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"As Legend Has It: History, Heritage, and the Construction of Swedish American Identity" by Jennifer Eastman Attebery explores the role of history and heritage in shaping Swedish American identity through the analysis of local vernacular histories. Attebery delves into how legends and stories passed down in families contribute to group identity and understanding of settler experiences. The study highlights the complex ways in which Swedish American folklore reflects social values, historical interactions with Indigenous peoples, and the evolving narratives of immigrant communities. Attebery's work offers valuable insights into the construction of identity and the potential for critical reflection within local history writing. [Extracted from the article]

In this article, I discuss theological aesthetics in light of various descriptions of experiences of transcendence that art can provide for human beings. The American author Patti Smith describes, e.g. how works of art “call her” so that she must respond with art productions of her own. This looks similar to what German sociologist Hartmut Rosa calls “resonance”. He describes art as one of the places where an experience of vertical resonance can take place. Smith’s experiences also correspond to the description of the basic experience of transcendence of human beings as they are interpreted by the Danish philosopher Dorthe Jørgensen. However, she reduces these experiences to be immanent in nature because they are objectless. I suggest that systematic theology can contribute with a distinct theological interpretation of aesthetic experiences through a three-fold argument. First, to combine beauty and infinity in the being of God. Second, to reinterpret the notion of the incarnation as God’s continuous presence in the world. And third, by combining natural theology’s point that creation speaks of God with a reinterpretation of the artefacts that humans can create. As such, this paper proposes how systematic theology can contribute to the interpretation of aesthetic experiences of transcendence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the pathetic condition of Palestinians as depicted by Palestinian American writers: Susan Abulhawa in The Blue between Sky and Water (2015) and Hala Alyan in The Arsonists' City (2021) through Victor Turner's concept of liminality. Palestine has been the stage for devastating tragedies, with Palestinians enduring brutal massacres, forced abductions, and sexual exploitation at the hands of Israelis since the mid-20th century onward. Consequently, Palestinians grapple with anxieties, uncertainties, and profound doubts about their future due to Israeli violence. Through the lens of liminality, this study investigates how both Palestinian writers portray the Palestinian tragic experience amidst devastating events by addressing themes of migration, discrimination, and promoting understanding and acceptance across diverse cultural backgrounds. This paper explores the Palestinians' painful experiences, which are transmitted to their descendants via colonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Just outrageous things - like the fact that they used all those FBI documents in the hearing against Oppenheimer, but denied Oppenheimer's lawyer any access to them, saying that they were still classified. But because Oppenheimer let several months go by before reporting the conversation to US intelligence authorities, it became a key issue nearly a decade later, in subsequent hearings about Oppenheimer's trustworthiness. I mean, you know, it was a feeler, and Oppenheimer said: "No." End of story. B Bird: b But the security people were concerned about the fact that Oppenheimer didn't volunteer this information for three months. Chevalier thought that Oppenheimer should know what happened; Oppenheimer cut him off. [Extracted from the article]

The Rag Doll Plagues, by Mexican American writer Alejandro Morales, underlines the racial dimension of the environmental crisis while also demonstrating the material interdependence between human and more-than-human worlds through the lens of trans-corporeality. By exploring the material connection between the poisoned body and the environment; the interaction between the marginalized body and nonhuman as subject; and the mutant body’s agency as a “habitat” and “thing,” this paper highlights the evolving and dynamic relationship between the porous human body and various forms of living and non-living entities within and beyond its borders. Morales's plague reminds humanity to break away from narrow, teleological thinking in the face of disaster and to adopt a mode of thought that is interconnected with the world as well as attentive to, and appreciative of, the vitality of non-living entities, thus fostering a nonlinear, open “material ethics”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This summary provides an overview of an article that discusses John Steinbeck's book "A Russian Journal" and its portrayal of the Soviet Union. The author argues that Steinbeck's writing reflects a biased perspective that emphasizes the strengths of the United States and diminishes the authenticity of the foreign land. The article also explores the tensions of the Cold War and the pressures faced by writers in navigating public opinion. The article references the book "The Viking P, 1948" by 4 B. HE and "The Culture of the Cold War" by Stephen Whitfield. This summary is aimed at library patrons conducting research on John Steinbeck and the Cold War. [Extracted from the article]

