Emotional Lack Research Articles

King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition by Carolyne Larrington (review)

REVIEWS1Ol in the field. With such a focused approach, Ceridwen Lloyd-Morgan offers a fascinating analysis of Elis Gruffydd's chronicle, in light of the sources available to that Welshman serving at Calais and steeped in the sixteenth-century debate about Arthur's historicity. In an equally fascinating argument on hybridism in late romances, focusing on the Chevalier du Papegau ('The Knight ofthe Parrot'), Jane H.M. Taylor traces a shift from the quest's emphasis on self-testing to the travel narrative's inclusion ofa narrator who participates in marvelous discoveries. Edward Donald Kennedy cogently demonstrates why Robert de Boron's Christianized version of the grail story had so little influence on English chroniclers other than Hardyng, while Christopher A. Snyder challenges the assumption that the Arthur of the Nennian Historia Brittonum is not a king. Two careful essays reach more tentative conclusions: NorrisJ. Lacy ties the king's lack ofemotion in Lancelot-Grail to his public role and veiled private life, while Siân Echard suggests that Geoffrey of Monmouth's cyclic view ofhistory owes more to the discomforting spin ofFortune's wheel than to God. Despite an eclectic sense of audience within the volume, each essay achieves its purpose. TheFortunes is balanced by treatment ofthe Latin, Welsh, French, German, and English traditions, with scholars deftly handling the crossovers, as does Dennis Green when he surveys how British and French romancers mimic the truth claims of eyewitnesses before examining Hartman and Gottfried's use of such parodie techniques to blur the lines of historia andfabuh. The volume is rounded out by Joan Tasker Grimbert's contribution, which compares Lancelot and Guinevere's passion to that ofTristan and Yseut, in the French prose romances and the Italian TavolaRhonda. Alison Stones begins her essaywith manuscript illustrations ofArthur on Fortune's wheel, but as these are few, she moves to a too general treatment of the ways the king is depicted in the Lancelot-Grailcycle. In contrast, the best essays directly treat Fortune or mimic her wheel's turn in their cyclic structure. She and Arthur are lucky in having their fate handled by an editor as deft as Lacy. KAREN CHEREWATUK St. OlafCollege carolyne larrington, King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition. London: LB. Tauris, 2006. Pp. viii, 264. isbn: 978-1-84511113 -7. $35. £18.99. In King Arthur's Enchantresses, Carolyne Larrington surveys representations of Morgan Ie Fay, the Lady of the Lake, the Viviane/Niviene figure, and Morgause in medieval literature, Victorian re-imaginings, and modern popular culture. The introduction points out that in medieval texts the enchantresses are not witches but aristocratic women who have learned magic and whose actions defy traditional concepts of feminine behavior. Chapter one defines natural and demonic magic; identifies several magical elements appearing with one or more ofthe enchantresses, such as herbs, rings, enclosure, and shape-shifting; and concludes with the insightful claim that governs the remaining chapters: the magic performed by these Arthurian enchantresses 'cannot escape from central and contemporary questions about gender 102ARTHURIANA and power' (28). The next three chapters focus on Morgan, while the fifth concentrates on Viviane, the huntress/Niviene-figure, and the Lady of the Lake. Chapter 6 is devoted to Morgause, for although she is not an enchantress in medieval works, she becomes one in some modern media. Chapter 7 takes up Victorian literary and pictorial treatments of 'Vivien.' The final chapter turns to representations of the enchantresses from Twain's 1889 Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court to the wicker 'Nine Morgens' carried in the procession at the 2003 Glastonbury Goddess Festival. In developing the chapters on the medieval texts, Larrington summarizes episodes involving the enchantresses and weaves in interpretations based on selected scholarship as she emphasizes gendered aspects. For instance, in chapter three, we hear about women's words, such as Morgan's 'magically enhanced words of enchantment' keeping unfaithful knights in coerced fidelity in the VaIsans Retour (55), but Enide's cousin speaking only in the 'powerless sphere of female conversation' when her lover, Maboagrain, is liberated in Chretien's Erec (53). The second chapter's topic of Morgan and Arthur's sibling relationship is a welcome...

