Moments Of Crisis Research Articles

ABSTRACT In this article, I position two Tamil films – Sivaji: The Boss and Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom – alongside each other to examine the entanglements between cinematic death, spectral histories and embodied memory of the actor-star Sivaji Ganesan, who animates these films as a phantom presence. I theorise ‘doubling’ as a spectral media aesthetic that marks the return of prior star bodies, gestures, or affects as residual presence. Doubling marks a failure of containment by producing temporal and visual instabilities that disturb cinematic time and spectatorial looking. The article investigates the indeterminate nature of absent presences rising from the historical vaults of Tamil cinema that haunt cinematic texts through moments of bodily crisis, thus placing protagonists in interstitial states. Through close reading, this article contends that the spectral presence of Sivaji produces an aesthetic image of history that disrupts linear narrative through disjunctive temporality by blurring distinctions between past, present and future. Sivaji allegorises cinema’s contradictory impulses of remembering and forgetting by producing an afterimage that oscillates between obsolescence and spectral endurance. Rather than elegising the crisis of death, the article focuses on the performing body as a palimpsestic site of embodied history that makes the dead father return to life through acts of relentless repetition .

The objective of this research is to determine the impact of applying artificial intelligence-based models to electroencephalogram frequencies in order to improve the detection of absence seizures in neuropediatric infant patients, such as supervised neural networks, SOM neural networks, nearest neighbor, decision trees, and random forests, as well as to find the relationship between channels at the time of the seizure. The methodology used is applied, with an explanatory level of research, and the research design is experimental. The sample used consists of four absence seizure events in 2,256 seconds, applying the Gabor filter to the frequencies prior to entering the models so that they become input patterns. At the moments of absence crisis, a channel coherence of 0.63 was identified, highlighting that at the moment of crisis all channels follow the same common pattern. The correlation coefficient R2 = 0.77 and a minimum R2 of 0.57 were identified, indicating the similarity of frequencies at the moment of crisis. A very high standard deviation was identified, highlighting the polypoint tails with more than 5 peaks per crisis in each channel. In testing the artificial intelligence-based models, the sensitivity, specificity, precision, and accuracy values obtained for each model with respect to identifying non-crises, crises, and pre-crises were 0.99, 1.0, 0.99, and 0.93 for the back propagation artificial neural network; 0.99, nan, 0.99, 0.99, for the nearest neighbor 0.99, 0.0, 0.99, 0.97, for decision tree 0.99, 0.0, 0.99, 0.97, and random forest 0.99, nan, 0.99, 0.97, respectively. Therefore, it concludes that there is correct data collection and processing with the learning models to identify seizures. Key Words: Artificial intelligence, encephalogram, absence seizures, Gabor filter, correlation in channel.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the concept of celebrity in crisis through the figure of the celebrity CEO. Focusing on the example of two recent CEOs of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Chapek and Bob Iger, the paper extends analysis of their discursive construction to include the contributions of brand fans as a specific form of ‘cultural intermediary’. The paper argues that fan reactions to both Iger and Chapek highlight specific moments of crisis in the brand/fan relationship and that these often map onto fan perceptions of adherence to the appropriate Disney ‘brand story’. Reactions often contrast Chapek’s overt focus on profit and corporate synergy, lack of understanding and respect for the Parks’ history, and derision towards their guests, with Iger’s construction as more sympathetic to the parks’ legacy, respectful of fan viewpoints and as a reliable steward of the Disney company. Secondly, the paper examines the challenges to their legitimacy as celebrity CEOs, primarily via Disney’s political conflicts with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. It, thus, argues that celebrity CEOs’ positions can offer insight into moments of celebrity and crisis since they are contingent and mutable, and subject to the reactions of cultural intermediaries, including ‘anti-fans’.

