Western Literature Research Articles

The development, security, and defence nexus in Brazil

ABSTRACT The relationship between security and development has been a longstanding issue in Brazil. Far before Western literature raised the topic in development circles, Brazilian elites had already viewed security and development as intertwined concepts, placing the military as a key agent in providing several public policies over the 20th century. Even after a 21-year-long military authoritarian regime, this view continues to affect a myriad of dimensions of social and political life—such as civil-military relations, foreign policy, peacekeeping operations, internal security, and social policy. Thus, the goal of this Special Issue is to discuss the formation and effects of the Brazilian version of the security-development nexus. Articles will tackle the following questions: (1) How do the range and scope of security and defence concepts and military missions affect development policies and vice-versa? (2) How do military missions supporting national development and internal security affect the security sector and civil-military relations? (3) How does the military in Brazil translate this mentality of the security-development nexus into international relations? (4) What insights does the case of Brazil offer to the literature on the security-development nexus? By analysing the Brazilian experience, we hope to contribute to advance knowledge on the security-development nexus and reflect on the long-term effects of placing the military at the centre of public policies.

Maternity and Motherlessness

Maternity and Motherlessness Anna McFarlane (bio) Wendy C. Nielsen. Motherless Creations: Fictions of Artificial Life, 1650–1890. Routledge, 2022. 262 pp, 13 b/w illus. $170 hc, $48.95 ebk. Renae L. Mitchell. Maternity in the Post-Apocalypse: Novelistic Re-Visions of Dystopian Motherhood. Lexington, 2022. 162 pp. $95 hc, $45 ebk. There has been growing interest in the figure of the child in recent engagements with sf and the possibility of a future, especially in the age of the climate crisis and particularly influenced by Lee Edelman’s polemical contribution to queer theory, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004). Rebekah Sheldon’s The Child to Come: Life After the Human Catastrophe (2016), for example, works from Edelman’s arguments to claim that the figure of the child is used to shut down the possibilities for political change in conservative ways that amount to an emergency in the face of a climate crisis that remains unaddressed by our contemporary political inertia. Sheldon mobilizes science fiction to make her point, as does Heather Latimer, whose 2021 reading of the film Arrival (Villeneuve 2016) as a text that queers pregnancy and maternity makes a valuable contribution to these discussions. Maggie Nelson’s queering of her own pregnancy in her memoir The Argonauts (2015) also contributes to contemporary discussions about maternity and how its heteronormative and restrictive connotations might be read and overturned in literature and in public life. Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that the figure of the mother and the life stages of pregnancy and maternity continue to be analyzed from new perspectives in sf studies. Two new monographs—Wendy C. Nielsen’s Motherless Creations and Renae L. Mitchell’s Maternity in the Post-Apocalypse—tackle these issues from the perspectives of posthumanism and psychoanalysis respectively. Nielsen’s book starts with a story and a question. The story goes that René Descartes once set sail accompanied by a figure whom he claimed to be his daughter Francine, but who looked wrong in the light of day; this caused fellow passengers to cross themselves and blame the poor weather on the supposed automaton until it was tossed overboard, to follow in the ship’s wake like a bad omen. Nielsen tells us that the story was a fabrication (1), but this did not stand in the way of its longevity: the desire to frame Descartes as the father of artificial intelligence meant that the tale was repeated, and the truth—that the story had been concocted to hide the fact that Descartes fathered an illegitimate child—was lost in the process. Nielsen sees this story as emblematic of a common narrative of artificial intelligence as the being that [End Page 105] is produced by a man, thereby eliding the role of the mother and the role of women more generally. She asks, “Why does early speculative fiction eliminate women’s roles as mothers?” (1), and her book is a series of examples and attempts at explanation. She also asks, “In what ways do beings created without mothers sustain or challenge traditional concepts of gendered or racial identity; what it means to be a mother, father, or creator, and the nature of birth, imagination, and creation?” (1–2). Nielsen takes her examples from English, American, French, and German literature. She differentiates the (potentially) bodiless programs of Artificial Intelligence from the embodied, anthropomorphic Artificial Life—or ALife—that “has emerged as a discipline in robotics and as an area of critical inquiry of the posthuman in philosophy, literature, and gender studies” (2; emphasis in original). Nielsen’s rationale for the historical sweep of her subject is that she dates 1650 as a time when automata, and therefore ALife, became the subject of science rather than magic, as androids with the potential ability to mimic humans entered the market for the first time (2). Nielsen argues that “in Western literature before 1890, the recurring figure of the motherless creation represents a desire to create the perfect child and sustains pseudoscientific beliefs about the birthing body” (3)—for example, that a man’s production of new life will be a safer and more rational process than the chaotic danger of old-fashioned...