Neutrosophy is a branch of philosophy proposed in 1998 by Romanian philosopher and mathematician F. Smarandache, which studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutrality and its interaction with different spectra of ideas. Because it is a relatively new field, specific scientific production on this subject may be limited, but as it develops, new research and contributions are likely to emerge. This is why it is becoming more necessary to undertake studies to understand the evolution, impact, and scope of research, especially in a context where it had never been examined in depth before: in the Latin American region. This research aims to describe the scientific production of Latin American authors in the Scopus database referring to Neutrosophic Science in the period 2019-2023 by carrying out a bibliometric study of a descriptive nature. The scientific production in Neutrosophy assumes patterns of behavior that vary from international patterns with a marked social focus. Although productivity levels have not increased in recent years, the impact and recognition from the international community have grown significantly, meaning the evolution of a process of transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Terminologia Anatomica (TA) is a unique collection of technical terms that allow communication in anatomy and medicine around the world. Considering this, we reviewed articles published by Latin American authors on Terminologia Anatomica and synthesized the main results found in this article. This study is a systematic review about Terminologia Anatomica that focuses on non-English-speaking countries in Latin America. The database used was Scopus via Elsevier. 207, and candidate articles were identified after applying the search strategy and with no restriction of year of publication. After the exclusion of articles whose authorship was not Latin American, 68 articles were filtered based on their titles and abstracts without the exclusion of any of them. These articles were fully evaluated resulting in 66 articles that met all the inclusion criteria of this review. We collected the following data: title of the article, year of publication, journal of publication, keywords of the study, country of origin, and aim of the article. Among the analyzed articles, 22 proposed changes to terms present in Terminologia Anatomica, 15 of them proposed the inclusion of terms for Terminologia Anatomica, and several articles sought to explain the existence of the existing terms. It is necessary to analyze the terms that are and their origins in the Latin America languages to evaluate their coherence and anatomical correspondence. A standard descriptor for Terminologia Anatomica was not obtained and it is a limitation since eventual articles may not have been obtained. As the study evaluates only articles that were published in journals indexed in Scopus, some articles published in non-indexed journals were not included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is tempting to attribute state violence to the imposition of a normative order, and it is tempting to construct an opposition between sanctifying that order and messianic interruptions of that order. This framework supposes that God, and the surrounding language of the sacred, follows the logic of rule, imposing a set of expectations on what is to be done enforced by threat of punishment. But what if we centre the story of Job in our account of the divine and with it an image of God as abuser rather than ruler, that is, God as only imposing the phantom of norms, norms that shift or evaporate as soon as they are imposed, never fulfilling a promise of reward or threat of punishment as expected? I explore this possibility through brief encounters with two texts on the racial violence of the state, one by Aimé Césaire and the other by the contemporary Black American writer Kiese Laymon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Removed (2021), a novel by Brandon Hobson, a well-known American author from the Cherokee--Native American tribe of the Iroquoian lineage--depicts how the indigenous people are consumed by their family's past, its influence on the present, and the way the present (re)constructs the past with regard to their experiences. The paper investigates the experiences of trauma, memory, and recovery among Native Americans through a critical analysis of the novel, which thematizes the Trail of Tears, a series of forced displacements of five tribes between 1830 and 1850. The paper explores the effect of the past events and the development of hyperarousal, flashback, sense of loss, intrusive conflict, trauma, and healing in the four main characters of the novel, with a focus on the author's use of myth, supernatural, and indigenous knowledge to depict the past. It also shows, by applying Judith Herman, Cathy Caruth, Kai T Erikson, and Ann E Kaplan's theory of trauma and recovery, how the novel depicts the four stages one generally goes through during the process of healing from trauma, viz., remembering what happened, feeling sad about what was lost, reconnecting with people, and understanding what went wrong and how to fix it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how the autofictional works of Latin American writer Mario Vargas Llosa and Tamil writer Charu Nivedita employ similar strategies. This article provides