Pure Joy Research Articles

The Masjid Kamal Loves by Ashley Franklin

Reviewed by: The Masjid Kamal Loves by Ashley Franklin Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Franklin, Ashley The Masjid Kamal Loves; illus. by Aaliya Jaleel. Salaam Reads/Simon, 2023 [32p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781534499836 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781534499843 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R 3-7 yrs Going to the masjid is an experience of pure joy for Kamal, “A bubble-up joy causing wiggles and giggles, a percolating pride from sole to soul.” After excitedly greeting friends and family, Kamal heads into the masjid, where he and others prepare to spend their time in prayer, guided by the imam and reveling in their jubilant sense of community. Echoing the familiar structure of “This is the House That Jack Built,” the third-person narrative introduces each new element of Kamal’s experience by building on the previous, and the ultimate result is a buoyant, rhythmic celebration of the place, people, and religion that create an atmosphere of warmth and support for Kamal. While the digital illustrations are mostly flat and static, multiple visual stories unfold throughout the book, highlighting the theme of community as readers see Kamal’s young friends getting into some mischief, parents corralling youngsters, and happy families chatting and hugging. An author’s note provides further information on the masjid’s role in the Muslim community and the five pillars of Islam. This has multiple uses for inclusive storytimes or discussions of religious traditions, and it offers both a chance for young Muslims to feel seen and respected and an accessible entry point for others to learn more about the religion. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Talking about picturebooks in libraries’ language cafes

How might picturebooks serve as reading and conversation materials in language cafes for international immigrants aiming to learn the local language? How might these books help foster meaningful exchanges between program volunteers and participants, and what might the broader significance of this be for immigrant inclusion and integration? To gain insight into these questions, this study investigates the experiences of volunteers and participants with using picturebooks as a basis for conversation at language cafes in Norwegian public libraries. The study is based on participant observation and qualitative interviews with language café volunteers and participants. Picturebook theory on representation of emotions serves as the theoretical lens for analyzing the selected texts used at the different language cafes. The findings reveal that a broad range of picturebooks are used for reading and conversation at language cafes and their use is generally experienced as fruitful by the participants, especially for learning new words and engaging in visual narratives. The experience of using picturebooks varies for volunteers, from pure joy to discontent, depending on whether they found the selected books interesting or useful for engaging with the participants. The study concludes that picturebooks can work well for facilitating dialog at language cafes, however the successful use of them depends on the competent selection of books.

Why It’s OK to Love Bad Movies

Matthew Strohl’s Why It’s OK to Love Bad Movies is a deeply personal, philosophically sophisticated, and thoroughly enjoyable book. Written devoid of unnecessary philosophical jargon, the book is accessible to non-specialists, a trademark of Routledge’s Why It’s OK… series. However, with novel and nuanced arguments, the book is more than merely accessible and will be interesting to cinephiles and philosophers alike. I want to start by summarizing why Strohl believes it is OK to love bad movies. I will put these reasons in two camps: personal reasons and film culture reasons. Personal reasons for watching good-bad movies include deepening your cinephilia, building social relationships with others (e.g. bonding with strangers through audience participation rituals), and the pure joy of the hunt for the overlooked gem. Watching good-bad movies also promotes creative engagement. We know the outline for appreciating serious art-house movies. Good-bad movies break us out of these scripts, forcing us to engage in less familiar ways. Loving good-bad movies also provides benefits to the film culture at large by working against stagnation in the culture, re-earthing overlooked gems, and promoting a diversity of taste.

