bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Predictors of outcome in myxoedema coma: a study from a tertiary care centre
Authors: Dutta Pinaki , Bhansali Anil , Masoodi Shriq Rashid , Bhadada Sanjay , Sharma Navneet , Rajput Rajesh
Published: May 2012

Background

With the easy availability of thyroid hormone assays, thyroid disorders are now recognised even in a subclinical state. However, patients are still seen with advanced manifestations of the disease, particularly in developing countries. This observational study analysed the predictors of outcome in patients with myxoedema coma and tested the validity of different modules to define morbidity and mortality in these patients.

Methods

Twenty-three consecutive patients with myxoedema coma who presented from January 1999 to August 2006 were studied. The thyroid function test and random serum cortisol were measured in all patients at the time of admission. Patients were given oral or intravenous (IV) thyroxine with intention to treat with the latter according to availability. Various modules that predict outcome, including Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), Acute Physiology and Chronic Health Evaluation II (APACHE II) score, and Sequential Organ Failure Assessment (SOFA) score, were analysed. SOFA score was repeated every 2 days until the time of discharge or demise.

Results

Twenty-three patients (20 women; 87%) of 59.5 ± 14.4 years of age (range, 30 to 89 years) were seen during the study period. Nine (39%) patients were diagnosed with hypothyroidism for the first time at the time of presentation of myxoedema coma, whereas 14 (70%) were diagnosed with hypothyroidism previously. However, the treatment defaulters presented early to the hospital and had more severe manifestations than de novo subjects. Nineteen (82%) had thyroprivic (primary) and 4 (17%) had trophoprivic (secondary) hypothyroidism. Fifteen (65%) patients presented in the winter and in 17 (74%) sepsis was the major accompanying comorbidity. Twelve (52%) had a history of diuretic use, thereby delaying the initial diagnosis. Patients who received oral L-thyroxine had no difference in outcome from those receiving IV thyroxine. Twelve (52%) subjects died and sepsis was the predominant cause of death. Various predictors of mortality included hypotension (p = 0.01) and bradycardia (p = 0.03) at presentation, need for mechanical ventilation (p = 0.00), hypothermia unresponsive to treatment (p = 0.01), sepsis (p = 0.01), intake of sedative drugs (p = 0.02), lower GCS (p = 0.03), high APACHE II score (p = 0.04), and high SOFA score (p = 0.00). However, SOFA score was more effective than other predictive models as baseline and day 3 SOFA scores of more than 6 were highly predictive of poor outcome.

Conclusion

L-Thyroxine treatment defaulters had more severe manifestations compared with de novo subjects. Outcome was not influenced by either aetiology or route of administration of L-thyroxine, and SOFA score was the best outcome predictor model.
Native Place, Environment, and the Trade Fort Concentration on the South Platte River, 1835–45
Authors: Newton Cody
Published: May 2012

This article analyzes the unusual trading post concentration—Fort Vasquez, Fort Jackson, Fort Lupton, and Fort St. Vrain—that operated simultaneously along the South Platte River during the late 1830s. These trading posts, or forts, dealt almost exclusively in bison robes provided by Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho hunters. The reasons behind this trading locus, which was unique to the fur trade era of the western Great Plains, are examined in the context of indigenous instrumentality and ecological factors. Heretofore unexamined environmental and archaeological data combined with historical research into intertribal conflict and place provide a more holistic explanation for this unique conjuncture.
Missed Opportunities and the Problem of Mohawk Chief John Norton's Cherokee Ancestry
Authors: Benn Carl
Published: May 2012

John Norton (1770–1831?) was one of the most important Iroquois leaders in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and the author of a thousand-page manuscript on First Nations history, a journey he made to the Cherokee country, and his adventures in the War of 1812. However, that text and his other writings have received comparatively little attention from scholars despite the rich opportunities these documents hold for exploring the indigenous world of his day. Much of the neglect stems from a reluctance to accept him as a “real” native person because he was born in Scotland and was an adopted Mohawk and because people have doubted his claim that his father was a Cherokee. This article clarifies Norton's claim to a Cherokee connection and concludes that the evidence overwhelmingly supports the probability that his father was a Cherokee; thus it invites scholars to look at Norton's work anew in their quest to understand the First Nations world of the latter 1700s and early 1800s.
“For My Necessities”: The Wills of Andean Commoners and Nobles in the Valley of Lima, 1596–1607
Authors: Charney Paul
Published: May 2012

This article is a detailed analysis of thirteen wills, perhaps fitting for such a short time span. It explores how Andean men and women of the Lima Valley crafted their own hybrid counter-narrative as manifested by their reconstituted families, inheritance practices, sexual behavior, use of language, political traditions, material culture, and socioeconomic ties and activities. The wills (and other documents) served as evidence of this hybridity, which was also facilitated by Spaniards and Spanish colonialism.
Moveable Feasts: Chronicles of “Potlatching” Among the Tsimshian, 1860s–1900s
Authors: Brock Peggy
Published: May 2012