the opportunity for readers to discuss how autobiography, autofiction, and life writing might evolve in the future. In addition, it seeks to discover the theoretical implications in the life narratives of the chosen writers' works. This article investigates the ongoing evolution of life-writing studies and their potential impact on a wide range of fields of study. These two authors share numerous similarities, most notably a meta-modernist storytelling style. Through autofiction, they question the nature of reality and construct an alternate universe. To create a narrative, one must demonstrate empathy and connection, as well as address the interrelationships between different ways of thinking and being. This article attempts to provide an overview of autofiction and examines how Mario Vargas Llosa and Charu Nivedita use it in their novels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The authors sought better outcomes for uncomplicated gastroschisis through development of clinical practice guidelines. Methods: The authors and the American Pediatric Surgical Association Outcomes and Evidenced-based Practice Committee used an iterative process and chose two questions to develop clinical practice guidelines regarding (1) standardized nutrition protocols and (2) postnatal management strategies. An English language search of PubMed, MEDLINE, OVID, SCOPUS, and the Cochrane Library Database identified literature published between January 1, 1970, and December 31, 2019, with snowballing to 2022. The Appraisal of Guideline, Research and Evaluation reporting checklist was followed. Results: Thirty-three studies were included with a Level of Evidence that ranged from 2 to 5 and recommendation Grades B–D. Nine evaluated standardized nutrition protocols and 24 examined postnatal management strategies. The adherence to gastroschisis-specific nutrition protocols promotes intestinal feeding and reduces TPN administration. The implementation of a standardized postnatal clinical management protocol is often significantly associated with shorter hospital stays, less mechanical ventilation use, and fewer infections. Conclusions: There is a lack of comparative studies to guide practice changes that improve uncomplicated gastroschisis outcomes. The implementation of gastroschisis-specific feeding and clinical care protocols is recommended. Feeding protocols often significantly reduce TPN administration, although the length of hospital stay may not consistently decrease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little Fires Everywhere is a novel written by contemporary writer Celeste Ng in 2017. The novel portrays a stubborn and sensitive, brave and bold little girl--Izzy. She has been living in a repressed physical space for a long time, suffering from the control and contempt of family members as well as the isolation and ostracism of teachers and classmates in the social space, which eventually led to the alienation of her psychological space. Later, in the process of communicating with her tenant, Izzy's shriveled heart is ignited. She sees different lifestyles, captures the meaning of life, and begins to defend freedom and seek her true self in an extremely rebellious way. Finally, she achieves transformation and growth in psychological space and achieves self-redemption in a rigid world. This paper employs spatial criticism theory to analyze the existential predicament Izzy confronts in various spaces and her resistance from three dimensions: the mundane physical space, the oppressive social space, and the estranged psychological space. The aim is to illuminate to readers that only through persistent rebellion can individuals shatter the constraints of space and attain true freedom in the face of repression and injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present era of globalization people are continuously on the move from one geographical location to another. This move turns into migration when they settle at a place other than their home and during their permanent settlement at a new location, other than their own country, they maintain a connection with the people of their community over there to remember and preserve the culture, heritage and ethnicity create diaspora. If the diaspora is voluntary, people try to assimilate the new culture and sometimes create a hybrid culture by mixing the ethnic culture with the culture of the host nation. But if it is forced diaspora then initially the diasporic population tries to resist the change and long to return to their homeland. Hala Alyan is a Palestinian American author. Her novels and poems provide moving references to the Palestinian diaspora which comprises, the Palestinian exodus caused by the declaration of the independent state of Israel in 1948, followed by the Seven Days War of 1967, with ample light on the life of refugees in camps and other hardships and psychological traumas caused by displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nayantara Sahgal is one of the most prominent Indian writers, whose works are predominant in raising voices against patriarchal society and gender marginalization in Indian writing in English. She is a journalist, political columnist, and writer and her writings advocate women's quest for Self-Identity, Individualism, Interpersonal Relationships, and Social and Political Issues against women. On the other hand, Alice Walker is a famous American novelist, short story writer, poet, and social activist-who is the first