In Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France, Tracy Adams offers a reevaluation of Christine de Pizan’s literary engagement with contemporary politics. Adams locates Christine’s works within a ...detailed narrative of the complex history of the dispute between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, the two largest political factions in fifteenth-century France. Contrary to what many scholars have long believed, Christine consistently supported the Armagnac faction throughout her literary career and maintained strong ties to Louis of Orleans and Isabeau of Bavaria. Adams claims that Christine’s writings not only voiced support for Louis and Isabeau in opposition to John of Burgundy, but also contributed to defining kingship and creating authority in France’s turbulent political climate. In addition, Christine promoted, defended, and profoundly affected the nature of female regency as it developed in France from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries. Alternating between chapters focusing on the historical context of the Armagnac-Burgundian feud at different moments, and chapters offering close readings of Christine’s poetry and prose, Adams shows the ways in which the writer was closely engaged with and influenced the volatile politics of her time.
The fascinating history of Isabeau of Bavaria is a tale of two queens. During her lifetime, Isabeau, the long-suffering wife of mad King Charles VI of France, was respected and revered. After her ...death, she was reviled as an incompetent regent, depraved adulteress, and betrayer of the throne. Asserting that there is no historical support for this posthumous reputation, Tracy Adams returns Isabeau to her rightful place in history. Adulteress and traitor—two charges long leveled against the queen—are the first subjects of Adam’s reinterpretation of medieval French history. Scholars have concluded that the myths of Isabeau’s scandalous past are just that: rumors that evolved after her death in the context of a political power struggle. Unfortunately, this has not prevented the lies from finding their way into respected studies on the period. Adams’s own work serves as a corrective, rehabilitating the reputation of the good queen and exploring the larger topic of memory and the creation of myth. Adams next challenges the general perception that the queen lacked political acumen. With her husband incapacitated by insanity, Isabeau was forced to rule a country ripped apart by feuding, power-hungry factions. Adams argues that Isabeau handled her role astutely in such a contentious environment, preserving the monarchy from the incursions of the king’s powerful male relatives. Taking issue with history’s harsh treatment of a woman who ruled under difficult circumstances, Adams convincingly recasts Isabeau as a respected and competent queen.
Objective We sought to determine the timing of administration of antenatal corticosteroids (AS) for indicated preterm births and to identify which indications are associated with the most optimal ...timing of administration. Study Design This was a retrospective cohort of patients who received AS in anticipation of indicated preterm birth from 2009 through 2012 at Winthrop University Hospital, Mineola, NY. Medical records of patients who received AS, as identified through the hospital pharmacy database, were reviewed. Patients were included if they had a singleton or twin gestation and they received AS for maternal or fetal indications. Women were excluded if they received AS for spontaneous preterm labor or preterm rupture of membranes. Maternal demographic and obstetrical characteristics were compared between those who received AS ≤7 days vs >7 days from delivery using parametric and nonparametric tests with relative risks and 95% confidence intervals. P <.05 was considered significant. Results In all, 193 patients were included in this study. Median latency from AS administration to delivery was 9 days (range, 0–83); 93 patients (48%) received AS within 7 days of delivery. There were no significant differences between the 2 groups with regards to baseline maternal characteristics. Those delivering within 7 days of AS administration were more likely to have maternal vs fetal indications (84% vs 16%). Conclusion Only 48% of patients with an indication for preterm birth received AS within 7 days of its administration. AS appear to be more optimally timed in the presence of maternal rather than fetal indications.
In Christine de Pizan and the Fight for France , Tracy
Adams offers a reevaluation of Christine de Pizan's literary
engagement with contemporary politics. Adams locates Christine's
works within a ...detailed narrative of the complex history of the
dispute between the Burgundians and the Armagnacs, the two largest
political factions in fifteenth-century France. Contrary to what
many scholars have long believed, Christine consistently supported
the Armagnac faction throughout her literary career and maintained
strong ties to Louis of Orleans and Isabeau of Bavaria. By focusing
on the historical context of the Armagnac-Burgundian feud at
different moments and offering close readings of Christine's poetry
and prose, Adams shows the ways in which the writer was closely
engaged with and influenced the volatile politics of her time.
Politically grappling with history is a constructive act, one that relies on context, structure, and agency, and is also directed at the forging of cultural coherence. In light of the growing ...transnationalization of commemoration practices, political actors not only rely on national past but also appeal to historical foreign events in political domestic speech. This research focuses on Israel as a case study for theoretical expansion of the political encounter with history and the experience of alterity. Qualitative analysis of Israeli political rhetoric since the 2000s demonstrates how Israeli prime ministers primarily rely on domestic collective memories; when used, events of others are intended to create a sense of shared experience through comparison. ‘Importation for comparison’ is thus the apparatus reflecting how Israeli prime ministers comply with current needs put forth by internal and external challenges in a globalized world. Contributing to the ongoing discussion regarding the nature of identity, this research underlines how referencing to events from abroad is one of the prominent ways in which national self is evaluated, discussed, and negotiated, thus providing a better understanding of how Israeli society imagines itself in relation to others.
