Special Focus Section Research Articles

Introduction

Abstract The Third International Süleymaniye Symposium explored the Köprülü Era (1656-1710) in Ottoman history, emphasizing new sources and approaches. Scholars from Turkey, Europe, and the U.S. convened to examine the Köprülü grand viziers’ careers and times. In the current special focus section, Yasir Yılmaz, Halef Cevrioğlu, Elizabeth Lobenwein, Georg B. Michels, and Christopher Whitehead offer innovative perspectives, drawing on brand new archival material. We advocate for a comparative approach to the Ottoman grand vizierate, highlight the significance of Habsburg archives in Ottomanist scholarship, debunk new short-term and long-term historical dimensions in the making of the family, and ask new questions about how we should interpret the Köprülü expansionism.

Buddhism in the Anthropocene: Opening the Global to the Planetary

Introduction to the Special Focus section: Buddhism in the Anthropocene.

Beyond Memory

The introduction situates the Special Focus section “Chilean Film and Media: Fifty Years Later (1973/2023)” in its historical and cultural context. The year 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the coup that toppled the socialist government of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973. To reflect on the role of film and media in relation to the coup demands a move away from mere commemoration and, more broadly, from memory studies as the overarching critical framework that has dominated studies of Chilean cinema. This Special Focus section seeks to move beyond memory without neglecting the duty to remember. It is a project of reactivation, reappropriation, and repoliticization of the cinematic memory of the coup. This approach favors continuities between films made throughout the last five decades under different historical moments—the socialist years of Allende, the dictatorship, the postdictatorship, and the estallido social (social uprising) of October 2019.

Bodies that Persist

This essay by Elizabeth Ramírez-Soto, co-editor of the Special Focus section “Chilean Film and Media: Fifty Years Later (1973/2023),” discusses the nonfiction responses to the 2019 estallido social (social uprising) as part of a longer history of documentary resistance. Ramírez-Soto argues postdictatorship Chilean documentary oscillates between an emphasis on the bodies of the direct victims of state-sanctioned violence and an emphasis on the bodies of the films themselves as haptic images. Focusing on the work of the anonymous group Colectivo Cinematográfico Pedro Chaskel (CCPCH), one of the many collectives that took to the streets to document the popular revolt in 2019, Ramírez-Soto reveals how through the recycling of militant documentaries, these films establish a link with the past and with its images of resistance.

Introduction

Introduction

Flows and Counterflows of Buddhism ‘South of the West’: Australia, New Zealand and Hawai‘i

Introduction to the JGB Special Focus section, "Flows and Counterflows of Buddhism ‘South of the West’: Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaiʻi." In this special issue, we endeavour to explore horizontal flows and counter flows of Buddhism on ‘paths less travelled’ across the Pacific sea of islands, and ‘South of the West’ (Gibson 1992) rather than the usual ‘from Asia to Europe and the Americas’ story. As such, this special issue fits within the more recent scholarship on the globalisation of Buddhism that seeks to point to a more complex picture of historical and contemporary flows of Buddhist ideas, practices, objects and peoples across the globe.

Introduction to the Special Focus Section “Creative Critical”

Introduction to the Special Focus Section “Creative Critical”

Introduction: New Roads in Theravada Buddhist Studies

This special focus section celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of Charles Hallisey’s groundbreaking 1995 essay, “Roads Taken and Not Taken in the Study of Theravāda Buddhism,” which offered both an incisive reassessment of the history of Theravada studies and a generative blueprint for its future. Hallisey’s introduction of the term “intercultural mimesis” and his emphasis on the local production of meaning resonated across Buddhist studies and beyond, shaping an entire generation of scholarship on South and Southeast Asia. This introductory essay first surveys “Roads Taken and Not Taken” and its impact on Theravada studies over the past quarter-century. We then explore how junior scholars, including the three authors whose essays are featured in this section, take Hallisey’s prescriptions in new directions. In closing, we reflect on emerging themes and voices in Theravada studies not represented here and where the field may be headed over the next quarter century.

Transnational Lived Citizenship – The Case of the Eritrean Diaspora

This special focus section analyses state–diaspora relationships with a focus on the case of Eritrea, a paradigmatic example, as we show in this introduction, to elaborate on the following key questions: What determines loyalty between diaspora and the state? How can we understand the dynamics of co-optation, loyalty, and resistance that characterise many diaspora–state relationships? What is the role of historical events and memory in building alliances as well as divides among different generations and different groups in the diaspora? How do diaspora citizens interpret and enact their citizenship in everyday practices of engagement? By engaging with both citizenship and diaspora studies, this introduction shows the significance of analysing these questions through the lens of “transnational lived citizenship.” This concept enables a look at the intersections between formal aspects of citizenship as well as the emotional and practical aspects related to feelings of belonging, transnational attitudes, and circulation of material cultures.

In Sri Lanka Economic and Poverty Impact of COVID-19

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has upended the lives of children and their families as health systems buckle, borders close, and schools and businesses shutter. Also, this is a new virus was unknown before the outbreak in Wuhan, China in December 2019 (WHO, 2019) Furthermore, The Special Focus section of this edition discusses the impact of COVID-19 on poverty. The economic contraction in the wake of COVID-19 has reversed past progress, at least temporarily. Poverty is expected to have risen since the onset of the pandemic mostly due to widespread job and earning losses.The study also observes the in Sri Lanka Economic and Poverty Impact during the pandemic period. The Special Focus section of this edition discusses the impact of COVID-19 on poverty. The economic contraction in the wake of COVID-19 has reversed past progress, at least temporarily. Poverty is expected to have risen since the onset of the pandemic mostly due to widespread job and earning losses. Simulations suggest that job losses were more likely to occur in urban areas and among private sector and own-account workers. Job losses were concentrated in the lower-middle of the income distribution: workers most vulnerable to job loss are located between the 2percentiles percentiles of the pre-pandemic earnings distribution. Temporary absence from work and job losses occurred less frequently than declines in earnings. While informal workers are more likely to suffer earnings losses, formal workers have been affected as well, for example in the export-oriented apparel industry.

Introduction

The first of its kind, this special focus section examines a relatively understudied concept and brings together new literary works and scholarship across continents and languages. Contemporary authors and activists like Fatou Diome, Shailja Patel, Abdourahman Waberi, and Igiaba Scego contribute to a new literary, cultural, and political genre called migritude. Migritude initially indicated a group of younger African authors in Paris but has since expanded to include Europe beyond France, such as Britain and Italy, as well as South Asian and Caribbean diasporas. This body of work reveals intersections between complex histories of colonialism, immigration, globalization, and racism against migrants and highlights differences in region, class, gender, and sexuality that constrain the movement of many people. In an era characterized by openly belligerent nationalism and anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, this special focus section aims to unpack migritude cultural production in an international context to study and combat these violent trends.

Special Focus Section: The Dislocated Knee-Part 2.

Special Focus Section: The Dislocated Knee-Part 2.

Special Focus Section: The Dislocated Knee-Part 1.

Special Focus Section: The Dislocated Knee-Part 1.

Measuring Worth

Measuring Worth

Osteochondral Injuries of the Knee in Pediatric Patients.

Osteochondral injuries in pediatric patients may occur as a result of a traumatic injury or secondary to an osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) lesion. Lateral patella dislocation is a common traumatic cause of osteochondral injury that typically occurs at the medial facet of the patella or at the lateral aspect of the distal femur. Multiple theories have been proposed for the cause of an OCD lesion in the knee, including trauma or repetitive microtrauma, local vascular insufficiency, and family history. The most "classic" location for OCD lesions of the knee is the lateral aspect of the medial femoral condyle of the distal femur. Multiple treatment options are available for both traumatic osteochondral injuries and OCD lesions, with important determining factors of treatment being skeletal maturity of the patient, instability of the fragment, lesion location, and size of the lesion. Nonsurgical management is appropriate in some situations. Surgical options range from simple fragment excision to internal fixation of the fracture fragment to more complex cartilage restoration or replacement procedures. This special focus section will discuss the diagnosis and treatment options for traumatic osteochondral knee injuries, including the subset secondary to juvenile OCD lesions.

Advanced Optical Materials : Shedding Light on Excellent Research for 5 Years

<i>Advanced Optical Materials</i> : Shedding Light on Excellent Research for 5 Years

Introduction to the special focus section: kidney.

Introduction to the special focus section: kidney.

Emergent Precarities and Lateral Aesthetics

This introduction to the special focus section, “Emergent Precarities and Lateral Aesthetics,” takes the recent work of Lauren Berlant and Judith Butler as its point of departure to map the parameters of lateral agency and precarity as a means of exploring what options are available for artistic and cultural projects that attempt to imagine their way through, and/or intervene in, the neoliberal forces producing these attritions in, and of, labor and life. Drawing from certain developments in postwar avant-garde art and culture (e.g., Debord's notion of drift) as well as more recent investigations in art, aesthetics, and politics (e.g., Rancière's notion of indeterminacy), this essay proposes that new habits of attenuation, diminution, and collective de-dramatization, along with new modes of perception — to which “emergent precarities” and “lateral aesthetics” offer a tentative name — serve as options for projects in literature, visual art, and related modes of cultural production that work to describe, investigate, and at times interrupt the conditions of neoliberalism.

Introduction to the Focus Section on the 2015 Gorkha, Nepal, Earthquake

It has long been recognized that Nepal faces high earthquake hazard, with the most recent large ( M w>7.5) events in 1833 and 1934. When the 25 April 2015 M w 7.8 Gorkha earthquake struck, it appeared initially to be a realization of worst fears. In spite of its large magnitude and proximity to the densely populated Kathmandu valley, however, the level of damage was lower than anticipated, with most vernacular structures within the valley experiencing little or no structural damage. Outside the valley, catastrophic damage did occur in some villages, associated with the high vulnerability of stone masonry construction and, in many cases, landsliding. The unexpected observations from this expected earthquake provide an urgent impetus to understand the event itself and to better characterize hazard from future large Himalayan earthquakes. Toward this end, articles in this special focus section present and describe available data sets and initial results that better illuminate and interpret the earthquake and its effects.

Introduction to the ICBEB Special Focus

The articles in this Special Focus section are selected from the International Workshop on Human Vaccines and Immunotherapy (IWHVI-2015) as held in Shanghai, from August 18th - 21st, 2015. IWHVI-2015 is a workshop of the 4th International Conference on Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology (ICBEB). Regarding the significance of vaccinology and immunotherapy effects in the treatment of diseases, such as cancer, autoimmunity, allergy, and Alzheimer’s, we have this workshop and this issue to provide a comprehensive global forum for experts and participants from academia to exchange ideas and present results on ongoing research in the most state-of-the-art areas of vaccinology and immunotherapy. It concludes the selections from IWHVI-2015 and focuses on the treatment by immunotherapy. The details of the papers are as follows: