‘Symposia’ in the Drama of trey anthony and Louise Delisle

Scholars recognize that African-Canadian literature is polyphonous, multicultural, and, in a word, diverse, thanks to its origins in the migration of black intellectuals and artists from the Caribbean, the United States, Africa, Europe, and South America, over three centuries, to colonial and (post-) modern Canada. One example of the profoundly divergent orientations among African-Canadian writers is provided by the plays of Louise Delisle and trey anthony. Delisle is an Africadian (African-Nova Scotian) playwright whose Canadian genealogy stretches back two hundred years. Significantly, her work in theatre has been regional, amateurish, and concerned with excavating the Africadian history of her environs. None of her work has enjoyed professional staging. In contrast, anthony is a first-generation immigrant, based in Toronto, whose play, ‘da Kink in my hair, has been an internationally successful major stage play and now a television sitcom, treating black women’s experiences in a contemporary, urban setting. Delisle and anthony could hardly be more different. Yet, this paper argues, their settings—kitchens and beauty parlours—replicate a shared black experience that transcends very real cultural, historical, and geographical cleavages. Résumé Les spécialistes s’entendent pour dire que la littérature afro-canadienne est polyphonique, multiculturelle et, en un mot, diverse. Cela est dû à ses origines, qui remontent à la migration d’artistes et d’intellectuels noirs venus des Caraïbes, des États-Unis, d’Afrique, d’Europe et d’Amérique du Sud pendant trois siècles, pour s’installer dans un Canada colonial et (post)moderne. La profonde divergence des orientations adoptées par les écrivains afro-canadiens est manifeste lorsque nous examinons l’œuvre des dramaturges Louise Delisle et trey anthony. Delisle est une dramaturge africadienne (africaine et néo-écossaise) dont la famille est présente au Canada depuis deux siècles. Fait révélateur, sa contribution théâtrale est régionale et amateure, et elle cherche à mettre au jour l’histoire africadienne de ses environs. L’œuvre de Delisle n’a jamais fait l’objet d’une production professionnelle. Par contraste, anthony est une immigrante de première génération basée à Toronto; sa pièce ‘da Kink in my hair, qui met en scène les expériences de femmes noires contemporaines en milieu urbain, a connu un très grand succès à l’échelle internationale et fait maintenant l’objet d’un sitcom télévisé. On pourrait difficilement trouver deux artistes plus disparates. Et pourtant, fait valoir Clarke, les lieux que mettent en scène ces deux dramaturges—les cuisines et les salons de coiffure—reproduisent une expérience partagée par les gens de race noire et qui transcende des clivages culturels, historiques et géographiques très concrets

Sounding John Thompson’s White Noise

John Thompson and Malcolm X may have more in common than coincidences in their respective biographical histories. Although generally overlooked as a political poet, Thompson, superb writer of the Tantramar, employs images of black and white, dark and light in his writings to engage with specific conceptions of race and imperialism – developed more explicitly in the theoretical work of Toni Morrison and Frantz Fanon – that informed the tumultuous political climate of his and X’s era. As a former student of psychology, the English-born, U.S.-educated Thompson would have been aware of the fundamental significance of blackness and whiteness in Western society, and many of his poems develop an idea of whiteness as a facade that works to obscure a primal or fundamental blackness. This exploration of the darker recesses of Thompson’s poetry draws him more clearly into the company of his primary influences, themselves all highly political writers: English-language poets Ezra Pound, William Butler Yeats, and Dylan Thomas; French poets Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud, and René Char; and Québécois poets Roland Giguére and Paul-Marie Lapointe

“Ne nnipadua mmpe” (the body hates it): Exploring the lived experience of food allergy in Sub-Saharan Africa

The final publication is available at Elsevier via https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2018.03.031 © 2018. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Allergic diseases have closely followed the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) especially in western societies. As prevalence of NCD is increasing in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), researchers are hinting that the same future may hold for (food) allergic disease in this world region. Already, researchers are beginning to record prevalence, though with little attention to the social experience of individuals and parents with food allergic children. This paper presents the first qualitative analysis of the daily realities of adults and parents of children with allergies in SSA using Ghana as a case study. Drawing on political ecology of health, this study contextualizes the psychological (e.g. anxiety and fear), social (e.g. stigmatization, social exclusion), and economic (e.g. impact on work & household expenditures) wellbeing of affected persons within the broader sociocultural environment. By exploring the sociocultural environment, the results provide insights into the likely structures (e.g. the lack of familiarity, absence of local discursive repertoire on food allergy, infrastructure deficit) which interact to shape anxiety, and social exclusion of people with allergy. The case study provides evidence suggesting food allergies do have a global reach, and policy makers must heed the message to integrate food allergy into the broader chronic disease prevention agenda

Chlorpromazine for schizophrenia: a Cochrane systematic review of 50 years of randomised controlled trials

BACKGROUND: Chlorpromazine (CPZ) remains one of the most common drugs used for people with schizophrenia worldwide, and a benchmark against which other treatments can be evaluated. Quantitative reviews are rare; this one evaluates the effects of chlorpromazine in the treatment of schizophrenia in comparison with placebo. METHODS: We sought all relevant randomised controlled trials (RCT) comparing chlorpromazine to placebo by electronic and reference searching, and by contacting trial authors and the pharmaceutical industry. Data were extracted from selected trials and, where possible, synthesised and random effects relative risk (RR), the number needed to treat (NNT) and their 95% confidence intervals (CI) calculated. RESULTS: Fifty RCTs from 1955–2000 were included with 5276 people randomised to CPZ or placebo. They constitute 2008 person-years spent in trials. Meta-analysis of these trials showed that chlorpromazine promotes a global improvement (n = 1121, 13 RCTs, RR 0.76 CI 0.7 to 0.9, NNT 7 CI 5 to 10), although a considerable placebo response is also seen. People allocated to chlorpromazine tended not to leave trials early in both the short (n = 945, 16 RCTs, RR 0.74 CI 0.5 to 1.1) and medium term (n = 1861, 25 RCTs, RR 0.79 CI 0.6 to 1.1). There were, however, many adverse effects. Chlorpromazine is sedating (n = 1242, 18 RCTs, RR 2.3 CI 1.7 to 3.1, NNH 6 CI 5 to 8), increases a person's chances of experiencing acute movement disorders, Parkinsonism and causes low blood pressure with dizziness and dry mouth. CONCLUSION: It is understandable why the World Health Organization (WHO) have endorsed and included chlorpromazine in their list of essential drugs for use in schizophrenia. Low- and middle-income countries may have more complete evidence upon which to base their practice compared with richer nations using recent innovations

Improving management of type 1 diabetes in the UK: the Dose Adjustment For Normal Eating (DAFNE) programme as a research test-bed. A mixed-method analysis of the barriers to and facilitators of successful diabetes self-management, a health economic analysis, a cluster randomised controlled trial of different models of delivery of an educational intervention and the potential of insulin pumps and additional educator input to improve outcomes

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