Conversation Piece Research Articles

From diagnosis to dialogue - reconsidering the DSM as a conversation piece in mental health care: a hypothesis and theory.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, abbreviated as the DSM, is one of mental health care's most commonly used classification systems. While the DSM has been successful in establishing a shared language for researching and communicating about mental distress, it has its limitations as an empirical compass. In the transformation of mental health care towards a system that is centered around shared decision-making, person-centered care, and personal recovery, the DSM is problematic as it promotes the disengagement of people with mental distress and is primarily a tool developed for professionals to communicate about patients instead of with patients. However, the mental health care system is set up in such a way that we cannot do without the DSM for the time being. In this paper, we aimed to describe the position and role the DSM may have in a mental health care system that is evolving from a medical paradigm to a more self-contained profession in which there is increased accommodation of other perspectives. First, our analysis highlights the DSM's potential as a boundary object in clinical practice, that could support a shared language between patients and professionals. Using the DSM as a conversation piece, a language accommodating diverse perspectives can be co-created. Second, we delve into why people with lived experience should be involved in co-designing spectra of distress. We propose an iterative design and test approach for designing DSM spectra of distress in co-creation with people with lived experience to prevent the development of 'average solutions' for 'ordinary people'. We conclude that transforming mental health care by reconsidering the DSM as a boundary object and conversation piece between activity systems could be a step in the right direction, shifting the power balance towards shared ownership in a participation era that fosters dialogue instead of diagnosis.

Effectively Engaging First-Generation Rural Students in Higher Education: New Opportunities for Sociology

Rural and first-generation students face unique challenges to accessing and persisting through college. While there is increasing literature on how to better serve first-generation college students, rural first-generation students have received far less attention. By associating student experiences with key concepts such as social groups, social class, inequality, community, and culture, sociology is well positioned to address the needs of first-generation rural students and enhance learning for all students. In this conversation piece, we will discuss the intersection of first-generation and rural identities and provide ideas for countering the urbancentric teaching of sociology and engaging rural first-generation students as assets at the classroom, faculty, department, and institutional levels.

Suzanne and Suzanne

This conversation piece celebrates Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel’s inspiring study Reimagining Liberation: How Black Women Transformed Citizenship in the French Empire (2020) through the parallel histories of the Martinican theorist Suzanne Césaire and the Haitian intellectual Suzanne Comhaire-Sylvain. Thinking about Suzanne’s and Suzanne’s respective and overlapping relationships to Haiti, this essay is an exercise in implementing the decolonial methods and reimagining of national belonging that Joseph-Gabriel presents.

«January» and «June» from the Khanenko Collection: a broad context surrounding small plates

The study of two enameled plates from the collection of the Bohdan and Varvara Khanenko National Museum of Arts in Kyiv represents the first comprehensive publication on these pieces, previously unknown to the international art historian community. Diversified in various directions, its primary goal is to outline potential methods of contextualization and interpretation, essential for the future reconsideration of the Khanenko museum's exhibition spaces post-war. Initially, the author delineates the plate's attribution to the Pierre Reymond workshop, establishing their dating and summarizing prior research dedicated to identifying items within the same series. Placing these objects within their historical, religious, and social contexts, the study highlights their usage as part of ceremonial services or 'service d’apparat,' as well as their role as conversation pieces, a term adapted from Elisabeth Currie. Recent studies in the fields of graphic arts and drawing history have updated our understanding of the plates named 'June' and 'January,' providing details that not only allow us to identify graphic models for these enameled pieces (attributed to Etienne Delaune) but also unveil the name of the compositions' conceptual author (Baptiste Pellerin). Furthermore, there is an open discussion regarding the appropriate nomenclature for the service's commanders, suggesting a reconsideration from the previously published 'Chaspoux de Verneuil' to 'Chaspoux,' potentially correcting an anachronism. Finally, the study offers additional details for interpreting secondary decorative elements present on the plates, aiming to supplement and enrich the knowledge within the arsenal of museum curators and art historians concerning these exemplary pieces from the prolific Limoges workshop during the latter part of the 16th century.

