Identities on the Move: Contemporary Representations of New Sexualities and Gender Identities. Silvia Pilar Castro Borrego and María Isabel Romero Ruiz, eds.

Sixteen chapters might seem too many for a collection of essays, and the diversity of topics, objects of analysis, and theoretical frameworks found in the table of contents might, at a glance, suggest a degree of random incoherence. However, an attentive reading demonstrates that those factors constitute one of the main strengths of the volume. Identities on the Move travels with ease and smoothly from one chapter to the next in an engaging trip that gradually integrates a wide range of issues and analytical tools with two distinctly common denominators: the focus on gender and sexuality (as the book’s subheading appropriately points out) and the interdisciplinary, politically committed frame of cultural studies. More significantly, the volume is further enriched by the shared interest of all the chapters in the intersectionality of identity, as they all center on the meaning and implications of the crossing of gender and sexuality with other axes constitutive of the so-oft questioned notion of identity; namely: class, race, (post)coloniality, religion, location, and the socially-inflected assessment of intellectual ability

“Girl meets boy”: postcyborg ethics, individual identity and collective rights in the posthuman age

Taking as a point of departure the novel’s setting in a world controlled by online networks and global corporations, together with human beings’ position as decoders of the excess of information in contemporary culture, this essay provides a posthuman interpretation of Ali Smith’s "Girl meets boy" (2007) under the lenses of Rosi Braidotti’s postulates on posthumanity and Heidi Campbell’s postcyborg ethics. Thus, I analyse the ways in which the novel probes into the limits of humanity and individual identity as related to virtual environments, body politics and sexuality. Attention is also paid to the novel’s raising of collective awareness and social struggle against injustice and the oppression of women, homosexuals and third-world citizens as a response to their invisible, naturalized dehumanization by the contemporary global politics of consumer culture

Space and Place in The Hunger Games: Fiction or Reality?

Los Juegos del Hambre es una trilogía de novelas adolescente que pertenece al género de distopía y bildungsroman. En el análisis realizado en este trabajo, se establece no sólo una relación entre el uso de los espacios y lugares que hace la autora Norte Americana Suzanne Collins, si no su influencia en la percepción del lector sobre la realidad y la ficción en si mismos. Además, el análisis cuenta con un estudio detallado de las continuas referencias y alusiones a la realidad en su pasado y presente, que junto con todos los elementos relacionados con la opresión y la vigilancia, hacen que el lector se cuestione no sólo su realidad si no la de la novel a en sí misma

“I Do as I’m Told”: Gender Dynamics, the Dark Side of BDSM and Antifeminism in E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey.

Female sexuality has always played a central role when it comes to feminist studies. It was precisely during the period of the 1980s and 1990s when this controversial theme took the shape of the so-called ‘Sex Wars’ in which feminists divided themselves into ‘radical feminists’ and ‘libertarian feminists’. The issue of pornography in relation to female sexuality was not only debatable in the 80s and 90s but has also posed a problem in our present-day society since pornography has become part of our daily lives. This dissertation about E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) revolves around gender roles, BDSM and pornography as a source of female oppression. In order to show how E.L. James romanticizes BDSM relationships and tries to sell a feminist message of empowerment through violent sex (which is not feminist at all), the analysis of the novel is going to tackle issues of female powerlessness, dependence and submission embodied by the female protagonist-narrator, and heteropatriarchal tyranny and dominance in the figure of the male character.La sexualidad de la mujer siempre ha ocupado un papel central en lo referente a estudios feministas. Fue precisamente durante el periodo de los años 80 y 90 cuando este tema tan polémico tomó la forma de lo que se denomina como ‘Sex Wars’ en las cuales las feministas se dividieron en ‘feministas radicales’ y ‘feministas libertarias’. El asunto de la pornografía en relación con la sexualidad de la mujer no solo fue cuestionable en los 80 y 90, sino que también ha supuesto un problema para la sociedad actual debido a que la pornografía forma parte de nuestra vida diaria. Este trabajo sobre Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) de E.L. James gira entorno a los roles de género, el BDSM y la pornografía como fuente de opresión femenina. Con el propósito de demostrar como E.L. James romantiza las relaciones basadas en el BDSM y trata de vender un mensaje feminista de empoderamiento a través del sexo violento (que no es feminista en absoluto), el análisis de la novela va a abordar problemas como la falta de poder de la mujer, la dependencia y la sumisión encarnados en la protagonista y narradora femenina, así como la tiranía y dominio heteropatriarcal en la figura del personaje masculino. <br /