Abstract The 2014–16 Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone was followed by a massive humanitarian epidemic response, which I, as a health care NGO worker in the country, witnessed materialize. Like previous international humanitarian efforts in the country, the juggernaut of humanitarian resources, personnel, military assets, and organizations was at times experienced by Sierra Leoneans as spectacle, devoid of substantive care. The epidemic and the response to it had become enfolded into what Mbembe calls the “aesthetics and stylistics” of political power in the postcolony. The logic of this political spectacle can be traced through three ethnographic scenes from the epidemic, which I gloss as “rumor,” “violence,” and “militarization.” Stories told by Ebola survivors from one village reveal the ongoing demands of sociality and care that unfolded “beneath” the spectacle, helping us consider the broader relationships among political authority, spectacle, and vulnerability in moments of humanitarian crisis and contingency.

ABSTRACT This article challenges dominant framings of COVID-19 education as either a moment of crisis or an idealised opportunity to reimagine learning. Instead, it offers a counter-narrative grounded in an ethnographic study of a Residential and Educational Support Programme (RESP) at Stellenbosch University – a historically white institution undergoing transformation. Launched during the pandemic, one residence space was configured into a site of care, co-learning, and humanising pedagogy. Centring the voices of predominantly Black women students, the article reveals how participants critically engaged with their identities, navigated systemic inequalities, and cultivated a sense of belonging within a historically exclusionary institutional culture. These experiences demonstrate that meaningful transformation arises from embodied relationships, solidarity, and collective empowerment. The article argues for contextually rooted, ethically driven residential education as a transformative force. In doing so, it contributes to global conversations on inclusive higher education and offers a model for reimagining residential learning beyond the pandemic.

In this article, we explore the crisis of the socialist imaginary and Left melancholy at the “end of history,” the utopian and ideological shifts of the past decades, the lost cultural and spiritual resources of socialism, as well as the open question of the 21st century utopias still to be invented. Examining the way in which three decades of neoliberal hegemonic struggle has remade the world and diminished socialism, we contend that the Global Financial Crisis has triggered a shift beyond neoliberal hegemony into a state of interregnum, a moment of both crisis and opportunity. Drawing on Gramsci’s emphasis on culture building and moral and intellectual leadership, Bloch’s reformulated materialism, and emergent forms of Left movements and thought today, we argue that the “end of the world” is not just a reason for despair, but also for hope, courage, and solidarity. Specifically, we suggest that the reactivation of emancipatory history might require a prophetic socialist orientation: an insistence on the possibility of another world and its prefigurative emergence, an understanding of the longer arc of struggle, and an emphasis on the spiritual inflections and beauty of the socialist dream of “an entire earth as the homeland of humanization”.

In this report, I explore how process drama helps me, as a teacher, to overcome challenges arising from the sense of disconnection. Two challenging situations I address are the crisis in my teaching career caused by being disconnected with students, and the COVID-19 pandemic, the social crisis that aggravated the disconnection. Reflecting on my open class conducted under unfavourable conditions for incorporating drama into class, that is, a classroom with high school seniors and tightened social distancing rules, I investigate how bringing drama into my classroom offered chances for interaction and bonding between the students and me; how my fellow teachers who are new to drama perceived the benefits of using teacher-in-role. After describing the changes in both students and myself brought about by the open class, I analyse what caused the changes in students, based on the nature of drama, and myself, from an existential perspective. Drawing on my experience, I conclude with the hope that drama can help other teachers, who are experiencing difficulties similar to the ones I went through, overcome their moments of crisis.

ABSTRACTLaunched in May 2022 by the United States, the Indo‐Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) has quickly become one of the most ambitious attempts to reshape cooperation in a strategically vital region. Officially, the initiative promises deeper trade ties, resilient supply chains, clean energy transitions, and digital innovation. Yet, its significance goes beyond economic goals: the IPEF reflects a broader geopolitical contest over leadership and the future of the international order. For the United States, it is not only a response to economic fragmentation but also a strategic instrument to reaffirm influence in a moment of crisis for the Liberal International Order. For emerging powers such as India, the framework opens space to expand regional authority, gain leverage in global forums, and advance claims to leadership of the Global South. For other developing countries, it raises both opportunities to increase visibility in global governance and concerns about transparency and inclusiveness. This article argues that the IPEF encapsulates the tension between preserving existing power structures and enabling their reconfiguration, making it a revealing test case for the future of multilateralism and reform in global governance.

