Absent Body Research Articles

Ghost-Stitching American Politics

Ghost-Stitching American Politics

The Missing Corpse in Contemporary Iraqi Fiction: Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad and Muhsin Al-Ramli’s Daughter of the Tigris

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on the trope of the missing corpse in two contemporary Iraqi novels: Ahmed Saadawi’s Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) and Muhsin al-Ramli’s Daughter of the Tigris (2019). Drawing mainly on critical work on the corpse and death studies as well as critical ideas on relics and hauntology the essay asks: What place does the missing corpse occupy in a body of contemporary literary outputs that have witnessed a significant engagement with the materiality of the dead body? How is the narrative of the absent corpse structured and framed? How is it experienced and accounted for? What forms and shapes replace the absent body? The essay argues that the missing corpse takes on an “absent presence” that haunts the narrative while the dead body’s very disappearance is compensated for through relics, surrogates, replacements, and repetitions. In conclusion, the essay contends that this absent presence further signals a haunted futurity that is entangled in Iraq’s history of violence but which, nonetheless, offers the potential for a radically new and democratic vision for the country’s future.

Prevention of Disease and the Absent Body: A Phenomenological Approach to Periodontitis

A large part of the contemporary phenomenology of medicine has been devoted to accounts of health and illness, arguing that they contribute to the improvement of health care. Less focus has been paid to the issue of prevention of disease and the associated difficulty of adhering to health-promoting behaviours, which is arguably of equal importance. This article offers a phenomenological account of this disease prevention, focusing on how we-as embodied beings-engage with health-promoting behaviours. It specifically considers how we engage with oral hygiene regimens to prevent periodontitis and why we are not good at it. The article suggests that poor adherence to health-promoting behaviours can be explained with reference to the concept of the absent body, because prevention of disease is generally concerned with pre-symptomatic illness experience. The final section contains a discussion of some strategies for the improvement of disease prevention based on this viewpoint.

Beyond the Parts: Learning Coarse-to-Fine Adaptive Alignment Representation for Person Search

Person search is a time-consuming computer vision task that entails locating and recognizing query people in scenic pictures. Body components are commonly mismatched during matching due to position variation, occlusions, and partially absent body parts, resulting in unsatisfactory person search results. Existing approaches for extracting local characteristics of the human body using keypoint information are unable to handle the search job when distinct body parts are misaligned, ignoring to exploit multiple granularities, which is crucial in the person search process. Moreover, the alignment learning methods learn body part features with fixed and equal weights, ignoring the beneficial contextual information, e.g., the umbrella carried by the pedestrian, which supplements compelling clues for identifying the person. In this paper, we propose a Coarse-to-Fine Adaptive Alignment Representation (CFA 2 R) network for learning multiple granular features in misaligned person search in the coarse-to-fine perspective. To exploit more beneficial body parts and related context of the cropped pedestrians, we design a Part-Attentional Progressive Module (PAPM) to guide the network to focus on informative body parts and positive accessorial regions. Besides, we propose a Re-weighting Alignment Module (RAM) shedding light on more contributive parts instead of treating them equally. Specifically, adaptive re-weighted but not fixed part features are reconstructed by Re-weighting Reconstruction module, considering that different parts serve unequally during image matching. Extensive experiments conducted on CUHK-SYSU and PRW datasets demonstrate competitive performance of our proposed method.

Becoming a Nonperson: Conceptualizing the Departed, Missing, and Absent

Daniel Heller-Roazen’s Absentees impressively demonstrates the global treatment of personhood and legal bodies. Probing culturally rich sources such as ancient myths and popular culture items such as children’s games, Heller-Roazen makes a provocative and compelling argument about how we classify existence and experience loss of others. Heller-Roazen theorizes that while the legal state of the missing has temporal limits, and disallows perpetual absence, literature provides a space for the missing to speak for themselves, to testify to their disappearances, and to recount the troubled conditions of their return. In its philosophical inquiry into nonpersonhood and the literary journeys of the missing, Absentees produces a splendid journey of its own through the marginal and at times hauntingly poetic spaces created by the temporarily absent body.