This article considers Tsimshian feasting activities from the 1860s to the turn of the century. It is informed by the remarkable diary of a Tsimshian, Arthur Wellington Clah. It takes up the analysis where Robert Grumet left it in his article in Ethnohistory in 1975. Clah's day-by-day account shows how support for feasting and the chiefly system it reinforced waxed and waned over forty years. For a time after a permanent missionary came to their village of Fort Simpson, Tsimshian feasts became Christian festivals as the community dispensed with chiefs and the transmission of chiefly names before reverting to chiefdoms when the need for strong leadership was recognized to deal with land alienation and other threats to community cohesion and survival. Clah's day-by-day diary over fifty years is an ethnohistorical source that presents change over an extended timeframe, with insights into feasting that cannot be gained from travelers' and anthropologists' brief visits to the northwest Pacific coast.
The Case for the English Dolnik; Or, How Not to Introduce Prosody
Authors: Attridge Derek
Published: May 2012

In the teaching and criticism of poetry, this essay argues, the dominant prosodic tradition, based on classical metrics, provides no way of analyzing and appreciating one of the longest-lasting and most effective verse forms in the English tradition. But using the beat prosody developed in the author’s earlier work makes it possible to capture the distinctiveness of this form that, borrowing a term from Russian prosody, may be called the dolnik. To demonstrate the failure of the traditional approach in dealing with dolnik verse, the essay titled “Versification” in the Norton Anthology of Poetry is tested against a number of poems in the anthology, and the treatment of dolnik verse in a number of poetry handbooks is considered. Finally, Langston Hughes’s “Song for a Dark Girl” is discussed as an example of how dolnik verse might be taught.
The Polysemy of Looking: Reading Ekphrasis Alongside Images in Calvino’sCastle of Crossed Destiniesand Vargas Llosa’sIn Praise of the Stepmother
Authors: Kafalenos Emma
Published: May 2012

Ekphrastic texts are usually published separately from the visual representations they re-represent. The relation between the text and the image is one of substitution: the text replaces the image. But when an ekphrastic response and the image that inspires it are placed next to each other, the result is not redundancy. Rather, the juxtaposition draws attention to the polysemy of the image and to what I call the polysemy of looking. Ekphrasis that narrativizes, moreover, necessarily adds information to what is depicted, whereas ekphrasis that describes may add information but need not. If, as I assume, narrativizing is a typical cognitive response to scenes in our world as well as to represented scenes, an analysis of the additions in ekphrasis that narrativizes can help to explain why interpretations of events in our world can differ as much as they do. I draw examples from two novels that juxtapose images and ekphrastic responses, one in which individual images are narrativized (Vargas Llosa) and one in which sequences of images are narrativized (Calvino).
Narrative Humor (II): Exit Perspective
Authors: Vandaele Jeroen
Published: May 2012

This is part II of a two-part essay on narrative humor. Part I appeared in Poetics Today 31:4; it explained Wright’s (2005) idea that both humor and narrative require audiences/readers to switch between “intentional perspectives,” that is, between the cognitive-emotive states of mind of agents (participants). Second, it distinguished between humor and narrative: while narrative contains minimally two layers of intentionality (oriented to the action and its presentation), humor can but need not involve those two layers; inversely, while humor always requires subjects to perceive incongruity and feel superiority, narrative is not defined by incongruity and superiority, although it can produce them. Third, part I went on to redefine the composite concept “narrative humor,” describing it as the production and/or exploitation of incongruity and superiority relations among the participants (agents, intentional perspectives) of narrative texts: author, narrator, reader/spectator, character. Fourth, it analyzed some types of narrative humor, mainly “metanarrative humor,” “comic narrative suspense,” and “comic narrative surprise.” Part II surveys and compares other approaches to humor in/and narrative. In the philosophical and psychoanalytic study The Odd One In (2008), Zupančič suggests that comedies involving unhappiness deserve more attention than they have received. The idea that comedies are compatible with unhappiness is interesting, yet Zupančič overlooks the central mechanisms behind the idea: perspectival mechanisms, which foster incongruity/superiority between participants in a narrative and thus enable comedies to turn someone’s unhappiness into a funny thing. Also, Zupančič mistakes causal and temporal development for a feature of tragedy as against comedy, rather than identifying such development as a feature of narrative in general; by the standards of serious narrative, comic plots can even unroll “incongruously” many causal-temporal developments (as when farcical plots run wild). More generally, Zupančič shows little awareness of existing research on humor and comedy. Humor Studies may erroneously regard such books as representative of humanist-interpretive analyses of humor in general—and therefore keep excluding cultural and literary studies from their interdisciplinary enterprise. Yet Humor Studies likewise betrays problems in the face of narrative humor. As with Zupančič, those problems (visible in Attardo 2001 and, less so, Ermida 2008) are related to a neglect of intentional perspective, a poor grasp of narrative’s perspectival makeup, and a lack of interest in poetics.
Eucharistic Miracle and Eucharistic Doubt
Authors: Justice Steven
Published: May 2012

Scholarship has routinely assumed that the many medieval eucharistic miracle stories about hosts witnessed as discernibly the body of Christ — newborn, bloody, crucified, or dismembered — were designed to quell doubts in the doctrine of the Mass with coercive ocular confirmation. But the stories themselves trade on the fact that they could not do so, and theological explanations of the doctrine show that they should not be expected to; both the nature of the doctrine and the nature of belief rendered such an ambition incoherent. The stories emphasize instead the sacrament’s brash affront to common sense and even common sensibility, provoking faith to work instead of rendering it redundant with evidence.
Julian of Norwich’s Art of Interpretation
Authors: Karnes Michelle
Published: May 2012