Playability of Serious Games in Information Literacy: The Findings of the European Project NAVIGATE

The article deals with the playability of serious games in information literacy applied by academic libraries and university departments in Library and Information Sciences in the training sessions with students. Is it possible these games to be more playful and what is path we must follow to achieve this goal? In the literature review on the concepts of playfulness/gamefulness we are focusing on two opposite sides of a spectrum presented by Roger Caillois: Paidia (or playing; for pure joy, without any goals) and Ludus (or gaming; based on rules and competition). The author’s view is that the games can be at either end or somewhere in the middle (Caillois & Barash, 2001). We have a hypothesis that the serious games in information literacy can never be only playful but if they contain a higher level of playability it will be easier for the students to achieve the learning objectives set by the university teachers and librarians. In the framework of the European project NAVIGATE – Information Literacy: A Game-based Learning Approach for Avoiding Fake Content (https://navigateproject.eu) 70 games used for teaching information literacy in academic libraries and programs were identified and evaluated. We have selected among them 20 best examples of such games and ranked them according to the following criteria: Playability, Lastability, Engagement, User Interface, and Storytelling. An interactive database (https://www.navigateproject.eu/navigamesearch-tool/) was created in order to visualize the list and the categories (the NaviGAMESearcher). Taking into account the results of the evaluation of the top information literacy games and the two original digital games developed within the project (Information Trap Manager and the Navigator) we analyzed where are these games located on the scale of playfulness versus gamefulness and what is the correlation between the level of playability of these games and the students’ achievements. The further steps for evaluation of information literacy games according to the Playful Experiences (PLEX) framework were also defined in the article.

Trevor J. Dadson (1947–2020)

Trevor J. Dadson (1947–2020)

C1 - Stronger Together (Original song by Lucy Mount)

Before I studied midwifery, I was doing a music degree in performance. I find music to be my greatest therapy, and a way to express myself. I have written a song which to me, explores the key values and philosophy of midwifery care. It portrays the experience and morals of midwives, women and a career in midwifery. The first part of the song is written from the midwives’ perspective. It is the last few moments of birth, and reveals the pure joy of being a midwife, helping women and being by their side through this miraculous experience. The chorus is created around values of strength, equality and standing together in unison- woman, midwife, and her healthcare team. It also explores the support offered by the midwife, the resilience that they have, the strength that they can share, the love that they pour into their profession all for the women they work alongside. This part of the song encapsulates the true essence of a woman centred care philosophy. I wrote the second part of the song from the woman’s perspective to portray the first few moments with her new baby, the sense of accomplishment, overpowering feeling of love, and gratitude for her midwife. I know that not all birth stories end like this, however it is something that as midwives we strive for, the best outcomes for mothers and babies. The structure of my song, from the different perspectives and being connected through the chorus represents the bond and equality between women and midwives. I also wanted to explore the concept of “professional friend”, as I believe that midwives are more than health care professionals to the women. To provide the best care, we need to dig a little deeper than the medical conditions or the alert sticker. Some of the best results stem from the best care, continuity of care, and making women feel comfortable and safe.

The Joy of Clinical Trials.