Letter Matters: Corporeality, Physicality, Epistolarity

:During the English Restoration, the writing of letters took on new significance, and the formal tradition of letter writing contributed significantly to the experimentation that played out within the genres of narrative prose fiction. While epistolarity is built on the absence of speakers, merely evoking their spectral presence during the moment of reading, materiality nevertheless finds its way into these indirect forms of communication. In fact, corporeality and the physicality of objects included in letters could be said to make up for the absent body of the speaker. This article discusses how Restoration epistolarity employs such forms of materiality, arguing that readers and writers, both within the diegetic realm and in actual reality, decoded ostentatious moments of materiality as acts that lent letters an element of veracity and reliability that this generic form was not usually able to claim at this particular historical moment. Texts studied include Robert Beaumont's Loves Missives to Virtue (1660) and Margaret Cavendish's Sociable Letters (1664).

“내 상처에 네 손을 넣어라”: 체리에 모라가의 Heroes and Saints가 말하는 몸 없는 물질성

With the playwright’s proses that energetically emphasize the recovery and redefining of Chicanx identities and motherland, Cherríe Moraga’s Heroes and Saints usually has been interpreted as a play that represents political and religious possibilities enabled by bodiless Chicana divinity. Cerezita Valle, the play’s heroine who does not have a body under her neck due to prenatal pesticide poisoning, transfigures herself as La Virgen de Guadalupe in order to purge the polluted Madre Tierra(mother-land) and exhort the people of San Joaquin Valley to form joint confrontation. Her absent body, a powerful symbol representing Madre Tierra, expands boundlessly and works as a useful vehicle for delivering urgent political messages, incorporating diverse and divergent Chicanx communities. This article concurs with the previous studies that read Cerezita’s bodiless body as a Chicanx hero-saint who represents the encompassing and caring mother-land required by mestizas living in a world polluted by pesticides and global capitalism. However, this article also argues that Cerezita’s body cannot be read only as an immaterial symbol. Cerezita is a complicated figure which reformulates various dichotomies: political hero and religious icon, Virgin Mary and La Malinche, and ethereality and corporeality. Moraga transfigures Cerezita into La Virgen de Guadalupe with a heavy price; the playwright highlights that Cerezita yearns for female sexuality and desire, thus making it clear that the heroine should be reduced to a religious/political icon only when she painfully abandons her disabled physical corporeality. Nevertheless, by doing so, the play makes the audiences recognize Cerezita’s bodily materiality on stage that cannot be seamlessly packed up into compelling metaphors. The bipolar, ambivalent vibration of the heroine illuminates the possibility of imagining the concrete and the indefinite simultaneously, suggesting the countermeasure against and the ethical representation of the prevalent ‘slow violence’ of the global environmental crisis.

