Act Of Self-destruction Research Articles

Palestine +100: Stories from a century after the Nakba Edited by BasmaGhalayini. Manchester, U.K: Comma Press, 2019.

Palestine +100: Stories from a century after the Nakba Edited by BasmaGhalayini. Manchester, U.K: Comma Press, 2019.

"I am, I am, I am" Self-Criticism in the Confessional Poetry of Sylvia Plath

This paper aims at examining the theme of self-criticism in selected poems by the American poet Sylvia Plath. In her practice of self-criticism, Plath is influenced by the personal happenings in her life and her adoption of Confessionalism as a means of expression. Thus, her autobiography is of vital importance to the understanding of her poetry. The paper argues that although Plath seeks self-betterment through criticizing the self, this is less visible in her life than in the art she produces and the poetic legacy she left. It is true that her poetry shows a sincere desire for self-construction through self-criticism; however, her final act of self-destruction by committing suicide marks a complete failure as a person.

Existential Definition at the End of the American Road

This article discusses three films that helped landmark American cinema in the 1970s. Although differing in inception and reception, all three belong loosely to the genre of the road movie and are linked by protagonists whose stances of rebellion and alienation were characteristic of the counterculture of the 1970s and by the broader theme of existential self-definition that still influences moviemaking today. A critical and commercial failure on its release in 1970, Michelangelo Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point has been revalorized as an ambitious attempt to represent the political and cultural conflicts that seemed to be fracturing American society at the time. In contrast, Richard Sarafian’s Vanishing Point soon overcame the disadvantage of studio disinterest and established itself as a cult favorite. Arguably the definitive anti-hero of 1970s cinema, the amphetamine-fueled renegade driver played by Barry Newman achieves iconic stature through an act of defiant self-destruction that still leaves viewers of the film stunned. Finally, Clint Eastwood’s The Gauntlet, in which the actor-director breaks with his ‘Dirty Harry’ persona to depict a burned-out cop who redeems a ruined career, and enables himself a new start, not by making his own law but by enforcing the law on the books, and against all odds. In all three films, the still unspoiled landscape of the American Southwest, crisscrossed by its skein of highways, provides the tableau for escapist fantasies that may in fact be real, for high-speed chases and automotive acrobatics that defy the laws of physics, and for vignettes of an ‘outsider’ way of life that was already beginning to perish.

다자이 오사무(太宰治) 문학의 Apoptosis 상상력

In this study, I intend to examine the method of self-destruction consistently shown in the literature of Osamu Dazai. The metaphor of self-destruction is to be investigated throughout the literary imagination of that of apoptosis. In Dazai's works, various situations of addiction as well as the character's chaotic attitude toward life are expressed with a twist: a way of actively revealing pain and resisting with one's own body. Such a sense of a twist is proved against the characters that resist the social system. The act of exposing the mechanism of repression and rejecting the structure of a closed existence is metaphorized in the work as that of an act of self-destruction, an ‘apoptosis’. What stands out in Dazai's work is the self-destructive aspect. The act of apoptosis, which proves one's existence through the method of annihilation, is expressed as a resistance attempt to defy and overthrow the dominant discourse as well as that of self-destruction; to manifest one's existence. Therefore the imagination of the apoptosis creates a crack in the order of reality and pushes boundaries which suggest the possibility of a life that is completely different from the real one.

Controlling the Noise: A Phenomenological Account of Anorexia Nervosa and the Threatening Body

Anorexia nervosa (AN) is a complex disorder characterized by self-starvation, an act of selfdestruction. It is often described as a disorder marked by paradoxes and, despite extensive research attention, is still not well understood. Much AN research focuses upon the distorted body image that individuals with AN supposedly experience. However, based upon reports from individuals describing their own experience of AN, I argue that their bodily experience is much more complex than this focus might lead us to believe. Such research often presents an overly cognitive understanding of bodily experience in AN, underplaying the affective, felt experience of individuals with AN, as well as descriptions of empowerment, strength and control reported in the early stages of AN. This article seeks to enrich our understanding of bodily experience in AN as it progresses throughout the various stages of the disorder. I show how the classical phenomenological distinction between the body-as-subject and the body-as-object, as well as Leder's conception of the visceral body, can inform our understanding of bodily experience in AN. I suggest that the project of self-starvation is an attempt to overcome the noisy demands of the visceral body, which are experienced as threatening the body-as-subject, through a process of objectifying the body-as-object. By cashing out AN as a project of radical bodily control that, tragically, comes to control the individual, we can capture important aspects of the bodily experience of AN and the temporal progression of the disorder.