Surprised in Translation by Mary Ann Caws (review)

140Women in French Studies Caws, Mary Ann. Surprised in Translation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp [i]-xi; 145. ISBN 0-226-09873-7. $25.00 (Cloth). In her newest work, Surprised in Translation, renowned translator of surrealist poetry Mary Ann Caws offers an intelligent and helpful discussion of translating French to English and English to French with numerous precise examples of the advantages and disadvantages of accepted methods of translation. Always a scholar who summarizes, evaluates, and reworks the views of others as she formulates her own theories, opinions, and analyses of translation. Caws includes a helpful bibliography of the more than 1 20 works referenced in her book. Her eight-chapter study includes examples from the works of Char, Reverdy, Mallarmé, Woolf, Pound, Beckett, Shakespeare, Keats, Yeats, and Bonnefoy. This work on translation is thus of great value to Anglophone and Francophone students of world literature, feminist studies, poetry, French and English. For each author, she provides more than one translation ofthe cited passages and discusses the beauties and insufficiencies of each translation. Several authors, such as Mallarmé and Beckett, figure as both authors of their own original works and translators of others. Caws humbly points out her own past translation errors, offers her more recent solutions, and comments on how her opinions have changed over time. The book opens with three chapters treating general thoughts on spoken communication and amusing misinterpretations that sometimes result from inattention, ignorance, or noise. Similarly in texts, what a reader comprehends often relates little to the original message. In better circumstances involving spoken or written messages, the listener or reader perceives the essential and simply remembers or records it as something more poetic. For Caws, it is the product of this slippage, in which one slightly transforms and beautifies what one hears or reads, that yields the most fortuitous translations. Translating well, as she explains, involves readjustment, rereading, reclassifying, reshaping, and often much rewriting. Since her examples do not consider translations of scientific or philosophical texts in which rendering the precise and literal meanings of words might be of major importance, and focus rather on the poetry of language in fictional texts, she can argue convincingly against simple mimesis, parroting, or literalism as "relatively boring" which "flattens . . .thought that is complex, and rhythm that is crafted." Nevertheless, her balanced analysis also considers the poetic situations (such as some of Fry's translations of Mallarmé) in which more literalism sometimes justifiably reproduces the static quality and the lack ofemotion found in the original text itself. In her discussions, she interweaves anecdotes presenting useful rules for translation. A good translation provides the equivalent airy or heavy feel of the original text. The best translator has opinions, interests, and a background similar to those of the author being translated or has done significant research on them. Good translators also familiarize themselves with the general time period of the text being translated. A translator who cares immensely about the sound Book Reviews141 and feel of language, about reproducing similar rhymes, alliterations, onomatopoeias, repetitions, and wordplay, produces better translations. Overall, Surprised in Translation by Mary Ann Caws is a useful tool for helping all students of language and literature to understand the difficulties inherent in trying to put a feeling or a mental image into words, transforming those words into written language, and then translating that language into another. In today's world of global misunderstandings, her book might offer insights into managing the surprising slippage that occurs with daily crosscultural communication. Barbara KlawNorthern Kentucky University Cuillé, Tili Boon. Narrative Interludes: Musical Tableaux in EighteenthCentury French Texts. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006. Pp [xi]xxi , 284. ISBN 0-8020-3842-5. $75.00 (Cloth). In this work, Cuillé explores the profoundly interdisciplinary nature of eighteenth-century intellectual culture by demonstrating the ways in which writers and thinkers used musical metaphors to further political debates about aesthetics, nationalism, morality, and gender. Cuillé focuses in particular on the use of musical tableaux, literary devices which suspended fictional narratives and, as she suggests, offered the opportunity for trenchant social and cultural critiques. Operatic quarrels dominated the French intellectual landscape throughout the eighteenth century, from the early deliberations between...

