Hippocratic Approach to Epilepsy; Natural Theory and Practice Essay Example

Hippocratic Approach to Epilepsy; Natural Theory and Practice Essay The birth of the Hippocratic medicine marked a transition from ritual and folk healing to a profession of secular theory and practice. Epilepsy, with its common occurrence, dramatic presentation, and hidden cause attracted the attention of many healers in the ancient world and was the primary subject of full Hippocratic medical treatise written in fourth century BC. This work known as Sacred Disease was the first emphatic argument for a naturalistic understanding and treatment of epilepsy and made advances that would not be surpassed for two thousand years. Galen one of the most well known and prolific physicians who practiced in Rome in the second century A. D. modeled himself after the Hippocratic ideal physician. This ideal can be conceptualized as a physician healed the sick through skilled practice by applying diligent trial and error and logic, and also was a learned natural philosopher who could defend his actions by knowledge of nature and an understanding of the human body. The advances of Greco-Roman medicine in understanding and treating epileptic disorders found in the Sacred Disease can provide an example how an idealized Hippocratic physician should approach medicine with skilled practice arising from carefully deduced and deafened natural theory. Hippocrates of Kos (cir. 460 BC-380 BC) was an ancient Greek physician is often called the father of medicine, and is know for writings an collection of writings of his name the Corpus Hippocraticum. We will write a custom essay sample on Hippocratic Approach to Epilepsy; Natural Theory and Practice specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Hippocratic Approach to Epilepsy; Natural Theory and Practice specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Hippocratic Approach to Epilepsy; Natural Theory and Practice specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer The corpus was attributed to Hippocrates in antiquity, and its teaching followed principles of professionalism, natural theory, and rigorous practice of applying general diagnoses and passive treatment which was aimed to aid nature in restoring the sick to health. Hippocrates argued that diseases were caused by natural process within the body and not as a result of supernatural action or Gods and his natural philosophy and treatment approaches were emulated and idealized for centuries later. The principle of naturalistic causes of disease and relying on natural philosophy was forcibly forwarded in the treatise Sacred Disease which described the Hippocratic approach to epilepsy. The title, Sacred Disease , is counter to the authors premise that epilepsy was in no way a sacred disease, but was simply a disorder of natural origin like other diseases. The writing opens with the assertion: I do not believe that the Sacred Disease is any more divine or sacred then any other disease but, on the contrary has specific characteristics and a definite cause. Nevertheless, because it is completely different from other disease, it has been regarded as a divine visitation by those who, being only human, view it with ignorance and astonishment. 1 This strict application of science or natural philosophy toward the understanding of disease is present throughout the Hippocratic writings and is clearly stated in other treatise Tradition in Medicine Medicine has long possessed the qualities necessary to make a science. These are a starting point and a known method according to which many valuable discoveries have been made over a long period of time. By such method, too, the rest of the science will be discovered if anyone who is clever enough is versed in the observations of the past and makes these the starting point of his researches. If anyone should reject these and, casting them aside, endeavor to proceed by a new method and then assert that that he has made a discovery, he has been and is being deceived. 2 Basing the origin of disease on a understanding of the observable world as opposed to gods or spiritual possession made use of unyielding aspect of a natural philosophy and the idealized Hippocratic physician. This is because Galens view of an ideal physician would be a practitioner that would apply scientific understanding to all processes and not set aside when dealing with hidden or poorly understood processes. Stating that epilepsy has a definite and natural cause is not the end of the argument for Hippocratic author of the Sacred Disease, he also addresses the counter argument that it is supernatural. The author explains the flaws the supernatural explanations and ritualistic cures for epilepsy in the ancient Greek world. The author does by using important faculty of sound logic and a desire to inform the common man inherent in the idealized Hippocratic physician. The Greek supernatural understanding of epilepsy assumed that different deities aspects were responsible forms and symptom’s. 3 The author disputes this with logic based argument that the gods would not pollute themselves with possession of the human body. 6 The author of the Treatise also makes the makes logical assertion about the purification rituals and it practitioners: If the disease can be cured by purification and similar treatments then what is to prevent its being brought on by like devises? The man who can get rid of a disease by his magic could equally well bring it on; again there is nothing divine about this but a human element is involved. 4 By countering the supernatural assumptions regarding the causes of epilepsy that were prevalent during the authors time the he provided an example of how to defend a naturalistic theory that could be a logical alternative to supernatural explanations. With limited technology and taboos regarding posthumous forensic techniques on humans the Hippocratic author had an sophisticated understanding of the natural causes of epilepsy. The author of the Sacred Disease made two very important derived assertions that epilepsy is heritable, that epilepsy is brain disorder, and the symptoms are influenced by the environment. The author uses these observations to describe the naturalistic explanations of the disease which is another quality of the idealized Hippocratic physicians because he must defend his actions and understanding based on observations of the natural world. The Hippocratic author explanations his theory of heredity as, â€Å"The seed comes from all parts of the body; it is healthy when it comes from healthy parts, diseased when it comes from and diseased parts. †5 The author when on to make a final deductive argument for heritability and against the supernatural origin of epilepsy by writing: Another important proof that this disease is no more divine then any other lies in the fact that the phlegmatic are constitutionally liable for it while bilious escape. If its origin were divine, all types were be affected without this particular distinction. 