“But I only received the placebo,” commented a research participant sitting next to me during our trial update and appreciation event. During an evening when the positive results of the active intervention arms were being celebrated and research participants were ecstatically sharing their trial experiences, his disappointment caught me off guard, giving me pause. When it was my turn to take the stage and present the trial update to the group, I took a detour and first asked for a show of hands to demonstrate which arm they believed was most important in the study—the active intervention arm(s) or the placebo arm. The vast majority raised their hands for the active interventions. And that is when I shared the enlightenment inspired by our brief interaction—that those in the placebo arm represent, for patients around the world, the very best care that we have in the present, while those in the active intervention arm are testing our hopes and the unknown. It is only with both, equally, that we can map our collective path forward toward a better future. My introduction to clinical trials began with the most generous mentors, who openly shared their world and provided the freedom to explore with the hope of seeing a spark ignite. I found myself gravitating toward the collaborative spirit embraced in clinical trials. I did not realize that when patients accepted the invitation to become research participants, we would learn as much from them—their individual stories, past struggles, and future hopes—as from their data. It has been transforming to experience the dedication of our research participants, to realize that it is our mutual commitment to each other that enables us to learn the full truth of what we set out to answer. Once we, both investigators and participants, commit to the journey of a clinical trial, there is a certain element of being all in, of committing to learning the answers together, whatever they may be—whether we uncover exciting advances in therapy or come across an unanticipated safety issue that we need to investigate. While research participants represent future patients, as an investigator, I have come to appreciate that I too represent physicians who face the decisional dilemma studied in each trial. Ironically, while our research teams worked ardently to retain our participants, subtly, our participants have reciprocally retained our research teams on this broader journey in clinical research. Acting as an investigator on clinical trials also taught me that careers in clinical research are not a straight path. Each study lands us at a different vantage point from the one where we began, feeding our continual curiosity and learning. Each new therapy and trial has contributed one more piece to an ever-expanding puzzle. Each advance we have collectively been a part of brings greater hope that the best is still yet to come and is within the grasp of our lifetimes, moving us forward with a renewed sense of optimism and confidence. Having served as an investigator on over 100 trials now, I can say this: It changes you. It has changed who I am as a person and how I approach so many other people in my life, including patients, colleagues, trainees, and yes, even my own children. Whereas before I placed a greater emphasis on knowing and demonstrating knowledge of the “best” paths and the “right” answers, I find that now my approach in life is largely inspired by the shared investigator–participant journey, one recognizing the value of nonjudgmental equipoise and unconditional partnership imbued with passion and commitment. To the participant who caught me off guard that evening—thank you. This one, brief moment opened me up to the greatest sense of appreciation; regardless of the treatment arm, role, or results, it is the journey we embark on together, side by side with our participants, teams, and peers, that will contribute to our greater collective knowledge, advances in care, and a better future. And that, is pure joy. Acknowledgments: The author wishes to extend deep personal gratitude to her lifelong clinical research mentors, Robert R. Henry, MD, and Robert E. Ratner, MD; adviser, Jason G. Umans, MD, PhD; John B. Buse, MD, PhD, for encouragement in sharing this personal narrative; and to all the research participants who selflessly share of themselves to better our collective future.

Intergenerational Programs Spark Fountains of Youth, Creativity

Intergenerational Programs Spark Fountains of Youth, Creativity

Midrange Theory Evaluation to Advance Nursing Knowledge.

The author in this article presents a midrange theory evaluation framework as an update to nursing publications over the past 50 decades on theory evaluation criteria and incorporates recent philosophical perspectives on scientific theory and knowledge development. The intent also is to encourage a theorizing style that advances understanding and explanations of nursing phenomena for nursing practice as well as for the pure joy of knowing why something happens.

Being surface

This paper problematizes the ways in which performance art might be philosophy, and vice versa, that is; how philosophy might operate as embodied praxis and method. The main hypothesis adopted is based on the argument that philosophy, though predominantly thought of as a rational ideological construction, is essentially an invitation towards change and a method on how to lead one’s life (Hadot 2001, 148). This position has been stressed by philosophers Pierre Hadot and Michel Foucault, who revisited ancient Greek philosophy in order to indicate how corporeal practices and techniques might operate as methodologies towards "new forms of life" (Rabinow 2000, 164). Foucault was particularly interested in the Cynics because of their visceral approach to philosophy as expressed by their "radical asceticism" (Foucault 2011, 167), that stood as an indication for a life which is radically other (Foucault 2011, 269-270). It is in that respect that one should also look at Foucault’s engagement with the gay leather scene; as a laboratory (Rabinow 2000, 151) towards a "[...] possibility for creative life" (Rabinow 2000, 163). In light of the above, this paper discusses Despina Zacharopoulou's performance works in order to investigate how performance strategies related to violence might suggest a radical re-thinking and revisiting of philosophy as embodied practice and method towards a life-as-surface, that is; a life experienced in its full intensity and in pure joy.