CARB-ES-19 Multicenter Study of Carbapenemase-Producing Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli From All Spanish Provinces Reveals Interregional Spread of High-Risk Clones Such as ST307/OXA-48 and ST512/KPC-3

ObjectivesCARB-ES-19 is a comprehensive, multicenter, nationwide study integrating whole-genome sequencing (WGS) in the surveillance of carbapenemase-producing K. pneumoniae (CP-Kpn) and E. coli (CP-Eco) to determine their incidence, geographical distribution, phylogeny, and resistance mechanisms in Spain.MethodsIn total, 71 hospitals, representing all 50 Spanish provinces, collected the first 10 isolates per hospital (February to May 2019); CPE isolates were first identified according to EUCAST (meropenem MIC &gt; 0.12 mg/L with immunochromatography, colorimetric tests, carbapenem inactivation, or carbapenem hydrolysis with MALDI-TOF). Prevalence and incidence were calculated according to population denominators. Antibiotic susceptibility testing was performed using the microdilution method (EUCAST). All 403 isolates collected were sequenced for high-resolution single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing, core genome multilocus sequence typing (cgMLST), and resistome analysis.ResultsIn total, 377 (93.5%) CP-Kpn and 26 (6.5%) CP-Eco isolates were collected from 62 (87.3%) hospitals in 46 (92%) provinces. CP-Kpn was more prevalent in the blood (5.8%, 50/853) than in the urine (1.4%, 201/14,464). The cumulative incidence for both CP-Kpn and CP-Eco was 0.05 per 100 admitted patients. The main carbapenemase genes identified in CP-Kpn were blaOXA–48 (263/377), blaKPC–3 (62/377), blaVIM–1 (28/377), and blaNDM–1 (12/377). All isolates were susceptible to at least two antibiotics. Interregional dissemination of eight high-risk CP-Kpn clones was detected, mainly ST307/OXA-48 (16.4%), ST11/OXA-48 (16.4%), and ST512-ST258/KPC (13.8%). ST512/KPC and ST15/OXA-48 were the most frequent bacteremia-causative clones. The average number of acquired resistance genes was higher in CP-Kpn (7.9) than in CP-Eco (5.5).ConclusionThis study serves as a first step toward WGS integration in the surveillance of carbapenemase-producing Enterobacterales in Spain. We detected important epidemiological changes, including increased CP-Kpn and CP-Eco prevalence and incidence compared to previous studies, wide interregional dissemination, and increased dissemination of high-risk clones, such as ST307/OXA-48 and ST512/KPC-3

La renovación de la palabra en el bicentenario de la Argentina : los colores de la mirada lingüística

El libro reúne trabajos en los que se exponen resultados de investigaciones presentadas por investigadores de Argentina, Chile, Brasil, España, Italia y Alemania en el XII Congreso de la Sociedad Argentina de Lingüística (SAL), Bicentenario: la renovación de la palabra, realizado en Mendoza, Argentina, entre el 6 y el 9 de abril de 2010. Las temáticas abordadas en los 167 capítulos muestran las grandes líneas de investigación que se desarrollan fundamentalmente en nuestro país, pero también en los otros países mencionados arriba, y señalan además las áreas que recién se inician, con poca tradición en nuestro país y que deberían fomentarse. Los trabajos aquí publicados se enmarcan dentro de las siguientes disciplinas y/o campos de investigación: Fonología, Sintaxis, Semántica y Pragmática, Lingüística Cognitiva, Análisis del Discurso, Psicolingüística, Adquisición de la Lengua, Sociolingüística y Dialectología, Didáctica de la lengua, Lingüística Aplicada, Lingüística Computacional, Historia de la Lengua y la Lingüística, Lenguas Aborígenes, Filosofía del Lenguaje, Lexicología y Terminología