Stranger Fictions: A History of the Novel in Arabic Translation

Stranger Fictions: A History of the Novel in Arabic Translation

Rainmaking in Igbo Communities as a Preliterary Category of Possible Dramatic Forms

ABSTRACT: The Western literary drama has established itself as an axiomatic model against which other performative activities seem to be evaluated. This tends to undermine the fact that drama has roots in a “nonliterary performative” religious festival of the Greeks. If tragedy/comedy evolved from a different religious/ritual activity, it follows that such practices have the potential to evolve into more literary forms. As rainmaking in Africa constitutes one such ritual performative activity, this research aims to explore the essence of rainmaking (life preservation) in selected Igbo communities as a potential underlying literary model that can be explored to create further literary forms (beyond tragedy and comedy) within African dramatic/performance genres. Data are collected through in-depth interviews with rainmakers while the theoretical orientation is drawn from Northrop Frye’s theory of modes. The study concludes that rainmaking in Igbo society embodies preliterary potential, which can inform more literary forms beyond tragedy/comedy.

Clinical profile and outcome of critically ill COVID-19 patients with diabetic ketoacidosis: A single-centre cross-sectional study in South India.

Clinical profile and outcome of critically ill COVID-19 patients with diabetic ketoacidosis: A single-centre cross-sectional study in South India.

Cattle Country: Livestock in the Cultural Imagination by Kathryn Cornell Dolan

Reviewed by: Cattle Country: Livestock in the Cultural Imagination by Kathryn Cornell Dolan Tom Hertweck Kathryn Cornell Dolan, Cattle Country: Livestock in the Cultural Imagination. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 2021. 342 pp. Hardcover, $60; e-book, $60. Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. Even those outside the area of western American literature know this to be true (in a cultural-ideological sense), as it has been the well-used slogan of the National Livestock and Meat Board for thirty years. But nothing about beef’s ascendance in the United States—and especially in the West—was a foregone conclusion. Rather, it was a concerted effort undertaken by various land interests, capitalist groups, government subsidies, and geographic particularities that made such a thing possible. And, as you are reading this review in Western American Literature and may be interested in such agricultural history, you likely already know that the historical record is laid out clearly in works such as Virginia DeJohn Anderson’s Creatures of Empire or Christopher Knowlton’s Cattle Kingdom, or even Walter Prescott Webb’s seminal The Great Plains. Rightly or wrongly the United States became a global leader in beef production based on an industrialized agriculture that has been replicated the world over. As we assess this state of affairs on capitalist, ethical, and environmental grounds, understanding clearly the total picture of that history will become essential. Less well understood are the cultural forces that aided, abetted, and (equally often) critiqued cattle’s rise. Picking up from her Beyond the Fruited Plain: Food and Agriculture in U.S. Literature, 1850–1905 (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), Kathryn Cornell Dolan helps us with this, expanding on her time period but narrowing her field of vision to explore the literary history of American cattle rearing in its developmental stage, and she takes pains to integrate the various facets of identity and place-making that reflected on it. In briefest terms, Dolan shows, creative works of the long nineteenth century contain not just insistent reference to cattle but also a multitude of ways of thinking about cattle’s trampling [End Page 75] over extant foodways in many expected—but also surprising— ways. Her organization works at a canonical level, making chapters of authors so invitingly familiar to Americanists that they can be listed by surname (Irving, both Coopers, Thoreau, Winnemucca, Ruiz de Burton, and Chesnutt) while a coda-like final chapter moves the conversation into the twentieth century (Sinclair, of course) and the adjacent-global beef market (the Chinese Canadian Winnifred Eaton). Pointing out Dolan’s canonical take is no slight but rather an important point of departure for such an era; these authors wielded remarkable cultural power during their time and after and make accounting of them required. In each chapter aspects of American cattle culture emerge unique to their focal author, tracked by the direct invocations of livestock, usually meaning bovids, but with the occasional pig, chicken, donkey, or horse making their way in. However, Dolan is careful to point out several key similarities that become tropes to reaffirm or undermine the livestock imaginary: a transposition of Euro-American identity onto cattle and its regulated industry (versus the wildness/unruliness of bison or game hunting, which stands most often for Native American culture); the ways in which cattle culture bulldozes (almost literally) the landscape and peoples it contacts; and the complicated identity politics that regularly energize these texts. These general observations will be integral to any future analysis of how we eat now, requiring as it does to know why this came to be. All chapters offer much in defining a new territory of understanding. The most surprising are those on Thoreau (a kind of local foodie whose disdain for cattle is palpable) and Chesnutt (who wrestled with an outlier agricultural South not dependent on cattle the way the West emerged). Scholars of western literature stand to gain the most from the chapters on Winnemucca and Ruiz de Burton. The ways these two undermine or essentialize Native American (both) and Mexican identity (the latter) in the name of strategic forms of cultural and material survival are sensitive and fruitful. Dolan deftly locates, for example, three different...

