"Ett löfte om lycka"

In this essay, I explore an innovative theme in the interfaces between theology, gender studies, aesthetic theory, and literary studies. More specifically, my aim is to shed light on fundamental theological conflicts underlying the immensely complex subject of the elevated status of "the beautiful woman" as image and idea in Western society. This will be implemented through a close reading of the influential short story of French nineteenth-century novelist Honoré de Balzac, Le Chef-d'œuvre inconnu (The Unknown Masterpiece), from 1831. By virtue of this theologically informed reading, important facets of modern Western society's fantasy of the beautiful woman come to the fore. The essay discloses how this fantasy has far-reaching tentacles and ramifications, by which the beautiful female becomes identified with beauty per se, with art, nature, the divine, and even with life itself. Balzac's short story presents the reader with a strong statement of the scopophilic tendency of Western visual arts, but in its final peripeteia it also provides us with the tools to bring forth a contrary reading, and a direct confrontation with the traditional understanding of the task of the painter.

‘Not finding causal effect’ is not ‘finding no causal effect’ of school closure on COVID-19

In a paper recently published in Nature Medicine, Fukumoto et al. tried to assess the government-led school closure policy during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in Japan. They compared the reported incidence rates between municipalities that had and had not implemented school closure in selected periods from March–May 2020, where they rigorously matched for potential confounders, and claimed that they found no causal effect on the incidence rates of COVID-19. However, the effective sample size (ESS) of their dataset had been substantially reduced in the process of matching due to imbalanced covariates between the treatment (i.e. with closure) and control (without) municipalities, which led to the wide uncertainty in the estimates. That said, the study title "No causal effect…" is a rather strong statement because the results are also consistent with a strong mitigating effect of school closure on incidence of COVID-19.

Why (and how) to teach sensible history?

From time to time, the question over the usefulness of history teaching is being raised. My study contributes to the scientific debate over the aims of history education, which seems to stand at a crossroad of an increasingly uncertain school environment on the one hand, and the booming historical reflections of the wide public on the other. The starting point of my study is a strong statement from the Euroclio, a professional organization representing European history teacher associations: "Many European pupils and students have problems understanding the past [...] pupils and students in many European countries have difficulty in seeing any purpose in studying the past, and [they rather] concentrate on topics which are considered useful for their future lives and careers." (Leeuw-Roord, 2004, 97) Can a pluralistic pedagogical system handle this situation sensibly? In case we make efforts to change this situation, an important question is to be answered: In the European school environment, how much time and space and willingness is to rethink our position? The stress should probably be on the potential history teachers and undergraduates.

Negotiating patients’ therapy proposals in paternalistic and humanistic clinics

The negotiation of patients’ therapy proposals often makes a strong statement about doctors’ consultative styles in Nigerian clinical encounters. This invites a search into the relationship between patients’ preferred treatment options and doctors’ and patients’ approaches to negotiating them. Analysis reveals the sequential and face orientation mechanisms deployed in negotiating patients’ proposals in predominantly doctor-centred clinics, the interactional moves made by them in negotiating the proposals in predominantly patient-centred clinics, and the pragmatic implications of the proposals negotiated in both clinics. The negotiations in the clinics are anchored to strategic rapport building, the colonisation of patients’ lifeworld and constrained joint decisions. Rapport is poorly built in the doctor-centred clinic with power-imbued strategies which stifle patients’ voice and lead to completely-constrained joint decisions on therapy proposals by patients. Participatory consultation enhances negotiation in the patient-centred clinic, but the physician’s misleading strategic sequences and exaggerated emotions somewhat weaken the ultimate consultative outcome.

Five Types Involving the Subjunctive: A Corpora-based Analysis

The main goal of this paper is to provide a detailed frequency analysis of the five types it is imperative that, it is vital that, it is essential that, it is important that, and it is necessary that within the British National Corpus (100 million, British, 1980s-1993), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (1.0 billion, US, 1990-2019), the Corpus of Historical American English (400 million, US, 1810s-2000s), and the Hansard Corpus (1.6 billion, British Parliament). In this paper, we have examined the frequency of the five types and collected the data. A major point to note is that it is important that was the most preferred by British people, followed by it is essential that, it is vital that, it is imperative that, and it is necessary that, in that order. The BNC clearly shows, on the other hand, that it is important that was the most commonly used one in the spoken genre, magazine genre, newspaper genre, and academic genre. A further point to note is that it is important that was the most preferred by Americans, followed by it is imperative that, it is essential that, it is vital that, and it is necessary that, in that order. The COCA clearly indicates that it is important that was the most widely used one in the blog genre, web genre, spoken genre, fiction genre, magazine genre, newspaper genre, and academic genre. The reason why it is important that was the most preferred by Americans and British people in the academic genre may be that a moderate obligation is suitable for conveying factual information. With respect to the COHA, it is worth noting that it is necessary that was the most preferred by Americans from 1810 to 2000, followed by it is important that, it is essential that, it is imperative that, and it is vital that. As for the HC, it is important that was the most preferred by British politicians, followed by it is essential that, it is vital that, it is necessary that, and it is imperative that. It is worth noting that Americans and British politicians show the similar pattern in the ranking of the five types in that Americans did not prefer a strong statement or the strongest statement, whereas British politicians did not prefer the strongest statement.

The Precursors of Mexicanism

Charlot and Siqueiros’s condemnation of the effects of Anna Pavlova and Tórtola Valencia on Mexico’s nascent image of itself provided a strong statement on the power these painters ascribed to theatrical dance in the early twentieth century. It also emphasized the role that foreign dancers played from the very beginning in shaping that image and the ongoing tensions over who decided what was “authentically” Mexican. While in Mexico both women took regional folk dances into their repertoires—Pavlova the jarabe tapatío from Jalisco and Valencia the sandunga from Oaxaca—and nurtured the widespread desire to see Mexican dances performed beyond the nation’s borders. The Secretaría de Educación Pública ensured that Mexicans themselves would see these regional dances as representative of the nation as a whole by incorporating them into its school curriculum, teaching generations of Mexicans to perform them as an expression of shared nationality.

When “We Believe that ...”: The Role of Collective “we” in the Dialogic Negotiation in Hard News Discourse

The present paper examines the occurrence of collective self expressed by the first person plural “we” in British broadsheet hard news reports. Given that “we” typically embraces “I” and the “non-I”, and is viewed in contradistinction to “others”, it is subjective and dialogic (inter-subjective) in nature (Baumgarten et al.; Benveniste). This study, grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics and the theory of engagement, examines the coupling, i.e., co-occurrence, of one dialogic signal “we” with other dialogic meanings (entertain, proclaim and disclaim) used for the dialogic negotiation of content and writer-reader engagement (Martin, “Beyond Exchange”; Martin and White). Couplings are interpreted from the point of view of the overall rhetorical strategy they are put to, referred to as syndromes of meaning (Zappavigna et al., “Syndromes”; Zappavigna et al., “The Coupling”). The rhetorical functions of syndromes reflect the basic dialogic meanings of the examined engagement categories such as a tentative suggestion of an opinion (entertain), a strong statement of an opinion (proclaim) and a rejection of a dispreferred opinion (disclaim). Finer variations within the individual rhetorical strategies are related to the difference in the source of dialogic positioning (an individual versus collective voice) and the referential scope of the pronoun (a precisely defined reference versus reference with a more general and diffused scope).

Uwagi o urodzeniach i niskiej dzietności w Polsce oraz polityce rodzinnej wspierającej prokreację

The below replacement fertility, persisting in many industrial countries, impacts the decrease in the population dynamics and consequently, the population decline. It also imposes the durable shifts in the age composition, which result in distorting relationships between subsequent generations (children, adults, old people). Therefore, fertility growth has become an increasingly highlighted goal of family policy. The article presents the situation in Poland in terms of changes in births and fertility on the one hand, and family policy reforms on the other hand. The attempt to evaluate whether family policy reforms implemented since 2008 might be considered as supportive for demographic renewal refers to numerous comparative studies on fertility effects of different policy measures. In the conclusion, a strong statement is formulated that to evaluate adequately the effects for demographic renewal from a longer time perspective, policy panel surveys on family relative behaviours and childbearing decisions are needed.

Multiple Narratives in the Novel

The politics of a multilayered text like The Subhedar’s Son does not lie in its strong statement of ideological issues but in its silences and its emotional representations. Dinkar Shankar Sawarkar, the author of The Subhedar’s Son, deliberately connected Christian morality with specific social groups, according them relative political significance, while disregarding others as morally and spiritually bankrupt. This chapter discusses the various narrative strategies employed by Sawakar in the Marathi novel. It explores how The Subhedar’s Son is simultaneously a Christian narrative and a Brahmin narrative that makes an important case for the Brahmin-Christian contribution to vernacular nativism and nationalism, against colonialism. The chapter describes how the novel stages religious conversion to Christianity as a modern and individualist Brahmin and upper-caste decision, the analysis of which cannot be afforded within structural explorations, but personal motivations and life stories.

Rhythm in Architecture: an Aesthetic Appeal

It is a discourse that exhibits the presence of rhythm in visual art, especially the architecture that holds strong aesthetic appeal. In this paper, the introduction part focuses on how rhythm generally reinforces aesthetic experiences in human sensory. Rhythm in architecture means recurrence of elements such as lines, shapes, forms or colors resulting on organized movement in space and time. I have taken the best analogy and examples of rhythm present in nature which has been formulated by scientist as Fibonacci number. I have tried to show architectures incorporating rhythm in different epoch of human civilization around the globe that have been popular and remarkable till the date. These architectural monuments have become aesthetic timeless entity, such as pyramids in Egypt, Parthenon in Greece, gothic architecture of medieval Europe, Tajmahal in India, Hindu temples and Buddha stupas in Nepal etc. Similarly modern architecture has been in equal focus in this article despite its unique and functional structures. The paper has been concluded with the strong statement that however the sense of beauty is shaped by cultural experience, rhythm is frequently desired with architectural compositions. These qualities are often universally admired and celebrated irrespective of time and place.Journal of the Institute of Engineering, 2017, 13(1): 206-214