Treatment of orgasm disorder in women with the digital S-ONapp method

Objectives: The present body of work presents a case study addressing the development of sexual behaviors in a patient with primary anorgasmia in order to reduce emotional distress manifested by guilt, embarrassment and performance anxiety, as well as learning new sexual patterns to increase pleasure and sexual satisfaction. Specifically, we sought to create a positive attitude toward sexuality as part of mental health and increase self-confidence in expressing one's sexuality. Reaching orgasm by the patient was not a stated goal, not to accentuate the distress, but the development of sexual behaviors aimed to increase the duration and intensity of arousal and more frequent manifestation of sexual desire, designed to create the conditions for its occurrence. Method: This is a case study on a 44-year-old patient, during 20 sex therapy sessions of 1 hour each, for 22 weeks, May-September 2021. Assessment methods for Axis I and Axis II, anamnesis and clinical observation, structured, semi-structured and unstructured clinical interviews (Delcea C., 2021) and investigation of medical, family, sexual, socio-cultural, and psycho-social history (individual completion) - MCMI III psychometric tests (Millon), Scale of Anxiety Hamilton, HRSA (SEC), PDA Affective Distress Profile, Opris D., Macavei B. (SEC), YSQ-S3 Short Form Cognitive Questionnaire (SEC), DAS Dysfunctional Attitude Scale Beck A., Weissman A. ( SEC); For sexual testing: Genogram of excitatory stimuli, (Delcea C., 2021), FSFI Female Sexual Function Index, Rosen M. 2000, FSDS Female Sexual Distress Scale, Derogatis, 2019, FOS Female Orgasm Scale, McIntyre, Smith, 2019, ORS The Orgasm Rating Scale, Mah K., Binik, 2019, MISSA Multiple Indicators of Subjective Sexual Arousal, Mosher DL, 2019- SISES Sexual Inhibition / Excitation Scale, (Milhausen RR 2019). Methods used in sex therapy intervention (face to face): to identify stimuli of pleasure, arousal and sexual relaxation, having as source the partner's body we used the Genogram of excitatory stimuli, the technique of anticipating excitatory stimuli and the technique of defocusing irrelevant stimuli. (Delcea C., 2021). Sensate focus and directed masturbation to identify individual arousal stimuli, and self-monitoring through journals. 3. Cognitive restructuring of dysfunctional cognitions. 4. Progressive desensitization, in the construction and practice of new exciting sexual behaviors. 6. Psychoeducation. 7. Relaxation techniques (eg breathing, mindfulness). Results: Following the standard psychological assessment, the patient has no Axis I and II emotional disorders, and no history of sexual abuse. The MCMI profile shows a person without clinical personality disorders, but a very high level of Distress (PDA), present cognitive schemas, Negativism and Need for approval that outlines a possible anxious predisposition, as well as present dysfunctional attitudes of medium level, considered as predispositions for depression. Sexual testing with the score sc = 19 FSDS scale, (Derogatis, LR 2002) The sexual distress scale in women shows that the patient has a high level of stress that positively correlates with the existence of sexual dysfunction, manifested by feelings of shame, guilt , inadequacy, and average sexual satisfaction. From the 2 orgasm measurement scales, FOS (McIntyre - Smith, 2019) and ORS (Mah K., Binik, Y., 2019) there is a lack of experience of orgasm by the subject, throughout life and an increased dissatisfaction. The FSFI Scale Index of sexual functioning in women (Rosen R., 2000) shows the same difficulty in experiencing orgasm in the context in which sexual desire exists and the level of arousal is high, from the subjective assessment of the patient. Sexual desire - 4.2; Excitation - 5.1; Lubrication - 4.2; Orgasm - 1.2; Sexual satisfaction - 4.4; Disappearance - 0.9 (maximum = 6.0). The genogram of excitatory stimuli shows an insufficient register of excitatory stimuli on the partner's body, 4 out of 8 (face, chest and arms) and an absent register of excitatory physical stimuli having as source its own body, absent fantasies, unique, poor and repetitive scenarios. Conclusions: This is a patient without mental disorders with clinical significance, with predispositions for the installation of anxiety and depression, high level of distress. There is a poor sexual history and reduced and inadequate arousal. Absent fantasies, absent masturbation, dysfunctional cognitions about sex, "sex is unknown, forbidden, dangerous", register of excitatory stimuli on one's own absent body, and reduced for the partner's body, sexual pattern during predominantly passive sexual intercourse, on receiving pleasure, focused on the partner's body. There is a lack of development of arousal stimuli and consequently sexual behaviors maintain orgasm dysfunction.

Clinical and virological outcomes with baloxavir compared with oseltamivir in pediatric patients aged 6 to

BackgroundChildren with influenza virus infections are prone to complications and are common sources of influenza transmission. Baloxavir marboxil inhibits cap-dependent endonuclease and was approved for influenza treatment in adolescent, adult, and pediatric patients in Japan. The miniSTONE-2 study included pediatric patients with influenza (1 to < 12 years) and demonstrated similar median times to alleviation of signs and symptoms of influenza with a single dose of baloxavir granules (weight < 20 kg: 2 mg/kg, ≥ 20 kg: 40 mg) and oseltamivir. Although the baloxavir dose in miniSTONE-2 was higher than the Japanese-approved dose, baloxavir exposure in miniSTONE-2 was similar to Japanese pediatric patients who receive the Japanese-approved dose. This study will be the first randomized active-controlled study in pediatric patients with influenza using the Japanese-approved dose of baloxavir.MethodsThis is a multicenter, open-label, randomized, active-controlled trial in which 200 Japanese subjects aged 6 to < 12 years with influenza virus infection are randomly allocated (2:1) to a single dose of baloxavir at the approved dose in Japan (weight ≥ 10 to < 20 kg: 10 mg, ≥ 20 to < 40 kg: 20 mg, ≥ 40 kg: 40 mg) or oseltamivir twice daily for 5 days. The primary clinical endpoint is the time to illness alleviation of influenza, from administration of baloxavir or oseltamivir until the following criteria were met and sustained for at least 21.5 h (24 h—10%): cough and nasal discharge/nasal congestion rated as absent or mild axillary body temperature < 37.5 °C. The primary analysis population is the intention-to-treat infected population, which includes all pediatric subjects who receive at least one dose of study drug and have confirmed influenza virus infection by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. The safety population includes all subjects who receive at least one dose of study drug.DiscussionNo comparative studies have been conducted to confirm the efficacy and safety of baloxavir versus a comparator in pediatric patients with influenza infection in Japan. The outcomes from this trial will provide evidence on the efficacy and safety of baloxavir as an antiviral treatment option for Japanese pediatric patients with influenza infection. Trial registration Japan Registry of Clinical Trials: jRCTs011200011. Registered November 2020. (https://rctportal.niph.go.jp/en/).