African-American writer to win Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her work "The Color Purple". Her womanist novels accord voice to the African American women who were subjugated to suppression. Walker herself prefers to call herself a womanist because according to her Womanism is far better than feminism as it prefers and appreciates women's strength, culture, and emotional flexibility. This paper attempts to examine and explore the portrayal of the feminine psyche and the quest for "self" in their works. The paper particularly illustrates the comparative study of Nayantara Sahgal's This Time of Morning and Alice Walker's Meridian and justifies how both writers are similar in voicing out for women's freedom, identity, and rights, against cultural and political upheavals or trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores censorship of literary translations in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialistic Republic, delineating political and ideological modes and demonstrating the ideological underpinning of the puritanical mode. It describes the censorial system in the Ukrainian SSR as determined by the general goal of Soviet censorship and the local context. It then examines the censorship practices on the textual level in Ukrainian translations of novels by British and North American authors and highlights the variability of translations of the Soviet period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text presents three possible dimensions of using Foucauldian thought in relation to the Latin American perspective of the writer to situate the present: political rationality, materialist ethics, and critical ontology. This perspective is part of a research program in which the author has already published several advances. It then focuses on the pragmatic concept of truth as a knotting factor of these three dimensions, and concludes with a possible diagnosis about why it is so challenging - yet indispensable - to currently make use of Foucauldian thought in the indicated sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American legal scholars can't stop talking about Confucius: there were over 100 law review articles in 2022 alone that reference Confucian ideas, and nearly 1,500 during the last five years. Almost all of them are wrong about what Confucius has meant for Chinese legal culture. In the face of five decades of contrary historical scholarship, these law review articles argue or imply that Chinese law started to become "Confucian" about 2,000 years ago and has never really changed since. That continuity (or stagnation), these scholars claim, is one of the keys to understanding contemporary Chinese law. As this Article will show, the reality is very different. From the sixteenth century to the present day, scholars, politicians, and others with an axe to grind have constructed a series of legally influential "Confuciuses" to score points in the debates of their day. Unfortunately, American legal scholars are stuck repeating these self-interested stories with little idea of where they came from or what they mean. American authors largely view this "Confucian" legal legacy as something suspicious, or at least exotic, and their descriptions exacerbate the Sino-American cultural and political gulf. Chinese authors, on the other hand, often view it as a matter of national pride, a demonstration of the power, and centrality of a Chinese civilization destined to sway modern Asia. In this Article, I argue that these erroneous views of the "Confucian" nature of Chinese legal culture have profound implications, impairing our ability to clearly understand contemporary Chinese law and contributing to a global and domestic atmosphere of suspicion and hatred. Only by untangling where our ideas about "Confucian law" come from and what they really imply can we hope to avoid exacerbating Sino-American hostility on the one hand and nationalist Chinese expansionism (of the kind felt most sharply in Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Xinjiang) on the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The origins of the postapocalyptic genre are debatable, but modern fictional accounts involving a small band of survivors in the aftermath of a devastating global catastrophe seem to date from the 1880s. This article traces the postapocalyptic imagination to the American West in this era, considering especially the instability and volatility that characterized San Francisco and other Western locales in the wake of the midcentury Gold Rush. The boom-and-bust nature of enterprise in the region encouraged speculation about rapid accumulation and sudden annihilation. Robert Duncan Milne, a Scottish American author who wrote for San Francisco periodicals, emerged as one of the first figures in the world to pen a postapocalyptic fiction. And Milne's work in turn inspired succeeding influential authors, leading eventually to books by Jack London, George R. Stewart, and Kim Stanley Robinson. This article argues that the American West might thus be considered the birthplace of the modern postapocalyptic imagination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the issue of female psychopathy and the portrayal of an emotionally and mentally disturbed female character in East of Eden (1952) by the contemporary American author, John Steinbeck. Although female characters are like male characters regarding their psychological complexity, the issues of antisocial personality disorders