Emotional responses of oncologists when disclosing prognostic information to patients with terminal disease: Results of qualitative data from a mailed survey to ASCO members

8520 Background: Prior studies describe physician reluctance to reveal prognostic information to advanced cancer patients (acp), but little data exists describing their actual disclosure practices. Methods: A mailed survey was conducted to assess medical oncologists’ (MOs) self-reported behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes regarding prognostic conversations with terminally ill acp. Following letter pre-notification, surveys were mailed to a systematic sample of 1,222 MOs with U.S. addresses listed in the 2004 ASCO Membership Directory. Surveys contained a $25 gift card. The survey included qualitative questions eliciting emotional responses when communicating prognostic information to acp. Results: 729 surveys were completed and returned (60% response rate) with 654 providing qualitative responses (90%). The median age was 51 (range, 34–80) with male predominance (80%). Practice representation was: 56% (private), 23% (academic-based) and 20% (other active practice). MOs most commonly (47%) expressed negative emotions including sadness, pain, depression, heartache, feelings of loss, guilt, anxiety, stress, and finally discomfort with how their patient might react. They reported these conversations as unhappy, unpleasant, frustrating, and bothersome. They also described them as difficult, hard, exhausting and/or draining. 31% of MOs reported empathy, sympathy, compassion, caring, supportiveness, comfort, or being calm during prognostic disclosure. 14% reported positive feelings including optimism, hope, helpfulness, gratification, reward, or relief. 11% related emotional objectivity, detachment, control, or neutrality. Finally, MOs responses listed younger acp age as being a determinant of negative emotions. Conclusions: Negative emotions are more commonly described by MOs when asked to discuss their feelings toward prognostic disclosure. A lesser proportion described objectivity or a lack of emotion. Some related positive emotions. This qualitative data provides a greater explanation for MOs reluctance to disclose prognostic information. No significant financial relationships to disclose.

The Stoic Monastic: Taiwanese Buddhism and the Problem of Emotions

This paper explores the stoicism of Taiwanese monastics and argues that, in this context, emotions are believed to be dangerous in part because they interfere with spiritual cultivation. A stoic exterior further represents an inner state of calm and a lack of emotionality. Since women are believed to have more emotional problems than men, nuns in particular seek to control their emotions, in part by studying the example of monks. Women's emotions are contrasted with the trait of compassion, which is associated with men and thought to be selfless. Cultivating compassion is the focus of much of their spiritual practice and at the center of the vow taking ceremony, wherein they burn scars into their foreheads, signaling their compassion and willingness to endure the world's suffering, and also concretizing the abstract emotion of compassion through bodily pain.

The developmental antecedents of sexual coercion against women: testing alternative hypotheses with structural equation modeling.

A unified model of the origin of sexual aggression against women on both adult and juvenile sexual offender samples has been developed and successfully tested. This model proposed three major causal paths to sexual coercion against women. In the first path, physical and verbal abuse was hypothesized to produce callousness and lack of emotionality, which disinhibited sexual drive and sexual fantasies. These in turn disinhibited hostile sexual fantasies, and led to sexual coercion. In the second causal path, sexual abuse contributed directly to the disinhibition of sexual drive and sexual fantasies, which through hostile sexual fantasies led to sexual coercion. The third path operated through early antisocial behavior, including aggressive acts. It developed as a result of both physical/verbal abuse and callousness/lack of emotion. It in turn directly affected sexual coercion and worked indirectly through the hostile sexual fantasies path. In the present study, the anonymous responses of a group of 168 blue-collar, community males to an inventory (the Multidimensional Assessment of Sex and Aggression) were used in a structural equation model to test the validity of this model. Moreover, this model was pitted against (Malamuth's (1998)) two-path model. Whereas the three-path model had an excellent fit with the data (CFI =.951, RMSEA =.047), the two-path model fit less well (CFI =.857, RMSEA =.079). These results indicate the superiority of the three-path model and suggest that it constitutes a solid, empirically disconfirmable heuristic for the etiology of sexual coercion against women.

Cross-cultural aspects of depression in general practice.

