scholarly journals Health Theatre: Recognizing and subverting the tactical farce of the medicalization of everyday life

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Jessica Baldanza
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
National Security ◽  
Human Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Individual

This article considers the implications of Western health and wellness culture’s strategic co-option by industry, embodied by the rise of wearable tech, the commodification of the self-help movement, and the datafication of the human body. Said culture has come to bear the paranoia observable in the West’s approach to national security, which is widely dubbed as “security theatre”. “Health theatre” is put forth here as an analogous phenomenon to security theatre, wherein the populous is subject to invasive scrutiny by governing structures, enacted in the name of their own wellbeing. Both phenomena are characterized by their sensationalist rhetoric and effective impotence in producing results consistent with their alleged purpose. Health theatre can best be understood as an organic symptom of the broad medicalization that has permeated Western culture over the past century. Medicalization pathologizes the scope of human experiences, while situating the problem at the level of the individual where solutions are then couched. Further, by positing health as an elusive state to be perennially pursued, the individual is left in a perpetual state of dependency. Should health theatre proliferate, the West will continue to suffer a fear-based, atomizing system of health promotion. Means of resistance to health theatre are proposed here as a return to engagement with communal forms of reproductive care that reject pathologizing diversity in psychological and somatic states. 

7 Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 239-248
Author(s):  
Claudia Nelson ◽  
Anne Morey
Keyword(s):  
Past Century ◽  
Short List ◽  
The West ◽  
The Past ◽  
Classical World ◽  
Spatial Metaphors ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Working Out

As we conclude this examination of texts that use particular topologies of the past in their redeployment of the classical world, one of the more pressing questions might be why the combination of the classical world and this short list of spatial metaphors constitutes such an attractive matrix for the working out of concerns about citizenship, agency, suffering, and the place of the individual within the family. While the power and perdurability of classical mythology is clearly part of the allure of neoclassical settings and characters, it does not by itself completely explain the utility of these frameworks to our various authors’ projects. After all, a number of the authors with whom our work has engaged—including Rick Riordan, Tony Abbott, Alan Garner, Caroline Dale Snedeker, and N. M. Browne, among others—have shown similar interest in other kinds of mythological or historical settings, in some cases emphasizing the position of the classical as merely one segment of a vast interconnected web of myth/history. Nor is it possible to say that that the privileged place of the remnants of the classical world within the canon of the West by itself explains the reliance of authors over the past century upon its familiarity or prestige....

The Crisis of Becoming-Nature in Howard Barker’s Recent Dramas

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 100-114
Author(s):  
Karoline Gritzner
Keyword(s):  
Recent Work ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Elderly Women ◽  
Young Men ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Self ◽  
Love Relationships ◽  
Late Style ◽  
Life Force ◽  
The Individual

AbstractThis article discusses how in Howard Barker’s recent work the idea of the subject’s crisis hinges on the introduction of an impersonal or transpersonal life force that persists beyond human agency. The article considers Barker’s metaphorical treatment of the images of land and stone and their interrelationship with the human body, where the notion of subjective crisis results from an awareness of objective forces that transcend the self. In “Immense Kiss” (2018) and “Critique of Pure Feeling” (2018), the idea of crisis, whilst still dominant, seems to lose its intermittent character of singular rupture and reveals itself as a permanent force of dissolution and reification. In these plays, the evocation of nonhuman nature in the love relationships between young men and elderly women affirms the existence of something that goes beyond the individual, which Barker approaches with a late-style poetic sensibility.

scholarly journals Adolescent and adult laryngotracheal stenosis: a review

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Johan Klopper ◽  
Oladele Vincent Adeniyi ◽  
Kate Stephenson
Keyword(s):  
Intensive Care ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Main Body ◽  
Laryngotracheal Stenosis ◽  
Airway Protection ◽  
Interventional Pulmonology ◽  
The Past ◽  
Airway Emergency ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Function