This article examines improvised musical performances of mourning and solidarity in South Africa and Bangladesh during moments of political upheaval and global crisis. Drawing on ethnographic research, participant observation, and secondary sources, the article explores how jam sessions, protest music, and collective rituals of grief not only express sorrow at state violence and betrayal, but also prefigure possibilities for more just futures. In South Africa, jazz jams and solidarity performances in 2024 drew on the country’s anti-apartheid cultural traditions to voice grief at the failures of the African National Congress while articulating connections to Palestinian liberation. In Bangladesh, music during and after the July 2024 uprisings mobilized grief for slain students and protestors, while hip hop cyphers, protest songs, and activist jams carved out sonic spaces for hope amidst violence and uncertainty. In both cases, improvised performances embodied what scholars term “prefigurative politics”: enacting freedom, care, and solidarity in the present, even as they mourn the past and confront the brutality of the present. Yet these spaces were also shaped by exclusions, particularly along gendered, racial, and queer lines, raising questions about whose grief is witnessed and whose futures are imagined. By comparing musical practices across two distinct yet interconnected political contexts, the author argues that improvised sounds of mourning and resistance illuminate both the potential and the limits of solidarity. These sonic performances demonstrate how music can animate grief, sustain movements, and gesture toward emancipatory horizons, while also revealing the tensions that structure collective life under global racial capitalism.

The ongoing global suicide crisis demands urgent attention, with over 720 000 lives lost annually; a stark reality demanding multifaceted intervention strategies. Compounding this issue, approximately 73% of these deaths occur within low- and middle-income countries; this disparity necessitates focused resource allocation and culturally sensitive approaches. Psychiatric nurses occupy a critical position in suicide prevention efforts, serving as frontline responders in moments of acute crisis. Existing educational methodologies, including traditional lectures and role-playing simulations, frequently fall short, however. They often fail to adequately prepare nurses for the complexities of real-world scenarios. This article investigates the potential of integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) technologies into suicide prevention education for psychiatric nursing. Specifically, it explores how these technologies can enhance training through immersive simulations, personalised feedback mechanisms and advanced data analytics, aiming to strengthen capacity-building, a core pillar identified by the WHO LIVE LIFE framework. Taking a global perspective, this article considers disparities in technological access and variations in cultural perceptions of suicide across high-income countries and low- and middle-income countries; acknowledging that technological solutions must be implemented equitably and with cultural sensitivity. Critical ethical considerations, including data privacy, algorithmic bias and potential overreliance on technology, require careful consideration. To address these challenges, a resource-appropriate and culturally sensitive framework is proposed for integrating AI and VR into nursing education, with the ultimate goal of reducing global suicide rates. Recommendations are presented concerning interdisciplinary collaboration and the ethical utilisation of technology.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in March 2020, groups of neighbors across the country organized to help one another in a moment of crisis. Mutual aid efforts that emerged postpandemic got a lot of attention for their ambitious goals of addressing needs in a markedly different way from government and nonprofit models, but they also faced criticism from scholars and activists who saw these efforts as perpetuating existing problematic dynamics of charity. Understanding the nuance of postpandemic mutual aid organizing requires in-depth, temporal, and place-based research. This study uses Crown Heights Mutual Aid in Brooklyn as a case study to explore the dynamics of radical organizing in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood. It focuses on the role of social infrastructure in building networks of care and proposes the term transformative infrastructure to capture the ways in which radical organizing in Crown Heights after COVID-19 shifted from direct crisis response toward the creation of lasting networks supporting relationship building, housing justice, and abolition.

