Reading Through Emotions: An Affective Narratolological Approach to Alice Munro's Short Stories

The emergence of fields of study like emotionology, affective narratology, and psychonarratology in recent decades evidences a dramatic rise in research done on the meaning and interpretation of emotions. Affective Narratology as one of the recent fields in emotion studies attempts to identify and account for the figuration of emotions in works of literature. Focusing on three basic emotions (shame, jealousy and love) figuring in Alice Munro’s selected short stories this paper probes the significance of emotional registers in the writer's depiction of daily life. Examined is the way the stories' sincere tone and their comprehensible, ordinary language, contribute to the emotional identification of readers with characters. Applying affective narratological theories, the objective is to show how emotions contribute to plot development and characterization in these stories. Central to the analysis is interpreting emotional moments experienced by characters, especially female characters

Development of a Scale Measuring Emotional Catharsis through Illness Narratives

Objective: This study intended to construct a scale measuring the catharsis effect on medical professionals or students through illness narratives (ECS-IN). Methods: After a systematic literature review and panel discussion, the researchers conducted a pilot study with a sample of seven hundred and eighty-two randomly selected healthcare students and providers in Taiwan to examine psychometric properties using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for item derivation and factor extraction. The researchers also tested the validities and reliabilities of the ECS-IN scale to confirm its feasibility. Results: the EFA yielded 29 items and three factors: “emotional identification as self-healing” (12 items; 55.500% of variance explained), “emotional release for compensation” (10 items; 7.465% of variance explained), and “emotional adjustment for intellectual growth” (7 items; 4.839% of variance explained). The CFA yielded an 18-item, three-factor model with satisfactory fit to the data, where the χ2/df ratio = 1.090, Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) = 0.996, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.997, and root mean square of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.020. The convergent validity and discriminant validities also demonstrated the feasibility of the ECS-IN scale. For the first version of the ECS-IN scale (29 items), the Cronbach’s alphas for the three factors and the overall scale were in the range between 0.912 and 0.971; for the reduced version of the scale (18 items), the Cronbach’s alphas and composite reliabilities were in the range of 0.888–0.946 and 0.890–0.968. Conclusion: The findings proved that the ECS-IN could be a reliable and valid instrument to assess participants’ emotional catharsis through illness narratives.

A Probe into the Ways to Improve the Cultural Emotional Identity of Chongqing Citizens

With the social existence that is formed by historical accumulation, Chongqing’ revolutionary cultural resources are derived and condensed from three historical stages which are the new democratic revolution, the socialist construction period, and the new period of reform and opening-up. In a modern society with people as the main body, promoting the cultural and emotional identity of urban residents are extremely important for the development of the city. Therefore, integrating Chongqing’s revolutionary cultural resources, guiding Chongqing citizens’ emotional identification with local urban culture through rationality and persuasion, behavioral restraints, and the cultivation of moral awareness in persuading people are important ways to build Chongqing’s urban culture.

Topic-based Teaching Strategy in Cultivating Labor Values

The ideological and political curriculum in high schools as a fundamental course for the implementation of moral education plays an important role in cultivating students’ labor values. However, the traditional and indoctrination teaching methods used by some teachers are not suitable to cultivate these values. This article proposes a new teaching method in high schools’ ideological and political lessons to cultivate students’ labor values in four aspects which are students’ knowledge, feeling, meaning, and action. By setting topics to emphasize on labor values, circulating and discussing these topics to cultivate labor emotions, promote thinking for firm labor faith, and promote action in the practice of labor behaviors to cultivate students’ labor values, improve their rational cognition and emotional identification of Marxist labor values, as well as internalize labor values in their minds and externalizing them in practice.

Treatment of anorexia nervosa in young people with autism: a literature review

AimsThe purpose of this review was to review existing literature relating to treatment of anorexia nervosa in young people with a diagnosis of autism. Hypothesis was that there would be a limited amount of literature in this age group.Previous research has suggested that there is over-representation of autistic traits in anorexia nervosa. There are implications for treatment outcomes for young people with anorexia nervosa and autism. Young people with autism may find it more difficult to engage in psychological treatments for anorexia nervosa, due to cognitive and behavioural inflexibility, or communication difficulties. Researchers are therefore looking at other options for treatment.MethodThis is a narrative review. Search was conducted in January 2020. Keywords used were “anorexia nervosa” combined with “autism” combined with “treatment”. Only published, peer-reviewed, full articles in English were included. Search of OVID (for MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE and ERIC databases) gave a result of 222 articles. 9 articles met the inclusion criteria. Search of CINAHL gave a result of 12 articles; 3 articles met the inclusion criteria but had been reviewed following OVID search.ResultThemes identified for discussion were: cognitive remediation therapy; improving emotional identification; adaptations to communication; dietary, sensory and environmental considerations; recognising the role of autism; and pharmacological therapies.ConclusionLiterature suggests that treatment targeting cognitive features, common to anorexia nervosa and autism, can be effective. There has been interest in the use of cognitive remediation therapy (CRT) and cognitive remediation and emotion skills training (CREST). However, more research is required in younger patient groups. Use of medication is in experimental stages, with studies considering a role for oxytocin from age 16. Qualitative studies provide information on modifications to treatment which could be helpful. The review highlights the need for a standardised, evidence-based treatment pathway for this patient group.