It was previously thought that black Africans from traditional cultures rarely suffered from what in the West is classified as depression. The word ‘fatalistic’ was often used to describe what was assumed to be a lack of emotion or feeling. It is being increasingly discovered by psycholinguistic and psychological research that depression in black Africans is underdiagnosed as it presents in different ways of living and interacting as well as from a different existential dimension and world view. From a constellation of symptoms and signs, the West has developed a concept and label of depression that fits and suits Western culture. Traditional African culture has not concretised or labelled this concept yet so that it remains diffuse and undifferentiated. It may present with different linguistic phrases, metaphors of life and symbolic language and often as a story that attempts to express the complex realities of life. An exploration into these stories (and other mediums such as song, theatre, poetry and literature) may reveal that depression is as common among black Africans as it is in the West, but that it is unrecognised and underdiagnosed. How does one diagnose depression in a Zulu patient who comes down from the villages of Hlatikhulu or Ntabamhlophe in the mountains, or from Msinga and Nkandla in the low bushveld? It is a meeting between two worlds of different experience, meaning, language and culture. The patient works within the experience of his or her social and cultural life whereas the doctor works within the criteria laid down by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV) 1 and has a list of symptoms that have to be fulfilled before the diagnosis can be made. These symptoms and references are derived from both a biomedical perspective and the doctor’s own experience of living in the Western world. The doctor’s language and even grammar are technologically based. We have now classified almost every activity that human beings are capable of and are busy with subsets and smaller boxes, into which human behaviour can be fitted. When we encounter a traditional African culture that is not informed in this way and that experiences illness differently, we are often at a loss as how to assess, diagnose and treat such patients. For instance, traditional rural Africans may not differentiate their cognitive functions from their bodily functions and symptoms. Their dreams, visions, feelings and inner thoughts are not separated from their bodily symptoms of illness. There is no dichotomy between the spirit or soul and the body. 2

When Joy Becomes Grief

Postpartum depression (PPD) can be catastrophic for families. Mothers experiencing PPD are often filled with an all‐encompassing fear that their lives will never return to normal. They experience uncontrollable anxiety attacks, guilt and obsessive thinking. They contemplate harming themselves and even their babies. Their lives are filled with loneliness, lack of emotions and an inability to take interest in things they previously enjoyed. Nurses have many opportunities to screen women for PPD, yet it often goes undiagnosed. Here's a look at the screening tools and a case study that explores their use.

Fighting Desires

“Fighting Desires: Henry Miller's Queer Tropic”is an investigation of Tropic of Cancerthat investigates the deeply repressed ho-moerotic desire that periodically surfaces. This reading is dependent upon an interpretation of Eve Sedgwick that proposes male sexuality as a continuum. By looking at the nature of the male-male relationships, as well as the lack of emotion and presence in the male-female relationships, I will show that the most intimate relationships are between men, and that these relationships are expressed through the telling of stories about (heterosexual) sex; this is the function of women within the novel: one has sex with a woman, not for the pleasure that the act brings, but for the pleasure that the recounting of the story to other men brings. Furthermore, I will look at Miller's use of puns within the novel and how they also contribute to a homoerotic reading. None of this is to argue that Miller was not homophobic and sexist-Miller very clearly was-the purpose of this essay is to show the complex nature of sexuality, even within a protagonist who asserts a very defined heterosexuality.

Psychosocial consequences of falling: the perspective of older Hong Kong Chinese who had experienced recent falls

The study's aim was to explore the psychosocial consequences of falling with a group of older Chinese who had recently fallen. Older people fall more frequently. Thus, the consequences of these falls and their influence on health outcomes need to be determined. One important outcome, namely the psychosocial consequence of falling, has not been extensively studied. As a result, this study explored the psychosocial consequences of falling with a group of older Chinese who had recently experienced a fall. An explorative qualitative approach with semi-structured interviews was used in this study. Twenty informants, with recent fall experiences either in the community or hospital setting, were interviewed in two elder care wards in an acute care hospital. Three major categories of psychosocial consequences of falling emerged from the interview data: powerlessness, fear and seeking care. Powerlessness was also exemplified in three subcategories: lack of control, self-comforting and lack of emotion. Informants perceived falls as unpredictable and not preventable, expressing fears that falling could result in dependence on others and becoming a care burden. The interview data also showed that there is a need by older Chinese to seek care and advice from relatives and health care professionals. Findings from this study have provided insights into the psychosocial consequences of falling for older Chinese. These insights suggest nursing interventions should promote a sense of mastery in prevention of falls, facilitate supportive social interactions with relatives and give empathetic responses to those who have fallen.

Damasio's proposition.