Abstract Background The larynx has multiple composite functions which include phonation, airway protection, and sensory control of respiration. Stenosis of the larynx and trachea were first recorded by O’Dwyer in 1885 and by Colles in 1886, respectively. Initially, the aetiology of laryngotracheal stenosis was predominantly infective. Currently, the leading cause is iatrogenic injury to the laryngotracheal complex secondary to prolonged ventilation in an intensive care unit. Main body Laryngotracheal stenosis is a complex and diverse disease. It poses a major challenge to the surgeon and can present as an airway emergency. Management typically demands the combined involvement of various disciplines including otorhinolaryngology, cardiothoracic surgery, anaesthesiology, interventional pulmonology, and radiology. Both the disease and its management can impact upon respiration, voice, and swallowing. The incidence of iatrogenic laryngotracheal stenosis has reflected the evolution of airway and intensive care whilst airway surgery has advanced concurrently over the past century. Correction of laryngotracheal stenosis requires expansion of the airway lumen; this is achieved by either endoscopic or open surgery. We review the relevant basic science, aetiopathogenesis, diagnosis, management, and treatment outcomes of LTS. Conclusion The choice of surgical procedure in the management of laryngotracheal stenosis is often dictated by the individual anatomy and function of the larynx and trachea, together with patient factors and available facilities. Regardless of how the surgeon chooses to approach these lesions, prevention of iatrogenic laryngotracheal damage remains of primary importance.

Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
First Century ◽  
Care Of The Self ◽  
The West ◽  
City Life ◽  
Good Citizen ◽  
The Past ◽  
Twenty First Century ◽  
Point Of Departure

What does it mean to be a good citizen today? What are practices of citizenship? And what can we learn from the past about these practices to better engage in city life in the twenty-first century? Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the West: Care of the Self is a collection of papers that examine these questions. The contributors come from a variety of different disciplines, including architecture, urbanism, philosophy, and history, and their essays make comparative examinations of the practices of citizenship from the ancient world to the present day in both the East and the West. The papers’ comparative approaches, between East and West, and ancient and modern, leads to a greater understanding of the challenges facing citizens in the urbanized twenty-first century, and by looking at past examples, suggests ways of addressing them. While the book’s point of departure is philosophical, its key aim is to examine how philosophy can be applied to everyday life for the betterment of citizens in cities not just in Asia and the West but everywhere.

Psychiatry, Psychology, and Human Sterilization Then and Now: “Therapeutic” or in the Social Interest?

2007 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-108
Author(s):  
Deborah V. Dolan
Keyword(s):  
Social Interest ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Social ◽  
Individual Potential ◽  
The Individual

Practitioners of psychiatry and psychology have played an important role in the sterilization of tens of thousands of Americans throughout the past century. This article examines a number of questions relating to the origin and continuation of sterilization as a treatment and preventive. What social and medical beliefs lead to the use of sterilization as a treatment and preventive for both the individual and society? What ills are being treated and prevented? Who becomes a candidate for sterilization? To what degree are ethical concerns raised, and what is the response to these concerns? And finally, Who is the client—the individual, potential children, or society?—and how do practitioners distinguish the interest of the individuals from that of their potential children and society?

Self Help, Not Self Pity': Caring for People with Diabetes in a Voluntary Organisation

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 36
Author(s):  
Elica Ristevski ◽  
Heather Gardner
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Cost Efficiency ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
Voluntary Organisation ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Voluntary Organisations

The importance of the voluntary sector in providing services for people with a chronic illness has been increasingly recognised. A consumer organisation in the voluntary sector, which provides services for people with diabetes, was selected to explore the role of voluntary organisations in service provision. The investigation revealed that voluntary organisations provide support services such as information and education, advocacy, health promotion, the encouragement of research, social activities, and aids and appliances. These services focus on the individual, social, financial and economic needs of people with diabetes and fill the gaps in programs provided by public sector organisations, which are largely targeted toward acute care, are less flexible, and increasingly concerned with cost efficiency. With the shift towards decentralising services to the community and the increased participation of consumers in health care, the work of voluntary organisations will become even more indispensable in Australia.

Not-Minster? Australia’s Bespoke System of Government

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis C. Grube
Keyword(s):  
Past Century ◽  
Parliamentary Democracy ◽  
The Past ◽  
System A ◽  
American Style ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Federal Structure

Australia’s system of government has inherited traditions from both sides of the Atlantic. The institutions of a representative parliamentary democracy of the British type sit side by side with an American-style senate and a federal structure that shares power between the states and the Commonwealth. How to accurately describe and categorize these arrangements has vexed scholars for much of the past century. Is it a Westminster system, a Washminster system, or something else entirely? This chapter suggests that these arguments over categorization flounder because the Australian model is in fact unique—a bespoke creation that reflects all the individual aspects of Australia’s history and approach to democracy.

The Oxford Handbook of Ecclesiology

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Church History ◽  
The Self ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
The New Testament ◽  
The Church ◽  
Historical Origins

This Handbook is a comprehensive resource for the scholarly study of the self-understanding of the church through the centuries—its theological identity. Nearly thirty expert contributions describe the continuities and discontinuities in the changing understanding of the church. The scope of ecclesiology is defined by the manifold self-understanding and action of the church in relation to a number of research fields, including its historical origins, structures of authority, doctrine, ministry and sacraments, unity and diversity, and mission, as well as its relation to the state, to civil society, and to culture. The book covers the main sources of such ecclesiological research and reflection, namely the Bible, church history from the apostolic age to the present, the wealth of the Christian theological traditions, the experience and practice of the churches today, together with the information and insights that emerge from other relevant academic disciplines. Ecclesiology has also been the main focus of the intense ecumenical engagement, study, and dialogue of the past century and is the area where the most intractable differences remain to be resolved. In particular, generous space is allocated to the New Testament sources of ecclesiology and to some of the most influential shapers of modern ecclesiology.

scholarly journals EDITORIAL FOREWORD

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 659-661
Author(s):  
Akram Khater ◽  
Jeffrey Culang
Keyword(s):  
Consumer Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Life Choices ◽  
Ethical Practices ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Local Tradition ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Editorial Foreword

How to realize your self? This question, reflective of neoliberal understandings of individual subjectivity and the sacred, is the basis of the Egyptian self-help guide whose artwork graces this issue's cover. The book is one among hundreds like it that can be bought in Egypt's bookstalls and bookstores, from where they circulate through the homes and workplaces of readers. This growing and popular corpus is the focus of Jeffrey T. Kenney's “Selling Success, Nurturing the Self: Self-Help Literature, Capitalist Values, and the Sacralization of Subjective Life in Egypt,” the first of two articles that make up the section “Therapeutic Discourses.” Kenney argues that as capitalism has expanded in Egypt, it has given rise to a pervasive consumer culture and, relatedly, a self-help literature that competes with Islamic etiquette manuals. Mixing modern ideas and ethical practices to form varied and unpredictable combinations, self-help has become a flat universal idiom, but what has given it its legitimacy in Egypt is its association with local tradition. “The inherent message of self-help,” Kenney writes, “is not simply the glorification of the individual but, more pointedly, the sacralization of the self and subjective life choices—an interpretive trend that, in Egypt, simultaneously functionalizes Islam and fosters new understandings of what it means to be Muslim.”

Temporal analysis of the diet of the central rock-rat

2013 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. P. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Microscopic Analysis ◽  
Temporal Analysis ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The West ◽  
Faecal Pellets ◽  
The Past ◽  
Faecal Samples ◽  
Dry Conditions ◽  
Central Australia ◽  
Solanum Spp

The central rock-rat (Zyzomys pedunculatus) is an endangered endemic rodent that has undergone a dramatic range contraction over the past century. It is currently known from only a small area of the West MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs. A previous investigation into the species’ diet that analysed a small number of faecal samples concluded tentatively that it was a granivore. The present study aimed to establish the dietary patterns of Z. pedunculatus across a two-year period in central Australia during which rainfall fluctuated markedly. Diet was determined through the microscopic analysis of material in faecal pellets of Z. pedunculatus trapped at approximately three-month intervals at five sites at Ormiston Gorge. Seed was found to be the most important dietary item, comprising on average 57.0% of the diet across sample periods. Under dry conditions, the amount of seed material in the diet declined and the amount of stem material increased. Plant material from 15 genera was recorded in the diet, most notably Sida spp., Solanum spp. and Triodia brizoides. All of the plant genera identified in the diet to date are widespread and common in the range country of central Australia and most are considered fire tolerant. On the basis that the diet contains more than 50% seeds, Z. pedunculatus can be described as a granivore. However, the diet is broad and includes both seeds and vegetative material from a range of plant species.

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