo’s central characters are searching for certainties, some of which are related to earlier cultural paradigms. This paper argues that Don DeLillo’s novel explores ways to overcome the persistent displacement of meaning in postmodern texts by establishing death as one concept outside the systems of signs which is irreducible, certain and universal. DeLillo’s characters are in search of a “transcendental signified” (Derrida) able to bring a halt to the potentially infinite postmodern regressions of late twentieth century American culture. Here I argue that in White Noise it is death which provides this exterior metaphysical principle.

Mark Piccini

Even though violence in Latin America varies a lot between and within countries, Colombia has long been seen as the epicentre of an intense kind of Latin American violence that appears fundamentally different from everyday antagonism in what is known as the West, the First World, or the Global North. Colombia has been paralysed for half a century by an undeclared civil war between government and anti-government forces, fought first against the backdrop of the Cold War, and then against the United States-led war on drugs. This article will discuss the Colombian writer Evelio Rosero, who challenges the tendency to look to his country for an exceptional Colombian violence. His short story “Brides by Night” and novel The Armies step back from the context of the Colombian conflicts to draw attention to gender violence. This article argues that violence against women is a universal concern, and that the way it is represented by Rosero contests narratives that confine violence to Colombia as a place of exception. Using the psychoanalytic theories of subjectivity developed by Jacques Lacan, Slavoj Žižek, and others, this article discusses how a similar libidinal investment in women and Colombians as Other confines both gender demographic and a racial demographic to a similarly precarious position. In a globalising world, it is not only counterintuitive, but unethical to imagine and, in so doing, reinforce patterns of marginalisation and violence. A collective effort to traverse the fantasy of otherness in different art forms and media is crucial. Keywords: Violence, Colombian Literature, Psychoanalysis, Evelio Rosero, Jacques Lacan

Béatrice Voizard, Mélanie Theriault, Selma Lazizi et al.

Abstract Background Surgical correction of caudal septal deviation is a technically challenging step of functional rhinoplasty. Multiple surgical techniques have been described in the literature but comparing the efficacy of each in relieving obstruction presents a challenge. Outcome measures are necessary to adequately compare techniques. This study aims to describe the current caudal septoplasty techniques of Otolaryngologists and Facial plastic and reconstructive surgeons (FPRS), as well as their use of outcome measures, and to compare these practices with surgical trends described in the literature. Methods An online survey was sent to three Otolaryngology and FPRS associations in Canada and the United States. A systematic review was conducted on SCOPUS and PubMed to classify the caudal septoplasty techniques described in the literature and the outcome measurement tools used. Results Our survey identified that caudal septoplasty is more commonly performed by surgeons with an FPRS training background. The most common techniques were the swinging door technique (69.5%), extracorporeal septoplasy (46.7%), cartilage scoring (45.3%), and splinting with bone (25.4%). Despite using a vast array of surgical techniques, North American physicians rarely rely on standardized outcome assessment tools. Patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) are used almost twice as frequently in the literature as they are by surgeons in their clinical practice. Conclusion We recommend that future studies of caudal septoplasty include an assessment of both form and function using a validated PROM such as the Standardized Cosmesis and Health Nasal Outcomes Survey.

K. Hunt, D. Hurwit

Toni M. Whited

John T. Scruggs

Marek Gajda

This paper explores the role of African American music in E. L. Doctorow’s historical novel The March (2005), with a focus on selected scenes in which this type of music occurs. It examines the emotions elicited in the protagonists as well as the atmosphere created or underlined by this music. Furthermore, it takes into account which musical instruments are employed and considers their significance in the book with regard to their symbolic meaning. It also investigates the extent to which African American music contributes to the development of the story. The name of the book refers to Sherman’s March to the Sea, which took place towards the end of the American Civil War and when numerous former slaves were freed by Sherman’s troops. The fate of the freed slaves, however, was rather complex, which is reflected in the characteristics of the music that they perform in certain scenes. The relevance of African American Music to Doctorow’s work is highlighted by the fact that the author himself became world-famous chiefly for his novel Ragtime (1975), whose main protagonist Coalhouse Walker is a pianist of African American origin. The character’s fictional father Coalhouse Walker senior appears as an African American banjo player in The March.

Lise Demeyer

En avril 2011, la marche du poète Javier Sicilia, à la suite de l’assassinat de son fils, est devenue l’emblème international de la résistance populaire au crime organisé au Mexique. Ce padre coraje prend la tête du « Movimimento por la Paz con Justicia y Dignidad » (MPJD) et met un point final à son œuvre artistique avec un poème qu’il dédie à son fils et qu’il publie dans l’anthologie Vestigios (2013). Il décide de s’engager entièrement dans ce combat civique, au côté des familles des victimes. Pour lui, conserver la mémoire de dizaines de milliers de morts et de disparus au Mexique est un premier pas vers la justice. Nous nous proposons d’analyser les actions du MPJD, et en particulier le processus artistico-politique de son leader, comme alternative populaire aux limites des institutions.