In this research I examine how collective memory travels in political speech. I qualitatively analyze how the memory of the Holocaust is deployed in non-commemorative settings across three national ...contexts: Israel, Germany, and the US. Findings demonstrate how the memory of the Holocaust is selectively presented and rearranged to support a domestic agenda. Ever-expanding transnationalization has thus heightened interconnectivity, enabling the memory of the Holocaust to travel over and beyond traditional settings. It has also admitted memories from beyond the border into the national context of public sense-making through speech. Discussing implications for theory and scholarship, I argue that the social construction of memories as transnationalized entities, and their importation via political speech holds within it a socially-charged question, namely, to whom does this memory belong?
Purpose: To determine if use of cerclage in twin gestations with mid-trimester short cervix is associated with decreased preterm birth rate.
Study design: This is a retrospective cohort of twin ...gestations identified with cervical length of ≤2.5 cm before 24 weeks of gestation through the perinatal ultrasound database of two institutions from 2008 to 2014. Patients with and without cerclage were compared for a primary outcome of preterm birth at <35 weeks. A pre-planned sub-group analysis of patients with cervical length ≤1.5 cm was also performed.
Results: Eighty-two patients were included; 43 received cerclage, 39 did not. Mean gestational age at cerclage placement was 20.8 weeks. There was no significant difference in rate of preterm birth <35 weeks between the groups (34.9% versus 48.7%, respectively). In the sub-group analysis of patients with cervical length ≤1.5 cm, there was a significant decreased risk of preterm birth <35 weeks 37% versus 71.4%; adjusted RR 0.49 (0.26-0.93).
Conclusion: Cerclage placement for cervical length ≤2.5 cm in twin gestations did not decrease the rate of preterm birth at <35 weeks; however, cerclage placement for cervical length ≤1.5 cm was associated with a significantly decreased rate of preterm birth <35 weeks when compared to patients managed without cerclage.
Background Cervical length by transvaginal ultrasound to predict preterm labor is widely used in clinical practice. Virtually no data exist on cervical length measurement to differentiate true from ...false labor in term patients who present for labor check. False-positive diagnosis of true labor at term may lead to unnecessary hospital admissions, obstetrical interventions, resource utilization, and cost. Objective We sought to determine if cervical length by transvaginal ultrasound can differentiate true from false labor in term patients presenting for labor check. Study Design This is a prospective observational study of women presenting to labor and delivery with labor symptoms at 37-42 weeks, singleton cephalic gestation, regular uterine contractions (≥4/20 min), intact membranes, and cervix ≤4 cm dilated and ≤80% effaced. Those patients with placenta previa and indications for immediate delivery were excluded. The shortest best cervical length of 3 collected images was used for analysis. Providers managing labor were blinded to the cervical length. True labor was defined as spontaneous rupture of membranes or spontaneous cervical dilation ≥4 cm and ≥80% effaced within 24 hours of cervical length measurement. In the absence of these outcomes, labor status was determined as false labor. Receiver operating characteristic curves were generated to assess the predictive ability of cervical length to differentiate true from false labor and were analyzed separately for primiparous and multiparous patients. The diagnostic accuracies of various cervical length cutoffs were determined. The relationship of cervical length and time to delivery was also analyzed including both use and nonuse of oxytocin. Results In all, 77 patients were included in the study; the prevalence of true labor was 58.4% (45/77). Patients who were in true labor had shorter cervical length as compared to those in false labor: median 1.3 cm (range 0.5-4.1) vs 2.4 cm (range 1.0-5.0), respectively ( P < .001). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for primiparous patients was 0.88 ( P < .001) and for multiparous patients was 0.76 ( P < .01), both demonstrating good correlation. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curves were not significantly different between primiparous and multiparous ( P = .23). The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for primiparous and multiparous patients combined was 0.8 ( P < .0001), indicating a good overall correlation between cervical length and its ability to differentiate true from false labor. Overall, a cervical length cutoff of ≤1.5 cm to predict true labor had the highest specificity (81%), positive predictive value (83%), and positive likelihood ratio (4.2). There were no differences in cervical length prediction between primiparous and multiparous patients. Cervical length was positively correlated with time to delivery, regardless of the use of oxytocin. Conclusion In differentiating true from false labor in term patients who present for labor check, a cervical length of ≤1.5 cm was the most clinically optimal cutoff with the lowest false positive rate–due to its highest specificity–and highest positive predictive value and positive likelihood ratios. Its use to decide admission in patients at term with labor symptoms may prevent unnecessary admissions, obstetrical interventions, resource utilization, and cost.
This research focuses on the proposed UK National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre as a vibrant site of discursive contestation, investigating the heated public and political debate on this ...memory initiative that took place between 2019 and 2022 through a twofold analysis of elite intention and public reception. Findings demonstrate that Holocaust memory in the UK is infused with ambivalence and contradictory understandings of what the meanings of the past hold for the present. Bursting from the sphere-specific boundaries of memory, however, the debate soon turns into a social problem, one that illuminates broader societal issues that the contemporary British collective struggles with. Insofar as British Holocaust memory, in cultural terms, is bound within a sacralizing discourse, identified and characterized as linked to values such as freedom, democracy and equality, the proposed memory initiative breaks open a Pandora’s box that illuminates and underlines polluting qualities such as ambivalence, intolerance and inequality. The critical discussion currently going on in the UK around the memory initiative is so much more than merely a problem of commemoration or location; rather, it embodies the broader identity crisis that affects many in the British public nowadays. Contributing to memory studies and cultural sociology, this research demonstrates how a collective’s narrative of self is constantly negotiated, mediated through public discourse in ways that could potentially pave the way to civil repair.