and psychopathy have only been examined in previous studies concerning male characters. Hence, this study focuses on the issue of psychopathy as an antisocial personality disorder explored through the leading female character based on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) by the American psychiatrist, Robert Hare (1991). A prominent view on the mentally disturbed female characters is that they are not analysed with equal attention as male characters; thus, this presumption that women are disqualified from psychological conductions on account of their gender is a predicament by itself. Accordingly, this study examines the non-traditional la femme fatale personified through the female character, Cathy Trask, and investigates the author’s portrayal of a female character with antisocial personality disorder tendencies. The findings show that, from a young age, Cathy reveals her lethal inclinations, harnessing her beauty and intelligence not only to her advantage but also to exploit those around her. Cathy also embodies the two “Personality Traits” and “Antisocial” factors and experiences many short-term marital relationships based on Hare’s (PCL-R). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Universum is the property of Instituto de Estudios Humanisticos Juan Ignacio Molina, Universidad de Talca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Article PDF first page previewGraphGraphCloseBy Harilaos StecopoulosReported by Author [Extracted from the article]

The rise of transrealism in the second half of the twentieth century embellished the literary landscape in America with a new mode of expression that offered new understanding of time, space, identity, and social values and norms. This study situates the American novelist Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano within this literary context to map out the qualities that distinguish it as a transrealistic fiction. We argue that through innovative coalescence of fantasy and realism, this postmodern novel provides a satirical commentary against the incongruities of the contemporary American society. To analyse the novel, we employ Rudy Rucker's theorisations of the movement that delineates the transrealist manifesto as a union of realism, fantasy, and science-fiction. The findings reveal that through a satirical representation of the current advancements in technology and their inevitably negative impact on human life and society, the novel provides a dystopian picture of modern life in America. This apocalyptic sentiment is reinforced through a creative convergence of the surreal features of science-fiction, the tropes of naturalistic realism, and the elements of satire that together help to accentuate the deficiencies and ironies of the modern American society as well as the rampant misuse of technology by both individuals and authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nineteenth century witnessed the expansion of Western colonial power and influence across both mainland and maritime South East Asia, along with the publication of a growing number of books about the region and its peoples by Western scholars, travellers and colonial administrators. This was also a time when pseudo-scientific theories of racial difference were rife and deemed respectable in Western academic and political circles. This article looks at how some British and American authors were inclined to examine South East Asians through the lens of racial theory, and how in the course of doing so were also inclined to compare some South East Asian ethnic groups to the natives of America. In the course of doing so, Native Americans were invariably seen and cast as a homogenous racial group that was then located at the bottom of a hierarchy that differentiated between superior and inferior races. The repeated deployment of the trope of the Native American, as the embodiment of inferiority and savagery, was an instance of racial stereotypes being instrumentalized at a global level as part of a new pan-Atlantic Anglo-American discourse of race and racial difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Publication trends in prominent behavior-analytic journals developed in the United States of America have shown that most of its research has been produced by authors with North American affiliations. The geographic affiliation of authors who have contributed research to the Mexican Journal of Behavior Analysis (MJBA), European Journal of Behavior Analysis (EJBA), and Brazilian Journal of Behavior Analysis (BJBA) – all of which are housed outside of the United States of America – are currently unknown. We examined articles published in these journals from their inception through 2020 to determine the geographic locations of authors' listed affiliations. We found that 70% and 90% of publications in the MJBA and BJBA, respectively, were from researchers with Latin American affiliations. The EJBA had 58% and 42% of publications from researchers with North American and European affiliations, respectively. The articles were also analyzed to determine if they were co-authored by researchers from different geographic regions. The data show that 11, 6, and 3% of articles published in EJBA, MJBA, and BJBA, respectively, were cooperative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay considers how a transnational feminist literary practice, one that proceeds through the modality of rereading and rewriting, opens up the meaning and possibilities for the