How Empty Was the Tomb?

Although the term ‘empty tomb’ is endemic in contemporary literature, it is never used in the earliest Christian materials. The term makes little sense in the light of first-century Jerusalem tombs, which always housed multiple people. One absent body would not leave the tomb empty. The gospel narratives presuppose a large, elite tomb, with multiple loculi, and a heavy rolling stone to allow repeated access for multiple burials. The gospels therefore give precise directions about where Jesus’ body lay in this large tomb. Apologetic anxiety leads to the characterization of the tomb as ‘new’ (Matthew and John), ‘in which no one had been laid’ (Luke and John), but it is possible that the appearance of Mark’s young man ‘on the right’ is significant. The anachronistic question ‘Was the tomb empty?’ should be replaced by the accurate question, ‘How empty was the tomb?’

Self-detoxification, embodiment and masculinity: a qualitative analysis of dependent heroin users’ experiences of coming off drugs in prison

Not all heroin users that enter the prison estate continue to use heroin or access opiate maintenance or detoxification treatment programmes. Some prisoners decide to self-detoxify. The literature on self-detoxification is thin and focuses on the decisions and practices of self-detoxification in community settings. Less attention has been given to the role of the body and the lived experience of self-detoxification in prison settings. The aim of this paper therefore is to examine the process of self-detoxification in prison, with a particular focus on the role of the body, embodiment and prisoner social relations. This paper draws on Drew Leder’s (1990) absent body theoretical framework and the literature on prison masculinity to analyse qualitative interviews with recently released prisoners. It shows how the decision to self-detoxify can be understood as part of the masculine performance of keeping a low profile. Keeping a low profile helped the participants minimise the risks of victimisation. The self-detoxification techniques the participants used were underpinned by an awareness of the body as poisoned by heroin, suffering because of its presence, rather than its absence. This study has implications for prisoners’ access to opiate maintenance and detoxification treatment programmes and harm reduction services upon release.

La maladie de la mentalité de Lacan : un diagnostic original de l’ordinaire

AimAssuming that Lacan goes beyond the father and his metaphoric malfunction in focusing on problems of the knot, we attempt to establish the possibilities of an original diagnostic: “la maladie de la mentalité.” MethodWe work through some possibilities of knotting, nomination, and suppléance of the three registers, and also through some methods that are less effective for the individual and her/his structure. This leads to a discussion of the similarities between Miller's “ordinary psychosis,” Hélène Deutsch's “as if” personality, and the “imaginary paraphrenia” created by Kreapelin. ResultsThe “maladie de la mentalité” is one of Lacan's originals diagnostics, given to Brigitte B. during a patient presentation in Sainte-Anne Hospital. The diagnostic is either original or ordinary if we consider Jacques-Alain Miller's development. DiscussionWe attempt comprehend what this diagnostic can provide, clinically speaking, while also seeking out what it shares with the psychoses (paranoia, melancholia, and schizophrenia) through an excessive Imaginary and an absent body. Between suppléance and compensation, what could Brigitte B. have done with her knot that would have allowed her to stay connected with the common reality even with her inconstant subjectivity? ConclusionWe conclude by recognizing some commons points with the classical psychoses but also some divergences.