In 2021, the cancellation of India’s Class 10 and 12 board examinations due to the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted long-standing meritocratic norms. While public debate focused on grading and admissions, this study centres student voices in Odisha—a state marked by educational and digital inequalities—to understand how they navigated the disruption. Using data from 510 students, interviews, and institutional documents from four public universities, the study constructs two indices: the Capability Deprivation Index (CDI) and the Voice and Agency Index (VAI), capturing emotional, symbolic, and institutional dimensions of loss. Findings reveal that caste, gender, class, and geography significantly shaped both the extent of deprivation and students’ ability to respond. Applying Amartya Sen’s capability approach, the study shows that deprivation and agency were co-produced through institutional inaction and digital divides. It calls for rethinking educational justice—beyond credentials—to focus on expanding students’ real freedoms, voice, and recognition, especially during moments of crisis.

Care for persons with severe dementia in highly specialised healthcare in Norway is guided by person-centred care. However, little research has explored healthcare professionals’ perspectives on meaning in life in this patient group. This qualitative study investigated how healthcare professionals recognise experiences of meaning in life among patients with severe dementia. The research question was: How do healthcare professionals, working in a dementia unit in highly specialised healthcare, recognise experiences of meaning in life in patients with severe dementia? An exploratory design was used, drawing on data from focus group interviews with professionals trained and experienced in dementia care. An inductive approach was used to analyse the data, guided by Schnell’s theory of meaning in life as an analytical lens. The findings show that meaning was recognised and responded to in several ways: through bodily activities that created meaning and reinforced identity, underscoring the importance of embodied expressions and interactions; by supporting what mattered to each individual patient, highlighting the value of personalised and attuned care; and during moments of crisis, which were interpreted as signs of ongoing struggles for identity and meaning. By incorporating professionals’ perspectives and experience-based knowledge, the psychology of meaning helped deepen the understanding of person-centred care and how it can be practised with this patient group. More research is needed to develop scholarly knowledge that enables professionals to distinguish more precisely between different aspects of meaning in life and intervene effectively in diverse care situations.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the relationship between the level of declared faith and the sense of meaning in life among Catholics of Polish origin living in the province of Misiones, Argentina. The study is based on empirical data collected through a survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews conducted with 28 respondents (n = 28). The interviews covered three thematic areas: declared religiosity, sense of meaning in life and the interrelationship between these two dimensions. The analysis of the respondents' statements indicates that religion and spirituality play a significant role in the daily lives of the participants, influencing their decisions, attitudes and ways of coping with difficulties. For many participants in the study, faith constitutes a major source of meaning, giving their lives direction and deeper significance, particularly in moments of crisis. The results of the study confirm that religion serves not only an identity function, but also an existential one, supporting individuals in constructing acoherent life narrative. This article makes a significant contribution to the research on the psychology of religion and the meaning of life in migrant and cross-cultural contexts.

This study investigates how news consumption and sharing in the digital environment are related to news characteristics and support for right-wing authoritarianism, particularly during moments of crisis fueled by violent riots linked to authoritarian movements. Based on the argument that right-wing political values impact the consumption and spread of (dis)information and that this content imitates news formats, we focus on four perceived news attributes (appearance, confirmability, credibility, and newsworthiness) in shaping intentions to consume and share news. Using a survey (n = 1225) conducted in Brazil one week after violent riots on January 8, 2023, by Bolsonaro supporters in Brazil’s capital, results highlight the need to disaggregate how different characteristics of news operate to shape the behavior of different groups of people. Support for right-wing authoritarianism is correlated with valuing news credibility, newsworthiness and especially appearance, but checking for correctness is irrelevant for this group. Evidence underscores how authoritarianism disrupted consumption and secondary gatekeeping practices (sharing), distancing authoritarian supporters from legacy media users and professional news reporters.

Abstract Through a reading of Teju Cole’s Open City, this paper questions world literature’s ability to promote empathetic understandings of others in moments of crisis, presenting an alternative through the theorization of an ethics of care. Published in 2011, Cole’s novel contemplates how art and literature mediate our imagination of others. While critics have often approached the novel’s concern with our obligations to others through the theories of empathy and cosmopolitanism referenced in the novel, this essay suggests that the novel answers questions about how to move from empathetic imagining to ethical action through the care that shapes its characters professional and personal relationships. Building on works from feminist theory and the medical humanities, the essay argues that Open City offers a renewed reading method of world literature that is grounded in an ethics of care.

