On Not Being Porn: Intimacy and the Sexually Explicit Art Film

Since the mid-twentieth century, we have passed from a time where sexual frankness was actively obstructed by censorship and industry self-regulation to an age when pornography is circulated freely and is fairly ubiquitous on the Internet. Attitudes to sexually explicit material have accordingly changed a great deal in this time, but more at the level of the grounds on which it is objected to rather than through a general acceptance of it in the public sphere. Critical objections now tend to be political or aesthetic in nature rather than moralistic. Commercial cinema still seems wary of a frank exploration of sexuality, preferring to address it tangentially in genres such as the erotic thriller. In Europe, an art house canon of sexually explicit movies has formed, starting with Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972) and the French-produced In the Realm of the Senses (1976). This article looks at the steps taken since the 1970s to challenge out-of-date taboos and yet at the same time differentiate the serious film about sex from both pornography (operating in parallel with mainstream cinema but in its shadow) and the exploitation film. After reviewing the art film’s relationship with both hard and soft core, two recent films, Intimacy (2000) and 9 Songs (2005), are analyzed for their explicit content and for the way they articulate their ideas about sex through graphic depictions of sexual acts. Compulsive and/or claustrophobic unsimulated sexual behaviour is used as a way of asking probing questions of intimacy (and its filmability). This is shown to be a very different thing from the highly visual and staged satisfactions of pornography

“Consider Yourself One of Us”: The Dickens Musical on Stage and Screen

Charles Dickens’s work has been taken and adapted for many different ends. Quite a lot of attention has been given to film and television versions of the novels, many of which are very distinguished. The stage and screen musical based on his work, essentially a product of the last fifty years, has been neither as studied nor as respected. This paper looks at the connection between Dickens’s novels, the celebration of “London-ness” and its articulation in popular forms of working-class music and song. It will argue that potentially unpromising texts were taken and used to articulate pride and a sense of community for groups representing the disadvantaged of the East End and, more specifically, for first-generation Jewish settlers in London. This is all the more surprising as it was in the first instance through depictions of Oliver Twist and the problematic figure of Fagin that an Anglo-Jewish sensibility was able to express itself. Other texts by Dickens, notably Pickwick Papers, A Christmas Carol and The Old Curiosity Shop, were also adapted to musical forms with varying results, but the period of their heyday was relatively short, as their use of traditional and communitarian forms gave place in the people’s affection to manufactured pop/rock and operetta forms. I will argue that this decline was partly the product of changing London demographics and shifts in theatre economics and partly of the appropriation of Dickens by the academy

Effect of tart cherry juice on risk of gout attacks: protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Introduction: Gout is a painful form of inflammatory arthritis associated with several comorbidities, particularly cardiovascular disease. Cherries, which are rich in anti-inflammatory and antioxidative bioactive compounds, are proposed to be efficacious in preventing and treating gout, but recommendations to patients are conflicting. Cherry consumption has been demonstrated to lower serum urate levels and inflammation in several small studies. One observational case cross-over study reported that cherry consumption was associated with reduced risk of recurrent gout attacks. This preliminary evidence requires substantiation. The proposed randomised clinical trial aims to test the effect of consumption of tart cherry juice on risk of gout attacks. Methods and analysis: This 12-month, parallel, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial will recruit 120 individuals (aged 18–80 years) with a clinical diagnosis of gout who have self-reported a gout flare in the previous year. Participants will be randomly assigned to an intervention group, which will receive Montmorency tart cherry juice daily for a 12-month period, or a corresponding placebo group, which will receive a cherry-flavoured placebo drink. The primary study outcome is change in frequency of self-reported gout attacks. Secondary outcome measures include attack intensity, serum urate concentration, fractional excretion of uric acid, biomarkers of inflammation, blood lipids and other markers of cardiovascular risk. Other secondary outcome measures will be changes in physical activity and functional status. Statistical analysis will be conducted on an intention-to-treat basis. Ethics and dissemination: This study has been granted ethical approval by the National Research Ethics Service, Yorkshire and The Humber—Leeds West Research Ethics Committee (ref: 18/SW/0262). Results of the trial will be submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Trial registration number: NCT03621215