Opinions and attitudes of postgraduates towards suicide attempts in a rural tertiary medical college of India

Background: Suicide, commonly defined as “an act of self-destruction, initiated and committed by a person who is aware of the fatal outcome and has substantial socioeconomic and cultural influences. The current suicide rate in India is 10.6/100,000 population. Doctors play an active part in the treatment and prevention of patients with suicide attempts, and their therapeutic endeavors may interrupt the ongoing suicidal process. The aims and objectives of this study were to assess the Opinions and Attitudes of the postgraduates of the various clinical departments towards suicide and to find out for any differences among postgraduates of Surgical and Medical groups who manage the consequences of the chosen methods of the suicidal attempts of the patients. Postgraduates of psychiatry were not included. Materials and Methods: It was a cross-sectional study done on various nonpsychiatric postgraduates between October and November 2019 in R L Jalappa Hospital, a constituent unit of Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research, who are assessed using structured and validated instruments, the Suicide Opinion Questionnaire, and Attitudes to Suicide Prevention Scale. Results: The majority of both the Surgical and allied science groups with the Medicine and allied science group nonpsychiatric postgraduates had a negative disposition towards suicide attempters and negative attitudes towards suicide prevention strategies and there was no statistical difference among them. Conclusion: There must be training for non-psychiatric specialists towards suicide regularly and change in their respective PG training curriculum towards the approach of patients with self-injurious behaviors.

The Impact of Video Game Plots on the Formation of Destructive Trends and Anxiety in Adolescents

Video games are a popular entertainment in many countries, however, among video game users, experts identify people with addictions. This article presents the results of our studies of the factors affecting the nature of actions within the game framework and the mental state of adolescents. On the basis of source data and our own clinical research, we have created and applied a diagnostic questionnaire to identify preferences in the choice of genres, plots and characters of computer games. One hundred and forty teenagers were examined, seventy males and seventy females. It has been established that the use of inanimate objects as the main character is directly related to the user's desire for destructive actions within the game framework (p <0.05). The influence of the act of self-destruction of a computer game hero on the psychological state of a user is studied. The relationship between the high level of personal anxiety and the sign “acceptability of self-destruction in the game” (p <0.05) was established. It is concluded that restricting the use by children of role-playing computer games with inanimate objects or the self-destruction of heroes, as well as online games for the purpose of entertainment, will help to prevent the formation of negative trends in the mentality of adolescents.

Transfer of Land Rights Based on the Data Authorization of Selling in Terms of Authority Giver Died in Pekanbaru

The transfer of land rights that use the power of attorney to sell as the basis for making the sale and purchase deed by the Land Drafting Official at the Pekanbaru City National Land Agency Office is very much in the interest of the people in Pekanbaru, because in terms of time, procedures, and costs are very practical and efficient. According to the Civil Code, article 1795, the grantor of the power of attorney can be carried out specifically, namely regarding one or more specific interests, or in general, which includes all the interests of the Authorizer. Selling Power is an ability with substitution rights (rights that can be replaced) granted by the owner of the guarantee to the authorized recipient appointed by the owner of the guarantee, to sell to other parties or himself at prices and conditions that are considered both by the guarantee owner and the proxy. The implementation of the transfer of land rights has been regulated in Government Regulation Number 24 of 1997 concerning Land Registration.In practice in the field of the use of the transfer of land rights based on the selling power of attorney, there is no difference as to whether the deed of selling power is still valid or not applicable, because the Office of the National Land Agency in Pekanbaru City only provides conditions for a statement stating that the letter of the authorizer is still alive and the power of attorney deed has never been revoked, which was signed by the power of attorney. In article 1813 to article 1819 the Civil Code has regulated the method of the end of the granting of power. Based on the description above, it will be examined on how the position of the selling power of attorney in the transfer of land rights, how the process of transferring rights to land based on the power of attorney to sell in the event that the authority dies in Pekanbaru, and how the legal consequences of the transfer of land rights based on the power of attorney to sell in the case of the party giving the power of attorney died in Pekanbaru. This research method uses an empirical juridical approach which is a study carried out in terms of applicable laws and regulations and is associated with facts found in the field. The Deed of Sale Authority shall be used as the basis for the process of drafting the Deed of Purchase under the name and at the same time be used as a tool for registering the transfer of land rights at the City of Pekanbaru Land Office. The process of transferring land rights based on the selling power of attorney in the event that the authority dies in Pekanbaru cannot be transferred to the National Land Agency because it is null and void according to articles 1813, 1814, and 1816 Civil Code. As a result of the legal transfer of land rights based on the selling power of attorney where the party who passed away died in Pekanbaru is an act of self-destruction, if you want to continue the transfer of rights must be done first the process of inheritance to the heirs concerned.