6 The Hippocratic author of the The Sacred Disease made the revolutionary determination that epilepsy was a result of a brain disorder, and began his detailed theory on the origin of epilepsy by, â€Å" , the brain is the seat of this disease, as it is of many other very violent diseases. I shall explain clearly the manner in which it comes about and the reasons for it. †7 The author then includes what was know at the time regarding brain anatomy and physiology including a discussion of the neural membrane surrounding the brain, the fluid filled cavities, and blood supply, during which he made another innovative assertion that headaches are somehow related to the blood supply to the neural membranes. 7 The author also linked the natural origin of epilepsy to disruptions of the flow of of essential air through the blood vessels be the execration of excess phlegm by the brain. 8 For the author the root cause occurs before childbirth: Its [epilepsy] inception is even while the child is still within its mothers womb, for the brain is rid of undesirable matter and brought to full development, like the other parts, before birth if this â€Å"cleansing† doesnt not take place but the material is retained in the brain, a phlegmatic constitution is bound to result. This explanation of epilepsy was based on the Hippocratic understanding of Humorism in that the human body was filled with the four fluids of yellow bile, black bile, phlegm, and blood that are in balance when a person is healthy and diseases resulted from an excess or deficit of one of these four humors. The author explains how an excesses of phlegm causes the various symptoms of epilepsy: Should these routes for the passage of phlegm from the brain be blocked, the discharges enters the blood-vessels which I have described. This causes loss of voice, chocking, foaming at the mouth, clenching of the teeth, and convulsions movements of the hands; the eyes are fixed, the patient becomes unconscious and, in some cases passes stool. 9 The author defends and grounds his theory not only with the prevailing understanding of humoral medicine of ancient Greece but also in sound observations and logical deductions. The most complex example of this is the authors examination of epileptic goats and the relation to humans. The author describes his finds as: This observation results specially from the study of animals, particularly goats which are liable to this disease If you cut open the head you will find the brain is wet, full of fluid and foul-smelling, convincing proof that disease and not deity is harming the body. It is just the same with man, for when the malady becomes chronic it is incurable. The brain is dissolved by phlegm and liquifies; the melted substance thus formed turns to water 247 The author suggests how epilepsy is related to the weather and winds and may effect the severity or unset of epileptic due to changes of temperature and moisture. He also explains that winds from the South that often carried storm systems and moisture into Greece and the norther Mediterranean areas brought on the attacks and wrote,†Attacks are most likely when the wind is southerly†. He defends his position on the weather and winds contributing to the illness by writing: the human body is made to feel changes in the wind and undergo changes at that time, it follows that southerly winds relax the brain and make it flabby relaxing the blood vessels at the same time. 250 The author reenforces his argument later with: As the brain is the first organ in the body to perceive the consciousness derived from the air, if the seasons cause any violent change in the air, the brain undergoes its greatest variation. 51 The author of the Sacred Disease provides an example of how an ideal Hippocratic physician should approach the theory in medicine through natural philosophy, because each of his assertion are backed by real observation and logical deduction. The assertions that epilepsy is a disease or the brain, is heritability, and effected by the environmental conditions of the patient are revolutions in thought compared to the supernatural assumptions that came before and a fter Hippocratic medicine. The author of the sacred disease understood the complexity and huge limitations in treating a disorder of the brain such as epilepsy in his time when he states â€Å" diseases of the brain are the most acute, most serious and most fatal, and the hardest problem in diagnosis for the unskilled practitioner. † 251The author recommends no specific drugs or offers any quick cure for epilepsy. The author does offer general recommendations that are in tuned how an idealized Hippocratic physician should always attempt to do no harm in there treatment with the statement: In this disease as in all others, it should be your aim not to make the disease worse, but to wear it down by applying the remedies most hostile to the disease and those things to which it is unaccustomed. 250 The Hippocratic author also urges the treating physician to use his accumulated skill in recognizing the particular patient and their illness and design a regime of diet and life style to limit the advance of the disease or even cure it given enough skill of the practitioner. In this way the author provides an example of an idealized Hippocratic physician greatly skilled in his practiced by years of experience and careful observation of his patient can bring his patient back to health. The Hippocratic author of the Sacred Disease provided a case example of what an idealized Hippocratic physician should approach the theory and practice of the difficult disease of epilepsy. The author may be credited as being the first person to express that epilepsy was a disease caused naturally within the body and not as a result of superstition or Gods. The Hippocratic author recognized that epilepsy was a brain disorder, that it was heritable, and sensitive to the patients environment. For the treatment of epilepsy the author used the Hippocratic cannon of first doing no harm and using skilled practice with passive treatments aimed to restore balance and health. These revolutionary ideas were distilled into a full naturalistic theory and treatment of epilepsy defended by many years of observation and deduction and are exemplary of Galens idealized Hippocratic physician. G. E. R. Lloyd (ed. ), Hippocratic Writings (London: Penguin Books, 1983). ISBN 0140444513