On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer by Michael P. Branch

Reviewed by: On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer by Michael P. Branch Hal Crimmel Michael P. Branch, On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer. New York: Pegasus Books, 2022. 253 pp. Hardcover, $27.95; paper, $18.95; audiobook, $19.95. What in the West could be more iconic than a jackalope, that mythical creature with the body of a rabbit and the horns of a deer? It’s about time someone wrote a book about jackalopes, and Michael Branch delivers a thoughtful, entertaining read. Unlike Disney’s carefully curated talking mice or superhuman coyotes, the jackalope is a homegrown critter, small-town, tall tale, stitched together by shade-tree taxidermists, among other predominately rural characters sketched out with heart and humor by Branch. Readers will find an entertaining mix of storytelling, wide-ranging and careful natural and cultural history, including a beautifully illustrated sixteen-page section of jackalope art, photographs, paintings, and drawings. [End Page 89] Branch has a gift for crisp descriptions that make places come to life, whether atmospheric old hotels, city streets in San Francisco, or oil and gas country locales where “the whole town has an edge-of-town-feel” (79). If you’ve been through east central Wyoming lately, that’s a poignant observation. Character portraits breathe life into interview subjects the way taxidermists breathe life into their mounts—even if this life—in the form of a jackalope—is purely fantastical. (One caveat on that in a moment). The cultural sweep of the jackalope owes much to humans’ love of tall tales, and the book accordingly contains a chapter on their role, as well as a chapter on the history and psychology of hoaxes, an account of jackalope kitsch and an exhaustive account of horned rabbit tales from around the globe, among others. Branch mentions a couple of times that he is obsessed with jackalopes, and reading this chapter on global horned rabbit tales it’s clear he’s sustained by this creature with similarities to many different cultures across the globe. As scholars and researchers it’s worth pondering how obsession might be the driving force in what keeps so many of us in front of a computer day after day, when we could be otherwise out . . . looking for jackalopes! Perhaps the most intriguing chapters, ones that link the legend to science, appear toward the end of the book: chapters 8 and 9 trace the connection between horned rabbits and significant medical discoveries. In David Quammen-esque fashion, Branch explains how in the 1930s Dr. Richard Shope discovered the connection between swine flu and the 1918 influenza pandemic. This thinking led him further into the world of viruses. As a hunter Shope had wondered what caused warty growths on rabbits and in 1933 published a paper identifying the cause as papillomavirus. Human papilloma-virus, or HPV, is the cause of 99.7 percent of cervical cancers and many other cancers that attack the genital regions and the oral cavities (189), and these HPVs are related to the very same virus causing horned growths to appear on rabbits. It’s hard to do justice to this wide-ranging book in 600 words. But for those looking for a read that is entertaining yet serious, with research embedded in an engrossing narrative, you’ll find it here. As a work of western American literature, the book engages [End Page 90] people and places from the arid states and its engagement with mythology helps readers think about the ways in which the West has always been—and perhaps always will be—a place where the mythical and the real intersect in ways that sometimes lead to curious stories that appeal to the human imagination, and to stories that lead to Nobel Prize–winning, life-saving science. Hal Crimmel Weber State University Copyright © 2023 Western Literature Association

Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West ed. by Gregory E. Smoak