The Influence of William Hogarth on Later Generations

The Influence of William Hogarth on Later Generations

Questioning Controlled Consumption in Publishing: Artistic Responses to Tracking, Control, and Access

This article focuses on a series of experimental publishing works, emerging from the field of art and design, that react to the augmented possibilities that editorial platforms in a broad sense (e.g. Amazon and Apple) have to control reception, limit access and track use. Furthermore, the projects in the discussion question the modifications of ownership around digital artefacts. These projects can be understood as “conversation pieces” that aim to provoke a debate around the issues they want to address. They have a strong communicative value, and as such highlight aspects of digital publishing rarely addressed by designers and publishers.

Çocuklarda imgesel anlama ve bağlam ipuçları: Türkçede bir çözümleme

This study moves from the arguments on one side that language input (specifically the adult language) has a significant part and a shaping function in the communication process with children, on the other side that this process is exclusively shaped by co-textual and contextual cues. With this aim in mind, in this study, first, the related literature on child language, non-literal comprehension, and the effect of context on non-literal comprehension were overviewed then the data collection process of the study was introduced. And then, the database that includes the transcription of the pieces of a natural conversation with children in a TV show was analyzed around three questions in terms of: i. What is the nature of the trigger questions directed to children? ii. What is the nature of the main questions directed to children? and iii. What is the role of the clues in the non-literal comprehension process of children? To achieve this end, firstly, the quantitative aspects of the database were revealed, and non-literal expressions were analyzed as cues for children to answer the related questions within specified classifications. Secondly, the overall data including the cases of successful or unsuccessful communication instances between adults and the children were interpreted within the contextual cue perspective. While the main hypothesis is that in the database of pieces of conversation that include non-literal questions directed to children, clue existence enhances the comprehension of the non-literal meaning (hence the correct answers given), the results of the study have shown that it’s not the case and it is the nature of the clue not the existence that is determining.

In The Vortex of Institutional Lives

In The Vortex of Institutional Lives

Crossing unlikely paths in science.

Crossing unlikely paths in science.

Equity in the Classroom and the Clinic: Understanding the Role of Sociology in Health Professional Education

Sociology teachers often encounter students studying to be future health professionals; sociology content can assist students to increase their understanding of patients, the social context of health and illness, and the social determinants of health. Engaging these students in sociological thinking can be challenging because of their diverse social locations and their identification with their future profession, which may emphasize clinical competence over broader reflective skills. In this conversation piece, we encourage critical reflection on the assumptions that underpin the teaching of sociology to aspiring health professionals. Through case studies of nursing, medicine, and speech-language pathology, we consider differences in the social locations of students and how sociological ideas are received by these professions. We argue that sociology teachers can assist health professions students to gain more from sociology by understanding these student cohorts and by reflexively considering power relations between teachers and students and between disciplines and professions.

Critique of the new hero in cinema (L.Visconti) and literature (F.M.Dostoevsky)

The article examines the philosophical basis of the figure of a new hero in literature and film. “New heroes” in selected literary and cinema works are compared within the context of existentialist philosophy and “philosophical anthropology”. Material for the comparative intertextual and intermedial analysis is the novel Demons by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky and Luchino Visconti’s late films The Damned, Ludwig and Conversation Piece. The article attempts to broaden the intertextual horizon of research on Visconti by drawing new parallels between his films and Dostoevsky’s work. The work argues that the Italian filmmaker, follow ing the Russian writer of the 19th century and the European philosophers of the 20th century, criticises the “hero” who destroyed the old order on purpose to create a new one. Visconti’s revolutionary hero suffers from “the pathology of freedom” and refers to the figure of a nihilist from Dostoevsky’s novels, on the one hand, and to the figure of a sovereign in the philosophical and anthropological works of German and French writers of the 1930–50s, on the other. In his films The Damned, Ludwig and Conversation Piece, Visconti adopts not only a number of motifs from Dostoevsky but also replicates the main idea of the Russian writer who supposed that the enhancement of the human race was possible only after the second coming of Christ.