The relationship between a base text and its analysis in the Middle Ages is often considered tenuous or downright fanciful, an issue that this article addresses with primary reference to Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Love. It argues that Julian uses the discontinuities within the revelations to thematize both distance and union. Relying on various literary figures to represent discord and harmony at the formal level as well, Julian shows that interpretation ought to make visible its own procedures. Following her own prescriptions, she demonstrates how a text’s meaning depends fundamentally on the process by which one arrives at it. Discord therefore serves as a hermeneutic tool, one that Julian uses deliberately. Understanding her method of interpretation also illuminates the role of dissimilarity elsewhere in medieval commentary.
Jargon and the Matter of Medicine in Middle English
Authors: Orlemanski Julie
Published: May 2012

When the men and women of late medieval Britain began to read and produce medical writings on a scale unprecedented in earlier centuries, they faced the problem of jargon—that is, how to negotiate the interface between knowledge and nonsense in their literate practices. The polyglot heterogeneity of medicine’s vocabulary, the diversity of its audience, and the life-and- death context of its use contributed to the tension between the discourse’s aspirations and its limitations. This essay argues that widespread experiences of medicine’s jargon in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had the effect of yoking together in the minds of British readers the materiality of medical language and the materiality of the body. I examine how the literate creativity of practical medical writing addressed the problem of jargon as well as how satires of medical expertise, particularly Robert Henryson’s “Sum Practysis of Medecyne,” made jargon a poetic opportunity.
Local anaesthetic surgical treatment of severe objective pulsatile tinnitus: a useful technique
Authors: Aikoye AA , Tang TY , Meyer FJ
Published: May 2012

Objective pulsatile tinnitus is a rare condition with an often dramatic presentation. We present the case of a 70-year-old woman who presented with over two years’ history of unilateral distressing objective pulsatile tinnitus. Carotid arteriography revealed a highly tortuous internal carotid artery. Computed tomography of the ipsilateral temporal bones showed a large jugular bulb. Internal jugular vein ligation under local anaesthetic yielded immediate resolution of her symptoms.
Early symptoms of bone and soft tissue sarcomas: could they be diagnosed earlier?
Authors: George A , Grimer R
Published: May 2012

INTRODUCTION

Delays in diagnosis are common for patients with bone and soft tissue sarcoma (STS) despite guidance produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. This study set out to identify early symptoms experienced by patients and reasons for delays in making a definitive diagnosis.

METHODS

Retrospective interviews were carried out with 107 patients (66 with an STS and 41 with a bone sarcoma) presenting to a specialist centre. Symptoms were determined prior to definitive diagnosis and the occurrence of patient and doctor delays in reaching specialist care.

RESULTS

The median patient delay was 1 month while the median doctor delay was 3.2 months from first symptoms to diagnosis for all sarcomas. Forty-nine patients with STS (74%) presented initially to their general practitioner with at least one guideline feature to prompt urgent referral. Only 2 patients (4%), however, were referred directly to a sarcoma unit, with 21 (43%) referred to secondary care for investigation. Patients with a lump increasing in size exhibited longer patient delays while doctor delay was shorter for deep lumps. Thirty-six patients with a bone sarcoma (88%) presented initially with symptoms to prompt further investigation. Nevertheless, significant delays (3.9 months) were seen in reaching specialist care. Only 4 patients (10%) were referred directly to a sarcoma unit at first presentation, with 21 (54%) referred for further investigation elsewhere.

CONCLUSIONS

It is evident that awareness and referral of sarcomas remain poor. We suggest specific amendments to current guidelines and clearer referral pathways for patients. Furthermore, the need for robust education strategies is indicated, predominantly among healthcare professionals.
A case report of anaphylaxis to chlorhexidine during urinary catheterisation
Authors: Noel J , Temple A , Laycock GJA
Published: May 2012

Chlorhexidine gluconate is a chemical antiseptic that is effective against Gram positive and negative bacteria and on certain viruses and fungi. A bacteriocidal and bacteriostatic agent, this cationic drug is absorbed on to negatively charged cell surfaces of organisms, disrupting the cell membrane, which results in increased permeability. Its use is mainly topical as a surgical hand antisepsis, site preparation/cleansing and for pre-genitourinary procedures such as urethral catheterisation. Like any drug, caution should be employed with its use as hypersensitivity reactions are being documented increasingly in the medical literature. In the following case, we present a patient who was catheterised with the chlorhexidine containing Instillagel® (CliniMed, High Wycombe, UK), prior to undergoing elective orthopaedic surgery.
Spontaneous liver haemorrhage and haemobilia as initial presentation of undiagnosed polyarteritis nodosa
Authors: Battula N , Tsapralis D , Morgan M , Mirza D
Published: May 2012

Polyarteritis nodosa (PAN) is a systemic necrotising vasculitis that could result in multifocal aneurysms of visceral arteries. Isolated multiple aneurysms of the hepatic arteries in the setting of PAN is extremely rare. Patients are typically asymptomatic and, very rarely, spontaneous rupture with life threatening haemorrhage could be the initial presentation of an undiagnosed PAN. Accurate diagnosis, effective haemostasis and prompt initiation of immunosuppressive treatment with the help of a multidisciplinary team will improve the clinical outcomes.
SIADH following laparoscopic (totally extraperitoneal) inguinal hernia repair
Authors: Ahmed M , Pattar J
Published: May 2012