Gypsies in the Holocaust - Forgotten Victims

Gypsies in the Holocaust - Forgotten Victims The Gypsies of Europe were registered, sterilized, ghettoized, and then deported to concentration and death camps by the Nazis before and during World War II. Approximately 250,000 to 500,000 Gypsies were murdered during the Holocaust- an event they call the Porajmos (the Devouring.) A Short History Approximately a thousand years ago, several groups of people migrated from northern India, dispersing throughout Europe over the next several centuries. Though these people were part of several tribes (the largest of which are the Sinti and Roma), the settled peoples called them by a collective name, Gypsies- which stems from the one-time belief that they had come from Egypt. Nomadic, dark-skinned, non-Christian, speaking a foreign language (Romani), not tied to the land- Gypsies were very different from the settled peoples of Europe. Misunderstandings of Gypsy culture created suspicions and fears, which in turn led to rampant speculation, stereotypes, and biased stories. Many of these stereotypes and stories are still readily believed. Throughout the following centuries, non-Gypsies (Gaje) continually tried to either assimilate Gypsies or kill them. Attempts to assimilate Gypsies involved stealing their children and placing them with other families; giving them cattle and feed, expecting them to become farmers; outlawing their customs, language, and clothing as well as forcing them to attend school and church. Decrees, laws, and mandates often allowed the killing of Gypsies. In 1725 King Frederick William I of Prussia ordered all Gypsies over 18 years old to be hanged. A practice of Gypsy hunting was common- a game hunt similar to fox hunting. Even as late as 1835, a Gypsy hunt in Jutland (Denmark) brought in a bag of over 260 men, women, and children, write Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon. Though Gypsies had undergone centuries of such persecution, it remained relatively random and sporadic until the 20th century when the negative stereotypes became intrinsically molded into a racial identity, and the Gypsies were systematically slaughtered. Under the Third Reich The persecution of Gypsies started at the very beginning of the Third Reich. Gypsies were arrested and interned in concentration camps as well as sterilized under the July 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring. In the beginning, Gypsies were not specifically named as a group that threatened the Aryan, German people. This was because, under Nazi racial ideology, Gypsies were Aryans. The Nazis had a problem: How could they persecute a group enveloped in negative stereotypes but supposedly part of the Aryan super race? Nazi racial researchers eventually came upon a so-called scientific reason to persecute most of the Gypsies. They found their answer in Professor Hans F. K. Gà ¼nthers book Rassenkunde Europas (Anthropology of Europe) where he wrote: The Gypsies have indeed retained some elements from their Nordic home, but they are descended from the lowest classes of the population in that region. In the course of their migrations, they have absorbed the blood of the surrounding peoples, and have thus become an Oriental, western-Asiatic racial mixture, with an addition of Indian, mid-Asiatic, and European strains. Their nomadic mode of living is a result of this mixture. The Gypsies will generally affect Europe as aliens. With this belief, the Nazis needed to determine who was pure Gypsy and who was mixed. Thus, in 1936, the Nazis established the Racial Hygiene and Population Biology Research Unit, with Dr. Robert Ritter at its head, to study the Gypsy problem and to make recommendations for Nazi policy. As with the Jews, the Nazis needed to determine who was to be considered a Gypsy. Dr. Ritter decided that someone could be considered a Gypsy if they had one or two Gypsies among his grandparents or if two or more of his grandparents are part-Gypsies. Kenrick and Puxon blame Dr. Ritter for the additional 18,000 German Gypsies who were killed because of this more inclusive designation, rather than if the same rules had been followed as were applied to Jews, who had have three or four Jewish grandparents to be considered Jews. To study Gypsies, Dr. Ritter, his assistant Eva Justin, and his research team visited the Gypsy concentration camps (Zigeunerlagers) and examined thousands of Gypsies- documenting, registering, interviewing, photographing, and finally categorizing them. It was from this research that Dr. Ritter formulated that 90% of Gypsies were of mixed blood, thus dangerous. Having established a scientific reason to persecute 90% of the Gypsies, the Nazis needed to decide what to do with the other 10%- the ones who were nomadic and appeared to have the least number of Aryan qualities. At times Interior Minister Heinrich  Himmler discussed letting the pure Gypsies roam relatively freely and also suggested a special reservation for them. Assumably as part of one of these possibilities, nine Gypsy representatives were selected in October 1942 and told to create lists of Sinti and Lalleri to be saved. There must have been confusion within the Nazi leadership. Many wanted all Gypsies killed, with no exceptions. On December 3, 1942,  Martin Bormann  wrote in a letter to Himmler: ... special treatment would mean a fundamental deviation from the simultaneous measures for fighting the Gypsy menace and would not be understood at all by the population and lower leaders of the party. Also the Fà ¼hrer would not agree to giving one section of the Gypsies their old freedom. Though the Nazis did not discover a scientific reason to kill the 10% of Gypsies categorized as pure, no distinctions made when Gypsies were ordered to  Auschwitz  or deported to the other death camps. By the end of the war, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 Gypsies were murdered in the Porajmos- killing approximately three-fourths of the German Gypsies and half of the Austrian Gypsies. For an overview of all that happened to the Gypsies during the Third Reich, there is a  timeline  to help outline the process from Aryan to annihilation. Sources Friedman, Philip. The Extermination of the Gypsies: Nazi Genocide of an Aryan People.  Roads to Extinction: Essays on the Holocaust, Ed. Ada June Friedman. Jewish Publication Society of America, 1980, New York.ï » ¿Kenrick, Donald and Puxon, Grattan.  The Destiny of Europes Gypsies. Basic Books, 1972, New York.