Descartes' Error is the provocative title of Damasio's (1994) book in which he proposes that emotion and reason are inextricably linked, an idea that runs counter to common folk wisdom but with potentially profound implications for neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy. Not since James Watson's (1968) The Double Helix, has book about scientific endeavor been as captivating. Damasio describes the book as a conversation, but it is also an engaging presentation of empirical neuroscience research, history, and philosophical questions. As Descartes' Error may also be of interest to academic psychologists and neuroscientists, this review will provide (a) general description of Damasio's book, (b) an outline of the development of the somatic - marker theory that he proposes to account for the evidence suggesting relation between emotion and reason, and (c) brief evaluation of this hypothesis. General Overview of Descartes' Error and Elliot: A starting point. Damasio has divided the book into three sections. In the first section, he tells the tale of Phineas Gage, the colorful character who sustained both brain damage and severe personality change following an explosion that blew 3 - foot tamping iron through his skull. Damasio uses Gage's story as starting point for an exploration of the connection between prefrontal brain damage and impaired rationality. Damasio then examines the behavioral consequences in other cases of prefrontal damage. What emerges is an apparent pattern of behavior involving flattened affect accompanied by impaired reasoning in real - world domains. Damasio refers to this pattern as Gage Matrix. These cases of prefrontal damage hinted at the possibility that certain brain regions may be responsible for the ability to plan future survival within complex social environment, and that this ability relies upon intact systems underlying both cognition and emotion. The next breakthrough in Damasio's thinking about the coupling of localized brain damage with decision making deficits was the case of Elliot, patient with ventromedial prefrontal tumour in the same region of the brain that was damaged in Gage. Yet an extensive battery of laboratory tests failed to show that Elliot was impaired in any way. He clearly had intact cognitive abilities, knowledge of and access to social rules, and the ability to generate options and scenarios. In spite of this, he was an emotionally contained and ineffective social being unable to manage his affairs and to select the most advantageous course of action with respect to his personal life. Elliot's case led Damasio to consider that lack of emotion could be responsible for poor decision making and irrational behavior. Damasio also considers evidence from cases of brain damage in regions beyond the prefrontal cortices that nevertheless also result in behavior consistent with Gage Matrix. He proposes neural circuit that might be responsible for the connection between emotion and reason, and suggests that damage to this circuit may result in Gage Matrix. The collection of systems underlying this neurological condition includes the ventromedial prefrontal cortices, the right somatosensory cortices, and subcortical regions (e.g., the amygdala). This collection of systems is involved in goal - oriented reasoning and decision - making, emotion and feeling, and the processing of bodily signals. The Journey Towards an Explanation. In the second section, Damasio starts to assemble an explanation to account for the phenomena presented in the first section, that is, the mysterious alliance of emotion and reason. Damasio defines key terms and lays out the assumptions required to take part in the conversation. Fundamental concepts such as brain, body, mind, behavior, the nature of decision making, feeling, and emotion are delineated. He also discusses the neural basis of knowledge and its dependence on images. …

Artificial decision-making and artificial ethics: A management concern

Expert systems are knowledge-based information systems which are expected to have human attributes in order to replicate human capacity in ethical decision making. An expert system functions by virtue of its information, its inferential rules, and its decision criteria, each of which may be problematic. This paper addresses three basic reasons for ethical concern when using the currently available expert systems in a decisions-making capacity. These reasons are (1) expert systems' lack of human intelligence, (2) expert systems' lack of emotions and values, and (3) expert systems' possible incorporation of intentional or accidental bias. For these reasons artificial ethics seems to be science fiction. Consequently, expert systems should be used only in an advising capacity and managers should not absolve themselves from legal and ethical responsibility when using expert systems in decision making.

Steven Polgar Prize Essay (1991). Medicalization of Racial Features: Asian American Women and Cosmetic Surgery

This article presents findings of ethnographic research in the San Francisco Bay Area, exploring the recent phenomenon of Asian American women undergoing cosmetic surgery to have their eyelids restructured, their nose bridges heightened, and the tips of their noses altered. This research suggests that Asian American women who undergo these types of surgery have internalized not only a gender ideology that validates their monetary and time investment in the alteration of their bodies, but also a racial ideology that associates their natural features with dullness, passivity, and lack of emotion. With the authority of scientific rationality, medicine effectively promotes these racial and gender stereotypes and thereby bolsters the consumer‐oriented society, of which it is apart and from which it benefits. Data are drawn from structured interviews with plastic surgeons and patients, medical literature and newspaper articles, and basic medical statistics.