Syndrome of inappropriate secretion of antidiuretic hormone (SIADH) is recognised to occur after cardiac and traditional open abdominal surgery. However, SIADH after laparoscopic surgery is not well documented in the literature. We report a case of SIADH after laparoscopic (totally extraperitoneal) inguinal hernia repair in an elderly man.
The Intercollegiate Specialty Board Clinical Examination: A Patient's Perspective
Authors: Bhalla A , Tincknell L , Shukla A , Armitage N
Published: May 2012

The Intercollegiate Specialty Board (ISB) holds several examinations each year. The clinical section of these exams forms a key component in the assessment and subsequent completion of surgical training. commonly, the clinical sections are held in hospitals where one of the affiliated examiners holds a consultant position. although a particular hospital will usually host this examination only once in an examiner's career, with the addition of mrcS and medical school examinations, many clinicians will play some part in the organisation of a clinical examination at some time in their career. patient participation is vital to a successful clinical exam and we must never forget that these patients are volunteering themselves as well as their time for free.
A travelling fellowship to ganga Hospital, India: lessons to be learnt
Authors: Kain Nakul
Published: May 2012

'Coimbatore: An 18-year-old engineering student was caught under the wheels of Cheran Express while trying to alight from the moving train[...]'
Saints and Sinners Harold Hopkins
Authors: Whitaker Matthew
Published: May 2012

In 1951 a fortuitous accident of seating at a dinner party brought together Hugh gainsborough, a gastroenterologist at St george's Hospital, and Harold Hopkins, a young physicist working at Imperial College London. over dinner gainsborough lamented the inadequacies of the gastroscopic instruments of the time. The problem, he said, was that the existing rigid devices had blind spots. one could never be sure that one hadn't missed something when exploring a patient's stomach. What was needed was a flexible gastroscope that could see 'round corners'. Hopkins, a problem-solver by nature, was captivated by the notion and spent the next three years working on a design. By 1954 he had built a prototype of the world's first fibreoptic endoscope, a device that revolutionised the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal ailments. It was the first, but not the last, of hopkins's great contributions to science and, in particular, to surgery.
Ectopic Expression of TIM-3 in Lung Cancers
Authors: Zhuang Xuewei , Zhang Xiaoning , Xia Xiyan , Zhang Cuijuan , Liang Xiaohong , Gao Lifen , Zhang Xin , Ma Chunhong
Published: May 2012

T-cell immunoglobulin– and mucin domain-3–containing molecule 3 (TIM-3) is a membrane protein expressed in various kinds of immune cells and plays a pivotal role in immune regulation. Recently, TIM-3 was reported to be expressed aberrantly in melanoma cells, contributing to the low adhesion ability of tumor cells and promoting the survival of melanoma cells. We investigated TIM-3 expression in non–small cell lung cancers (NSCLCs), and further analyzed whether the aberrant expression of TIM-3 is related to the prognosis for patients with lung cancer. Tumor tissue samples from 30 patients with NSCLC were involved. Results of immunohistochemical analysis showed that TIM-3 stained positive on tumor cells in 86.7% (26/30) patients with primary NSCLC. The TIM-3 expression in NSCLC tumor cells was correlated with histologic type and pathologic T classification of the disease (P < .05). More importantly, patients with TIM-3–positive tumor cells had a significantly shorter survival time than those with TIM-3–negative tumors. Multivariate analysis demonstrated the significant role of TIM-3 expression in tumor cells as an independent prognostic factor for patients with NSCLC (relative risk, 4.481; 95% confidence interval, 1.790–11.22; P = .0005). Our results suggest that the ectopic expression of TIM-3 in tumor cells may be a potential, independent prognostic factor for patients with NSCLC.
A Search for Reliable Molecular Markers of Prognosis in Prostate Cancer
Authors: Tradonsky Alison , Rubin Tammy , Beck Rodney , Ring Brian , Seitz Robert , Mair Sharon
Published: May 2012

Most prostate cancers are treated, although more than 80% remain clinically insignificant and fewer than 3% are fatal. This retrospective study of 240 radical prostatectomy cases with comprehensive follow-up was a search for reliable markers of prostate cancer prognosis evaluable on biopsy specimens to enable minimization of unnecessary treatment, morbidity, and costs. Representative cancer and benign tissue from each prostatectomy specimen was made into tissue microarrays and stained with antibodies targeting 20 gene sequences. Traditional clinical and pathologic prognosticators and the 20 antibody stains were correlated with patient outcomes. By univariable analysis 4 of 20 antibodies (STMN1/stathmin 1, CYP4Z1/cytochrome p450-4z1, CDH1/E-cadherin, and Hey2), Gleason score, perineural invasion, and apical involvement were statistically significant outcome predictors for biopsy tissue. By multivariate analysis, Gleason score, Hey2, and CYP4Z1 were independently predictive. STMN1 and CDH1 were not independent of Gleason score but remain useful because marker interpretation is objective and Gleason scores often differ for biopsy and prostatectomy specimens.
Molecular Testing in Colorectal Cancer
Authors: Shi Chanjuan , Washington Kay
Published: May 2012