Television drama series’ incorporation of film narrative innovation: the case of 24

Joyard (2003) refers to the past decade as the Golden Age of the American series, mostly in connection with their narrative features and their capacity to arouse emotions. 24 (2001) by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran illustrates perfectly these innovative capacities in dramatic series. The series concept is everything, making 24 an instant cult object. It is presented as the nearest to real time that any artistic work can achieve. The continuous flow of events from 24 enters our homes through our TV sets permitting us to follow an apparent reality, projected week by week at the same hour, but making us feel a contemporaneous experience from a use of a space/time that struggles against illusion. Creative liberty has permitted the development of new narrative trends (Thompson, 2003), just as unusual aesthetic forms new to television (Nelson, 2001) have striven to deliver greater degrees of realism. Narrative complexity is increasing, becoming more intricate not only at the plot level but also at the level of character development, which might lead us to believe that television series are positioning themselves in the vanguard of visual media narrative

New, Good doctors for an altered society

No Abstrac

Avian malaria co-infections confound infectivity and vector competence assays of Plasmodium homopolare.

Currently, there are very few studies of avian malaria that investigate relationships among the host-vector-parasite triad concomitantly. In the current study, we experimentally measured the vector competence of several Culex mosquitoes for a newly described avian malaria parasite, Plasmodium homopolare. Song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) blood infected with a low P. homopolare parasitemia was inoculated into a naïve domestic canary (Serinus canaria forma domestica). Within 5 to 10 days post infection (dpi), the canary unexpectedly developed a simultaneous high parasitemic infection of Plasmodium cathemerium (Pcat6) and a low parasitemic infection of P. homopolare, both of which were detected in blood smears. During this infection period, PCR detected Pcat6, but not P. homopolare in the canary. Between 10 and 60 dpi, Pcat6 blood stages were no longer visible and PCR no longer amplified Pcat6 parasite DNA from canary blood. However, P. homopolare blood stages remained visible, albeit still at very low parasitemias, and PCR was able to amplify P. homopolare DNA. This pattern of mixed Pcat6 and P. homopolare infection was repeated in three secondary infected canaries that were injected with blood from the first infected canary. Mosquitoes that blood-fed on the secondary infected canaries developed infections with Pcat6 as well as another P. cathemerium lineage (Pcat8); none developed PCR detectable P. homopolare infections. These observations suggest that the original P. homopolare-infected songbird also had two un-detectable P. cathemerium lineages/strains. The vector and host infectivity trials in this study demonstrated that current molecular assays may significantly underreport the extent of mixed avian malaria infections in vectors and hosts

Reducing the sensation of electrical stimulation with dry electrodes by using an array of constant current sources

Hydrogel electrodes are commonly used for functional and other electrical stimulation applications since the hydrogel layer has been shown to considerably reduce the perception of stimulation compared to dry electrodes. However, these hydrogel electrodes must be changed regularly as they dry out or become contaminated with skin cells and sweat products, thus losing their adhesiveness and resistive properties. Dry electrodes are longer lasting but are more uncomfortable due to unequal current distribution (current hogging). We hypothesize that if current through a dry electrode is equally shared amongst an array of small sub-electrodes, current hogging and thus the sensitivity perceived due to stimulation will be reduced. We constructed an 8 x 8 array of millimetre sized dry electrodes that could either be activated as individual current sources, or together as one large source. A study was performed with 13 participants to investigate the differences in sensation between the two modes of operation. The results showed that 12 out of 13 participants found the new (distributed-constant-current) approach allowed higher stimulation for the same sensation. The differences in sensation between single and multiple sources became larger with higher intensity levels