British Industrial Revolution Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

British Industrial Revolution - Essay Example This argument forms the basis of my thesis that resources and geographical endowments led to the industrial revolution in Britain. The geographical location of Britain provided an advantage to Britain in the race for industrialization. Farming resulting from the domestication of animals started in Britain, and this led to the agricultural revolution. In fact, agriculture in the rest of the world began many years after Britain had tried her hand at farming. It is this agricultural revolution that brought about growth. Nevertheless, it is not all obvious that growth and markets get you an industrial revolution. Industrial revolution was something diverse that generally involved, immense increases in energy use per capita. The extensive deposits of coal provided sufficient fuel for use in factories as well as in the generation of electricity. Moreover, Britain had certain institutional and other kinds of arrangements that facilitated the industrial revolution. However, they werent sufficient without some different things, like the location of huge coal deposits (Laichas, 2007). Iron was also in plenty and utilized for agricultural tools, chains, nails, horse stirrups, bolts sickles, locks and anchors (Laichaz, 2007). The relatively small size of Britain made transportation of these minerals, quick and reasonably cheap. The need to pump water out of these coal mines led to the invention of the steam engine. The same steam engines were later used in cotton mills with their efficiency improved. The cultural strengths of Britain as evidenced in the technological innovations also made it an ideal place for industrialization to thrive. Engineering and machine tools were invented now and then and complimented the human labor that was in force. In 1764, James Hargreaves invention of the Spinning Jenny ensured that yarn could be produced in greater quantities. The power loom and the steam engine further revolutionized the cotton

Proof reading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Proof reading - Essay Example This is achieved by removing the device-specific hardware dependencies, which were previously part of almost any software development effort. Moreover, DirectX performance capabilities are similar or equal to those provided in DOS but allows hardware to be fully utilized. Multi-agent systems deal with the construction of complex systems involving multiple agents and their coordination. A multi-agent system (MAS) is a distributed computing system with autonomous interacting intelligent agents that coordinate their actions so as to achieve its goal(s) jointly or competitively. Agent technologies are now being applied to the development of large-scale commercial and industrial software systems. Such systems are complex, involving hundreds, perhaps thousands of agents and there is a pressing need for system modeling techniques that permit their complexity to be effectively managed, along with principled methodologies to guide the process of system design. Without adequate techniques to support the design process, such systems will not be sufficiently reliable, maintainable or extensible, will be difficult to comprehend, and their elements will not be re-usable. Kinetics calls into play a large number of concepts that are new to AI, for example, corporation, coordination and satisfaction. The difference between AI and kinetics is that with AI it is the individual that is intelligent, whereas with kinetics it is the organization that displays functionalities that can be characterized as intelligent. The main goal of the distributed system is the carrying out of tasks by making the best use of physically distributed resources (for example, memory, processor, data managers). On the other hand, the system of kinetics is much more open. The multi-agent system takes an overview and summary of the problem of interaction between individual entities, considering the distributed system as being merely one possible

The crisis of masculinity

The crisis of masculinity INTRODUCTION My dissertation is concerned with the male hegemony of Hollywood cinema. I will consider briefly the representation of the female but only to support the discussion of male hegemony in regards to spectatorship and representation of the male. I will limit my argument to the â€Å"post feminist† period (post 1970s) because this cinema era is extremely significant as it demonstrates a fundamental change in the representation of the male. I have decided to concentrate on the representation of the male because the discussion of female representation, although not investigated in its entirety, is generally more prevalent. I have chosen to analyze two key films that had major success in the year 1999. I have specifically chosen these films as not only do they reenact a threshold point in societys perception, but both deal heavily with the theme of modern day masculinity. The two different approaches from very different directors- David Fincher, The director of Fight club has a lengthy history of â€Å"mainstream† work whereas Paul Thomas Andersons work history is more â€Å"alternative†. I will argue that in its structure Fight club is highly synonymous with Hollywood in terms of character placement.(male protagonist, passive female). I will look at how Magnolia is more discoursive/melodramatic focusing on coming from a â€Å"female† perspective. I will look at the main characters in each of the films and discuss how both films approach the key aspects of masculinity: Paternity the Phallus. The similar concerns and contrasting nature of the films thus conclude that they serve as great examples for discussion. The dissertation will consider film theory and psycho-analysis however I would like to relate those to cinematic textual systems a term used by to describe mise en scene elements, editing and other cinematic manipulation of the frame for the spectator. Talk about how perspective and cinematography are interlinked, cinematography being vital to â€Å"the gaze†. â€Å"To theorize the gaze is to engage in cinematic textual systems (diegesis, montage, mise-en-scene, intertextuality etc) and the act of viewing, as well as the competing, dynamic and heterogeneous processes involved between the two†. Pg 6 (a) WHY CINEMATOGRAPHY IS IMPORTANT TO DISCUSS. Once we have investigated on a functional level how cinema manipulates the viewers gaze only then can we move forward and expand on this? The very existence of cinema relies on box office profits; cinema conveys the reality of the desire of the spectator, but also notably produces films that display the unconscious fears of the societies that produced them. This is an argument I will discuss at more length in the first chapter. CHAPTERS: Phallocentric perspective/cinematography I will start by engaging with the philosophy which forms the basis of the dissertation. I will also justify the inclusion of cinematography as a valid point in my dissertation by clarifying its relationship with film theory and psychoanalysis. â€Å"Were Designed to be hunters and were in a society of shoppers† Tyler Durder (Fight Club) In the second chapter I will put my discussion in context, explaining briefly the importance of the cinema of this era. â€Å"Fight Club†: I will discuss why I chose the two films I did The two different approaches directors- coming from very different background fightclub is aimed at mainstream whilst magnolia comes from an alternative viewpoint. I will argue that in its structure Fight club is highly synonymous with Hollywood in terms of character placement.