Currently, molecular testing in colorectal cancer (CRC) is aimed at detecting Lynch syndrome and predicting response to anti–epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) therapies. However, CRC is a complex disease, with at least 3 molecular pathways of carcinogenesis. The importance of the EGFR signaling pathway in colorectal carcinogenesis is underscored by the availability of anti-EGFR monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of some metastatic CRCs. Potentially, mutations in any of the genes in the EGFR signaling pathway may be associated with prognosis and may predict response to anti-EGFR or other targeted therapies. Although not currently the standard of care, molecular testing of CRCs is expanding to include mutational analysis of the genes in the EGFR pathway, in addition to more widely performed tests for identifying cancers with high microsatellite instability. Multiplex molecular prognostic panels for therapeutic decision making in stage II CRCs also represent expanding use of molecular testing for this common cancer.
Categorizing Cult: The Reputation and Reception of Save the Green Planet!
Authors: Martin Daniel
Published: May 2012

This article examines the international release of the South Korean film Save the Green Planet! and argues that this is an example of a film whose cult reputation was pre-sold to audiences on the basis of constructed associations between Korean cinema and excessive violence. This article
also considers the divided critical reception of Save the Green Planet! as experts from different fields argued over the value and meaning of the film.
Afterword
Authors: Choi Jinhee
Published: May 2012

Many essays in this volume attempt to emphasize how the significance of a horror and/cult film does not and should not limit itself to its heuristic, epistemic value; in other words, as a vehicle to “learn“ about that culture and nation-state. Rather, with an accumulation
of enough scholarship on Asian horror films, the scope and methods can vary, not to pigeonhole films to dominant theoretical frameworks, but to provide nuanced explanations to the relationship between films and their surroundings culture, industry, fandom, and aesthetics. The essays in this
volume certainly take us in that direction plurality of interest, topic, and methodology.
East Meets West: Indian Adaptations of Gothic and Swashbuckling Films: Rebecca and The Prisoner of Zenda
Authors: Mitra Bansari
Published: May 2012

This article examines the Indian reproductions of Western films Rebecca and Prisoner of Zenda, arguing that they have led not just to imitations, but total appropriations of the themes, even though in the main framework the films follow the script of the originals closely. This article
examines the two Indian films, Kohra (1964) and Jhinder Bondi (1961), arguing that they not only adapt, recast, and retell the stories of Rebecca and Prisoner of Zenda, but most importantly, reinvent an Indian setting and an era, especially with the aim of making them super hit movies. While
these are popular movies, meant to entertain the audience — in the same way gothic and adventure stories are meant to capture the audience’s gaze through suspense and thrill — we do notice fine touches that lift them above the level of blockbusters. It will point out how
the Indianization really helps us to appreciate the divergences of eastern and western cultures, where they part and where they meet.
Painted Skin : Negotiating Mainland China’s Fear of the Supernatural
Authors: Willis Andy
Published: May 2012

Following Hong Kong’s reunification with China in 1997, it became a “Special Administrative Region” (SAR). This meant that Hong Kong filmmakers now had wider access to distribution and co-production deals with the mainland. In this article, through a case study of
the 2008 film, Painted Skin, I consider how the makers of a supernaturally based work have negotiated these industrial changes within their film, in particular, the stricter censorship laws in operation on the mainland. The article argues that while Painted Skin is adapted from a familiar
source and in a long tradition of Hong Kong horror films, the historically specific set of circumstances operating around its production and release reveal how central this historical specificity is to any understanding of it as a contemporary Hong Kong horror film.
President is the country: Two Korean Films on the Park Chung Hee Era
Authors: Noh Kwang Woo
Published: May 2012

The purpose of this article is to examine how The President’s Barber (Im Chan Sang, 2004) and The President’s Last Bang (Im Sang Soo, 2005) represent the Park Chung Hee era. Before these two films were produced, some Korean films had dealt with the 1970s. They can be categorized
into two groups by mode of representation. First, the nostalgic films deal with this era through the form of coming-of-age films or a first love story in which the main characters are high school students. Second, the retrospective films examine the brutality or absurdness of this era. The
improvement of Korean democratization enables these films to be produced, and the economic crisis of 1997-1998 contributes to the production of these films — films that respond to the right wing’s reaction, the Park Chung Hee syndrome, and the economic crisis.
Center Stage: The Melodrama of Resistance
Authors: Williams Tony
Published: May 2012

Center Stage is a critically dialectic work interrogating one type of melodrama common to Shanghai cinema in the 1930s, influenced by Hollywood, but also haunting post-1945 Hong Kong cinema. Exploring such areas not only reinforces the richness of this great achievement of New Hong
Kong Cinema but also further emphasizes it relevance for the present, a relevance very much in the minds of Stanley Kwan and his team when they engaged in a collaborative enterprise, the nature of which fully appears in the director’s cut version rather than the one intended for theatrical
release. Any serious study of Center Stage has, of necessity, to concentrate on the extended version.
Pandora’s Box: Time-Image in A Chinese Odyssey and the Becoming of Chinese Cinema
Authors: Qian Kun
Published: May 2012

This essay is a devoted close reading to show how A Chinese Odyssey has translated the anxiety of identity formation into a universal consciousness of time that fits in the post-revolutionary Chinese context. First, textual reading reveals the centrality of time in identity formation.
Exploring the double structure of Deleuze’s philosophy of time, Qian wishes to demonstrate that the virtual aspect of time determines the becoming of the Monkey King’s identity, which not only subverts the image of the Monk King (and other characters), but also articulates the
power of falsity in the becoming of identity. Second, the slapstick “wu li tou” style subverts any “serious” reading of Hong Kong’s identity, yet paradoxically, rationalizes its own subversion. It also aims to extend the textual world to the trans-regional context,
the spatial dislocation and temporal delay in the reception of this movie address not only a local psychology of Hong Kong’s identity before 1997, but also a consciousness of global time among a broader audience and the becoming of Chinese cinema by the turn of the 21st century.
”May You Be the Mother of A Hundred Sons!”: Barrenness vs. Motherhood in Bengali Cinema
Authors: Mandal Somdatta
Published: May 2012