right to self-determination, against and beyond the settler state sovereignty into which it has hardened. It examines the 1995 short story "My Elizabeth," by the Arab American writer Diana Abu-Jaber, as an unexpected source of political theory, which rewrites self-determination from the perspective of occupied peoples—namely, Native peoples in the United States and Palestinians—subject to ongoing settler colonialism. Abu-Jaber's portrait of intimacies between subjects "in transit" imagines how "radical futures past" become the source of alternate affective and political communities in the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article focuses on Don DeLillo's latest novel, The Silence, which is analyzed and interpreted in light of Slavoj Žižek's writings collected in Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World and Pandemic!2: Chronicles of a Time Lost. While all three works were published in 2020, only the last two deal explicitly with the coronavirus pandemic. In The Silence, DeLillo does not mention the pandemic at all; he does, however, refer to it directly in a short essay which was added to the novel's later editions. This does not change the fact that the atypical situation in which DeLillo's characters find themselves, though caused by factors of a technical rather than sanitary nature, bears numerous resemblances to what people all over the globe experienced during the Covid-19 pandemic. The aim of the study is to read The Silence through the lens of Žižek's reflections and thereby to examine the political, sociocultural, technological and human implications of global cataclysms. My argument is that for both the American novelist and the Slovenian philosopher, worldwide disasters such as the blackout depicted in The Silence or the 2020 pandemic are merely a pretext for delving into the condition of the modern world, with particular emphasis on how twenty-first-century reality is affected by globalization, science, technology, war and environmental degradation. DeLillo's novel is more of a meditation while Žižek's collection of essays may be seen as a call to action. Nevertheless, both are statements on a humanity in crisis, disoriented, fragile and helpless, living in times which are, paradoxically, uncertain and even paranoia-inducing despite the unprecedented scale of scientific and technological progress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Referencing the term "Great American Novel," the August 2010 cover of Time Magazine introduced Jonathan Franzen as "the Great American Novelist," a change that draws attention to the persona of the author, as well as to his alleged ability to capture the American experience in the 21st century. Based on the analysis of Franzen's novels, this article describes changes in mainstream American fiction under neoliberalism--the shift towards strong authorial presence, omniscient narrator, mimetism, middle-class family saga--that arguably constitute a postpostmodernist tendency, neorealism. In spite of Franzen's extra-literary promise of political critique of neoliberalism and cultural critique of therapy discourse, his fiction in fact performs de-politization on narrative level. Happy endings exemplify a new model of success attained by characters who renounce their idealism--happiness based on small community, family, and abandonment of the hope for a structural change. This redefinition of success is presented as anti-establishment, and is combined with a style of writing that stresses verisimilitude and pretends neutrality, while applying strong narratorial authority. Those inconsistencies between the declarative and narrative levels can themselves be perceived as an intervention of neoliberalism in literature, as they cater to the demand for political discontent from Franzen's liberal, intellectual readership, while affectively soothing it with de-politicized happy endings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American writer Julia Peterkin (1880-1961) represents a downhill trajectory in terms of literary prominence, from the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1929 to obscurity now, almost 100 years later. For a few years in the 1920s and 1930s, Peterkin was one among few white American authors who wrote primarily about black American lives and experiences. She can be seen as a temporary ally in relation to the contemporary political and cultural situation of black America. This article focuses on Scarlet Sister Mary (1928), Peterkin's most famous and controversial novel, and explores what happened to her literary reputation later, in the historical context of the early 1930s and in connection with the publication of Roll, Jordan, Roll (1933). My claim is that Peterkin's work engages American history and American literary history from a specifically American point in time, post-plantation era and post-Hawthorne, that temporarily allows and even rewards the literary blackface and racial/racist oscillation of Peterkin as a poputchik writer, a fellow traveler in relation to black America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As one of the earliest and most renowned scholars engaging in the study of foreign literature in China since the reform and opening-up, Wang Shouren has achieved fruitful results in the translation and research of foreign literature, with particularly notable accomplishments in the field of American literature translation and research. Starting with a comprehensive understanding of