Word Mingas Rocha Vivas, Miguel; Worley, Paul M; Birkhofer, Melissa
08/2021, Volume:
320
eBook
Word Mingas is an English-language translation by Paul M.
Worley and Melissa Birkhofer of the award-winning book Mingas
de la palabra written by Miguel Rocha Vivas (Casa de las
Americas, 2016). It is ...an encompassing study of
oralitures--multilayered cultural knowledge shared through the
power of orality--and written literatures by authors from Colombia
and other regions in the hemisphere who self-identify as
Indigenous. In consequential dialogue with the most recent theories
of decoloniality and interculturality, the book weaves and compares
two threads of literary critique Rocha Vivas names as
oralitegraphies and mirrored visions . The study
focuses on texts produced from the early 1990s to the present, and
offers productive avenues to discuss, understand, and foster
dialogue with the wide array of symbolic-literary systems of the
original peoples. Rocha Vivas offers a valuable contribution to the
much-needed dialogue on the basic rights of self-representation,
self-determination, and the coexistence of multiple systems of
representation and identity.
Este ensayo examina la obra de los autores-artistas Negma Coy y Edgar Calel, originarios de Chi Xot (San Juan Comalapa, Chimaltenango, Guatemala), a través del ts’íib. Irma Otzoy, Gaspar Pedro ...González y Pedro Uc Be, intelectuales mayas, explican el ts’íib como una producción artística que rebasa los límites de la palabra escrita. El ts’íib revela la palabra escrita, la grafía latina específicamente, como un instrumento más dentro de otras textualidades que participan en la creación de se mismo espacio de deleite y aprendizaje.
This article examines issues of translation in contemporary Yucatec Maya literature, using selected poems from Waldemar Noh Tzec's 1998 Noj Bálam/Large Jaguar as a representative case of how the ...Mexican state and ideologies of neoliberal multiculturalism may inflect the translation of indigenous text. In arguing for the existence of neoliberal translation, I use DuBois's notion of double-consciousness and Rivera Cusicanqui's theory of the 'indio permitido' to demonstrate how some bilingual indigenous texts create a space that is simultaneously inclusive and exclusionary, a literary phenomenon I refer to as the 'máseual excluido/indio permitido'. I suggest that when nationalizing projects reduce indigenous language texts to objects that vouchsafe the ethnic particulars of indigenous authors, they do not so much create an intercultural literature so much as reinforce the linguistic status quo of bilingual indigenous and monolingual non-indigenous subjects. Moreover, the apparent translations of indigenous texts into Spanish must in some sense correspond to the expectations of non-indigenous readers. In cases like that of Noh Tzec's poetry, this means that indigenous- and Spanish-language texts may convey wildly divergent messages to distinct readerships.
Latinxs in the Attic WORLEY, PAUL M.; BIRKHOFER, MELISSA
The Comparatist,
10/2019, Volume:
43, Issue:
1
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In this article we revisit William Faulkner's 1932 masterpiece Light in August to interrogate the mechanisms through which the novel simultaneously undermines and polices race along the black/white ...binary, speaking to the longstanding presence of Latinx populations in the US South while highlighting the violent barriers that stand in the way of that very recognition. Broadly speaking, in this article we argue that the protagonist Joe Christmas can be read as one of the first Latinx protagonists of Anglo-authored US literature, and that his presence as a potentially non-African American other within a society based on white supremacy illuminates the deep-seated, unspoken racial anxieties of white settler societies. We propose reading the text through Gloria Anzaldúa's Borderlands/La frontera in order to meditate on Christmas's oft-commented lack of racial identity and lack of cultural belonging as constituting, rather, the impossibility within the text of his successfully occupying the racial borderlands he embodies. In Light in August as in Anzaldúa, "the future depends on the breaking down of paradigms … on the straddling of two or more cultures" (Anzaldúa 102), and yet the novel's narrative structure forecloses the multiracial future tantalizingly immanent in the figure of Joe Christmas. On the one hand, Christmas's ambiguous racial status as perhaps black, perhaps white, perhaps Latinx, undermines the stability of the black/white binary upon which the novel's society is founded, suggesting the possibility of new modes of national belonging in the US and the eventual recognition of a multiracial nation and of multiracial subjects. On the other hand, the fact that Christmas meets a gratuitously violent, sexualized end would seem to simultaneously stifle the very possibilities to which the novel gives voice. In moving beyond the facile black/white binary of race in the US, key to our reading is the fact that we take seriously the possibility that Christmas's father is Mexican and argue that both Christmas and his anonymous father are racially transfigured as black within the novel's social structure in order to produce the violent policing of racial norms found in the work. Finally, by framing this analysis within the light of current events we consciously dialogue with important research being done on the history of lynching, and the lynching of Latinxs in particular, and ongoing police violence towards communities of color in the US. If we may borrow Jodi Melamed's formulation, we hope to underscore how the transition from a "white supremacist modernity" like that in Faulkner's novel towards the "formally antiracist, liberal-capitalist modernity" in which we live at present has further racialized labor and poverty in the sense that "economic disenfranchisement still 'blackens'" (222–223). That is, we find the socio-racial boundaries in Faulkner's novel redrawn at present, with Latinx subjects located firmly on the side of a transgressive "blackness" that justifies, ipso facto, police violence, and further invisibilizes Latinx populations.
To investigate the baseline patient characteristics, nonoperative modalities, surgical procedures, and complications rates of surgical cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) patients. To evaluate risk ...factors for developing complications and compare the changes in health-related quality of life (HRQOL) from baseline to 2 years postoperatively.