Sofonisba's Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and her Work by Michael W. Cole

Reviewed by: Sofonisba's Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and her Work by Michael W. Cole Adelina Modesti Cole, Michael W., Sofonisba's Lesson: A Renaissance Artist and her Work, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2020; hardback; pp. 312; 25 b/w and 256 colour illustrations; R.R.P. US $60.00; ISBN 9780691198323. Sofonisba Anguissola (c. 1535–1625) was the first Italian Renaissance woman artist to achieve international recognition. Considered by her contemporaries as a marvellously gifted painter after nature, Sofonisba's portraits, her specialization, were believed to come 'alive' (Vasari, 'Vita di Benvenuto Garofalo e di Girolamo da Carpi, pittori ferraresi, e d'altri Lombardi', in his Le Vite de più eccellenti pittori, scultori et architettori, 2 vols, Florence, Giunti, 1568, ii, 561–62). Michael Cole's Sofonisba's Lesson brilliantly brings this female artist to life, exploring her art within the context of the networks and relationships that formed her world. Sofonisba's paintings, Cole argues, are 'an expression of such relationships' (p. 11)—with her family, above all her father who educated her and promoted her accomplishments; with her teachers, including Michelangelo, who advised her; with members of the Habsburg royal household at Madrid, where she was a court lady for over fifteen years (1559–73); with her students and patrons, including her younger sisters and the queen of Spain; and finally, with her two husbands. Cole describes these connections as 'pedagogical' (p. 11)—relationships based on some form of education. This is reflected in the book's chapter headings—'In the Presence of Her Father'; 'The Most Affectionate Disciple'; 'The Image of Learnedness'; 'The Image of Teaching; Spain'; and 'Painting and the Education of Daughters'. Thus, the central theme of the Cole's book is learning and teaching, arguing that Sofonisba was the first woman artist to both teach other [End Page 200] women and have a number of young male artists seek her out for painting advice throughout her life, such as Anton Van Dyck in 1624 (p. 150). The Flemish artist claimed that he learnt more from this elderly female painter than from the works of other major artists (p. 150). Sofonisba also developed new artistic genres—the independent self-portrait; the family portrait; and the conversation piece as exemplified by the first group portrait to feature only women, The Chess Game (1555). It depicts her three younger sisters involved in an intellectual pastime, as the family's maidservant looks on. Sofonisba's art, as Cole deftly demonstrates, represents women in the act of some learned activity, be it reading or learning to read, at the spinet or easel, or writing. Sofonisba, however, was not a professional painter—she didn't receive commissions as such and was not remunerated for her artwork, which circulated in a court culture of diplomatic gift exchange. The artist hailed from a family of minor nobility from Cremona in northern Italy, and her father Amilcare took the unprecedented step of sending Sofonisba and her younger sister Lucia to learn painting from the Cremonese artist Bernardino Campi, and later Bernardino Gatti. Amilcare's motives may have been pecuniary (the Anguissola family had fallen on hard times), but Cole argues that he was an enlightened father responding to the growing cultural milieu that saw noblewomen's education include intellectual pursuits such as music, writing, and painting, even chess, as expounded in the conduct literature of the period. As such, Sofonisba's artistic training was part of a broader humanist education that was beginning to be advocated for girls during the Renaissance. As learned and talented women, Amilcare's five daughters were more likely to find appropriate connections in the upper echelons of society or at court. Indeed, the accomplished Sofonisba became a favourite of Isabel of Valois at the Spanish court, where she was employed as a lady-in-waiting to the young queen (with a pension), also teaching her and members of the royal household to draw and paint. She was to become governess to Isabel's two daughters after the queen's death in 1568. Given her social position, Cole defines Sofonisba's artistic practice as that of an amateur, a new Renaissance type whereby learned (male) aristocrats took an...