The Tiger Flu: a critical posthumanist response to the Illusion of transhumanism

Larissa Lai’s The Tiger Flu (2018) is an example of speculative fiction set in a dystopian context of climate devastation marked by a struggle for the global control of knowledge and the economy on the part of two opposed technological corporations in a futuristic North American region dominated by Old China. This article analyzes how the novel builds a critique upon the excesses and potential risks of current transhumanist philosophy, engaged in the technological enhancement of human beings, and the concurrent social exclusion and exploitation of the underprivileged minorities barred from access to it. My aim is to demonstrate that the ethical alternative proposed by the novel embraces the postulates of critical posthumanism defended by leading theorists like N. Katherine Hayles and Rosi Braidotti, who put forth a postanthropocentric position of embodied embeddedness as opposed to other posthumanist approaches, like cybernetic posthumanism, which vindicated the transcendence of the human mind by dislodging it from the body

El desafío de enseñar la lectura en el aula de EFL: Un análisis de los hábitos de lectura, de la motivación y de la evaluación de la lectura en los cursos de bachillerato de Aragón

Este Trabajo Fin de Máster trata el problema al que los profesores se enfrentan si tienen que introducir la lectura en sus clases en Aragón. El punto de partida es una encuesta sobre los hábitos de lectura entre los alumnos del Bachillerato en siete institutos y colegios en Zaragoza y Alcañiz. El resultado de esta encuesta indica posibles problemas en el ámbito de la lectura que pueden existir en los institutos y los colegios de Aragón. Éstos pueden estar relacionados con un escaso entendimiento del propósito de leer, una dificultad en motivar a los alumnos y a los profesores, y con la manera de evaluar la lectura. Este trabajo intenta examinar posibles soluciones a estos problemas y proponer maneras diferentes de motivar alumnos a leer, además de introducir otros modos de evaluación

Switching TNF antagonists in patients with chronic arthritis: An observational study of 488 patients over a four-year period

The objective of this work is to analyze the survival of infliximab, etanercept and adalimumab in patients who have switched among tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists for the treatment of chronic arthritis. BIOBADASER is a national registry of patients with different forms of chronic arthritis who are treated with biologics. Using this registry, we have analyzed patient switching of TNF antagonists. The cumulative discontinuation rate was calculated using the actuarial method. The log-rank test was used to compare survival curves, and Cox regression models were used to assess independent factors associated with discontinuing medication. Between February 2000 and September 2004, 4,706 patients were registered in BIOBADASER, of whom 68% had rheumatoid arthritis, 11% ankylosing spondylitis, 10% psoriatic arthritis, and 11% other forms of chronic arthritis. One- and two-year drug survival rates of the TNF antagonist were 0.83 and 0.75, respectively. There were 488 patients treated with more than one TNF antagonist. In this situation, survival of the second TNF antagonist decreased to 0.68 and 0.60 at 1 and 2 years, respectively. Survival was better in patients replacing the first TNF antagonist because of adverse events (hazard ratio (HR) for discontinuation 0.55 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.34-0.84)), and worse in patients older than 60 years (HR 1.10 (95% CI 0.97-2.49)) or who were treated with infliximab (HR 3.22 (95% CI 2.13-4.87)). In summary, in patients who require continuous therapy and have failed to respond to a TNF antagonist, replacement with a different TNF antagonist may be of use under certain situations. This issue will deserve continuous reassessment with the arrival of new medications. © 2006 Gomez-Reino and Loreto Carmona; licensee BioMed Central Ltd