A Pope on a Neoliberal Island

A Pope on a Neoliberal Island Kevin Hargaden Introduction It is a year since Pope Francis visited Ireland. Various explanations can be offered for the relatively small numbers who attended the official ceremonies, although it should be remembered that these events represented the largest public gatherings anywhere in the state last year. The lashing rain and gusting wind on the Sunday of the Mass in the Phoenix Park most certainly would have deterred the fair-weather Catholics! What cannot be disputed is that Francis arrived to a society with a remarkably different attitude towards his office than received John Paul II. In this essay, the gap between the two papal visits will be explored in terms of the collapse in the shared trust in Christianity and the growing commitment to an alternative narrative about human flourishing, which will be described as neoliberalism. This shift in allegiance will be considered in terms of the concrete details of Francis’s trip – his vehicle, his route, his flight-path – so as to demonstrate that neoliberalism is not a mere set of policy proposals but a totalised worldview. In conclusion, the work of theAmerican moral theologian William Cavanaugh and the Irish translator Michael Cronin will be adapted to suggest ways forward for Ireland’s churches after Francis’s visit. Collapsing and Constructing Plausibility Structures Considering that all conversations about the state of Christianity in Ireland eventually get around to referencing that visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979, it is a curious fact that there is so little evidence of retrospective reflection in the Church’s major pastoral journals. Thumbing through the archives of Doctrine and Life and The Furrow in 1989, 1999, or 2004, you find very little evidence of a Church marked by this most momentous visit. Interestingly, at the time we already find notes of discontent about the dangers of the visit being framed in triumphalist terms. Louis McRedmond, the former editor of the Irish Independent wrote in The Furrow in October 1979 that ‘it would be an unrelieved disaster’ if the visit was positioned as a moment of victory for the ‘old-style faithful’. If the Pontiff was not properly briefed on the diversity within the local Church, Redmond worried that ‘the young, the thinkers, the Kevin Hargaden Studies • volume 108 • number 430 172 apathetic would be further and most seriously alienated’. He closes his piece by declaring: ‘I believe that we are capable of such an act of self-destruction. … We need to have honesty to show ourselves as we are, not as any one of us thinks we should be’.1 Four decades later, McRedmond’s prescience is striking. Serious alienation is an excellent description for how much of Irish society, especially in younger age-groups, relates to the Church. From every angle, there has been a cataclysmic decline in religious participation over the last generation. Fewer people attend religious services. More people choose to opt out of Catholic rites of passage. Fewer people consider themselves Christian. Vocations have dwindled. Religious authorities have a much smaller part to play in public discourse.2 While the memory of Christianity lingers in Irish culture – we can think of recent masterpieces like John Michael McDonagh’s 2014 masterpiece, Calvary – many of the recent generation of artists seem largely uninterested in theological themes.3 The particular social circumstances and institutional arrangements that made Christianity seem like common-sense in 1979 have evaporated today, in 2019.4 The plausibility structures around Christianity, and particularly Roman Catholicism, have collapsed. The package of practices, institutional forces, and shared values that rendered Christian faith coherent, and at times even compelling, have disintegrated to a large degree because of failures within the churches. The impact of abuse revelations is chief among the sins of commission and omission that have led to the discrediting of the Gospel. But a recounting of the Church’s failings is not enough (although it still must continue) to account for this transition. It is not simply that the credibility of the Church took a hammering, but that an alternative narrative went from strength to strength, winning the deeplevel allegiance of many people, especially the young. Call it individualism, or globalisation, or...

Social Experiment for Rural India: Addressing Indian Farmers Suicide Problems via Wireless Technology

India has a huge population, with 70% of the labor force engaged in agriculture. A social experiment is proposed in this paper for a focus study of the problem and the remedy for the Indian farmers suicide phenomenon. As a deep rooted problem in rural India, this paper suggests the need for bringing psychological consultation for the farmers, as suicide is an impulsive act that cannot be solely solved by long term infrastructure investment aiming for improvement of productivity and technology. The paper argues that the social experiment should be conducted in small scale in a remote rural setting as a small step, ideally by suitable NGOs, to more effectively isolate factors that contribute to the cause, as well as to experiment with more cost effective ways to provide remedies. Wireless technology provides the “in-the-moment” intervention for an impulsive act of selfdestruction. Although this intervention will not solve intermediate and long term infrastructure problems on the needs of farmers in rural India, it can be used as a spring board to promote other innovative initiatives of using wireless and digital technology. When farmers in primitive remote areas start using wireless technology and embrace the use of it as a habit, it will allow an easier integration with the many smart village initiatives already started and on-going in India. Promoting lifestyle is as important as promoting productivity. The social experiment will enhance sustainable development for India.

Suicide Clause in Various Life Policies in India

Life insurance policy is a contract between the policy holder (assured) and the insurer (insurance company), where the insurer promises to pay a designated beneficiary a sum of money (a “premium”) upon the death of the insured person. In return, the policy holder agrees to pay a stipulated amount (at regular intervals or in lump sums). In nutshell, life policies are legal contracts and the terms of the contract describe the limitations of the insured events. Specific exclusions are often written into the contract to limit the liability of the insurer; common examples are claims relating to suicide, fraud, war, riot and civil commotion. Suicide means a wilful and intentional act on the part of the self-destroyer. It includes every act of self-destruction. Policies of life insurance contain conditions by which the liability of the insurer is modified and limited in case of suicide by the assured. Where there is such a clause in a policy, the insurer can avoid the policy. The position in England and in India is different on this issue. In England suicide is a crime and hence no money is payable if a person commits suicide while in a sane state of mind. On the other hand if the assured was insane at the time of committing suicide, the sum due can be recovered by his legal representatives. Under the Indian law, suicide in itself is not an offence, and as such a policy cannot be avoided on the ground of suicide, unless the policy otherwise provides. Suicide will, however, not affect the rights of assignee, if the policy holder had assigned the policy for valuable consideration. The burden of proving suicide is upon the insurers and where the cause of death is not known, the presumption is against suicide and the policy cannot be avoided. This same is followed in India. According to this approach, the claim would be barred on a contractual level because the assured cannot be the author of his own loss, and on a broader level, because the law will not allow him to benefit from his own criminal acts. This paper examines the development of law and policy in relation to claims on life insurance policy where the assured or insured has committed suicide after the commencement of the policy and the effect of suicide clause in life insurance contract. Is that the present practice of insurance companies to insert suicide clause in life policies, indirectly promotes commercial suicide in cases of intentional suicides.

Absolute Signification and Ontological Inconsistency in E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann

Absolute Signification and Ontological Inconsistency in E. T. A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann Gabriel Trop "Der ächte philosophische Akt ist Selbsttödtung, dies ist der reale Anfang aller Philosophie, dahin geht alles Bedürfniß des philosophischen Jüngers, und nur dieser Akt entspricht allen Bedingungen und Merkmalen der transcendendalen Handlung."1 [The true philosophical act is the putting to death of the self, this is the real beginning of all philosophy, and every need of the philosophical disciple goes in this direction, and only this act corresponds to all the conditions and characteristics of the transcendental attitude.] These words, written by Novalis, declare that philosophy begins in an act of self-destruction, or more precisely formulated: all properly philosophical acts aim to destroy the self. This demand is not as mysterious as it might seem. A self, by definition, is differentiated and limited, and thus represents one of the most palpable impediments to that which romantic philosophy seeks, namely, the absolute, das Unbedingte, that which is without condition and without limit. A truly philosophical act must efface the horizon of limitations and differences that constitutes self-hood: Selbsttödtung, self-annihilation. The proper name for this act is not suicide, but transcendence. And yet: what is suicide other than the most extreme and literal form of self-extinction? E. T. A. Hoffmann would have been able to read the fragment cited above in Schlegel and Tieck's edition of Novalis's collected works.2 In light of this fragment, it is worth considering whether or not Hoffmann's most celebrated Nachtstück (Night Piece), Der Sandmann—which culminates in a spectacular act of self-destruction, Selbsttödtung—is much more than a story about childhood trauma, abuse, irony, or the tragic frustrations of a mediocre poet. Rather, Der Sandmann, as an aesthetic document, indexes a distinctly philosophical problem, namely, the phenomenal movements and operations associated with a conception of the absolute that exists beyond all instances of differential signification attached to a limited self. Seen from this perspective, the central problem of Der Sandmann is less psychological than ontological: it concerns not the pathological psyche of a problematic individual, but the order of beings as a whole. [End Page 221] At the center of this philosophical problem—which is in turn a representational problem: how does that which is outside representation and differentiation as such, the absolute as unconditioned and unlimited, announce itself in the field of beings and world of differences—lies the figure of the Sandman himself. As a textual presence, the Sandman cannot be reduced to the indexical sign of a primordial psychological trauma. Such a simplification overlooks the fact that the Sandman functions as a generative presence at the very source and origin of aesthetic representations, a figure beyond all figuration whose central impulse manifests itself in a drive to self-reproduction.3 The Sandman stands as the executor of an imaginative operation that does not simply block the successful formation of an ego identity; on the contrary, the Sandman gives form to the very transcendental principle of the absolute as articulated in the philosophical discourse of romanticism. The attempt to produce the absolute discursively generates a specific form of romantic semiosis that I shall call absolute signification, and a close examination of E. T. A. Hoffmann's narrative reveals a distinct engagement with and repurposing of this form of signification. First, I will define absolute signification more precisely within the specific ontology of romantic science and romantic philosophical inquiry, for which Schelling's philosophy of nature (Naturphilosophie) and Johann Wilhelm Ritter's Fragmente aus dem Nachlasse eines jungen Physikers (Fragments from the Estate of a Young Physicist 1810) may serve as models. Then, I will examine in what way the various operations and functions of absolute signification animate Hoffmann's text. Reading the text ontologically as opposed to psychologically encourages us to rethink the central value of the Sandman: the Sandman enables a pervasive and wandering mode of signification predicated upon an internal contradiction in the world of appearances that in turn propels the differential system to self-reproduce. To be sure, the textual and imaginative operations associated with the Sandman represent a dangerous and...

Differences between suicide and non-suicidal self-harm behaviours: a literary review.

According to the current information of WHO, suicide is one of the 20 most common causes of death in the whole population. Suicides constitute one of the most common causes of death amongst teenagers. Apart from suicide, another significant, however much less known phenomenon is the non-suicidal self-injury. Despite the fact that we know much less about self-harm than about suicide, the results of research during the last years indicate that self-harm occurs more frequently in the population of adolescents – suicides constitute 10% in the population of teenagers, and 7-14% of adolesncets report to have performed a self-harm act at least once in their live. The last transnational research shows that the frequency of self-destructive behaviours in adolescents is at the level of 24% of the whole population, which might indicate an intensification of this phenomenon. In some cases self-injury takes place with a clear intention of committing suicide, or a self-destructive act, which often precedes a suicidal attempt long before the final decision to carry it out. Nevertheless, In the majority of cases self-injury is not performed with the intention of death. Therefore a question might be posed: do self-harm acts constitute a separate category of behaviours, or do they inevitably lead to a suicidal death? When answering this question, we ought to take a closer look at both phenomena to have a better knowledge about their etiology, risk factors, and to understand when they co-occur, and when they belong to different categories of self-aggressive behaviours.

The Potent Eunuch: The Story of Wei Zhongxian

Abstract Literary and historical sources assumed ulterior, even diabolical, motives in the man who voluntarily became a eunuch. If he was lucky, he could become the ruler's confidant and even usurp imperial power. Focusing on Ming eunuch Wei Zhongxian (1568–1627), the article addresses key questions in the portrayal of eunuchs: How and why did a man become a eunuch? What were his motives, as far as can be learned from historical cases; and what did storytellers and other writers think his motives were? In the case of powerful and influential eunuchs, the question also became, how, after his act of self-destruction, did the eunuch reconstruct himself? How did he re-create himself as a newly potent man?