(male protagonist, passive neurotic female) â€Å"Magnolia†: I will look at the key characters of the film and analyse how they demonstrate a crisis of masculinity. I will examine the look at how Paul Andersons Magnolia manages to subvert the male hegemony of mainstream films and acts as a critique of the Hollywood cinematic address. PHALLOCENTRIC PERPSEPCTIVE: â€Å"The spectator constructed by the text is taken to be male-regardless of the ‘actual gender of the viewer. He is taken to look through the eyes of the male hero on screen at the on-screen female, so that the viewer in the auditorium can fantasize the pleasure of dominating and possessing her, and thus enjoy the visual pleasure of ‘masculine conquest†. Kenneth Mackinnon Whatever the route of the gaze, the result is the same. She is objectified. And the female object confirms that the male is the proper and sole subject.† (b) pg 126 Since Hollywoods conception the films produced have taken to rather formulaic, standardized conventions to accrue predicted success at the box office. These are seen in its cinematic style, and narrative form. As a result Hollywood has become extremely skilled at satisfying the spectator through manipulation of its address. male hegemony At the beginning of cinema for example, spectators desired to see more and so became the standardization of erotic display to satisfy the spectator interest in voyeurism. Thus this Hollywood address gives us a spectacular insight into the unconscious fears and desires of society. If we look at one particular example â€Å"Metropolis† (1927) Directed by Fritz Lang, this film featured a destructive and powerful female robot. Notably this film came at a time when society had to deal with the increased mechanization, loss of jobs in industries resulted in a perceived loss of male control and power. â€Å"Metropolis† represented the destruction of masculine dominance over science and nature, represented as a female android, the ultimate opposite. The more information gathered by the development in film theory and psychoanalysis the further we can investigate into understanding the reality of the relationship between spectator and cinema and can move forward from male hegemony into creating an alternative cinema one in which both sexes are represented fairly. this can be shown through the deigesis, mise en scene, etc etc. In Laura Mulveys essay â€Å"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema†, she discusses the passive role that women have played in cinema arguing that this passive role supports the male hegemony by encouraging visual pleasure. This visual pleasure is formed by Mulvey identifies three â€Å"looks† or perspectives that occur in film which serve to sexually objectify women. The first is the perspective of the male character on screen and how he perceives the female character. The second is the perspective of the spectator as they see the female character on screen. The third â€Å"look† joins the first two looks together: it is the male audience members perspective of the male character in the film. This third perspective allows the male audience to take the female character as his own personal sex object because he can relate himself, through looking, to the male character in the film. Female body representation has always involved some degree of eroticism fragment a womens body into various body parts. A good example of how editing shot composition and framing can be seen in Martin Scorseses Raging Bull. The main character Jake La Motta becomes entranced by the physical beauty of - by the side of the pool. By the sequence of close ups we are placed into the mental position of Jake to reduce - to a mere object to be gawped at. Here we literally see the â€Å"looks† as Mulvey referred to them shown through the shot juxtapositioning. Although one could argue this section was designed to illuminate us of Jakes disturbed mentality, thus serves as an extreme example; however we do see these looks perpetrating mainstream Hollywood throughout the generations since its beginnings. However self conscious and ironic Hollywood manages to be, it always restricts itself to a formal mise en scene reflecting the dominant ideological concept of the cinema. The alternative cinema provides a space for the birth of cinema which is radical in a both a political sense and an aesthetic sense and thus challenges the basic assumptions of the mainstream film Thus cinematography holds the key to the buried attitudes of gender. The cinema is an epic form that utilizes dramatic elements; this is determined by the technologies of the camera and editing. Even in a spatially and temporally continuous scene (mimicking the theatrical situation, as it were), the camera chooses where to look for us. In a similar way, editing causes us to jump from one place (and time sometimes) to another, whether it be somewhere else in the room, or across town. This jump is a form of narration; it is as if a narrator whispers to us: â€Å"meanwhile, on the other side of the forest†. â€Å"One of the key pleasures cinema allows is identification. The spectator will almost always identify with the character whose look authorizes the point of view shot.† pg 94 Hedges,Inez Vertigo is a prime example whereby everything is seen from the perspective of the main male protagonist, the audience follow his erotic obsession and subsequent despair precisely from his point of view. However the spectator is caught in moral ambiguity toward the latter part of the film as the film reveals the illicit nature of the voyeurism. â€Å"Were Designed to be hunters and were in a society of shoppers† -Tyler Durden â€Å"These violent white male icons grew at a time when working class white males had to contend with increasing economic instability and dislocation, the perception of gains by people of colour at the expense of the white working class and a womens movement that overtly challenged the male hegemony. One way the system allows working clases (of various races) the opportunity for masculine identity validation is through the use of their body as an instrument of power dominance and control.. The threat that women posed as a result of their increased economic independence, destabilizes gender realtions and upsets male identity†. Spectacle of the Male WHAT WAS GOING ON AT THE TIME? Working Class Males had less access to more abstract forms of masculinity validating power (economic power, workplace authority) Fightclub protagonist has loss of authority, in the end he reaffirms his masculinity through physical acts of violence. Susan Faludi went one step further, arguing that films of the 1980s such as Fatal Attraction (1987) and Baby Boom (1987) were part of a wider backlash against womens liberation and womens careers.Yearning for reinstatement of the nuclear family, American Beauty protagonist yearns for realignment of patriarchal structure as does Gaz in full monty his desire to recover his role as breadwinner so that he can reclaim his son from his ex wife. FIGHT CLUB â€Å"It touched a nerve in the male psyche that was debated in newspapers across the world.