Queen Victoria

This book evokes the pervasive importance of religion to Queen Victoria’s life but also that life’s centrality to the religion of Victorians around the globe. The first comprehensive exploration of Victoria’s religiosity, it shows how moments in her life—from her accession to her marriage and her successive bereavements—enlarged how she defined and lived her faith. It portrays a woman who had simple convictions but a complex identity that suited her multinational kingdom: a determined Anglican who preferred Presbyterian Scotland, an ardent Protestant who revered her husband’s Lutheran homeland but became sympathetic towards Roman Catholicism and Islam, a moralizing believer in the religion of the home who scorned Sabbatarianism. Drawing on a systematic reading of her journals and an extensive selection of manuscripts from British and German archives, it sheds new light not just on Victoria’s private beliefs but also on her activity as a monarch, who wielded her powers energetically in questions of church and state. Unlike a conventional biography, this book interweaves its account of Victoria’s life with a panoramic survey of what religious communities made of it. Drawing on sermons, newspapers, and other sources from around the British world, it shows how different churches and world religions expressed an emotional identification with their Queen and Empress, turning her into an embodiment of their different and often rival conceptions of what her Empire ought to be. The result is a biography of a Queen which also argues that monarchy and religion remained close allies in the nineteenth-century British world.

“Enjoy your experience”: Symbolic violence and becoming a tasteful state cannabis consumer in Canada

This article explores the legalization and marketing of recreational cannabis in Canada, specifically the province of Nova Scotia, that has extended state monopoly over sales. Beginning with Howard Becker’s classic analysis of “becoming a marijuana user,” this ethnographic investigation of the first day of state cannabis sales utilizes and extends Bourdieusian analyses, particularly by showing how “symbolic violence” and “taste distinctions” work beyond overt class reproduction to establish state classifications and rituals. The practices we observe show state formation in action at the point of sale, including education, warning, prohibition, and promotion. As we demonstrate, the state marketing of cannabis works to invite emotional identification toward becoming the state consumer as an embodied habitus. The citizen is not just redeemed morally by the legal recategorization of cannabis but brought into a new subject position as good consumer citizen at the moment of ritual consumption, that is, brought into a “tasteful state.”

THE FORMATION OF COLLECTIVE SUBJECTS’ SMALL SOCIAL GROUPS IN THE INFORMATION AGE (PROBLEM OF IDENTITY)social groups in the information age (problem of identity)

The article takes a new look at the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technology on society, which leads to the formation of fundamentally new social groups. The greatest diversity and freedom of development will be allocated to small social groups that directly interact with AI. The model of the new social group should answer the following questions: what opportunities does AI offer? What role can AI play in a small social group? How will people identify with a similar group? The description of the structure of small social groups was used, the multisubject role of the organizer and intermediary of the AI was determined. The concept of «situational community» was used to reveal the equilibrium structure of such groups, where either individual or group identity dominates. In some situations, the AI will be able to replace the person who has left the group as a leader, or to ensure strict observance of the settings that are unchanged for the group, or to play the role of an implicit collective organizer, which, in order to preserve the integrity of the group, transforms its goals and objectives. Small social groups, thanks to AI, will gain access to professional skills and tools for organizing labor that previously had larger social structures. An increase in subjectivity can lead to significant transformations and a change in the role of these social groups. A threat has been identified: the individual may not be able to independently abandon his behavioral-cognitive and emotional identification with the group.

Civilizing Processes at the Level of Humanity as a Whole

This chapter discusses Elias’s investigation of civilizing processes that have affected humanity as a whole and analyses his criteria for assessing the relative power of civilizing and decivilizing trends. Four criteria are considered – whether controls on violence are increasing or in decline; whether there are significant changes in the rely power of internal and external constraints on conduct; whether emotional identification between peoples is widening or contracting; and whether support for international planning to protect the vulnerable from the problems stemming from global interconnections is on the rise or is weakening. Those yardsticks inform the discussion of Huntington’s idea of a clash of civilizations and English School descriptions of the civilizing potential of international society. The chapter ends with reflections on the importance of shared symbols for a global civilizing process. It considers the complex relations between national-populist movements, images of future global ecological civilizing processes and the political challenges of the Covid-19 health and economic crisis.