Beginning with barrenness as the root cause in the break-up of husband-wife relationships in several films of Satyajit Ray namely Monihara, Devi, Charulata and Ghare-Baire, Somdatta Mandal also examines Punendu Patrea’s Streer Patra, Rituparno Ghosh’s Chokher Bali and Antarmahal
(The Inner Chamber) where the director narrates a 19th century tale of a Bengali zamindar whose desperation in begetting a male heir leads to bizarre circumstances. But first with Satyajit Ray’s handling of the theme. Among the different forms of portraiture of women in the films of
Satyajit Ray, the married and childless wife reveals herself in different avatars. In most cases, these women become sort of loners, or outcasts, bereft of normal heterosexual behavior. It is more than a coincidence in each case that the woman protagonist turns out to be childless.
Contemporary Thai Horror: The Horrific Incarnation of Shutter
Authors: Ainslie Mary
Published: May 2012

This article explores the creation, discourses, and distribution of the 2004 New Thai horror film Shutter. A high-grossing film nationally and internationally, Shutter is based in Bangkok and follows a story of supernatural revenge by the spirit of a young upcountry woman who returns
to wreak vengeance upon the men and former boyfriend who abused her in life. While considered by Bangkok fans to be the “best” Thai horror ever and “the only genuinely scary Thai movie,” this paper will argue that Shutter ironically signalled a deliberate departure
from traditional Thai horror aesthetics and narrative structure. Instead, shaped in favor of a pan-Asian “look” and appeal and one familiar to non-Thai viewers (through films such as Ringu, etc.), it thereby paradoxically achieved success as a “Thai film” while erasing
many cultural specificities of Thai cinema. Significantly, its 2008 Hollywood remake was set in Japan starring American actors. This paper explores the ramifications of such redesigning to both the Thainess of Shutter’s subject matter and its wider social implications.
Flesh and Blood: The Guinea Pig Films
Authors: Balmain Colette
Published: May 2012

The Japanese V-Cinema Guinea Pig (Za Ginipiggu) series (1985-1988) are often seen by critics such as Sharp, as indicative of the worse excesses of Japanese cinema. Given the nature of the films and their limited availability, it is not surprising that there has been little critical
discussion of the series. Existing critical approaches are sharply split between those critics who seek to legitimize the films as contesting the dominant ideology of Japanese national cinema at the time (McRoy, 2008: 15-47) and/or in terms of cinematic technique (Hunter, 1998: 143-150), and
those that interpret the films in much the same way as Sharp does (Galloway, 2006: 178). The purpose of this paper is to interrogate the gender politics of the Guinea Pig films as it is the female body -- more often than not -- that is clinically dissected, violated, and exploited for the
[male] gaze in the Guinea Pig series. Secondly, the paper considers how the mechanics by the Guinea Pig films are marketed in the West as in opposition to the mainstream in order to anchor their “underground” and “cult” status at a time when Asian cinema had been branded
as “Extreme.”
Transnational, Transgeneric, Transgressive: Tracing Miike Takashi’s Yakuza Cyborgs to Sukiyaki Westerns
Authors: Rawle Steve
Published: May 2012

This paper explores the transnationalism of Miike Takashi’s approach to film genres. Film genre has often been held as a stabilizing and internationalizing paradigm of film production, distribution, and reception, likewise with the increasingly transnational focus of Miike’s
work that has accompanied his growing notoriety and fame with critics and cineastes, predominantly those outside Japan, where his fame is marginal. The paper also explores ways in which Miike’s transnational approach to genre problematizes and intervenes in transnational cinematic struggles
by offering challenges to existing and homogenizing structures of genre and language. By looking at Sukiyaki Western Django (2007) as the definitive example of Miike’s transcultural generic work, the argument will examine the role of “gatekeeper auteurs” such as Tarantino
and Eli Roth, in establishing Miike as the nomadic figure in world cinema.
The Good, the Bad, and the Culturally Inauthentic: The Strange Case of the “Asian Western
Authors: Hunt Leon
Published: May 2012

When The Tears of the Black Tiger (Fah talai jone 2000, dir. Wisit Sasanatieng) was reviewed in Sight and Sound, reviewer Edward Buscombe expressed surprise at the existence of a Thai Western and concluded that the film was “ultimately, about nothing at all.” Such debates
had already been well rehearsed around Italian Westerns, the paradigmatic “inauthentic” adaptation of an “authentic” genre. Asian cinema’s connection to the Western can be traced back to Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, which was reworked across diverse genres,
including the Western. Two further “Asian Westerns” have been distributed internationally more recently, Sukiyaki Western Django (Sukiyaki Uesutan Jango 2007, dir. Miike Takashi) and The Good, the Bad, the Weird (Joheun nom nabbeun nom isanghan nom 2008, dir. Kim Ji-woon). While
individual films have unmistakeable local resonances “lost” Thai cinema, South Korea’s Manchurian action films of the 1960s, the interplay between Japanese chanbara and the Western -- the common transcultural referent is not the American Western, but the Italian one. This
paper examines the relationship between the “Asian” and Italian Western, and considers how the latter might inform the transnational ambitions of the former.
Handcrafting revolution: Ukrainian avant-garde embroidery and the meanings of history
Authors: Myzelev Alla
Published: May 2012

This article investigates the point when craft revival and avant-garde innovations merged to create objects that combined traditional peasant skills with innovative Suprematist compositions. The peasant craft revival in the Ukraine, which has been little studied thus far, aimed to raise
the national consciousness of the local population and to preserve the disappearing handicrafts. Several avant-garde women artists, such as Natalia Davydova, Alexandra Exter and Evgenia Pribyl’skaia, headed the craft revival workshops. The Suprematist embroidery created in these workshops
was a combination of many layers of historical meaning, from the reduction of formal artistic elements to the technical complexities of the embroidery, wherein one layer was topped by another to create a textured three-dimensional effect. Created during the period between the two revolutions
and on the verge of World War I, when Russians and especially Ukrainians were attempting to negotiate and define their national identity, the question arises as to how these objects can illuminate the artists’ and the workers’ understanding of that period. How could participation
in the workshops and the design work enrich and/or change the experience of the artists and the workers? This article analyses the processes and meanings of craft production and consumption to explain the complex relationship between artists and craftspeople, between handicraft revival and
avant-garde practice.
Vibeke Riisberg: The red thread from practice to research
Authors: Bang Anne Louise , Riisberg Vibeke
Published: May 2012

This portrait is based on an interview with Vibeke Riisberg, the first textile designer in Denmark to earn a Ph.D., in 2006. In 2007 Riisberg was appointed Associate Professor at Kolding School of Design. The text unfolds some of the various activities in her career from her education
at the Art and Craft School in Copenhagen in the 1970s, through her collaboration with industry from a design studio in Paris, to exhibitions of textile art, design and teaching. Parts of the Ph.D. thesis ‘Printed textiles – from analogue to digital processes’ are presented,
along with the research project ‘Adjusting daylight and solar heating in office buildings’, which she conducted in collaboration with textile engineer and Associate Professor Joy Boutrup.
BOOK REVIEW
Authors: Mitchell Victoria
Published: May 2012

On Craftsmanship: Towards a New Bauhaus, Christopher Frayling (2011) London: Oberon Books, 144 pp., ISBN: 978-1-84943-072-2, h/bk, £9.99
CONFERENCE REVIEWS
Authors: Harper Paul , Shercliff Emma
Published: May 2012

Review of Making Futures: The Crafts as Change Maker in Sustainably Aware Cultures Dartington Hall, Dartington Estate, Devon, UK, 15–16 September 2011

Textile Research in Process: An nternational symposium exploring the role and relevance of traditional hand skills in contemporary
textiles, and the value and status of craft process. School of the Arts, Loughborough University, UK, 16–17 November 2011
The foundations of craft: A suggested protocol for introducing craft to other disciplines
Authors: Kettley Sarah
Published: May 2012

The influence of craft on Product Design practices can be seen in the growth of young start ups citing craftsmanship as a core value of their business, in the increasing attention paid to ‘slow design’, and in the use of craft tropes to sell mass produced products. This
article presents seven ‘foundations’ of craft, an outcome of a programme of research in which contemporary craft was reflexively employed as a methodology for designing digital jewellery. It challenges the many disciplines of Design to engage with craft in a critically informed
manner, and to understand the potential this approach holds for meaningful design. The article is organized into sections according to each of the seven principles proposed.
Crafting innovation: The intersection of craft and technology in the production of contemporary textiles
Authors: Philpott Rachel
Published: May 2012

This article has grown from a programme of practice-led research entitled ‘Structural Textiles: Adaptable Form and Surface in Three-Dimensions’. In this research traditional textile craft practices centred on hand making have provided an essential foundation from which to
develop deployable textile structures that have customizable behavioural properties. The article investigates the importance of touch in acquiring understanding of textile artefacts and the significance of this tactile acquisition of knowledge in the process of textile production. In such
practice, innovation is generated through the maker’s creative responses to unforeseen behaviours of both process and material. However, the research also has also drawn on CAD/CAM technologies that enable the creation of designs and products with increased accuracy and complexity but
reduce or remove instances of handcrafting in the making process. The article considers how sensory information gained through touch and the embodied knowledge that this generates can be preserved as part of contemporary textile practice whilst exploiting the potential of CAD/CAM and other
automated processes to create complex and innovative outcomes.
Man–machine–music: Resonances of craft and technology in a study of guitar building
Authors: Busch Otto von
Published: May 2012

Craft is often discussed from the perspective of the maker or artisan, but seldom addresses the assemblage of other agents involved, like materials and tools, and how they affect the outcome. One way to examine this issue could be to use a Deleuzoguattarian perspective in order to draw
attention to the role of the various vibrating parts of an assemblage on an individual as well as an abstract level. This article argues that a musical interpretation of the process of craft can help render visible several agents involved in the shaping of a guitar, an assemblage composed
of intentions, craftsmanship, material and tools. Juxtaposing David Pye’s notions of ‘workmanship of risk’ and ‘workmanship of certainty’, the works of luthiers reveal several traits of what Deleuze and Guattari called the ‘nomadic sciences’, which,
in turn, can point towards more polyphonic perspectives on research in the crafts. The text offers an associative application of the Deleuzoguattarian concepts to expose how several ‘kinetic melodies’ can help expose guitar building as a craft in resonance with contemporary technologies.
Book Reviews
Authors: Owen Jez , Sayed Yusef
Published: May 2012

Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, Alison Castle, (2011) Cologne: Taschen GmBH, 1112 pp., ISBN-10 9783836523356 (hbk), £44.99 The Problem Body: Projecting Disability on Film, Sally Chivers and Nicole Markoti´c (eds.), (2010) Columbus: Ohio State
University Press, 239 pp., ISBN 9780814211243 (hbk), $49.95, ISBN 9780814292228 (CD-ROM), $9.95
Book Reviews
Authors: Harrison Steven , Miley Mike , Santiago Norma Liz Rodriguez , Shutes William , Vint Sherryl
Published: May 2012

Voices in the Dark, Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan, (2011) Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 264 pp., ISBN 9780786446346 (pbk), $38.00 Dismantling the Dream Factory: Gender, German Cinema, and the Postwar Quest for a New Film Language, Hester Baer, (2009) New York: Berghahn Books, 304 pp.,
ISBN 9781845456054 (hbk), $90.00 Extra-Ordinary Men: White Heterosexual Masculinity and Contemporary Popular Cinema, Nicola Rehling, (2009) Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 292 pp., ISBN 073912482X (hbk), $80.00 Ingmar Bergman: The Life and Films of the Last Great European Director,
Geoffrey Macnab, (2009) London: I.B. Tauris, 242 pp., ISBN 9781848850460 (hbk), £19.95 The New-Brutality Film: Race and Affect in Contemporary Hollywood Cinema, Paul Gormley, (2005) Bristol: Intellect, 220 pp., ISBN 1-84150-119-0 (pbk), £19.95
Reviews Books
Authors: Dator Robert , Ray Haley , Cocuzza Nick , McKee Chris
Published: May 2012

The Cat Who Said: "Cheese" Chris Marker (French Film Directors), Sarah Cooper, (2010) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 224pp., ISBN: 9780719083648 (pbk), $24.95 Romantic Comedy Claire Mortimer, (2010) Abingdon: Routledge, 166pp., ISBN: 0415548632 (pbk), $26.95;
ISBN: 0415548624 (hbk), $100.00 Hollywood Blockbusters: The Anthropology of Popular Movies David Sutton and Peter Wogan, (2009) New York: Berg Publishers, 156pp., ISBN: 9781847884855 (pbk), $29.95 A Fresh Look at Writing for the Screen Creative Screenwriting: Understanding Emotional
Structure Christina Kallas, (2010) New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 240pp., ISBN: 9780230221413 (pbk), $23.99
BOOK REVEWS
Authors: Tripp Charles , Ismael Tareq , Maisel Sebastian , Ghazoul Ferial J. , Gunter Michael
Published: May 2012

A SHORT HISTORY OF IRAQ, THABIT A. J. ABDULLAH (2011) Harlow: Pearson Education/Longman, 224 pp., 2nd edition, ISBN-10 1405859377 (pbk), ISBN-13 978-1405859370, £18.00

IZDIHÂR AL-‘IRAQ TAHT AL-HUKM AL-MALAKÎ (1921–1958): DIRÂSAH TÂRÎKHIYYAH,
SIYÂSIYYAH, IJTIMÂ‘IYYAH MOQÂRANAH, MA’MÛN AMÎN ZAKI (2011) London: Dar Al-Hikma Publishing and Distribution, 504 pp., ISBN 1-904923-78-X (pbk), £15

THE YEZIDIS: THE HISTORY OF A COMMUNITY, CULTURE AND RELIGION, BIRGÜL ACIKYILDIZ (2010)
London and New York: I.B.Tauris, 304 pp., ISBN-10: 1848852746, ISBN-13: 978-1848852747 (hbk), £42

IRAQ’S MODERN ARABIC LITERATURE: A GUIDE TO ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS SINCE 1950, SALIH J. ALTOMA (2010) Lanham, Toronto and Plymouth, UK: The Scarecrow Press, 155 pp., ISBN-10: 0810877058,
ISBN-13: 978-0810877054 (hbk), £39.95

A POISONOUS AFFAIR: AMERICA, IRAQ, AND THE GASSING OF HALABJA, JOOST R. HILTERMANN (2007) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, xxxii + 314 pp., ISBN-10: 0521876869, ISBN-13: 978-0521876865 (hbk), £22.80

GENDERED EXPERIENCES OF GENOCIDE:
ANFAL SURVIVORS IN KURDISTAN-IRAQ CHOMAN HARDI (2011) Farnham, UK: Ashgate, xiv + 217 pp., ISBN-10: 075467715X, ISBN-13: 978-0754677154 (hbk), £47.50
Iraqi Islamist parties in international politics: The impact of historical and international politics on political conflict in post-war Iraq
Authors: Yamao Dai
Published: May 2012

This article sheds light on the two main Iraqi Islamist parties, the Da’wa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and clarifies their changing policies under the influence of the host countries and international politics. It also makes clear
how the political conflict in post-war Iraq reflected these changes. Scholars of Iraqi politics have discussed the reasons of political conflict in post-war Iraq as following: (1) sectarian conflicts as a result of the artificiality of the Iraqi state and (2) struggles for the mobilization
of votes in elections. Against these arguments, this article considers the historical and international impacts on the formerly exiled Islamist ruling parties as a more significant factor in explaining the reasons for political conflict in post-war Iraq.