† The Times MARLA: â€Å"Could be worse, a woman could cut off your penis† Tyler Durden Marla introduces/is the conflict. Neurotic marla is a sexualized woman/object (her flat dildo etc) placed into whore category. she disturbs the house causes cracks in walls leaks, etc. â€Å"What counts is what the heroine provokes or rather what she represents. She is the one or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself the woman has not the slightest importance† Budd Boetticher TYLER: Tyler and his impulsive nature, represents the Freudian philosophy of the Id. The id is responsible for our basic drives such as food, water, sex and basic impulses. EXPAND Always has his chest on show like the iconic images of the 1980s heroic action movies. The body is shown to acquire battle scars which removes any erotism which may induce the female gaze need to explain.. used as a tool of power to redeem authority. This is the physical manifestation of the ironic rejection of the â€Å"heroes† of the action films of the previous years. He is in control, has the power over Marla and makes the decisions, drives the narrative. PATERNITY: â€Å"Were a generation of men raised by women† Tyler Durden Paternity discussed in the bathroom between the two, father abandoned him EXPAND THE PHALLUS: First introduced to violent action gun in his mouth then to the softer image of sign saying â€Å"Were still men† Bob has larger breasts feminized. The genitals are particularly present in this film from Tyler showing the graphic images of full frontal male nudity of the penis to taking away the statesmens balls thus demasculating him. Balls stand for Male Power the ability to reproduce Testicular cancer meetings also. Dildo in Marlas bedroom representing the fake male the fake man, the substitution of the real penis with a fake one reveals inferiority complex no need for the real man in the modern world. CINEMATOGRAPHY: Primarily the narrative of the film Fight Club is wholly centered on the male our protagonist Jack. We are encouraged as the spectator to emphasize with him, he navigates the shots in the Voice over the use of the word â€Å" we† is used to encourage identification from the spectator. Is there a problem with identification in this film because the spectator identifies with the protagonist Jack who turns out to be Tyler also so when Jack finds out he is Tyler not only do we experience the same surprise as him, the spectator is left feeling removed from identification? Misplaced just as man does in society? The creation of a microcosm in the house new world order fascism back to being real men, almost militarian (thats what they associate with manhood). Use of colour, lighting difference between the house and the flat, how Brad is framed with his chest exposed showing his muscular torso to portray the idealized man Jack wants to be. The decaying house, large empty insde and out (as its on an industrial estate) builds up a representation of the inner vacousness of the protagonist. MAGNOLIA Paul Thomas Andersons LA ensemble film â€Å"Magnolia† disrupts the classic Oedipal patterning common to many mainstream films. The film repeatedly enacts a pronounced degree of male failure and what amounts to an indictment of the system of father rule The men of Magnolia are to some extent all feminized by circumstance or choice: Earl, dying, is in need of care; Phil is a compassionate male nurse; Donnie is gay and wants to give love; Jimmy, because of his illness, is dependent; and Jim is a nurturing representative of the law who loses first his baton and then his gun, the phallic signifier par excellence. Even Frank Mackey, who has closed down his internal feminine, is again a caretaker by the films end. The most recalcitrant male is Stanleys father, Rick. He suggests a barely controlled violence, throwing a chair through the television as Stanley refuses to compete. A crisis in masculinity and male paradigms of power and behavior is posed. Clearly, the film is scrutinizing how to be a man and live as a man in culture. FRANK: This notion is foregrounded by Franks â€Å"Seduce and Destroy† infomercials, which appear during different segments of the film, and his performance of masculinity for the internal diegetic male audience. The excess of language, gestures, and emotion here enact male hysteria. A wielding of language that speaks as a means to recapture and reanimate male power, it suggests a masculinity reasserting itself at the expense of women. Franks misogyny and anger toward women come to seem a projection, a denial of the self-loathing and father-loss that resulted in his becoming his mothers caretaker as she succumbed to cancer. Women seem to be a smokescreen for his pain, something he can latch on to and feed his sense of rage. Frank, played by Cruise at his best in his usual angry young man mode, is aptly named as the teacher of ostensible truth, power and control who with arms nailed to an unseen cross is projected as an illuminated (Lucifer) savior. His crucified humanity, now a loaded shell, a persona with rigid firm ego boundaries of patent masculinity, launches a provocative assault, laced with inexplicable resentment, against Woman. His assumed control and power over his own vulnerability (fear of his undeveloped feminine component generalized as woman) results paradoxically from the rejection by and loss of his father followed by the incessant care of his slowly dying mother whom he was unable to save. PATERNITY: Stanley Spector to his father: â€Å"You need to start being nicer to me† His all-encompassing impotent rage is projected along with his need to control the symbolic Woman who constitutes the loss of his childhood and manhood. Like a fatherless boy of the ghetto, he shuns the excessive identification and nauseating closeness associated with his mother and her powerless circumstance. To acquire her world would only confirm his loss and her power to destroy. To him she only means burden and loss of freedom; thus he abuses Woman in order to maintain control and detachment. Moreover, his loss of masculinity resulting from the inability to control the inevitable suffering and eventual death of his mother lead him to create and identify with what he lacks, a powerful male image. His artificial self-acquired mastery over himself results tragically from lack of opposition since he cannot win the badge of manhood by defeating a foe who is missing or a cause that is inexplicable. The grateful male crowd (representing the incomplete male) is willing to pay Frank to attain his techniques to compensate for its loss and to overcome its incompleteness through the power of maintaining distance and control. But Frank paradoxically eventually finds redemption in what he denied, in the traditional female manner of acquiring power, through interaction with the Other. Frank, the rejected son finally confronts his dying father who is now unable