Towards an organisational suicidology

Suicide is often presented in contemporary popular discourse as an individualistic act of self-destruction, but when academic sociology emerged as a discipline in the nineteenth century, it was initially studied as a cultural phenomenon. Contemporary studies of suicide in the context of organised work, however, have taken a psychologistic turn and increasingly disregard the tradition of studying suicide from cultural perspectives. A culturally informed organisational suicidology has the potential to provide new understandings of how people relate to organisations and work in contemporary societies, as well as providing resources to assist individuals affected by this issue. This article utilises a bibliometric analysis to inform how the research literature has treated suicide as an organisational phenomenon. A definition of organisational suicidology is proposed and future research is suggested with a view to assisting the development of the field.

Commentary on suicide and homelessness: What differentiates homeless persons who died by suicide from other suicides in Australia? A comparative analysis using a unique mortality registry

Several years ago I published an essay lamenting the lack of research addressing the issue of suicide within the homeless population [1]. As an academic community psychiatrist in the United States (US) I have spent over 25 years providing clinical care to homeless persons who are experiencing the effects of mental illness and/or substance use disorders. What prompted my plea for more research was the suicide of a young adult male patient who was under my care for schizophrenia and polysubstance abuse. His name was Thomas. He had spent much of his adult life on the streets and in shelters. He was in his late 20s when he suicided, just a day after I had seen him in my clinic. Incredulously, prior to taking his own life he had appeared to be doing very well from the rough clinical and social measures we use in this imprecise practice of medicine and rehabilitation. His suicide forced me to ask those painful questions every clinician performs through a selfadministered cross-examination following such a tragic event: what forces conspired that to led to this final act of self-destruction? What risk factors went undetected? What did I miss? What could I have done better? My search of the literature provided a wealth of information on suicide among patients with psychiatric illness, as well as comorbid substance use disorders, but I found precious little on the impact homelessness might have upon the risk of suicide. The piece published in this issue of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, entitled, ‘‘What differentiates homeless persons who died by suicide from other suicides in Australia? A comparative analysis using a unique mortality registry’’, is a tremendous first step in bridging a long-neglected gap in the body of health care research for persons experiencing homelessness [2]. This study by Arnautovska, Sveticic and De Leo is an interesting, timely and well-written endeavor to identify the most prominent demographic and clinical characteristics of homeless people who died by suicide in Queensland, Australia, over a 20-year period (1990–2009). Utilizing a mortality dataset derived from the Queensland Suicide Registry, the investigators determined that homeless persons had a suicide rate that was nearly twice higher than their non-homeless counterparts. The risk profile that emerged among this cohort of homeless persons was one that identified gender as significant (males completed more suicides than females), being of young age, unemployed, being single or never married, and having at least one physical illness. Not surprisingly, substance use disorders and untreated mental illness were prominent characteristics among those who took their own lives. In the US, on any given night, there are nearly 650, 000 individuals who live in shelters, on the streets, in abandoned buildings, or move from one unstable residence to another as ‘‘couch surfers’’ [3]. Nearly 25–28 % have a serious mental illness and it has been estimated that 50 % suffer from a substance use disorder [4]. In the large Florida city within which I practice, 70 % of the population of homeless persons is male, unmarried, and have an average age of 40 years. 90 % of our local homeless population report being unemployed [5]. Like so many others in this country who live in extreme poverty, persons who are homeless have little access to formal primary and mental health services since they lack employer-based or public health care insurance. Hence, when I reflect upon the implications of this study in my own clinical practice I recognize that nearly all my patients are at increased risk for suicide compared to their counterparts in the general R. C. Christensen (&) Department of Psychiatry, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, USA e-mail: rchris@ufl.edu

Living torches of Tibet – Religious and Political Implications of the Recent Self-Immolations

Self-immolation is not an ordinary suicide or self-destructive act, but has a religious dimension since one’s own body is seen as a gift for a greater cause. This article highlights the specific Bu ...