Reviewed by: Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West ed. by Gregory E. Smoak Emily Gowen Gregory E. Smoak, editor, Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West. Salt Lake City: U of Utah P, 2021. 232 pp. Hardcover, $70; paper, $35; e-book, $28. In the twelve essays that make up Gregory Smoak’s Western Lands, Western Voices: Essays on Public History in the American West, the University of Utah’s American West Center comes into view as the contested center of a fifty-year battle to define and expand the parameters of public history. In one sense the volume is a rich, polyvocal institutional history of the center, and a loving tribute to its founders’ vision. In another sense, though, the volume is an extended meditation on the most pressing questions that animate the field of public history. What sorts of tensions arise when historians, Richard White asks, enter the public sphere? How do we resist the popular urge to instrumentalize history, to make it speak the way we want it to? Or as Liesl Carr Childers puts it, what happens when history is “hostage” to politics? (27). And what would it look like to truly center Native voices in the way we tell stories about the American West? The volume offers several models of good public history: Michael Childers writes about Hal Rothman, the late historian and public intellectual who sought to “engage the public on its own terms” and “create the ears with which to hear us” (41). Leighton M. Quarles shares lessons from his own work as a historian for the National Park Service, a role in which nationalist mythmaking, tribal memory, environmental preservation, and the mandates of a tourism economy jostle for primacy. As many of the essays insist, a professional historian is uniquely positioned to understand and combat the settler colonial origins of land preservation projects that, in the popular imagination, are often billed as an unalloyed good. Yvette Towersap Tuell calls walking the line between serving Native history and public land management “working on the dark side” (101). But she insists that inhabiting such a vexed position is essential if we are to “better incorporate Native history and local knowledge into . . . policy decisions” (101). From the adjudication of tribal water rights to the interpretive decisions made on ghost tours, to the creation of new centers for [End Page 88] Native American and Indigenous studies programs, to the digitization of archives, the volume charts the American West Center’s sprawling and complex legacy, and showcases the hard, often frustrating, but richly rewarding work of “doing public history in the American West” (1; emphasis original). In its best moments the volume lives up to its own definitions of public history, offering a road map to young scholars interested in forging careers that span disciplines, audiences, and institutional constituencies. For those entering the profession today this volume may even feel like a life raft. Its vivid accounting of the wide range of purposes to which a historian’s credentials can be put offers a much more expansive vision of a fulfilling academic career than we often see in discussions of the academy today. To read Western Lands, Western Voices is to get an up-close look at what it’s like to wade into the messy, fascinating, unfinished work of public history in the American West, and perhaps even to be inspired to enter the public sphere oneself. [End Page 89] Emily Gowen The American Antiquarian Society Copyright © 2023 Western Literature Association

Narcissistic Fiction: Music Theater of the Everyday in Édouard Dujardin’s Les Lauriers sont coupés (1887)

The Symbolist novella Les Lauriers sont coupés (1887) by Édouard Dujardin (1861–1949) is the first work of fiction in Western literature to be entirely written as an interior monologue. Yet it took more than thirty years for Dujardin’s innovation to be recognized thanks to James Joyce acknowledging Les Lauriers as an important formal influence for Ulysses (1922). Subsequently, Dujardin claimed in the essay “Le monologue intérieur” (1931) that his goal had been to transpose Wagnerian procedures into writing. Since then, scholars have either denied or confirmed the novel’s Wagnerian inspiration. The latter interpretation has become the consensus in scholarship. However, in their efforts to connect Les Lauriers with Wagner, previous studies have neglected the constant presence of French musical theater references in the novel, presumably because their presence represents a form of paradox for a devout Wagnerite like Dujardin. This article is the first to analyze them. It also ties these references together with Symbolism’s interest in metafiction, that is to say, in fiction that reflects on its own existence as fiction. I argue that Dujardin was eager to follow the model of the Wagnerian novel proposed by his friend Teodor de Wyzewa in the Revue wagnérienne, that of setting on paper the poet’s entire existence by depicting his/her every emotion, sensation, and thought. In his discovery of the difficulty involved in performing such a task, Dujardin switched his focus to what his mentor Mallarmé called a “Type”: a depersonalized character, who is supposed to stand in as a representative of France’s youth. Hence, the protagonist of Les Lauriers sont coupés being an average character, with musical tastes that are illustrative of his time. Thus, the numerous musical references peppering Les Lauriers are not connected to the elitist world of Wagnerism in the 1880s, but rather to what were then beloved favorites like François-Marie Boieldieu’s La Dame blanche (1825), or Edmond Audran’s La Mascotte (1880). But there is an added twist, as Dujardin did not let go of Wagner’s influence entirely and used Audran’s operetta as a springboard with which to experiment with Wagnerian leitmotifs in literature. Ultimately, I show that the musical references in Les Lauriers are systematically divorced from real-life performance in order to become strictly mental creations that highlight just how isolated and self-absorbed the protagonist—and, by extension, the author himself in the act of creation—really is.

Sundown at Faith Regional by Barbara Schmitz

Reviewed by: Sundown at Faith Regional by Barbara Schmitz Mark Sanders Barbara Schmitz, Sundown at Faith Regional. Montrose, CO: Pinyon Publishing, 2021. 116 pages. Paper, $20. All too often really fine poets are overlooked. This is the regrettable case for Barbara Schmitz, a Nebraska poet whose work, despite its wide-publication, has rarely been reviewed or regarded—as it so richly deserves to be—outside the boundaries of her home state. There is no accounting for that quandary other than, perhaps, the fact that American letters has so many poets and focuses are often exclusive and parochial—as arising from schools or creative writing programs or famed cliques. Indeed, Schmitz’s work may be marginalized for no other reason than her coming from a small town in northeast Nebraska. However, Schmitz’s poems are not particularly regional or provincial. Rather, universality attends her work, rooted as the poems are in spirituality and mysticism. She confronts headlong the hard topics of loss and grief, how one resolves the contradiction of living a full life while facing mortality’s dissolution; furthermore, she willfully opens doors to interior dialogues that transport us to our own consciousness and experience. Delving into the human heart and mind has long been her practice, from first books such as Lives of the Saints (Main-Traveled Roads, 1996), How to Get Out of the Body (Sandhills, 1999), and, numerous books later, Just Outside [End Page 93] (Sandhills, 2019) and, most recently, Sundown at Faith Regional. Readers may be curious to know she studied with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa Institute, as well as with John G. Neihardt, William Stafford, and Kathleen Spivack; those influences inform and resonate within her work. As for Sundown at Faith Regional, Schmitz affirms her resolute desire to stare down Death by writing poems—though “No one wants to read them / when they sail down / from the tower where / Death has flung them” (“Lamentation” 1). Staring down death, however, means we make account of our childhoods, of our growing up, “looking to our souls for answers / forgetting we had bodies” (“Pain” 8). It means we may also ignore mortality’s approach: We didn’t know we were young we were gorgeousWe didn’t believe in Time’s riverWe didn’t know about gathering rosebuds (“Don’t We Look Good in the Pictures No One Took” 19) The allusion to Herrick’s poem is noteworthy; virgins—and everyone else—should make much of time because it passes, as a second does, so quickly. The book guides us past youth to adulthood and old age where heart medicine keeps a husband alive to “waltz through his days / like the amazing young man / I met in college” (“Heart Medicine” 26). The reader travels down a “bumpy country highway” to be passed by youths in a hurry, “grinning and waving” (“The Road” 27). What is the hurry about? Are they waving goodbye to old age or to themselves? Every day is like winter’s solstice, “like New Year’s says Husband / on the shortest day / longest night” as “leaky hearts keep time / in this breathe-breathe life / we’ve come to” (“Winter Solstice” 51). Schmitz’s Sundown at Faith Regional, serious subject matter notwithstanding, imparts unmistakable optimism. Even though the clock ticks and we get older, the universe is a holy place where [End Page 94] prayer and meditation belong, where love remains: “I believe in young love that’s stupid and naïve and / learns to grow big and old and patient and kind,” “I believe we are lucky” (“I Believe” 87–88). Mark Sanders Stephen F. Austin State University Copyright © 2023 Western Literature Association

57th Western Literature Association Conference: Home on the Rez: Sovereignty and Sustainability

57th Western Literature Association Conference: Home on the Rez: Sovereignty and Sustainability

Interpretation, Narrative and Study of “Disaster” Scenarios in Western Literature

Interpretation, Narrative and Study of “Disaster” Scenarios in Western Literature

JAK 2 NEGATIVE POLYCYTHEMIA VERA IN A TERTIARY CARE CENTER IN WEST UP POPULATION IN INDIA :A RARE PRESENTATION OF 5 CASES