to reply, apologize and expiate his guilt. Without the articulation and acceptance of his fathers sin, Frank cannot forgive or overcome the unknown one, he can only endure his memory. The cathartic release of his tormented repressed anger and simultaneous conflicted fear of another loss of and desire for his missing father is gripping. He faces uncertainty but his acceptance of his past and his anguished self, the veil of his repression and denial of his history is lifted and results in the loosening of his current defences and hi s false self. The painful return from/to his original position confirms that rebirth is painful. He can now join the family of man. The initially compliant game show kid (J. Blackman) alters his condition of bondage by sacrificing the moment of glory by a paradoxical (anorexial) attempt to avoid the game by controlling his body until he loses bladder control. When he realizes that adherence to arbitrary debilitating rules crushes creativity and freedom, he loses his ambition to succeed conventionally by a symbolic Freudian urethral discharge. Both the game and his body are beyond his control. He confronts his parasitic father as an incomplete child (no mother), asking to be treated anew with respect without having to constantly sacrifice himself to earn the love of his father. THE PHALLUS The cop who shows an interest in her, needs no change, only completion by another, but he too demonstrates his universal deficiency by losing the badge of his profession, his gun. This loss of power is later recovered from the sky god and magically saves a life. His stability rests on his identification with the law which he chooses to interpret selectively as a wise judge with the power to render mercy CINEMATOGRAPHY: Magnolia constructs the place of the female subject differently for the process of identification with the spectator. This is done by.. Magnolia systematically rejects mainstream films signifying system. As Fiske notes, soap opera suggests the workings of a feminine aesthetic and thereby posits the audience as female (180). Magnolia subverts the classic masculine gaze and audience address usually associated with film. The masochistic position from which we watch Magnolia is inscribed by the excessive music and by the competition of the musical discourse and the dialogue. This is doubly inscribed, as it were, because it speaks to the condition of the character as opposed to working in counterpoint to the image. For example, â€Å"One† (â€Å"is the loneliest number †) plays while introducing these lonely characters; over a close-up of the victimized and addicted Claudia, we hear â€Å"Save Me† (â€Å"You look like a girl who could use a tourniquet †). Soap operas exemplify such â€Å"double-voiced discourses† in which dominant cultural forms allow women participation (Fiske 192). The predominant use of close-ups and extreme close-ups throughout the film also expresses this excess. â€Å"There are two dramatic points of depature for melodrama. One is coloured by a female protagonists viewpoint which provides a focus for identification. The other examines the family and between the sexes and generations; here, although women play an important part, their point of view is not always analysed and does not initiate the drama† pg 42 Mulvey.L Marcie, the unruly black woman at the edges of the text, shouts what appear to be empty threats, but the danger she evokes is soon realized. The canted camera angles and frenzy of the editing, in addition to her shouting, foreground the level of disorder she represents. Handcuffed to a sofa, she continues to be verbally abusive as Jim investigates. Pulling the sofa from room to room, she becomes comic relief even as her powerful frame suggests a formidable adversary. Jim seems barely a match for Marcie, despite her containment. Jim: â€Å"MARCIE! DO NOT DRAG THAT COUCH ANY FURTHER!† (Anderson 29). Coded as marginal, Marcie wreaks havoc on the established order to which she is subject but in which she has no place, except as the â€Å"return of the repressed.† Jim finds a dead man in her closet. As a black woman existing on the social margins, she is an enigma that Jim and the film refuse to solve. In terms of sex, too, Magnolia exposes the system of male hegemony and power. In most soap operas, the condition of women living under patriarchy is examined to promote a reading that women identify as corresponding to their own reality, which leads to tears. Doane refers to these melodramatic texts as activating the â€Å"tropes of femininity† (183): waiting, watching and self-sacrifice. Through Jimmy and Earl, marriage as a system is also undermined. Not only is Jimmy adulterous, alcoholic, womanizing, and guilty of incest, he has astonishing contempt for his wife. In one of the films most powerful scenes, Rose learns the truth about her marriage, but it is also clear that she has known. Her performance of the dutiful wife, right up to the end, motivates Jimmys contempt. Rose can only face Jimmys molestation of Claudia when her husband breaks with the veneer of mutual respect and love on which their marriage is based. The only women with power in Magnolia are the black women, and when we are with them we are sutured to the position of two of the films key white male characters, Frank and Jim. That we identify with these women anyway, and with their threat to Frank and Jim, speaks to Magnolias feminine positioning of the viewer.† (a) â€Å"Magnolia displaces film narrative to television text and shifts from the normative masculine viewing position to a feminine one. Magnolia is symptomatic of a crisis in masculinity and interrogates cultural texts such as cop shows, quiz shows, and infomercials. Magnolia is a subversive cultural product, an indictment of paradigms of male hegemony and power, and a critique of the media systems of film and television. The films privileging of the soundtrack is unusual. Paul Thomas Anderson conceives the film in relation to one of Aimee Manns songs and envisions her voice as â€Å"another character† in the film (Anderson 204). Her voice does indeed constitute another character to such an extent that at times it upsets the normative hierarchy of discourses that mainstream films espouse. The use of such a counternarrative strategy and the predominance of a strong female voice working against and at times doubling the text also point to Magnolias challenge to the â€Å"male† textual film system and more traditionally â€Å"masculine† narratives. Manns voice is like a commentary on the action, pulling us in to watch the film from a female viewing position. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dillman, Joanne Clark â€Å"Magnolia†: Masquerading as Soap Opera, Journal of Popular Film and Television 33 no3 142-50 Fall 2005 Dines, Gail: Gender, Race and Class in the media Brod,H. (Ed) (1987) The making of masculinities Various, â€Å"The trouble with men: Masculinities in europeon and Hollywood cinema.† Fuery,Patrick (2000) New Developments In Film Theory- Palgrave, New York, â€Å"Male Spectatorship and the Hollywood Love Story†: Mackinnon, Kenneth. Journal of Gender Studies, Vol. 12, No. 2, 2003, Carfax Publishing Classical Hollywood Cinema : Film Style Mode of Production to 1960 Bordwell, David.; Staiger, Janet.; Thompson, Kristin Publication: London Taylor Francis Routledge, 1988. FILMOGRAPHY Fight Club () Dir: David Fincher Magnolia (1999) Paul Thomas Anderson Rocky ( 198 200 ) Thelma and Louise (1991)Dir: Ridley Scott