Healing Perreo

A DJ Sad Boy set is a queer portal where femmes of color, suciedad1, and raunch aesthetics reign supreme.2 The Bay Area-based Chicanx multi-media artist and DJ, who currently lives in New York City, has cultivated a sound that draws from Bay Area and 1990s hip hop, classic reggaeton and underground neoperreo, dancehall and R&B. The way these forms come together in a Sad Boy set, however, is informed by rave and their previous DJ work mixing reggae and ragga-based happy hardcore as Kid Orange in the early 2000s. For Sad Boy, the spaces of rave constituted an extended family. Music was an escape for them from a violent, machista and homophobic biological family context. Being raised Catholic also instilled shame.For many of us, music does the kind of spiritual work that heteropatriarchal religious traditions fail to do, and it is perhaps this background that makes Sad Boy sets so appealing to “queer people who apprehend the risky medium of the night to explore, know, and stage their bodies, genders, and sexualities in the face of systemic and social negation.”3 Healing occurs through perreo’s hip(g)nosis.4,5Sad Boy’s practice interacts with the growing underground music culture “neoperreo” that was spearheaded by performers such as Tomasa del Real and DJs Lizz and Sustancia. Emerging from Chile and Argentina with satellite hubs in Los Angeles and Mexico City, the genre merges reggaeton with global dance music and an emphasis on femmes and sex. The femmes at the forefront of neoperreo depart from conventional standards of Latina beauty, even within the reggaeton world, by donning numerous tattoos, S/M gear, and a goth aesthetic influenced by the digital realm. Through sound, Sad Boy and the cyber-putas of neoperreo create communal spaces where rave culture extends to perreo and vice versa.I had been following Sad Boy on Instagram (@dj_sadboy) for several years before having the privilege of enjoying a set in San Diego in 2018. The feeling it instilled in me and my group of girlfriends was pure joy; the delight of a Biggie tune following a classic by Don Omar, and Beanie Man transitioning into La Goony Chonga. We felt full, sexy and alive.I was grateful to be able to access these feelings later during the pandemic while alone, tuning into one of the many late-night sets Sad Boy streamed from their apartment on Instagram live, and later, as part of a virtual symposium I organized on Perreo as Queer Feminist Resistance. DJ Sad Boy’s practice, which is also shaped by their experiences as a sex worker, exemplifies the power of queer and feminist Latinx art making, which alchemizes shame into creative erotics of liberation. The machista messaging of mainstream reggaeton and hip hop become resignified on the dance floor, as femmes make it their own. No one is pure, and no one is damaged.DJ Sad Boy’s approach to mixing departs from the mechanized and routine standard of much EDM by employing long transitions and varied structures. In doing so, they bring a visual artist’s eye to the sonic by using the found material of music to create a collage, with the cuts and mixes as the “visible seam.”6 In fact, Sad Boy’s DJing extends from their photography work, which centers on queer femmes of color in California.Sad Boy and I have built a femme friendship over several projects we’ve collaborated on. In our interview, which occurred in December 2020 right around their birthday, we discuss how traveling within and outside of the U.S. has affected their sound, how the pandemic has affected their work, and the creation of Noche de Travesuras (Night of Transgressions), an underground queer perreo party that they established in 2017 along with queer LA-based artists DJ Baby Uniq and Jesuabones. After a long hiatus during the pandemic, the party has since resumed in New York.

10:35 am.