A retrospective review was performed on a prospectively collected database of CSM patients. Baseline patient demographic data, comorbidities, clinical information, nonoperative treatment modalities, surgical procedures, and complication rates were collected. HRQOL outcomes were assessed using the Short Form 36 (SF-36) Physical Score Component (PCS) and Mental Score Component (MCS) and the Neck Disability Index (NDI) at baseline and 2 years postoperatively. Statistical analyses included paired-sample t tests and multivariate logistic regression controlling for age, sex, and body mass index (BMI).
A total of 203 surgical CSM patients were identified (43% female). Average age was 57.7 years and average BMI was 29.6 kg/m2. Before surgical intervention, patients underwent various nonoperative treatment modalities, most commonly nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (34%), analgesics (32%), and physical therapy (26%). The overall rate of complications was 7.4%. Complications included cerebrospinal fluid leak (2.5%), postoperative radiculopathy (1.0%), and excessive bleeding (1.0%). A previous history of cervical spine surgery was the sole significant risk factor for developing a complication (odds ratio, 9.22; P = 0.034). Average HRQOL scores improved significantly from baseline to 2 years postsurgery.
The overall complication rate was 7.4% for the cohort. Baseline clinical information, comorbidities, use of nonoperative treatment modalities, and procedure type were not significantly associated with an increased risk of complications. Previous cervical spine surgery increased the risk of complications by 9-fold. The patients showed significantly improved SF-36 PCS, SF-36 MCS, and NDI scores at 2 years after surgery.
Informed patient selection and counseling is key in improving surgical outcomes. Understanding the impact that certain baseline variables can have on postoperative outcomes is essential in optimizing ...treatment for certain symptoms, such as radiculopathy from cervical spine pathologies. The aim was to identify baseline characteristics that were related to improved or worsened postoperative outcomes for patients undergoing surgery for cervical spine radiculopathic pain.
Retrospective review of prospectively collected data. Patient Sample: Surgical cervical spine patients with a diagnosis classification of "degenerative." Diagnoses included in the "degenerative" category were those that caused radiculopathy: cervical disc herniation, cervical stenosis, and cervical spondylosis without myelopathy. Baseline variables considered as predictors were: (1) age, (2) body mass index (BMI), (3) gender, (4) history of cervical spine surgery, (5) baseline Neck Disability Index (NDI) score, (6) baseline SF-36 Physical Component Summary (PCS) scores, (7) baseline SF-36 Mental Component Summary (MCS) scores, (8) Visual Analog Scale (VAS) Arm score, and (9) VAS Neck. Outcome Measures: Improvement in NDI (≥50%), VAS Arm/Neck (≥50%), SF-36 PCS/MCS (≥10%) scores at 2-years postoperative. An arm-to-neck ratio (ANR) was also generated from baseline VAS scores. Univariate and multivariate analyses evaluated predictors for 2-year postoperative outcome improvements, controlling for surgical complications and technique.
Three hundred ninety-eight patients were included. Patients with ANR ≤ 1 (n = 214) were less likely to reach improvements in 2-year NDI (30.0% vs 39.2%,
= .050) and SF-36 PCS (42.4% vs 53.5%,
= .025). Multivariate analysis for neck disability revealed higher baseline SF-36 PCS (odds ratio OR 1.053) and MCS (OR 1.028) were associated with over 50% improvements. Higher baseline NDI were reduced odds of postoperative neck pain improvement (OR 0.958). Arm pain greater than neck pain at baseline was associated with both increased odds of postoperative arm pain improvement (OR 1.707) and SF36 PCS improvement (OR 1.495).
This study identified specific symptom locations and health-related quality of life (HRQL) scores, which were associated with postoperative pain and disability improvement. In particular, baseline arm pain greater than neck pain was determined to have the greatest impact on whether patients met at least 50% improvement in their upper body pain score. These findings are important for clinicians to optimize patient outcomes through effective preoperative counseling.
This study evaluates the prognostic performance of a 15 gene expression profiling (GEP) assay that assigns primary posterior uveal melanomas to prognostic subgroups: class 1 (low metastatic risk) and ...class 2 (high metastatic risk).
Prospective, multicenter study.
A total of 459 patients with posterior uveal melanoma were enrolled from 12 independent centers.
Tumors were classified by GEP as class 1 or class 2. The first 260 samples were also analyzed for chromosome 3 status using a single nucleotide polymorphism assay. Net reclassification improvement analysis was performed to compare the prognostic accuracy of GEP with the 7th edition clinical Tumor-Node-Metastasis (TNM) classification and chromosome 3 status.
Patients were managed for their primary tumor and monitored for metastasis.
The GEP assay successfully classified 446 of 459 cases (97.2%). The GEP was class 1 in 276 cases (61.9%) and class 2 in 170 cases (38.1%). Median follow-up was 17.4 months (mean, 18.0 months). Metastasis was detected in 3 class 1 cases (1.1%) and 44 class 2 cases (25.9%) (log-rank test, P<10(-14)). Although there was an association between GEP class 2 and monosomy 3 (Fisher exact test, P<0.0001), 54 of 260 tumors (20.8%) were discordant for GEP and chromosome 3 status, among which GEP demonstrated superior prognostic accuracy (log-rank test, P = 0.0001). By using multivariate Cox modeling, GEP class had a stronger independent association with metastasis than any other prognostic factor (P<0.0001). Chromosome 3 status did not contribute additional prognostic information that was independent of GEP (P = 0.2). At 3 years follow-up, the net reclassification improvement of GEP over TNM classification was 0.43 (P = 0.001) and 0.38 (P = 0.004) over chromosome 3 status.
The GEP assay had a high technical success rate and was the most accurate prognostic marker among all of the factors analyzed. The GEP provided a highly significant improvement in prognostic accuracy over clinical TNM classification and chromosome 3 status. Chromosome 3 status did not provide prognostic information that was independent of GEP.
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