Inter-rater reliability in quality assurance (QA) of pediatric chest X-rays

PurposeThe goal of the study is to determine the inter-rater agreement on multiple factors that were utilized to evaluate the quality of pediatric chest X-ray exams from different levels of healthcare provision in an African setting. MethodsThe image quality of pediatric chest X-rays from 3 South African medical centers of varying level of healthcare service were retrospectively assessed by 3 raters for 12 quality factors including: (1) absent body parts; (2) under inspiration; (3) patient rotation; (4) scapula in the way; (5) patient kyphosis/lordosis; (6) artefact/foreign body; (7) central vessel visualization; (8) peripheral vessels visualization; (9) poor collimation; and (10) trachea and bronchi visualization; (11) post-cardiac vessel visualization; and (12) absent or wrong image orientation. Analysis was performed using the Brennan-–Prediger coefficient of agreement for inter-rater reliability and Cochran's Q statistic and McNemar's test for inter-rater bias. Results1077 X-rays were reviewed. The least difference between observers in the frequency of the errors was noticed for factors (1) absent body parts and (12) absent or wrong image orientation with almost perfect agreement between raters. κ score for these two factors among all raters and between each pair of raters was more than 0.95 with no significant inter-rater bias.Conversely, there was poor agreement for the remaining factors with the least agreed on being factor (3) patient rotation with a κ score of 0.23. This was followed by factors (2) under inspiration (κ score of 0.32) and factors (4) scapula in the way (κ score of 0.35) respectively. There was significant inter-rater bias for all these three factors. ConclusionMany of the factors used to assess the quality of a chest X-ray in children demonstrate poor reliability despite mitigation against variations in training, standard quality definitions and level of healthcare service provision. New definitions, objective measures and recording tools for assessing pediatric chest radiographic quality are required.

Laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty: an alternative procedure for end-stage achalasia

BackgroundPrimary achalasia is a rare oesophageal motor disorder characterized by the absence of swallow-induced relaxation of the lower oesophageal sphincter and diminished or absent oesophageal body peristalsis. Around 5% of these patients will develop end-stage achalasia, where oesophagectomy may be advocated. We present the laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty as an alternative ‘oesophagus-preserving’ procedure in patients with end-stage achalasia.MethodsWe present a retrospective review of four patients who underwent laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty. Data collected included pre-operative demographic information and investigations; and post-operative outcomes. Patients were scored pre- and post-operatively using Reflux Symptom Index, Eating Assessment Tool-10 and Voice Handicap Index-10 questionnaires.ResultsFour patients underwent laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty during the study period. In one patient, it was performed as a rescue procedure during attempted myotomy following multiple perforations of friable mucosa. In the other three patients, laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty was performed for end-stage achalasia. None of the patients had post-operative complications and all patients were discharged on the second post-operative day. All patients experienced improvement in swallowing symptoms (EAT-10; p = 0.03) but developed post-operative gastroesophageal reflux.ConclusionTo our knowledge, this is the first published case series of laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty for end-stage achalasia. It appears to be a safe and effective procedure for the treatment of end-stage achalasia, offering an alternative minimally invasive procedure to oesophagectomy. Laparoscopic hand-sewn cardioplasty can also be used as a ‘rescue’ procedure during myotomy in patients who have poor-quality mucosa which perforates intra-operatively or is at high risk of perforation/leaking post-operatively.

Расширенное, отсутствующее, универсальное тело и две программы нейроэтики

&lt;p&gt;В статье рассматриваются четыре подхода к концептуализации телесности и их роли в контексте прагматистской и феноменологических программ нейроэтики. Четыре подхода, получившие изначальное развитие в когнитивных науках (extended, embedded, embodied и enactive / enacted cognition) принято объединять акронимом 4E. Однако среди философов и нейрокогнитивных исследователей существуют разногласие во взглядах на внутренние взаимоотношения этих подходов и на их применение в нейроэтике. Будучи по-разному усвоены в контексте описания, моделирования, инжиниринга и оценки нейронных процессов и нейротехнологий, применение 4E-подходов привело к концептуализации тела как расширенного, отсутствующего и универсального. Универсальное тело может пониматься как всеобщий источник важных аспектов семантики естественных языков, как то, что формирует выраженный опыт познания. Отсутствующее тело — как правильно работающий инструмент, концептуализации которого можно избежать. Расширенное тело — как носитель расширенного познания, набор физических возможностей, обуславливающих когнитивное расширения. В конце статьи вводится понятие расширяемого тела как концептуально связанного с возможностью осуществления когнитивной автономии.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;В качестве промежуточного вывода, предназначенного для дальнейшего обсуждения, предлагается следующий тезис: феноменологические и функционалистские подходы к оценке нейротехнологий рассматривают тело как расширяемое (с позиций enacted cognition). Критика социального конструирования тела и его когнитивных ролей (с позиций embodied cognition) отталкивается от разделений, вносимых в концепт универсального тела.&lt;/p&gt;