“Who else is left?” the attending wearily asks toward the end of our morning rounds.“Adena,” I respond, knowing no further summary is needed given her 2 months and counting with us.AdenaThirty-three years with multiple co-morbidities. On dialysis thanks to complex Type 1 diabetes. Left leg amputated thanks to a deep tissue infection. Now under our care for a nasty wound on her hand, a persistent infection that requires our strongest intravenous antibiotics. We can only guess at her cardiac state, too fragile for an angiogram after a recent myocardial infarction.Her medical notes are detailed. But the notes miss the identity of the beaming, dimpled patient before me.AdenaMother to 6- and 3-year-olds.AdenaDaughter. Sister. Wife.AdenaDreamer. Optimist. Fighter.We find her sitting upright, eager for good news.“I'm to be discharged today, then?”Her most recent swabs have come back negative. I unroll her bandage. The attending examines the area. By now we know the telltale signs of his satisfaction.She starts from the bed in excitement. She is gushing about calling her husband to share the news, make arrangements, to end this standstill she is in and return to her real life. As I turn away to continue with my day, she calls out to me.The expression on her face is unmistakable: pure joy. I find myself filled with a familiar mixture of melancholy and relief, experienced when well-liked long-stay patients are cleared to head home. I must have been showing it—her expression darkens, mirroring my pensive one.“Don't worry, nothing is wrong,” I assure her. She nods at me and replies that she knows.“There's something about being here, becoming one with the hospital furniture... well for 2 months anyway,” Adena says. “I am eager to get back,” she continues. “But I didn't expect to feel so much fear...”I inch myself toward her, making sure I keep my posture inviting and attentive, and let my silence encourage her to continue.“What worries me,” she starts, steely gaze transfixed on the wall ahead, “Is it is my duty to look after Rizqan and the kids…but what use is a weak wife and mother to them?” She meets my eyes, tears freely coursing down her face. I feel drawn into comfort, in spite of myself. Of course, they taught all the relevant communication techniques in medical school: displaying empathy, listening effectively, the kind of language to use. They trained us exactly for moments like this. Instead, in this moment I find my mind racing, scrambling for words that are appropriate. Precepts from medical school crash into residency reality. Do I provide encouragement that all will work out or advice to plan for eventual early decline? How much do I give away? What should I say versus what she needs to hear? Should I let the blows fall at once or by degrees?Slowly, I muster the courage to validate her worries and try to normalize them. She seems skeptical, but I sense a shift in her—she trusts me. Perhaps it is the white lab coat, the comforting sense of institutional knowledge I represent. Even as her mind senses that the words do not fully fit, her heart believes. She clasps my palms and rewards me with a warm look.I pat her hand and smile. The physiotherapist arrives, chattering in a way that drives overly caffeinated residents to distraction. I hurry away to prepare discharge documents, sign them, and move on.I clearly remember the time—9:46 am, a half hour had passed—when I hear the shouts. We rush forward, not knowing what this could be. Not expecting what this could be.AsystoleAdena. Lips blue. Body limp.AsystoleAdena. On the receiving end of chest compressions. The code team notified, on their way in. I jump in to volunteer CPR at the next switch.Asystole“Her husband. He's on the way over. Someone needs to call her husband.”The staff nurse abides by protocol. His phone rings audibly—he's already just outside.“How long has it been?” Forty minutes. No return of spontaneous circulation. We stop to assess the presence of a rhythm and pulse.Her husband glimpses through the curtain, standing tall. He's beaming, excited to take her home: Adena is finally leaving the hospital.Just not as we envisioned it.How does one deliver this news to him? How does one keep going through the fading of the smile, the confusion in the eyes, the desperation in his anguish? How does one watch a happy day turn into the darkest of all? The truncating of a life they had planned, and delayed, and delayed?I stand there. Feet glued. Stomach churning.10:35 am.

Age‐related taxation of bequests in the presence of a dependency risk

AbstractThis paper studies the properties of the optimal taxes on bequests when individuals differ in wage and in their risks of mortality and old‐age dependance. Survival is positively correlated to income but dependency is negatively correlated with it. The government cannot distinguish between bequests motives, that is whether bequests resulted from precautionary reasons or from pure joy of giving reasons. Instead, it observes the timing of bequests and the health status at death. Under the utilitarian social welfare criterion, we show that bequests taxation results from a combination of equity, insurance, and public revenue motives. If redistribution concerns dominate insurance concerns, it is desirable to tax the most bequests of those individuals living long in good health and to tax the least bequests of those dying early. This is a direct consequence of the socio‐demographic structure we assumed where richer agents live longer and in better health than poorer agents. To the opposite, if insurance concerns dominate redistributive concerns, early bequests should be the most taxed and, bequests under dependency the least taxed. Under the Rawlsian criterion, we find that early bequests should be the least taxed and bequests left by the healthy long‐lived individuals should be the most taxed.