literary traditions, he has examined Eastern and Western cultures on the foundation of inheriting the achievements of his predecessors, explored the path of American literature research, and carved out an innovative academic route. Wang Shouren stands at the forefront of reinterpreting the works of classic writers, like Henry David Thoreau and Willa Cather, while also dedicating attention to modern American writers such as Toni Morrison. His work is centered on uncovering fresh interpretations and insights into literary themes. Moreover, he broadens the scope of his research to encompass American ethnic literature, exploring both its scholarly importance and practical relevance. Wang Shouren's investigations into the history of American literature and its criticism are characterized by a unique approach that blends critique with historical context, aiming to rejuvenate academic traditions. His efforts in developing a framework for an independent body of knowledge of American literature studies with distinct Chinese-Characteristic are visionary. This approach not only integrates Chinese and Western perspectives but also amplifies the Chinese voice, elucidates Chinese features, and effectively represents China's image on the global stage. This paper begins with the context of a hundred years of translation and research of American literature in China, attempting to comprehensively discuss Wang Shouren's academic contributions to the construction of a Chinese-characteristic body of knowledge of American literature, in the hope of providing useful inspiration for the current construction of an independent body of knowledge regarding American literature research in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Conflicts of interest inherent in industry funding can bias medical research methods, outcomes, reporting and clinical applications. This study explored the extent of funding provided to American physician researchers studying surgical mesh used to treat uterine prolapse or stress urinary incontinence, and whether that funding was declared by researchers or influenced the ethical integrity of resulting publications in peer reviewed journals. Methods: Publications identified via a Pubmed search (2014–2021) of the terms mesh and pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence and with at least one US physician author were reviewed. Using the CMS Open Payments database industry funding received by those MDs in the year before, of and after publication was recorded, as were each study's declarations of funding and 14 quality measures. Results: Fifty-three of the 56 studies reviewed had at least one American MD author who received industry funding in the year of, or one year before or after publication. For 47 articles this funding was not declared. Of 247 physician authors, 60% received > $100 while 13% received $100,000-$1,000,000 of which approximately 60% was undeclared. While 57% of the studies reviewed explicitly concluded that mesh was safe, only 39% of outcomes supported this. Neither the quality indicator of follow-up duration nor overall statements as to mesh safety varied with declaration status. Conclusions: Journal editors' guidelines re declaring conflicts of interest are not being followed. Financial involvement of industry in mesh research is extensive, often undeclared, and may shape the quality of, and conclusions drawn, resulting in overstated benefit and overuse of pelvic mesh in clinical practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Circe is renowned for her profound knowledge of sorcery as a minor goddess in Greek mythology. Her depictions and representations are numerous in literature, painting, music, and popular culture, ranging from Homer's classical masterpiece The Odyssey to John William Waterhouse's painting Circe Invidiosa (1892). Recently, Circe has been recreated with a modern kick by the contemporary American novelist Madeline Miller. In Miller's novel Circe (2018), Circe voices her own story as the first-person heroine. The novel focuses on the spiritual growth and self-fulfilment of the protagonist. Reimagined by Miller in her family home in the early chapters, Circe is the innocent yet neglected child, always strange, pushed away, looked down upon, and alienated by her parents, siblings, and relatives. Miller first portrays Circe in her father's halls where she is made to believe that she is a failure, she is incomplete, lacking, and neither a nymph nor a goddess. However, as her powers as a witch begin to unravel, some of her practices draw the attention of the patriarchs in her life, and she is exiled by these men to an island named "Aiaia." How a woman can turn a punishment given by men into an advantage is shown in the novel. Marginalised and exiled to a deserted island with a house, forests, herbs, plants, and animals, Miller's Circe practices her witchcraft, discovers life, and manifests her true self. In this respect, this article focuses on how Circe's island, which she turns into her "home," empowers Circe as a woman. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about Assia Wevill, highlighting her overlooked contributions as a translator, collaborator, and writer, challenging stereotypes and showcasing her significant impact on mid-twentieth-century literary production. Topics include Wevill's translation of Yehuda Amichai's poetry, her role as a successful advertising professional, and her collaboration with Ted Hughes in writing and creative projects.

