Yeats’s well-known poem “Leda and the Swan” seems to be reinforcing the traditional gender-myth (gender-stereotype) of aggressive male/passive female. However, in generating Leda’s daughters, Helen ...and Clytemnestra, Zeus is transferring a considerable degree of power to Leda. Through a deconstructive reading, this paper argues that the mythological Leda in Yeats’s text has within her womb a potentially violent, disruptive, and deconstructive force.
This paper aims to do justice to Iris Murdoch’s contribution to Irish short story writing. Although Murdoch is highly regarded among literary critics and common readers around the world, she is ...primarily labeled as a distinguished English novelist and philosopher. Grand narratives on themes such as morality and existence demarcate the majority of Murdoch criticism, while the fact that Dublin-born Murdoch also portrayed the contemporary Ireland she envisioned is unfairly obscured. This paper discuses Murdoch’s only extant short story titled
Something Special
, in which the dilemma of mid-twentieth-century Irish women is depicted. Introduction and conclusion aside, it falls into three parts. Part one presents the plight of Irish women amid the patriarchal society. Part two centers on the analysis of Yvonne Geary, the female protagonist of the story, against the backdrop of male-centered Irish culture. In part three, Yvonne’s dissatisfaction with the status quo as well as her efforts to get out from under the patriarchal tradition is investigated. It is found that this less documented Irish text sheds new light on the discussion of twentieth-century Irish women by inventing the prototypical feminist character, Yvonne Geary, and the story prefigures other feminist characters that subsequently arise in contemporary Irish literature.
In John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World, what Shawn Keogh has been wistfully waiting for is "Father Reilly's dispensation from the bishops, or the Court of Rome" so that he can ...consummate his marriage to PegeenMike (2000, 70). ...in The Country Girls 'Trilogy written by Edna O'Brien, the female protagonist, Cathleen, endeavours to shun away from her suffering by engaging in a series of jail-break love affairs with foreigners, especially middle-aged men from France. ...Eddie's case demonstrates that no matter how multicultural contemporary Ireland appears, it is far from easy to make a compromise between traditional Irish culture and other immigrant cultures. According to Bhabha, a certain discrepancy does exist between "cultural diversity" and "cultural difference" in the apparently multicultural world. ...in a study conducted by Alan Barrett and Adele Bergin, it was found that, contrary to common-sense perceptions, immigration to Ireland is generally good for Irish people because it helps to increase GDP and reduce inequality of earnings (2007, 82).
Women’s subordinate status in twentieth-century Irish literature has come under criticism in recent years. Irish women’s subjugation becomes apparent when we compare W. B. Yeats and Augusta Gregory. ...Whereas Yeats has been universally acknowledged in the past few decades as the spokesman of the Irish Literary Revival and an icon of modern Irish literature, Lady Gregory was ridiculed by George Bernard Shaw as the helping maid of the Abbey Theater. In this paper, a textual analysis of Lady Gregory’s plays is brought into discussion with Carol Gilligan’s and Nel Noddings’s feminist ethics to further explore the role women played in modern Irish literature. This paper aims at clarifying the nature of female writing as exemplified in Lady Gregory’s works. Unlike traditional studies on Lady Gregory and her plays, which focus on women’s subjugation in the male-dominated Irish society around the early twentieth century, the main findings of this research help shed new lights on the value of women in Gregory’s plays via an ethical feminist approach. The implication of this study is that women, who are apparently disempowered in traditional male-oriented moral thinking, are much more valuable and powerful when they are evaluated from ethical feminism.
Chang asserts that as a Nigerian writer of fiction in English, Chinua Achebe is well known for articulating an African identity that is distinguishable from colonizers' constructions, partly because ...relevant studies have historically been dominated by white voices and have muffled or excluded those of local people. According to Philip Whyte, "Achebe's explicitly pedagogical aim was to provide a narrative of African (more specifically Igbo) history from the inside to counter the representation previously monopolized by Western outsiders". Similar expression of a curiously African identity is evident in Achebe's short story "The Sacrificial Egg", which tells of the transformation of Umuru from an idyllic village to a commercial port under the influence of colonization. Achebe's criticism of colonialism is clear in many of his works, and the co-existence of local and Western ways of life in this particular story does not promote the integration of different cultural values.
Why natural selection would favor thoughts or behaviors that benefit others at the cost of oneself (prosociality) in humans is an intriguing question. The present studies explored two kinds of cues ...representing overarching environmental factors that might affect prosociality: unpredictability, which represents the variability of extrinsic threats, and competition, which represents the relevance of others' performance to one's fitness. In three experiments, we also took into account the interaction between the two environmental factors and two moderators, namely resource availability and prosocial thinking types. In each experiment, participants were exposed to cues of unpredictability and/or competition before assessment of spontaneous prosocial behaviors (Studies 1 and 2) or prosocial judgments in dual-choice dilemmas (Study 3). Results showed that unpredictable cues generally led to lower prosocial behaviors and fewer prosocial judgments (Studies 2 & 3). In contrast, competitive cues led to lower prosocial behaviors among individuals with resource disadvantages (Study 1), and when combined with unpredictable cues (Study 2). However, competition also led to higher prosocial behaviors among individuals with resource advantages (Study 1) and more prosocial judgments in response to rational, utilitarian dilemmas (Study 3). Taken together, these results indicated that human prosociality is affected by environmental factors in predictable ways.