Michael Longley's Poetics of Painting

Michael Longley's Poetics of Painting Jack Quin (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Jeffrey Morgan, Light from Two Windows (acrylic on canvas, 125 x 95 cm), Belfast Waterfront [End Page 54] the welsh painter jeffrey morgan's seated portrait of Michael Longley, Light from Two Windows, meticulously records the poet's eclectic art and literary interests scattered around a room in County Mayo. The painting includes two portraits of Buster Keaton, a picture of Billie Holiday, Robert Fagles's translation of The Iliad, and a couple of notable art books, one on the Japanese artist Hokusai and one on the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi.1 There are a number of curious found objects dotted around the room as well, including a dolphin's skull on the windowsill and an impossibly balanced swan's egg atop a tower of books, which playfully alludes to Brancusi's ovoid sculptures in marble. Through the window is a glimpse of the Mayo countryside with a wedge of swans flying past. Morgan's portrait is the inspiration for Longley's ekphrastic poem "Watercolour" from The Ghost Orchid: Between a chicken's wishbone on the mantelpieceAnd, on the window sill, a dolphin's skull, I sit,My pullover a continuation of the lazy-bedsYou study through the window, my shirt a runningTogether of earth-colours, wintry grasses, brackenPainted with your favourite brush—goose-quill and sableFrom a hundred years ago—and with water:One drop too many and the whole thing disintegrates.In this humidity your watercolour will never dry.2 [End Page 55] The mantelpiece with a chicken's wishbone does not appear in the painted portrait. Rui Carvalho Homem suggests that the object is visible from the perspective of the sitter rather than the perspective of the painter, a reminder that the poem is about sitting for a painting and not merely an ekphrastic account of the finished work.3 Besides the accumulated objects within the room, Longley observes Morgan's painterly technique; how the stitching of the pullover appears as "a continuation of the lazy-beds / You study through the window," and how his red-brown shirt is "a running / Together of earth-colours, wintry grasses, bracken." Morgan remarked that he even thought of his landscape paintings as portraits or self-portraits through the snapshots of domestic interiors, where the accumulation of background objects such as spongeware bowls, clothes, and "everything embod[ies] for me certain aspects of my own mundane domestic existence."4 Longley's eye for detail is borrowing from the language of art history to imagine his portrait as a blending of natural elements: the running together of patterns and colors framed by the window into the central seated figure, drawing the eye downward from the window to the sitter, in this case a serendipitous alignment of the landscape with the sitter. Morgan's portrait was executed during Longley's sabbatical in County Mayo after more than a decade working for the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. Beyond his friendships and familial ties with many painters and sculptors, Longley's lifelong engagements with the visual arts extend from collaborative artist books to exhibition catalog essays, reviews, interviews, and the organization of inter-arts events for the Arts Council. He has collaborated with painters and illustrators on a number of limited editions of his own work, including Out of the Cold (1999), Sea Asters (2015), and Ghetto (2019) with illustrations by his daughter Sarah Longley. He has written a number of prefaces and essays for exhibition catalogs including the work of David Crone, Brian Ferran, and Felim Egan. In the late 1960s to 1970s he wrote a range of articles and interviews for the Irish Times on Gerard Dillon, Colin Middleton, and others. He has contributed ekphrastic poems to gallery exhibitions that explicitly pair writers with artworks in their collection, including A Conversation Piece: Poetry and Art in 2002 with the Ulster Museum and the collections of the National Museums Northern Ireland, and in 2015 the National Gallery of Ireland's exhibition Lines of Vision: Irish Writers on Art. As assistant director of the Arts Council, he edited and contributed the...

Competing ethics in a pilot strategy to implement parasitology training and research in post-Ebola Sierra Leone.

Much of the focus of public health research post-Ebola in Sierra Leone has been on rebuilding the healthcare system. However, very little attention has focused on capacity building in knowledge necessary for (bio)medical research, specifically around emerging opportunistic human pathogens that contribute to the high morbidity and mortality rates in Sierra Leone. In collaboration with academic staff from the University of Makeni, we engaged in a small-scale pilot intervention to strengthen medical parasitology teaching and research. The cultural competencies and ethical expertise provided by Sierra Leonean academics was critical to work in local communities and ensuring consent to undertake research. Yet, at the end of a day of collecting samples, in small pieces of conversation, the staff also explained ethical constraints they experienced taking part in research collaborations. They illustrate that, while on the surface all may seem well with a project, there can be harmful effects in terms of accessibility, ownership, cultural responsiveness and accountability, which should be taken into consideration when establishing networks and collaborations with universities from low-income countries.