On Seamus Heaney

On Seamus Heaney

Age and Health Related Inheritance Taxation

This paper studies the design of an optimal non linear inheritance taxation when individuals differ in wage as well as in their risks of both mortality and old-age dependance. We assume that the government cannot distinguish between bequests motives, that is whether bequests result from precautionary reasons or from pure joy of giving reasons. Instead, we assume that it only observes whether bequests are made early in life or late in life, and in the latter case, whether the donor is autonomous or not. The main result is that, under asymmetric information, in addition to labour income taxation, early bequests of the low-productivity agent should be distorted downward, that is, they should be taxed so as to relax incentive constraints.

“Pure Joy”: Spinoza on Laughter and Cheerfulness

AbstractLaughter is a significant topic for Renaissance and seventeenth‐century philosophers. Still, the latter rarely approved of laughter but endorsed it as useful mockery for theological or philosophical purposes. Benedict Spinoza’s view of laughter stands out as an exception to this attitude as well as to previous and later ones. Spinoza differentiates between mockery and laughter, denounces the former as evil, and characterizes the latter as “pure joy”: laughter is about oneself rather than another and originates in noticing something good, rather than base or ugly. In contrast to melancholy, cheerfulness is “always good” and is a precondition of our liberation as it furthers the use of reason. Not only is Spinoza’s view original, but it is an important source of the eighteenth‐century notions of good‐natured laughter and good humor through a more than probable influence on their proponent, the Earl of Shaftesbury. Whilst Spinoza’s view of cheerfulness is briefly addressed in recent studies, his view of laughter goes unnoticed in most commentaries and is misrepresented in humor studies. Contrary to what is assumed in the philosophy of laughter, I argue that the most important defense of laughter comes not from a British Enlightenment thinker, but from the Dutch Jewish seventeenth‐century philosopher.

Introduction: The White Album: An Enigma for the Ages

Introduction: The <i>White Album</i>: An Enigma for the Ages

Anita Zaidi

Anita Zaidi had resisted becoming a paediatrician like her mother, “but that changed when I realised the pure joy that I got from healing children”, she tells The Lancet Infectious Diseases. Ever since, her career has maintained a strong focus on maternal, child, and newborn health. Today, she is director of the vaccine development, surveillance, and enteric and diarrhoeal diseases programs at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Age-Related Taxation of Bequests in the Presence of a Dependency Risk

This paper studies the design of the optimal linear taxation of bequests when individuals differ in wage as well as in their risks of both mortality and old-age dependance. We assume that the government cannot distinguish between bequests motives, that is whether bequests resulted from precautionary reasons or from pure joy of giving reasons. Instead, we assume that it only observes the timing of bequests, that is whether they are made early in life or late in life. We show that, if the government is utilitarian, whether the taxation of early bequests should be given priority over the taxation of late bequests depends on the magnitude of insurance and redistributive concerns. While the efficiency concern unambiguously recom- mends taxation of early bequests, redistributive concerns yield ambiguous results. This indeterminacy comes from the fact that, in case of late death, the government cannot ob- serve the health status of the deceased. Whether the taxation of early bequests should be given priority depends on the specific relationships between wages and both risks of early death and of old-age dependence, as well as on the concavity of the joy of giving utility function. If the government is Rawlsian, it is optimal to tax early bequests if the survival chances of the poorest agents are very low. If they survive, but their chances to remain autonomous are very low, it is then optimal to tax early bequests if the poorest agents con- tribute relatively less to the taxation of early bequests than to the taxation of late bequests or if the joy of giving utility is extremely concave.

Things and the Company They Keep

Throw away the to-do list, empty your mind and pick up Things That Art by artist and anthropologist Lochlann Jain for a reading and viewing experience that is pure joy. The second in University of ...