Living Slow and Being Moral Zhu, Nan; Hawk, Skyler T; Chang, Lei
Human nature (Hawthorne, N.Y.),
06/2018, Letnik:
29, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Drawing from the dual process model of morality and life history theory, the present research examined the role of cognitive and emotional processes as bridges between basic environmental challenges ...(i.e., unpredictability and competition) and other-centered moral orientation (i.e., prioritizing the welfare of others). In two survey studies, cognitive and emotional processes represented by future-oriented planning and emotional attachment, respectively (Study 1, N = 405), or by perspective taking and empathic concern, respectively (Study 2, N = 424), positively predicted other-centeredness in prosocial moral reasoning (Study 1) and moral judgment dilemmas based on rationality or intuition (Study 2). Cognitive processes were more closely related to rational aspects of other-centeredness, whereas the emotional processes were more closely related to the intuitive aspects of other-centeredness (Study 2). Finally, the cognitive and emotional processes also mediated negative effects of unpredictability (i.e., negative life events and childhood financial insecurity), as well as positive effects of individual-level, contest competition (i.e., educational and occupational competition) on other-centeredness. Overall, these findings support the view that cognitive and emotional processes do not necessarily contradict each other. Rather, they might work in concert to promote other-centeredness in various circumstances and might be attributed to humans' developmental flexibility in the face of environmental challenges.
Gene expression-based profiling of colorectal cancer (CRC) can be used to identify four molecularly homogeneous consensus molecular subtype (CMS) groups with unique biologic features. However, its ...applicability to colorectal premalignant lesions remains unknown.
We assembled the largest transcriptomic premalignancy dataset by integrating different public and proprietary cohorts of adenomatous and serrated polyps from sporadic (N=311) and hereditary (N=78) patient populations and carried out a comprehensive analysis of carcinogenesis pathways using the CMS random forest (RF) classifier.
Overall, transcriptomic subtyping of sporadic and hereditary polyps revealed CMS2 and CMS1 subgroups as the predominant molecular subtypes in premalignancy. Pathway enrichment analysis showed that adenomatous polyps from sporadic or hereditary cases (including Lynch syndrome) displayed a CMS2-like phenotype with WNT and MYC activation, whereas hyperplastic and serrated polyps with CMS1-like phenotype harbored prominent immune activation. Rare adenomas with CMS4-like phenotype showed significant enrichment for stromal signatures along with transforming growth factor-β activation. There was a strong association of CMS1-like polyps with serrated pathology, right-sided anatomic location and BRAF mutations.
Based on our observations made in premalignancy, we propose a model of pathway activation associated with CMS classification in colorectal carcinogenesis. Specifically, while adenomatous polyps are largely CMS2, most hyperplastic and serrated polyps are CMS1 and may transition into other CMS groups during evolution into carcinomas. Our findings shed light on the transcriptional landscape of premalignant colonic polyps and may help guide the development of future biomarkers or preventive treatments for CRC.
The aim of the Korean Imatinib Discontinuation Study was to identify predictors for safe and successful imatinib discontinuation. A total of 90 patients with a follow-up of ≥12 months were analyzed. ...After a median follow-up of 26.6 months after imatinib discontinuation, 37 patients lost the major molecular response. The probability of sustained major molecular response at 12 months and 24 months was 62.2% and 58.5%, respectively. All 37 patients who lost major molecular response were retreated with imatinib therapy for a median of 16.9 months, and all achieved major molecular response again at a median of 3.9 months after resuming imatinib therapy. We observed newly developed or worsened musculoskeletal pain and pruritus in 27 (30%) patients after imatinib discontinuation. Imatinib withdrawal syndrome was associated with a higher probability of sustained major molecular response (P=0.003) and showed a trend for a longer time to major molecular response loss (P=0.098). Positivity (defined as ≥ 17 positive chambers) of digital polymerase chain reaction at screening and longer imatinib duration before imatinib discontinuation were associated with a higher probability of sustained major molecular response. Our data demonstrated that the occurrence of imatinib withdrawal syndrome after imatinib discontinuation and longer duration of imatinib were associated with a lower rate of molecular relapse. In addition, minimal residual leukemia measured by digital polymerase chain reaction had a trend for a higher molecular relapse. (Trial registered at ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01564836).
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