The Fanonian Specter in Palestine: Suicide Bombing and the Final Colonial War

Drawing upon Fanon’s central insights in Wretched of the Earth, this essay seeks to explore how Palestinian suicide bombers in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict enact a biopolitical strategy, as part of an anti-colonial politics of struggle, to resist Israeli colonization. This biopolitical strategy of resistance views the act of self-destruction as paradoxically enabling the continuation of communal life; the decision to terminate an individual life, then, represents an affirmation of Palestinian communal life as it resists defeat, despair, and humiliation.

Les facteurs liés aux tentatives de suicide dans une population tunisienne de patients atteints de schizophrénie

The mortality rate in schizophrenia is 4.5 times higher than in the general population. Suicide is one of the main causes of premature death in this affection. Life time prevalence of this behavior ranges from 10 to 15%, which represents a risk 20 to 50 times higher than in the general population. In addition, 40 to 93% of patients who committed suicide had attempted suicide previously. Thus, assessment of correlated variables with suicide attempts is a fundamental issue for developing preventive and therapeutic strategies in suicidal behavior. To the best of our knowledge, no systematic study has yet investigated suicide attempts in an Arabic Muslim population with schizophrenia, although many authors have demonstrated cultural differences in socio-demographic and clinical variables related to suicide attempts within many geographic areas around the world.The objectives of this study were to assess the frequency and characteristics of lifetime suicide attempts in Tunisian schizophrenic outpatients and to determine the correlated socio-demographic, clinical and therapeutic variables.A total of 134 patients with a DSM-IV diagnosis of schizophrenia who attended the outpatient department of the university psychiatric hospital of Tunis were included. The main demographic and lifetime clinical variables considered were: gender, marital status, family history of psychiatric disorders and suicide attempts, age at time of recruitment, age at onset of illness, duration of untreated psychosis defined as the interval between the onset of the illness and the first antipsychotic treatment, the type and dose of current treatment, dose of antipsychotic drugs converted to chlorpromazine equivalents, extrapyramidal side effects assessed with the Simpson Angus rating scale, number of hospitalizations, comorbid substance abuse, cigarette smoking, severity of psychopathology measured with the Positive And Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS), and history of at least one suicide attempt. A suicide attempt was defined as a self-destructive act carried out with at least some intent to end one's life. We also assessed the number, the used methods and the causes of suicide attempts. We subdivided the sample into two sub samples according to the presence or absence of suicidal attempts. We analyzed and compared the demographic, clinical and therapeutic variables.Out of the 134 patients, 45 (32%) had attempted suicide at least once. Half of them (49%) had attempted suicide more than once. The number of suicide attempts varied from one to five with an average of 1.8. The most used methods were medication overdose (n=18, 23.4%), followed by organophosphate poisoning (n=11, 14.3%), defenestration (n=9, 11.7%) and hanging or using sharp objects (n=7, 9.1% for each of them). The main reported reasons of suicide attempts were depressive symptoms (n=46, 60%) including depressed mood and hopelessness, stressful life events (bereavement, divorce, separation) (n=35, 46%) and presence of delusions and/or auditory hallucinations (n=25, 32.5%). No differences were found between the two groups regarding the different socio-demographic variables. Significant differences were found with respect to a duration of untreated psychosis equal to or more than one year (P<0.001), smoking in men (P=0.03), positive symptoms score on the PANSS (P<0.001), scores of Simpson-Angus scale (P=0.029) and poor medication compliance (P=0.02).Demographic variables as suggested by other studies are less valuable predictors of suicide attempts in patients with schizophrenia. Interventions for reducing such behavior should focus on clinical variables and integrate an early diagnosis of the disease, reduce positive psychotic symptoms and tobacco consumption, correct extrapyramidal signs and improve medication compliance.

A Hunger Strike - The Ecology of a Protest: The Case of Bahraini Activist Abdulhad al-Khawaja

This article uses the case of a Bahraini activist to explore the twin interrelated ecologies of a hunger strike. The first ecology is the ethical framing of a prison hunger strike as a corporeal-environmental act of (self) destruction intended to achieve political ends. The second ecology is the operation of global media where international inaction inadvertently foregrounds the political struggles that larger events and discourses surrounding Egypt, Libya and Syria overshadow. What connects these two ecologies is the body of the hunger striker, turned into a spectacle and mediated via a politics of affect that invites a global public to empathize and so enter into his suffering. The connection between the two lies in the emaciated body of the hunger striker in this case, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja