Tragic Situations Research Articles

The New Edith Wharton Studies

The New Edith Wharton Studies

Hungary: A Short History

Hungary: A Short History

Capacitating relatives of incapacitated patients.

Capacitating relatives of incapacitated patients.

Tragic motifs of the Great Patriotic War. Interpretation of Vasil Bykov

This article analyzes the reconstruction of tragic moments of the Great Patriotic War in two novellas by Vasil Bykov “The Ordeals” and “In the Fog”. The author notes that vigilant attention to the tragic in science and depiction of tragic heroes and situations in art did not always align with the time describe in the texts. Emphasis is made on the fact that the tragic perception of the world or tragic tonality are inherent to Russian literature in different periods of its existence, and thus, the comprehension of essence of the tragic and its theory require further examination by the philologists, sociologists and philosophers. The relevance and novelty are substantiated by the following aspects: need for further comprehension of the essence of the importance for literary studies phenomenon and concept of “tragic”; selection of the indicative for the literature of 1920’s, and 1960’s – 1970’a works and representative from the perspective of interpretation of tragic moments of the Russian life of 1940’s therein; as well as need to thoughtfully and analytically explain the essence of the tragic characters and situation, and how they were perceived in real life and Russian literature of the XX century.

Addressing harm in moral case deliberation: the views and experiences of facilitators

BackgroundIn healthcare practice, care providers are confronted with decisions they have to make, directly affecting patients and inevitably harmful. These decisions are tragic by nature. This study investigates the role of Moral Case Deliberation (MCD) in dealing with tragic situations. In MCD, caregivers reflect on real-life dilemmas, involving a choice between two ethical claims, both resulting in moral damage and harm. One element of the reflection process is making explicit the harm involved in the choice. How harmful are our decisions? We investigated how facilitators of MCD experience the importance of addressing harm in MCD and what participants learn from reflecting on harm.MethodsThe study was qualitative, focusing on the views and experiences of the facilitators of MCD. Semi-structured interviews (N = 12) were conducted with facilitators of MCD. The research focuses on the subjective experiences of facilitators. Grounded Theory was used for analysis.ResultsThe results show two main categories. The first concerns the awareness of tragedy. Within this category, five themes were discerned: making explicit that there is no solution, visualizing consequences, uncovering pain, focusing on emotion, and exploring perspectives on harm. The second category concerns the support for healthcare professionals in dealing with the tragedy of the choices they face. In this category, five themes came forward: acknowledging, offering comfort, managing harm, consideration through dialogue and repairing harm.ConclusionOur study shows that addressing harm in MCD in tragic situations provides an important moral learning opportunity for participants. By formulating and becoming aware of harm, MCD aids healthcare professionals in the task they are faced with, namely making difficult and painful choices. MCD helps healthcare professionals to repair moral damage, making clear at the same time that harm cannot be undone.

“If you don’t push, you’ll kill your child!” Midwives and mothers faced with perinatal death (Togo)

The latest global reports show that in 2016, 2.6million children died worldwide during their first month of birth. Also, the proportion of neonatal deaths among the deaths ofchildren under 5 increased between 1990 and 2015: from 26% in 1990 to 35% in 2015[1]. An anthropological study in public health and home-based structures in north Togo (Savanes region) allowed us to observe and perform a clinical ethnography of different perinatal death situations. The nursing staff, consider the mother as responsible: She didn't come to the hospital early; she was ill but did not get treated or she was late for the expulsion leaving the newborn suffocating. The health care staff is rarely called into question in the face of such a situation. In addition to the guilt of grieving mothers, these tragic situations are in most cases erased as having never occurred by the nursing staff and also by the family: silence and many things left unsaid surround these deaths. This study shows that we need to initiate death audits in the maternity wards in order to improve care for mothers and newborns.

Память о любви и смерти в повести Н.В. Болкунова «Дорога домой»

The purpose of the article is to draw attention to the poetics of the artistic time and space in the story of the Great Patriotic War, written in the XXIst century. The author of “The Road Home” Nikolaj Bolkunov (1948–2010) did not see the war himself, but deeply understood its essence, emphasized the moral confrontation of the defenders of the Russian land and Nazi-fascist invaders destroying it, confident that they will succeed to break the ties between generations, to turn the subdued population into consumers of material goods, into those who are oblivious to their kin. Hermeneutical approach to the text (identification of the spiritual component) leads to identifying an issue, particularly significant for the author, the issue of succession, relationships between generations and mentalities, analysis of characters, adventurous and entertaining elements, love plotline, touching and tragic situations, landscape sketches, everyday and naturalistic details. Consistently revealed the roll call of military and post-war circumstances, determining the creation of a broad historical picture, the integrity of which is obtained due to the author’s closest proximity to lieutenant Minaev’s psychology, who became a few decades later an old man, Mikhalych. The piercingly tragic plot of chaste love illuminates the memory, the whole life of the main character, determines his inner setting to strengthen good, resilience in the protection of human dignity. Many episodes of the work paint the image of the enemy-destroyer, who deprived many people of our fatherland of shelter, bright youth, love, health, the very opportunity to live. The analysis of the text is combined with the involvement of biographical, literary materials. It is concluded that the story has an undoubted pedagogical potential and can be recommended for reading and studying by high school students, students of higher and further education institutions.

Black humour processing in the light of the conceptual integration theory and the benign violation theory

Abstract The aim of the paper is to reveal that humour processing is an exertion which requires both, mental and emotional capacities. To prove the point, two theories for humour processing were employed: the conceptual integration theory and the benign violation theory. The paper shows that theories, though different, possess certain common elements and represent useful tools in humour processing. The conceptual integration theory, with its input spaces, blending processes and generic space, together with the benign violation theory and its detection of humorous elements within tragic situations, could be valuable assets in understanding how people find humour in intimidating and life-threatening situations. The paper also sheds some light on how different age groups perceive black humour showing that age and life experience facilitate understanding of black humour.

Caring for the Caregiver: Achieving the Quadruple Aim Through a Peer Support Program

This article describes how nurse leaders in one organization will transition from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim to inclusion of the 4th Aim, which focuses on care of our clinicians as an essential part of a healthy organization. Acknowledging that each day, nurses are faced with tragic and traumatic situations as they interact with patient and families that could put their mental health at risk without a meaningful intervention was a critical step. This article describes the concept of a peer support program as an intervention designed to create a cadre of specially trained peers that can provide real-time support. This effort also focuses on shifting the culture such that it becomes okay to say, you’re not okay, and having access to resources that provide support. This article describes how nurse leaders in one organization will transition from the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Triple Aim to inclusion of the 4th Aim, which focuses on care of our clinicians as an essential part of a healthy organization. Acknowledging that each day, nurses are faced with tragic and traumatic situations as they interact with patient and families that could put their mental health at risk without a meaningful intervention was a critical step. This article describes the concept of a peer support program as an intervention designed to create a cadre of specially trained peers that can provide real-time support. This effort also focuses on shifting the culture such that it becomes okay to say, you’re not okay, and having access to resources that provide support.

Folkloric Meta-Narratives In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart

Following Chinua Achebe’s claim that his Things Fall Apart is a counter-narrative to Joyce Cary’s distortion of the African image in Cary’s Mister Johnson, most critics of Things Fall Apart have approached the existence of folklore in the novel from the perspective of cultural affirmation. Others see it as part of the artistic ornament used to deck the work. Be that as it may, this paper does not intend to dispute these perspectives. It rather intends to prove that Achebe’s use of folklore in Things Fall Apart is not just to affirm the functionality of folk culture in the precolonial African society depicted in this novel but also to buttress several sequence of events of the novel. It argues that the folkloric narratives within the larger narrative that is Things Fall Apart function as specialized meta-narratives which play an interesting array of roles in the novel, namely: to run commentaries on the incidents that surround the hero’s life; to show how folkloric wisdom in the novel appears to warn against certain unethical actions of the hero and to comment on the significance of some executed actions in the novel; as well as to foreshadow impending tragic situations in the life of the hero just like the chorus in Greek tragic plays. The methodology for this study is a critical analysis of the text in the light of a recontextualised and re-imagined application of Jean-Francois Lyotard’s concept of metanarrative. Unlike Lyotard’s notion of a metanarrative as a grand narrative that helps to legitimize other little narratives, we elect to read folkloric meta-narratives as related miniature versions of different sequences of the story of the novel, Things Fall Apart.

Reporting Tragic Events Using Mobile Phones: Citizenship Photojournalism in Critical Tragedy in Nigeria?

Abstract—The paper considers the reportage of tragic events in Nigeria by ordinary citizens, using mobile phones and other digital devices. The focus is on the moral agency of citizen-photojournalists, the dilemma inherent in the exercise of that agency, the technological structure that enable/impede such agency, and the resulting ethical tragedy for citizenship photojournalism. The questions addressed are: On what cultural activity rests the moral agency of citizen-photojournalists in Nigeria? How does mobile technology enable or impede the exercise of that moral agency? How do the citizens who own and use mobile technology reconcile the duty of care for victims of tragic public incidences and the immediate concern to represent events in ways that are fresh and immediate? Does the failure to provide care for victims of tragic events in the course of citizenship reporting constitute an ethical tragedy for the practice? Two cases of citizenship visual reporting in relation to tragic events in Lagos-Nigeria are studied (the Badagry boy’s saga and the Odunfa-Okepopo conflict). Mixed methods approach (content analysis and oral interview) is used in a qualitative way to generate data. The theory of media witnessing is used to ground the study. Findings show that in each case of citizen visual reporting, there is a serious negligence of the requisite duty of care towards victims of tragic public situations, resulting in an unconscious or deliberate undermining of some of the core values of citizenship journalism. Such negligence is also a revelation of the hypocrisy underlying the practice of citizenship photojournalism. Beyond social regulatory needs, the paper recommends careful balancing in practice responsibilities.

Біблійні мотиви та образи в творчості літературних груп "Ланка"-МАРС та "Серапіонові брати"

Among the significant amount of Ukrainian and Russian literary groups that existed in the 20s of the last century, a special place is occupied by „Lanka” -MARS and „Serapion’s Brothers”. The article considers the typological connections „Lanka”-MARS and „Serapion's Brothers” who are due common organizational principles of group denial manifestos and declarations, closeness and limitations of the participants, the nature of creative meetings, demanding approach to the works of each other, avoiding political engagement , the desire to follow the current trends of world literary process. The author concludes that typological links in the formation of these groups are related to the principles of their works. The author of the article studies the poems of Pluzhnik and Polonskaya. The author explores the Bible, the Old Testament. The author shows that the images of the poems of Pluzhnik and Polonskaya came out of the Bible. The Bible is the main book of humanity. She teaches kindness and mercy, provides answers to many questions. Poets believe that the Bible helps to overcome the tragic situations of the era. Pluzhnik and Polonskaya lived at a time when there was a revolution, a civil war in their country. For these poets needed moral support. The Bible helped them to truly overcome all difficulties. Poets, obviously, read the Bible every day and knew its stories and images well. In poetry of E. Pluzhnyk biblical texts are closely intertwined with the individual author’s images and receptions, creating a unique poetic world. Poet designs the Bible on modernity, conveys his attitude to the surrounding reality. The works of E. Polonskaya, Russian poetess from literary group „Serapion’s Brothers” are based on the Old Testament, because of the author’s interest in the history of the Jewish people.

Appropriate technologies for local economic development based on fisheries products in Poteran Island

Natural resources are no guarantee to make a rich and welfare community. With abundant coastal resources, islanders in Poteran Island have limited houselhold welfare. More than 70% of households are poor and uneducated. In terms of production, the production chain in the island is also limited to selling raw products that are in fact making less profit for the communities. Dependency to loan shark is also one of other tragic situations, placing the fishermen in a powerless community groups. To change this current situation, making local-preneurship is the initial stage of developing a self-sustaining small island. The making of local-preneurship is integrated with the introduction of appropriate technologies. Selecting the appropriate technologies is a key step in this stage. To ensure the new technologies are appropriate, the new technologies should be tested in a serial training. The observation on the participants’ behaviour will be the basis of evaluation process by using scoring method. Through training, observation, and scoring process, the two tools (fish smoker tool and cracker slicers) are perceived as appropriate technologies for the communities. These tools that are believed can increase the economic profit for fisheries community in the island.

Energy efficiency: Importance of indigenous microorganisms contained in the municipal solid wastes

2016 was an extraordinary year for renewable energy, as it had the largest global capacity additions seen to date. However, challenges remain, particularly beyond the power sector. Overcoming these challenges means pursuing goals on development and optimization of strategies focused in causing an increase in bioenergy usage. Considering the seriousness of the challenge this paper has been developed. In the present study, indigenous microorganisms gathered from municipal solid waste will be analysed at to find out the role such organisms have on an anaerobic digester and its performance, with the aim of producing biogas in order for it to be used as electricity or treated to produce high quality fuel. The presence of such anaerobic microbiota can help avoid the two most tragic situations of an anaerobic digestion plant: overloading and washing out. The information of the present paper would have to be considered in future researchers about pre-treatments because most novelty studies are focused on hard pre-treatment to destroy microorganisms in the substrate (to increase the biogas production). In the present paper, it is underlined that the destruction of the microbiota in the substrate could produce adverse effects in the performance in the reactor.