Introduction: Polycythaemia vera (PV) belongs to the group of myeloproliferative neoplasms with an excessive increase in hemoglobin levels.(1). It has been seen that JAK2 V617F mutation present in 80-90% of MPNs and JAK2 exon12 mutations are seen in 4%-5% cases of MPNs like PV.As per an Indian data the JAK2V617F mutational frequency in Indian population was 81.8% for PV, which was different from that reported in western literature as more than 95% for PV.Activation of JAK2 by either point mutation or fusion protein causes activation of the JAK-STAT pathway. While mutations in JAK2 are reported in numerous MPN phenotypes, exon 12 mutations specifically result in erythrocytosis due to increased EPO signalling. In India, the incidence of JAK2-negative polycythemia is relatively high, reaching up to 18%. (2,3) Case series: Case 1-A 21-year male presented to the hematology OPD with complains of paresthesias and off and on headache for the past 6 months. He was on multiple symptomatic medications but to no relief. On routine investigations it was seen that he had a persistent hemoglobin level fluctuating between 17.5gm/dl and 18.5 gm/dl. He has iron deficiency for which he is on single oral iron tablet. No definite organomegaly was seen. In hematology OPD he was investigated for polycythemia vera keeping in mind the WHO criterias.His Serum EPO levels are within normal range,JAK2 V617F/exon 12mutation analysis is negative.A bone marrow aspiration and biopsy study done shows Hypoplastic marrow for age with erythroid predominance. In view of clinical suspicion of JAK 2 negative PV he is being treated with ecosprin, phlebotomy every 3 months and supplemental iron orally. The patient is clinically relieved of his symptoms of peripheral neuropathy. His last hemoglobin value is stable at 16.5gm/dl.Case 2-A 32 -year male presented to hematology OPD with mild headache and weakness for 6 months. A routine CBC investigation showed a high hemoglobin level of 18.4 gm/dl. Mildly raised RBC count was also seen. A subnormal serum EPO levels of 3.7 mIU/Ml (4.3-29.0 mIU/ML) was seen. JAK 2V617F/exon 12 mutation analysis was negative. The patient has been started on ecosprin and phlebotomy every 3 months and is symptomatically relieved.Case 3- A 29-year male presented to hematology OPD with paresthesias and weakness for 3 months. A routine CBC investigation showed a high hemoglobin level of 19.7 gm/dl. Mildly raised RBC count was also seen. Rest all parameters were within normal limits. On examination no hepatosplenomegaly or lymphadenopathy was seen. A low serum EPO levels of <1 mIU/Ml (4.3-29.0 mIU/ML) was seen. JAK 2V617F/exon12 mutation analysis was negative. The patient has been started on ecosprin and phlebotomy every 3 months and is symptomatically relieved. Case4-33 year male presented to OPD with fatigue and paresthesias.CBC showed increased hemoglobin of 18gm/dl.Patient was a non-smoker.Vitamin B12 was>1000gm/dl.Bone marrow showed mildly predominant myeloid series.JAK2 mutation profile was negative but the patient responded to phlebotomy.Case5:A 28 year female had recurrent headaches however MRI and other investigations were normal. A serum EPO level done on suspicion of PV showed subnormal ranges.Bone marrow was reported as reactive.JAK2 mutation analysis was negative however patient responds to ecosprin and hyroxyurea. Conclusion-All five cases that presented to the department had been undiagnosed before they reached our setup. The unique feature of all these cases was negativity for both JAK2V617F as well as JAK2 exon 12 mutation despite its clinical behaviour being that of PV .These cases are being actively managed as low risk polycythemia vera and since the start of the treatment comprising of phlebotomy once every 3 months their hemoglobin and hematocrit concentrations are maintained.No cytoreductive therapy is being given .Such unique presentations need to be reported and discussed extensively.

JAK 2 NEGATIVE POLYCYTHEMIA VERA IN A TERTIARY CARE CENTER IN WEST UP POPULATION IN INDIA :A RARE PRESENTATION OF 5 CASES

Introduction: Polycythaemia vera (PV) belongs to the group of myeloproliferative neoplasms with an excessive increase in hemoglobin levels.(1). It has been seen that JAK2 V617F mutation present in 80-90% of MPNs and JAK2 exon12 mutations are seen in 4%-5% cases of MPNs like PV.As per an Indian data the JAK2V617F mutational frequency in Indian population was 81.8% for PV, which was different from that reported in western literature as more than 95% for PV.Activation of JAK2 by either point mutation or fusion protein causes activation of the JAK-STAT pathway. While mutations in JAK2 are reported in numerous MPN phenotypes, exon 12 mutations specifically result in erythrocytosis due to increased EPO signalling. In India, the incidence of JAK2-negative polycythemia is relatively high, reaching up to 18%. (2,3) Case series: Case 1-A 21-year male presented to the hematology OPD with complains of paresthesias and off and on headache for the past 6 months. He was on multiple symptomatic medications but to no relief. On routine investigations it was seen that he had a persistent hemoglobin level fluctuating between 17.5gm/dl and 18.5 gm/dl. He has iron deficiency for which he is on single oral iron tablet. No definite organomegaly was seen. In hematology OPD he was investigated for polycythemia vera keeping in mind the WHO criterias.His Serum EPO levels are within normal range,JAK2 V617F/exon 12mutation analysis is negative.A bone marrow aspiration and biopsy study done shows Hypoplastic marrow for age with erythroid predominance. In view of clinical suspicion of JAK 2 negative PV he is being treated with ecosprin, phlebotomy every 3 months and supplemental iron orally. The patient is clinically relieved of his symptoms of peripheral neuropathy. His last hemoglobin value is stable at 16.5gm/dl.Case 2-A 32 -year male presented to hematology OPD with mild headache and weakness for 6 months. A routine CBC investigation showed a high hemoglobin level of 18.4 gm/dl. Mildly raised RBC count was also seen. A subnormal serum EPO levels of 3.7 mIU/Ml (4.3-29.0 mIU/ML) was seen. JAK 2V617F/exon 12 mutation analysis was negative. The patient has been started on ecosprin and phlebotomy every 3 months and is symptomatically relieved.Case 3- A 29-year male presented to hematology OPD with paresthesias and weakness for 3 months. A routine CBC investigation showed a high hemoglobin level of 19.7 gm/dl. Mildly raised RBC count was also seen. Rest all parameters were within normal limits. On examination no hepatosplenomegaly or lymphadenopathy was seen. A low serum EPO levels of <1 mIU/Ml (4.3-29.0 mIU/ML) was seen. JAK 2V617F/exon12 mutation analysis was negative. The patient has been started on ecosprin and phlebotomy every 3 months and is symptomatically relieved. Case4-33 year male presented to OPD with fatigue and paresthesias.CBC showed increased hemoglobin of 18gm/dl.Patient was a non-smoker.Vitamin B12 was>1000gm/dl.Bone marrow showed mildly predominant myeloid series.JAK2 mutation profile was negative but the patient responded to phlebotomy.Case5:A 28 year female had recurrent headaches however MRI and other investigations were normal. A serum EPO level done on suspicion of PV showed subnormal ranges.Bone marrow was reported as reactive.JAK2 mutation analysis was negative however patient responds to ecosprin and hyroxyurea. Conclusion-All five cases that presented to the department had been undiagnosed before they reached our setup. The unique feature of all these cases was negativity for both JAK2V617F as well as JAK2 exon 12 mutation despite its clinical behaviour being that of PV .These cases are being actively managed as low risk polycythemia vera and since the start of the treatment comprising of phlebotomy once every 3 months their hemoglobin and hematocrit concentrations are maintained.No cytoreductive therapy is being given .Such unique presentations need to be reported and discussed extensively.

A Critical Survey of Korean Translations of John Milton’s Works

This paper is an exhaustive survey of Korean translations of John Milton’s writings from 1895 to the present. It begins with a brief overview of the early history of translation of western literature into Korean in the late-nineteenth century and moves on to the early translations of Milton, which are more partial summary than full translation. After examining the paucity of translations during the colonial period, together with an examination of the causes for the paucity, it finally moves to post-liberation developments in Milton translation, including the first full translations of Paradise Lost. Following a critical survey of these translations, the study inquires into the sad state of the publishing market in Korea, including a look into plagiarisms and pirated works. Then follows a comparative examination of three of the more reliable translations (two from South Korea and one from the North) of Paradise Lost. The survey concludes with a ‘wish list’ of the type of translations expected for the 21st century.

세계문학과 근대성의 문제

This paper aims to critically examine the problem of modernity in world literature and, more specifically, in the theory of world literature by Frederic Jameson, Neil Lazarus, and Nicholas Brown, who have formulated a new concept of modernity against Western modernity. For a long time, world literature has been regarded as a field in which the ideas and values of Western modernity were embodied. This led to the negative labeling of non-Western literature as less worldly and more local literature that falsely imitates the modernity of Western literature. So the problem of modernity, such as how to overcome Western modernity and rethink the concept of modernity radically, has become one of the essential issues in the recent theories of world literature because we can not achieve the further development of world literature without properly criticizing the existing concept of Western modernity. What is interesting in Jameson’s idea of singular modernity and Lazarus and Brown’s theory of world literature is that they criticizes the Western conception for modernity and suggests the new concept of modernity that pays attention to the proper problems of capitalism rather than the West. Moreover, their theory pursues for a new political reading on the modernity and universality of literature, overcoming the dichotomy between central and peripheral, western and non-western. Their theory of world literature has also significant implications for us who have been strongly influenced by Western modernity. It makes us realize that our own literature can be world literature when we thoroughly explore our own modernity and the problems of capitalism. It also recalls us the basic fact that world literature is a literature that can search for political possibilities in the modernity of our own world and its internal contradictions and cracks.

A Study of Focal and Segmental Glomerulosclerosis according to the Columbia Classification and Its Correlation with the Clinical Outcome.

Introduction Focal and segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a leading cause of nephrotic syndrome in both adults and children. The "Columbia classification of FSGS" includes five variants; not otherwise specified (NOS), tip, perihilar, cellular, and collapsing variants that may have different prognostic and therapeutic implications. Materials and Methods This is a retrospective study and was carried out in the Department of Histopathology, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad. Of a total of 11,691 kidney biopsies over a 7-year period, from 2006 to 2012, 824 cases were diagnosed as FSGS, of which 610 cases in which detailed clinical findings were available were included in this study. FSGS was then categorized according to the Columbia classification. Results FSGS, NOS was the predominant histomorphological variant. Serum creatinine was significantly high in the collapsing variant, followed by NOS. Follow-up data was available for 103 cases,72.8% had complete remission, 10.6% had partial remission, and in 16.5 % there was no remission. Relapses were observed in 6.7% cases, two patients (1.9%) succumbed, and 4.8% cases progressed to chronic kidney disease. Conclusion This study showed that perihilar variant was less prevalent, with tip and cellular variants being more prevalent in Indian subcontinent compared to Western literature. Collapsing variant was also less common.

Female Resistance in Ek Chihan Novel

Feminist theory is the method of study about women's ecomomic, social, political status based on society, family and various cultural value and beliefs. With the development of Western literature, its influence has increased tremendously along with its entry into world literature. The article is based on Hridaychandra Singh Pradhan's Ek Chihan novel and its narration on women's exploitation at family, society & economic and their resistance as the subject of the study. Marxist feminism is main basis for the analysis of the novel. The library is used for the collection of materials and the novel is analyzed by creating an analysis framework from the collected materials. The novel analyzes the unequal treatment of a husband towards his wife, sexual exploitation of a young woman by enticement and lure and patriachal male mentality. The novel summarizes the perspective for the women to act against all types of injustices and oppression against them.

“THE OLD NEW CRITICAL”: A RETROSPECTIVE VIEW ON KRITIKA, NEOLIBERAL EDUCATION, AND PHILIPPINE K TO 12 CURRICULA IN 21ST CENTURY LITERATURE FOR SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL

This article reflects on literary and humanities education in the current Philippine K to 12 senior high school literature curricula, through tracing the position of Philippine literary theory and criticism, or Kritika, in its objectives. It seeks to problematize whether its presence or absence is symptomatic to the “disastrous neoliberal” architecture of contemporary Philippine humanities education. While this study relates the literature subject to Martha Nussbaum’s claim that “the imaginative, creative aspect, and the aspect of rigorous critical thought” are indeed “losing ground as nations prefer to pursue short-term profit and skills suited to profit-making”, this paper also locates her idea through Constantino’s “miseducation of Filipino people” with the aim of decolonizing from the educational ethos that was never intended to promote democracy, freedom, and equality. Toward that objective, locating Philippine Kritika in the literature education is essential since it speaks to Isagani R. Cruz’s concept of “the other Other of Western literary theory”, which describes the education that Filipinos have inherited as impoverished because of its “ignorance of half of the world’s literary texts and theories.” The poverty it brought via colonialist hegemony is “unconsciously shared by Philippine literary thought” as evidenced by New Criticism being “the ruling paradigm in Philippine literary circles today” despite the emergence of newer critics and recent positions in Philippine postcolonial studies.

Milton in China

Milton in China