The learning company: the learning organization the British way – its origins, present, and future directions. An interview with John Burgoyne

PurposeThis paper aims to provide an overview of the history, the present and the future or the learning organization as a concept and a practical approach, from the perspective of Professor John Burgoyne.Design/methodology/approachThis conversation piece follows the development of the concept from its early days into the current debates and the possible directions for future development.FindingsThe interview highlights an interesting path the learning organization took in the UK, stemming from a drive for more and better management education, and evolving into a systemic view on various aspects of organizational capabilities, concerned primarily with organizational longevity and adaptability. The thinking behind Pedler, Burgoyne and Boydell’s model of a learning company is discussed. Several “hot” topics are identified, either overlooked in the past, or becoming more relevant in the modern world, precipitated by technological and societal changes.Originality/valueThe interview provides an insight into the thinking of one of the best known authors in the field. Understanding of the concept’s evolution path, as well as the influences from other fields such as innovation and CSR, could be useful for practitioners and academics working in the subject area, wishing to identify promising future directions for research and practice.

Decolonizing History: Enquiry and Practice

Abstract On the back of the Royal Historical Society’s 2018 report on race and ethnicity, as well as ongoing discussions about ‘decolonizing the syllabus’, this is a conversation piece titled, ‘Decolonizing History: Enquiry and Practice’. While ‘decolonization’ has been a key framework for historical research, it has assumed increasingly varied and nebulous meanings in teaching, where calls for ‘decolonizing’ are largely divorced from the actual end of empire. How does ‘decolonizing history’ relate to the study of decolonization? And can history, as a field of practice and study, be ‘decolonized’ without directly taking up histories of empire? Using the RHS report as a starting point, this conversation explores how we ‘decolonize history’. We argue that, rather than occurring through tokenism or the barest diversification of reading lists and course themes, decolonizing history requires rigorous critical study of empire, power and political contestation, alongside close reflection on constructed categories of social difference. Bringing together scholars from several UK universities whose teaching and research ranges across modern historical fields, this piece emphasizes how the study of empire and decolonization can bring a necessary global perspective to what tend to be framed as domestic debates on race, ethnicity, and gender.

An Artist in the Making. Yehuda Leib ben Eliyya Ha-Cohen’s Haggadah, Copenhagen, 1769

Ulf G. Haxen: An Artist in the Making – Yehuda Leib ben Eliyya Ha-Cohen’s Haggadah, Copenhagen, 1769
 ‘Eclecticism’ as an artistic term refers to an approach rather than a style, and is generally used to describe the combination of different elements from various art-historical periods – or pejoratively to imply a lack of originality. Proponents of eclecticism argue more favourably, however, with reference to the 16th century Carracci family and their Bolognese followers, that the demands of modernity (i.e. the new Baroque style) could be met by skilful adaptation of art features from various styles of the past.
 The essay concerns the eighteenth century scribe and miniaturist Yehuda Leib ben Eliyah Ha-Cohen’s illustrated Haggadah liturgy of the second book of the, Old Testament Exodus, which represents a shift of paradigm away from the traditional Bohemia-Moravian school of Jewish book-painting towards a new approach. Our artist experiments freely, and to a certain extent successfully, with a range of different styles, motifs, themes, and iconographical traits, such as conversation pieces.
 Yehuda Leib Ha-Cohen may have abandoned his home-town, the illustrious rabbinic center Lissa/Leszno in Poland, after a fire devastated its Jewish quarter in 1767. He migrated to Denmark and lived and worked in Copenhagen for at least ten years, as indicated by two of his extant works, dated Copenhagen 1769 and 1779 respectively. He was thus a contemporary of another Danish Jewish master of the Bohemia – Moravian school, Uri Feibush ben Yitshak Segal, whose iconic miniature work The Copenhagen Haggadah (1739) is well-known by art historians in the field.
 Yehuda Leib Ha-Cohen drew some of his Haggadic themes from two main sources, the Icones Biblicae by Mathäus Merian and the Amsterdam Haggadot 1695 and 1712 (e.g. Pit’om and Ramses, The Meal Before the Flight). He never imitates his models, however. He adapts the standard motifs according to his own stylistic perception of symmetry and perspective, furnishing the illustrations with a muted gouache colouring.
 Several of his Haggadic themes are executed with inventiveness, pictorial imagination, and a subtle sense of humour, such as The Seder Table, The Four Sons, The Finding of the Infant Moses, Solomon’s Temple, and Belshazzars Feast. 
 Yehuda Leib’s enigmatic reference to the ‘the masons’ (Hebrew הבנאים ) in the manuscript’s colophon has until now hardly been satisfactorily interpreted. Incidentally, however, another Hebrew prayer-book written and decorated by Mayer Schmalkalden in Mainz in 1745, recently acquired by Library of Congress, bears the same phrase (fi ‘inyan ha-bana’im = according to the code of the Masons). Dr. Ann Brener, a Hebrew specialist at the Oriental Department of Library of Congress, suggests in an unpublished essay, that the reference may be an allusion to ‘the Talmudic scholars who engage in building up the world of civilization’, (The Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 114a). However that may be, Yehuda Leib Ha-Cohen’s miniatures constitute a veritable change of paradigm as far as eighteenth-century Hebrew book illustration is concerned.