‘I wouldn’t take the risk of the attention, you know? Just a lone girl biking’: examining the gendered and classed embodied experiences of cycling

ABSTRACT This paper frames the embodied experience of bicycling using theories of performativity and materiality. In doing so, the paper provides insights into embodied processes that regulate the gendered and classed cycling body across age. Drawing from interviews completed with newcomers to Toronto enrolled in a bicycle mentorship program, this paper highlights how context-specific social norms exist around who is read as cycling appropriately. Two norms consistently discussed are that cycling can be at odds with femininity and that it is a symbol of poverty. These norms act as discursive regulatory frameworks for gender and class performativity. Cycling can also be an experience of ‘intense embodiment’ in that it can bring the absent body back into consciousness. This experience is dynamic and elicits diverse emotions. Furthermore, cycling is not only found to increase people’s awareness of their materiality, but also their bodily fluids challenge the notion of ‘secure’ bodily boundaries. These material processes can be gendered and/or classed, and can affect access to mobility and public space. By studying identity formation processes as they relate to cycling, this paper sheds light on the power-laden underpinnings of identity-based differences in cycling.

Review: Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability, by Eyal Weizman

Review: <i>Forensic Architecture: Violence at the Threshold of Detectability</i>, by Eyal Weizman

Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England by Sarah Salih

Reviewed by: Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England by Sarah Salih Gabriel Ford Sarah Salih. Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2019. Pp. 220. $99.00. Sarah Salih's Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England draws together a range of materials to examine problems of representation, materiality, [End Page 441] and biblical iconoclasm in fifteenth-century England. Methodologically, Salih builds on Bruno Latour's work in actor-network theory, especially his On the Modern Cult of the Factish Gods, as well as Caroline Walker Bynum's and Michael Camille's research into the functions of medieval material objects, to explore tensions between Christianity and what she calls "paganity." As Salih's argument unfolds, cities and idols become particularly fraught and mutually interdependent sites for these tensions. Specifically, cities are what medieval English Christians inherit from the past, and idols are what they overthrow in the past. In plumbing the paradoxes embedded in these Christian material inheritances, Imagining the Pagan in Late Medieval England illuminates a variety of Middle English texts while also providing a useful theoretical framework for those working on myths of urban foundation, medieval classicism, hagiography, travel literature, iconophilia, and iconoclasm within and beyond fifteenth-century England. The introduction is the only one of the major sections that does not specifically organize itself around analyses of cities and idols. Instead, it establishes the framework for "paganity" as a site of inquiry. She uses this term to distinguish the largely imaginary cultural interlocutor that late medieval Christianity sustains for itself in its received historiography and sacred tradition (3 n. 12) from the historical practices that Christians might have described as "pagan." This imagined historical "paganity" is Salih's key interest here, not least because, as she observes, "There were no actual pagans in late medieval England" (2). Salih adapts Sylvia Tomasch's concept of the "virtual Jew" to theorize a "virtual pagan," a figure that allows her to discuss how literally absent pagans function in the imaginations of fifteenth-century English Christians. These virtual pagans acquire their cultural prominence from their presence at national, ethnic, or urban points of origin. Pagan Trojans founded both Rome and Britain, to give two examples to which Salih often returns. Appropriately, these legendary founders persist in the medieval imagination with a set of characteristic traits or topoi: "The pagans of classical legend are socially magnificent, technologically adept, founders of nations, cities and social order, but later degenerate into the sadistic but inept rulers and patriarchs of hagiographic encounters" (24). The positive traits keep the pagans continually before late medieval English Christians as exemplars, while the historiographic arc of their achievement and decline structures Christian society's account of its own superseding of these societies. This arc, from the founding of cities to their [End Page 442] conversion to Christianity and then to their persistence under Christian control, provides the basic structure of Salih's argument. The first chapter after this introduction, entitled "Origins: Building Cities, Making Idols," examines pagans as builders and thus as founders of built urban landscapes. Analyses of Lydgate's Troy Book bookend this chapter, and scholars interested in Lydgate's classical romances in particular will likely find this chapter of most interest. In Salih's analysis, Lydgate participates in a tradition of appropriating Troy for, and distinguishing Troy from, Britain and its cities. Central to this distinction is the function of the idol, and this chapter takes a wide chronological and temporal sweep to situate the idol theoretically, historically, and corporeally. It presents patristic and medieval Christian accounts of the idol as dead matter potentially animated by the worship of its devotees and—sometimes—the spirit of demons. Salih reads this Christian idol theory alongside the modern thinkers—Latour, Bynum, and Camille again, but also prominently Sara Ahmed and Bill Brown—finding rich dialogue in their discussions of objects, materiality, and idols. Grounding its discussion in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Wisdom, the chapter locates the beginnings of idolatry in a father's veneration of a vicarious object that stands in for his deceased son. This conflation of absent body and ambiguous idol sets the idol up as a...