The article offers literary criticism on Armand Aubigny's psychological turmoil and cruelty in "Désirée's Baby" by Kate Chopin, highlighting his quest for legitimacy and the toxic sociopolitical environment of slavery and racism. Topics include Armand's struggle with his biracial identity, his narcissism, and the impact of racism on his relationships and actions.

The article delves into the significance of "gaudy" in early hard-boiled fiction, analyzing its portrayal in the works of Hammett and Chandler. It argues that "gaudy" reflects shifts in cultural values, depicting characters' struggles with authenticity amidst changing societal norms. Topics include the cultural context of hard-boiled fiction, shifts from character to identity, and the thematic evolution of "gaudy" in Hammett's and Chandler's narratives.

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Despite being the first Native American to author a novel, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta (1854), John Rollin Ridge and his writings have long troubled scholars. Ridge's focus on Mexican Americans, racist portrayal of California Indians, and embrace of US belonging refuse easy analysis within the single identity category-focused frameworks of Native studies and Chicanx studies, and his presence in gold rush California as a Cherokee settler complicates scholarly approaches to the racial history of California. This essay uses a historicized engagement with racial formation theory to reevaluate Ridge's work, including his novel, newspaper article in The True Daily Delta, and Hesperian magazine articles. Diverging from prior scholarship that reads Ridge's work through the lens of present-day racial categories, this study approaches racial categories as shifting, connected to structures of power, and imbricated with gender to understand how Ridge thought of himself in relation to both California Indians and Mexican Americans and how he tried to intervene into the American racial discourse. Ridge desired recognition and inclusion from the US settler state, and he used hegemonic notions of masculinity to make his case. This prompted him to distance himself from those unable to conform to standards of appropriate manhood. I contend that Ridge's desire for recognition led him to suggest that his own Cherokee people were more closely related to Mexican Americans than to California Indians. The complexity of Ridge's stance and racial positioning in California demonstrate the possibilities of a reading practice informed by a relational approach to racial formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In a constantly evolving world, it is crucial to examine how different social agents approach social change. Within the communication field, this concept is inherently tied to the tradition of Communication for Development and Social Change (CDSC). This tradition has developed regionally, with significant contributions from Latin American scholars, and with less prominence from North American authors, who have been accused of unilaterally imposing development models. In this context, two questions originate our study: What are the relationships of continuity and disruption that characterize the predominant trends and approaches in the conceptualization and practice of social change in Anglo-America and Latin America? And how do academic perspectives relate to concrete experiences of social change in the field of CDSC in the Americas? To address these questions, we conducted a scoping review that allows us to compare the understanding of social change among Anglo-American and Latin American scholars, as well as their ability to implement these ideas as agents of change. The results lead us to discuss three relationships of continuity and disruption between two communities of practice in the Americas: First, Latin American scholars associate social change with media communication and diversity in the symbolic representation of communities, while Anglo-Americans link it to social justice and political activism. Second, both groups blur the distinction between development and social change by operationalizing both in terms of community well-being and prosperity. Finally, we identify a rupture in the disciplinary organization of CDSC field in both regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Susan Abulhawa is one of the contemporary Palestinian American writers who has adopted the novel to interrogate the Zionist narrative which has established many wrong concepts of Palestine and Palestinians and to draw attention to the many ways in which Zionist texts of derogatory representations have been established as authoritative through the assumption that such narratives offer an accurate and true image of Palestine and Palestinians. The present article explores Abulhawa's novels as counternarratives that challenge and subvert the Zionist dominant narrative and attempt to correct the false image of Palestinians in Western media and canonical works. The article argues that Abulhawa's novels are probable models of the Palestinian writers' historical and political counternarratives which have masterfully broken the silence which has been imposed on Palestinian (hi)stories, and on the persistent effects of silencing Palestinians and shattering their voices. It, further, argues that Abulhawa's novels assert the Palestinian self and articulate Israel as an imperialist and settler entity and provide the possibility of constructing an alternative cultural and national narrative of Palestine's history since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948, which will affirm the Palestinians' continuous existence in their land and their forced expulsion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]