Exploring the perceptions of people with dementia about the social robot PARO in a hospital setting.

New technology, such as social robots, opens up new opportunities in hospital settings. PARO, a robotic pet seal, was designed to provide emotional and social support for older people with dementia. We applied video-ethnographic methods, including conversational interviews and observations with video recording among 10 patient participants while they were using the robot. We also conducted semi-structured individual interviews and focus groups with nursing staff to gain contextual information. Patient and family partners were actively involved in the study as co-researchers. This study reports our findings on the perceptions of 10 patients with dementia about their experiences with PARO in a hospital setting. Thematic analysis yielded three substantive themes: (a) ‘it’s like a buddy’ – the robot helps people with dementia uphold a sense of self in the world, (b) ‘it’s a conversation piece’ – the baby seal facilitates social connection and (c) ‘it makes me happy’ – PARO transforms and humanizes the clinical setting. Our findings help provide a better understanding of the perspectives of patients with dementia on the use of social robots.

EXPLORING THE PERCEPTION OF PATIENTS WITH DEMENTIA ABOUT A SOCIAL ROBOT PARO IN A HOSPITAL SETTING

PARO, a robotic pet, was designed to provide emotional and social support for older people with dementia. This project aims to explore the perception of persons with dementia about the role of PARO in a hospital setting. Video-ethnographic methods were applied. Patient and family partners were involved in the fieldwork of data collection and analysis. We conducted conversational interviews with ten patients with dementia staying in a geriatric unit and video observations. Thematic analysis yielded three substantive themes: (a) “it’s like a buddy”, the robot helps persons with dementia to uphold a sense of self in the world, (b) “it’s a conversation piece”, the baby seal facilitates social connection, and (c) “it’s all about love”, PARO transforms and humanizes the clinical setting. Our findings contribute to providing a better understanding of the direct perspectives of patients with dementia on the use of the social robot.

IT’S MY BUDDY: EXPLORING THE PERCEPTIONS OF PEOPLE WITH DEMENTIA ABOUT THE SOCIAL ROBOT PARO IN A HOSPITAL SETTING

New technology such as social robots opens up new opportunities in hospital settings. PARO, a robotic pet seal, was designed to provide emotional and social support for older people with dementia. This project aims to explore the perceptions of persons with dementia about PARO’s role in a hospital setting. Video-ethnographic methods were applied. We had conversational interviews with and video observations of 10 older people with dementia in the geriatric unit of a large Canadian hospital. Also, semi-structured interviews and two focus groups were conducted with 10 staff members in the local unit to gain contextual information. Thematic analysis yielded three substantive themes: (a) “it’s like a buddy”—the robot helps people with dementia uphold a sense of self in the world; (b) “it’s a conversation piece”—the baby seal facilitates social connection; and (c) “it’s all about love”—PARO transforms and humanizes the clinical setting. Our findings help provide a better understanding of the direct perspectives of patients with dementia on the use of social robots. Instead of substituting human contact, the social robot complements emotional care and supports our fundamental human need for love.