The impact of climate change extends beyond environmental issues to include psychological and emotional concerns. Trauma intensifies with the increasing frequency and severity of climate-related incidents. Ecological trauma arises from environmental destruction, climate disasters, and the loss of nature, affecting mental health, cultural identity, and community resilience. Exploring trauma responses in novels uncovers how characters navigate fear, loss, and survival mirroring real-life emotional struggles and adaptive behaviors. This research paper investigates the relationship between trauma studies and climate fiction through a qualitative analysis of Jessie Greengrass’s novel The High House through the lens of Somatic Experiencing theory. A close reading of this novel reveals characters’ physical as well as emotional reactions to trauma during key moments of crisis. The strategies the characters use to cope are examined and compared to real-life instances of ecological trauma. Somatic Experiencing theory is rooted in the understanding of complex emotional and physiological reactions, such as fight, flight, freeze or fawn. Ecological trauma deeply impacts children, disrupting their sense of safety and stability. Climate disasters, pollution, and habitat loss can cause anxiety, helplessness grief, and displacement. These experiences shape their emotional development, influencing mental health, resilience, and connection to nature throughout their lives. The findings suggest that the embodied experiences are critical to understanding traumatization in climate fiction and contribute to the limited body of ecological trauma research, demonstrating how literature offers unique insights into diverse responses to climate change.

Abstract This article addresses the culture of penance that pervaded the Renaissance papal court and particularly its relationship to political compromise in the form of acts of clemency and absolution. In doing so, this article illuminates the lasting influence of penitential thought in gesture and writing and its ready availability to inspire accounts of crucial political events that transpired during the papacy's most unruly periods. The pontificates of Pius II and Clement VII were noteworthy for their widespread rebellion against papal authority and the difficulties a pope could face when the Papal States' most powerful subjects aligned themselves with international coalitions against whom the papacy waged war. Yet it was precisely in moments of crisis that penitential thought acquired its relevancy, and the fullness of meaning attached to penitential acts was able to manifest itself. A plethora of penitential acts or their records are available, but this article focuses on tears specifically, as signifiers of true contrition and incontrovertible admission of having sinned. Ascribing tears to opponents thus served as a literary tool to bolster papal ideology, for rebellion was framed as sin, while another interpretation might be that shows of contrition paved the way for political compromise.

What has led to the growing disillusionment with the European project? What have we learned from the process of Europeanisation, and can these lessons guide us in the present? To answer these questions, the article offers a long-term view of the diverging trajectories of Central and Peripheral European countries in terms of interdependent economies with different productive capacities. It briefly traces the evolution of the European Union, from the founding fathers’ vision of a federation of states to the acrimonious economic union of divided governments and peoples. Looking back at moments of crisis, we try to understand where we went wrong and explore the possibility that the current difficult times and the disintegration of the international order may foster the recovery of the original idea of Europe.

Sports have an important place in the lives of many individuals in society. The first condition for a successful organization is good planning. During the planning, a separate evaluation should be made for each organization and security planning and crisis management applications should be prepared according to the results obtained. Risk assessment is a process used to identify potential hazards and analyze what might happen if a hazard occurs. There are many risk factors that may arise during the organizing phases of major sports events. It is necessary to take all of these risks into consideration and be prepared for the dangers that may arise. Based on this information, the aim of our study is to provide information about the security element, risk assessment and crisis management within sports organizations and to offer suggestions on measures that can be taken. Our study is important due to the lack of studies in this field, the security problems in sports that have emerged in parallel with the increase in interest in sports, and the solution suggestions it offers. The research was designed as a literature review based on qualitative research methods. As a result; In order to implement safety laws in sports, to prevent incidents of violence in sports, and to determine interventions in moments of crisis that may occur, previously encountered problems should be analyzed well and new measures should be taken. Depending on the development of technology, it is recommended to closely follow technological and scientific developments in security measures in sports organizations and manage crises that may occur and to make plans in the light of this information.