O15 ESOPHAGEAL MOTILITY OF LUNG TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS DIAGNOSED WITH SYSTEMIC CONNECTIVE TISSUE DISORDER: A SINGLE-CENTER EXPERIENCE

Abstract Aim To examine the esophageal motility of lung transplant recipients diagnosed with systemic connective tissue disorder, and to evaluate the changes Backgrounds The decision to offer lung transplantation to patients diagnosed with a systemic connective tissue disorder (CTD) is frequently complicated by associated esophageal dysmotility. Absent or ineffective esophageal motility and associated gastroesophageal reflux disease are serious risk factors of posttransplant bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome and subsequent allograft dysfunction. The aim of our study was to evaluate esophageal motility of lung transplant recipients with systemic CTDs, focusing on 1-year survival. Methods After IRB approval of this retrospective cohort study, we reviewed patients who underwent lung transplant at our institution between January 2012 and December 2017. Patients with systemic CTDs such as scleroderma, rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, polymyositis, dermatomyositis, mixed connective tissue disorder, and Sjögren syndrome were included. Endoscopy studies, high-resolution manometry (HRM), and ambulatory pH studies were re-evaluated. Results A total of 545 patients underwent lung transplant during study period; of these, 34 met study criteria. Detailed demographic characteristics of the study cohort are shown in Table 1. The overall 1-year survival was 85.3%. Of the 34 patients diagnosed with a systemic CTD (mean age: 59.24 ± 10.44 years; 24/34 women [70.6%]), 27 had both pre- and posttransplant esophageal function testing data available. 7 patients were diagnosed with complete aperistalsis, 5 patients had ineffective esophageal motility, and the remaining 15 patients had normal or hypercontractile esophageal motility (Figure 1). Pathologic distal acid exposure in each of these groups was 57.1%, 40.0%, and 26.7%, respectively. Seven patients with aperistalsis (5 with scleroderma, 1 with polymyositis, and 1 with dermatomyositis) showed no improvement in esophageal body motility, regardless of underlying CTD. 1-year survival in these patients was 55.5%. Five patients with ineffective esophageal motility (3 with rheumatoid arthritis, 1 with scleroderma, 1 with mixed connective tissue disorder) showed significant peristaltic improvement (mean positive change in distal contractile integral: 1288 ± 391.3 mmHg*cm*s and in the number of normal swallows 6.4 ± 1.4 out of 10). All 5 patients with ineffective esophageal motility were alive 1 year posttransplant. Conclusion In our experience, preexisting absent esophageal body motility (i.e., peristalsis) is unlikely to improve after transplantation in patients with systemic CTDs. This cohort of patients appeared to have a significantly decreased 1-year survival. In contrast, ineffective esophageal body motility improved significantly after transplant and was associated with excellent 1-year survival. Detailed esophageal evaluation is necessary in patients with a systemic connective tissue disorder to minimize the risk of future allograft injury.

(EVERY)BODY@HOME? A PHENOMENOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE EXPERIENCE OF INCARCERATED EXISTENCE IN THE CONTEMPORARY SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIETY

Based on a detailed analysis and critical discussion of Leder’s book The absent Body in which he disentangles in an insightful phenomenological manner the Cartesian dualistic heritage, this articles focuses on the experience of incarcerated existence within contemporary crime-ridden South African society, which is characterised as the “disillusionment” of exploited, forgotten and manipulated bodies. In contrast to Leder’s proposal of Neo-Confucianism, the author proposes and explores the African concept of Ubuntu as well as the metaphorical significance of the Christian biblical concept of the body of Christ for the “dys-illusioned” South African society in which the social fabric has been destroyed and human dignity must be restored in order for every(body) to be at home.