84 research outputs found
Samuel Beckettâs Krappâs Last Tape: Remembering Kant, Forgetting Proust
This article draws on Samuel Beckettâs recently published letters
and archival scholarship to consider the place of Immanuel Kantâs
critical epistemology within Beckettâs early thinking and his subsequent
works. Beginning from Beckettâs engagement with Kantâs Critique
of Pure Reason, demonstrated by notes taken from Wilhelm
Windelbandâs A History of Philosophy between 1932 and 1933, excerpts
from Jules de Gaultierâs From Kant to Nietzsche in the
âWhoroscopeâ Notebook, and Beckettâs acquisition of Immanuel
Kants Werke in 1938, I offer a close analysis of the philosophical underpinnings
of Beckettâs parody of Proustâs Ă la recherche du temps
perdu in Krappâs Last Tape. The larger purpose of this article is to
argue that a critique of metaphysical thought can be found in Beckettâs
work and to demonstrate that Kantâs influence as a philosophical
source of this critique has been largely overlooked in Beckett criticism
âIt doesnât reveal itselfâ: erosion and collapse of the image in contemporary visual practice
The article explores the extent to which âpictorial artâ resists legibility, transparency and coherence. The analysis of three artistic case studies, Idris Khan, Maria Chevska and Jane and Louise Wilson, serves to investigate established hierarchies in our perception of visual referents. In the discussion, the article inquires the means of erosion, veiling and dissemblance as ways to critique assumption of the homogeneity of the image. All artists cast a view of the external world by diverting it, defacing it and distancing themselves from the external environment. However, the distancing is never disconnected from the everyday and never succumbs to abstraction. The article argues that the crisis of the image offers a productive framework that allows artists to draw attention to the absence of logical structure and the instability of the visual sign
Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19
IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19.
Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19.
DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 nonâcritically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022).
INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (nâ=â257), ARB (nâ=â248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; nâ=â10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; nâ=â264) for up to 10 days.
MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ supportâfree days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes.
RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ supportâfree days among critically ill patients was 10 (â1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (nâ=â231), 8 (â1 to 17) in the ARB group (nâ=â217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (nâ=â231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ supportâfree days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively).
CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes.
TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570
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The Beckettian bestiary
Discussion of issues of animality in Beckett's work
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'Stuck in a stagger': Beckett and Cixous
HĂ©lĂšne Cixous and Samuel Beckett were contemporary writers in Paris for several decades, but are seldom considered together. Yet, in 2007, Cixous wrote , the most intensive of her recurrent glances towards Beckett's work so far. This latest text will here be discussed alongside her 1976 essay on Beckett, âUne Passion: l'un peu moins que rien,â in order to trace the roots of Cixous's guarded yet sustained interest in Beckett. The argument further focusses on theatre, and movement, to examine Cixous's continuing engagement with Beckett. The two writers' attachment to the suspension of positionality and fixed identity in particular seems to provide real common ground.</jats:p
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