The Lived Experience of Postpartum Depression

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to describe the essential structure of the lived experience of postpartum depression. Seven mothers who had suffered from postpartum depression were interviewed regarding their subjective experiences. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's (1978) method of phenomenology. Forty-five significant statements were extracted and clustered into 11 themes. These results were integrated into the essential structure of postpartum depression. Postpartum depression was a living nightmare filled with uncontrollable anxiety attacks, consuming guilt, and obsessive thinking. Mothers contemplated not only harming themselves but also their infants. The mothers were enveloped in loneliness and the quality of their lives was further compromised by a lack of emotions and all previous interests. Fear that their lives would never return to normal was all-encompassing.

Reliable and Fictitious Accounts of Sexual Abuse to Children

The various categories of reports of child sexual abuse were examined in Phase 1 of a two-part study. In this first phase, all the reports (N = 576) of child sexual abuse made to the Denver Department of Social Services were categorized. Most reports were reliable accounts (70%), but a small proportion appeared to be fictitious (8%). In Phase 2, fictitious (false) reports of child sexual abuse were examined in detail. Certain clinical features appeared to mark the fictitious reports: lack of emotion and an absence of coercion and threat in the child's account, absence of detail, and several of the children and some adults were suffering from preexisting posttraumatic stress disorders based upon previous experiences. In certain cases, custody or visitation disputes were in force when the allegation arose. Poor quality of interviews with children was sometimes a factor. In our current state of knowledge absolute conclusions are not possible in the absence of corroboration. Tentative conclusions are drawn concerning present clinical practice and suggestions are made for future research.

Whatever happened to jane and dick? Sexism in texts reexamined

Differences in the portrayal of females and males in children's reading material have been documented in studies for more than a decade. The under-representation of females as main characters or in careers outside the home in comparison to their representation in reality is a frequent finding in these studies. When portrayed, girls and women are seen in a limited number of familial and societal roles often reflecting a stereotypic definition of appropriate female behavior based on such characteristics as weakness, passivity, and emotionality.2 In contrast, boys and men are seen in a far greater range of roles although most of these also reflect stereotypic notions of appropriate male behavior, such as the display of strength, activity, and lack of emotion.3 As a result of such portrayals, research indicates that children may view females as less than full participants in society and view males as more predominant than in reality.4 Furthermore,

Treatment of Severe Cases of Reading Disability

Children who come to us, at the Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago, are those who have failed to adjust in other environments. Among the causes of poor adjustment at home and at school, reading disability is very prominent. About one-fourth of our children come to us for this reason. Each child has failed in school, at least twice, and some have reached the age of 14 years without learning to read more than a few words. This failure has resulted in personality changes in every child. The child either withdraws and becomes shy and timid, refusing to meet chil dren and form friendships, or he becomes aggressive and might be described as a bully or a destructive child. An example of the latter is a boy 9 years of age who came to spend his first day with us. group of very simple books were placed on his desk by the teacher, so that she might observe his interests. He snatched the first one and tore it into pieces and threw it at the teacher screaming, A hundred teachers in Kansas have tried to teach me to read so you're just wasting your time. One of the first means of treatment then, is inherent in the school placement. The child is removed from the home and placed in a board ing school, where treatment is scientific and impersonal. In most in stances, the parents have been so tense because of reading failure, that they have applied too much pressure. Even if the child has not been scolded directly, he can sense the worry of the parents because of his inability to learn. This has made the child more tense and has become a vicious circle. Therefore it is necessary to tell the child that we are not concerned about his reading, and prove it to him by lack of emotion when he fails, and approval for success. This first step in remedial treatment then, is breaking a social pressure which has resulted in emotional tension. By the time this has been started, the psychiatrist begins regular interviews with the child. He studies all of his reactions but places special emphasis upon the following factors in cases of reading deficiency : Attitudes towards success and failure.