To arm or not to arm?

Northern Illinois University, Oikos University, Santa Monica College, Umpqua Community College, and Virginia Tech. What do these colleges and universities have in common? They were locations that had tragic active shooter situations.

Bauman’s Sociology of Hope

Bauman’s Sociology of Hope

Stones and Bones: Catholic Responses to the 1812 Collapse of the Mission Church of Capistrano

This essay delves into the 1812 collapse of the Great Stone Church at California’s Mission of San Juan Capistrano and its aftermath to consider how early modern Catholics in the greater Iberian world approached the material remains of ruined churches that contained human victims. Questions explored include how Franciscan missionaries reported and reacted to the calamity, why the casualties were disproportionately Indian and female, and what survivors did with the physical remnants of broken churches. Churches that collapsed on worshippers in Arequipa, Cuzco, Lima and Lisbon prior to 1812 are mustered for comparison. Overall, a pattern emerges of Catholics separating stone from bone in these tragic situations.

Op onbekend terrein?

This article investigates the role of moral case deliberation (MCD) in dealing with tragic situations. It focuses on experiences of care givers involved in the treatment of a pregnant woman with a brain tumour, and their evaluation of a series of MCD meetings in which the dilemmas around care were discussed. A case study design is used by conducting semi-structured interviews (n=10) with health care professionals who both played a role in the treatment of the patient and attended the MCD. The results show that MCD helps people to deal with tragic situations. An important element of MCD in this respect is making explicit the dilemma and the damage, demonstrating that there is no simple solution. MCD prompts participants to formulate and share personal experiences with one another and thus helps to create a shared perception of the situation as tragic. The article concludes that MCD contributes to the sharing of tragic experiences, and fosters mutual interaction during a tragedy. The ability of spiritual caregivers with their substantive knowledge of life questions can support the moral deliberation on a tragic case. This substantive knowledge brings the spiritual caregiver into familiar territory. The knowledge of methodology and structure of MCD and the handling of values determined in experiences of contingency in MCD are, however, competencies that can be more developed by the spiritual caregiver.

“We that are young”: Youth and Age in King Lear

This essay argues that reading Lear's characters within the paradigm of youth and age reveals the shaping power that stages of life have on each character's response to tragic situations. In fact, age provides characters with a framework for rebellious behavior, a way to cope with suffering, and one path to self-knowledge, that vital but elusive quality throughout Lear. Throughout the play, the venerable age of Lear and Gloucester is constantly evoked to display their lack of wisdom or to create greater pathos as they suffer. The younger characters, particularly Edgar and Cordelia, often frame their behavior in response to the expectations, and sufferings, of their elders. Additionally, Lear's own self-knowledge is tied in important ways to his age – it is important for him to realize not just that he is an ordinary man, fallible like any human, but also that he is an old man. These three ways in which age illuminates character – responding to expected behaviors, to suffering, and to self-knowledge – allow for a reading of Lear framed by age. Throughout this reading, youth and age shape how Lear's characters understand others and themselves

Passeurs de douleurs chez Sylvie Germain

ABSTRACTWhen asked about the genesis of her texts, Sylvie Germain states that when an image, a vision, a dream haunt and obsess her so, they become literary matter—namely tales. Similarly, autonomous forms and figures impose themselves and inhabit her works, shape-shifting into free-floating characters. Hence the strange and poetic nature of her fiction, even when her stories allude to horrific events or tragic situations. La Pleurante des rues de Prague (1992), a superb allegory of the incommensurable dolor suffered by humankind, is such a text. The giant figure who roams Germain's pages, carrying in the folds of her frock every tear, every lament, every torment born of human suffering, bears an implacable testimony to the facility with which man forgets and repeats the abominable evils of History. She mirrors Czech artist Anna Chromý’s formidable sculpture “The Cloak of Conscience,” an empty garment carved out of a block of Carrara marble to form a chapel of sorts in which to meditate on God's silence as regards the world's mystery and mankind's misery.