The City and Its Workers

Chapter 19 The city and its workers (1870-1900) Jump Start: March 14, 2011 As the 19th century closes and the 20th century begins, different technologies help spur the many changes taking place. What symbolism can we take from the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge? It is a marker of time periods (separates this time period from that time period) March 16,2011Why did some immigrant groups decide to stay in the United States after arriving, while other groups only stayed long enough to make some money? March 17, 2011 What were Jim Crow Laws? Give an example of how they were applied. March 18, 2011 Who was Jacob Riis? What did he produce? Why was it important? March 21,2011 Explain the new emerging class systems, which were based upon occupation. White collar blue collar- largely unskilled( jobs require more physical than intellectual) United states emerged as a major industrial power by the end of the 19th century * Large scale immigration, urbanization, and technological innovation help out great promise for future, even as these dramatic changes led to social dislocation, urban squalor, labor strife, and death. * Constructed between 1869-1883, the Brooklyn bridge stood as a testament to the wonders and horrors of America at the close of the nineteenth and opening of the twentieth century * Its construction cost the lives of wenty men and it was considered both a work of art and an engineering marvel upon completion The rise of the city * By the end of the nineteenth century, the emergence of the modern city represented the most dramatic demographic development in the united states * From New york to Chicago to Los Angeles, cities exploded in size, fed in part by the rapid pace of global migrations, especially from southern and eastern Europe * BEFORE 1880 immigrants came from the northern and western Europe * AFTER 1880 immigrants came from southern and eastern Europe.Racism and the cry for Immigration Restriction * Workers often found themselves pitted again st one another, with ethnic rivalry dividing the skilled northern European workers and the unskilled southern and eastern European workers. * Even among educated people of the nineteenth century, the ethnic and religious differences of immigrants were perceived as racial characteristics. * The idea of social Darwinism further supported â€Å"white† society’s claim to racial superiority. African Americans in the North African Americans began their migration north in search of equality * In an effort to leave behind the segregation and Jim Crow Laws of the south, they found jobs on the bottoms rung of the occupational ladder. Asian Americans * Asians= scapegoats of the changing economy A new king of racism * Many Americans saw newcomers as impossible to assimilate * Trade Unions and old-stock aristocrats criticized America’s Immigration policies * A literacy test for new European immigrants passed through Congress but was vetoed by President Grover Cleveland.Jacob Riis * His How the Other Half Lives (1890) graphically showed the poverty of the ghettos * The nouveaux riches (new rich) provided the grandeur and splendor of the age with their magnificent mansions and ostentatious costume parties. * With 1% of the populations owning more than half of the property in America. Plessy v. Fergoson -Separate but equal is ok Brown v. Board of education Topeka, Kansas * Separate but equal is unconstitutional With industrialization and urbanization came both great poverty and great wealth within the cities. * In the outer circles of the cites, people had more money, lived in single family homes, and commuted to work on streetcars. What types of workers were there? * Workers in American industry in the late nineteenth century worked in a variety of settings , ranging from: * Skilled occupations in factories * Piecework that was contracted within the home * construction White-collar office work. * Backbone of the American labor force were the common labor ers. * These â€Å"human machines† stood at the bottom of the country’s economic ladder and generally am recent groups * At the opposite end of the labor spectrum were skilled craftsmen * Employers attempted to end the control that skilled works had ove their. work by bearjng slmalled oarts andtrokcadin the skiled workers with the unskilled * Women typically earned less money than their male counterparts, many oung worjubg men sought hear in dance halls, social clubs, and amusement park after exhausting. America’s diverse workers * Although such efficiencies meant that a greater variety of goods at lower * Boys who lived in the cites some as young as 6 years old, plied their trades as bootblacks and newsboys; Many of the boys were homeless, orphaned or cast off by their families The family economy : women and children * In new york city, the children’s aid societiey tried to better the situation of these, the city’s youngest works=er

Critical Analysis of a Journal Article Essay

The study of Oncology concerns most and every citizens. Oncology is the study of anything about the nature, medication, and strategic methods in understanding and treating cancer (Kaminsky, 2009). Based on the information provided in the two articles, Oncology was the main focus of the authors. The authors discussed two distinct strategies in dealing with treating the cancer patients. However, I found Takimoto’s (2008) article more convincing than the other article written by Bertino et. al. (2007). To start with, the article by that of Takimoto discusses the proposed method of phase 0 clinical trials to human and animal testing in attempt of the doctors and clinicians to find a cure against cancer. Also, in the article, several advantages of using the clinical trials are imparted like: the reduction of time, and minimal cost of injury or any other harm to both human and animals. Therefore, I agree that phase 0 clinical trials should be performed. In the article innovation was emphasized and linked to the development of products (medicines) through creative manipulating of the dosages that the sample animals or humans, as participants of the trials should receive. Moreover, it was preconceived my many that several dosage could make a patient weak or worse. Thus, it is important among clinicians to define how the dosage should be executed and when shall it stop (Takimoto, 2009). References Bertino, J. , & Greenberg, H. J. (2007). College of clinical pharmacology position statement on the use of microdosing in the drug development process. The Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 47,418-419. Retrieved January 28, 2009 from the Medline database. Kaminsky, A. (2009). What is oncology? Retrieved January 31, 2009 from http://www. wisegeek. com/what-is-oncology. htm Takimoto, C. (2009). Phase 0 Clinical trials in oncology: A paradigm shift for early drug development? Cancer Chemotherapy Pharmacology, 63,703-709. Retrieved January 28,2009 from http://www. SpringerLink. com