Men Cry: Embodiments of Masculinity in Western Cinema circa 1999

This thesis examines two films released in 1999, Fight Club (Fincher 1999) and Boys Don’t Cry (Pierce 1999), through the theoretical framework of queer theory, gender theory, and feminist theory to analyze systemic structures and cultural notions of masculinity. Mainstream cinema depicts gender identity and gender roles to promote bigenderism and maintain patriarchal hierarchy. Rarely films and the characters within them break out of this ideological norm. By depicting masculine identified characters who cry, Fight Club and Boys Don’t Cry expose the characters’ vulnerabilities and flaws and challenge the “perfect masculine ideal.” These films question what it means to have a masculine identity when the characters behave in a way that is counter to normative patriarchal masculine identities. As a transgender masculine identified person, I have a unique interest in masculine identity formation and a personal desire to explore different embodiments of masculinity. Examining research conducted in the transgender community through social media sites and online forums and providing insight from my own life, this paper elucidates ideas about hormonal and biological processes related to sex and gender characteristics and identifications. A critical analysis of the cinematic and written texts of Fight Club and Boys Don’t Cry through the lens of personal experience, this thesis addresses concepts of fluidity in male identified characters in scenes in which they cry and what this act says about them and about masculinity. Further, it exposes the failures and dangers of streamlining boys and men into normative patriarchal masculine identities and practices

Venus' Frown: the paradox of chaste marriage in the Dedicatory Poems to Salve Deus Rex Judæorum ; and, Christ's humoral irony in George Herbert's "The Sacrifice"

This thesis paper examines how Amelia Lanyer uses classical mythology in the dedicatory poems to Salve Deus Rex Judæorum to comment on early modern concepts of marriage. By examining her poetry within historical and cultural context, I demonstrate how Lanyer attempts to synthesize marriage with an early modern emphasis on celibacy, piety, and devotion. To substantiate this claim, I will examine how Lanyer creates an imaginative celibate space in the dedicatory poems "To all vertuous Ladies in generall" and "the Authors Dreame to the Ladie Marie, the countesse Dowager of Pembrooke." The space is inhabited by celibate and virginal mythological figures and mirrors a monastic society. After establishing a celibate realm, Lanyer introduces the married Lady Sidney and praises her as an emblem of chaste marriage, which synthesizes the monastic life with the married life. Running counter to the poem's chaste images are the non-celibate goddesses and the image of Juno's Chariot, which disrupt the realm and signal the dangerous and inevitable nature of early modern marriage. The classical images, when taken with historical and cultural context, create a tension within the poems that is centered on marriage. Lanyer seems uneasy with the lack of choice available to women after the Reformation, and she uses the space accorded to her by classical mythology to explore the tension within early modern marriage. However, she is unable to resolve the tension completely, and her final conclusion about the state of marriage is ambiguous. Secondly, this thesis examines how George Herbert's "The Sacrifice" portrays the physical body of Christ and how Christ's portrayal undermines a reading of the poem as a medieval Catholic meditative poem. Instead, Herbert ironically uses the traditional poetic structure of a meditative poem to emphasize the impossibility for man to recreate Christ's suffering. I examine how Herbert incorporates early modern concepts of the physical body into his depiction of Christ in order to undermine the genre of medieval meditative poetry on the Passion. To substantiate this claim, I establish the physical nature of Christ within the framework of the early modern body by using the concepts of galenic humoral theory, the semi-permeable nature of the body, and the body's communal aspects. Herbert integrates those concepts into "The Sacrifice" and uses the format of a medieval Catholic meditative poem on the Passion to help the reader identify with and partly relive the pain of Christ. However, Herbert overloads the poem's medieval structure with Christ' refrain "Was ever grief like mine?" and His physical pain, which reveals the impossibility of humanity recreating the Passion sequence. This paper demonstrates how Herbert uses the medieval structure of the poem ironically on both a physical and spiritual level, and how it positions the poem as a Protestant work written in opposition to Catholic meditative modes

High genetic diversity at the extreme range edge: nucleotide variation at nuclear loci in Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) in Scotland

Nucleotide polymorphism at 12 nuclear loci was studied in Scots pine populations across an environmental gradient in Scotland, to evaluate the impacts of demographic history and selection on genetic diversity. At eight loci, diversity patterns were compared between Scottish and continental European populations. At these loci, a similar level of diversity (θsil=~0.01) was found in Scottish vs mainland European populations, contrary to expectations for recent colonization, however, less rapid decay of linkage disequilibrium was observed in the former (ρ=0.0086±0.0009, ρ=0.0245±0.0022, respectively). Scottish populations also showed a deficit of rare nucleotide variants (multi-locus Tajima's D=0.316 vs D=−0.379) and differed significantly from mainland populations in allelic frequency and/or haplotype structure at several loci. Within Scotland, western populations showed slightly reduced nucleotide diversity (πtot=0.0068) compared with those from the south and east (0.0079 and 0.0083, respectively) and about three times higher recombination to diversity ratio (ρ/θ=0.71 vs 0.15 and 0.18, respectively). By comparison with results from coalescent simulations, the observed allelic frequency spectrum in the western populations was compatible with a relatively recent bottleneck (0.00175 × 4Ne generations) that reduced the population to about 2% of the present size. However, heterogeneity in the allelic frequency distribution among geographical regions in Scotland suggests that subsequent admixture of populations with different demographic histories may also have played a role

IMMU-03. EFFECT OF COMBINING IRRADIATION AND ANTI-CD47 TREATMENT ON THE PHAGOCYTOSIS OF NORMAL BRAIN CELLS

Abstract Immunotherapy using CD47 blockade has shown promise in treating adult and pediatric malignant primary central nervous system tumors. We recently demonstrated that irradiation significantly enhanced anti-CD47-dependent phagocytosis of high-grade glioma cells in vitro. Furthermore, mice engrafted with high-grade human glioma that received anti-CD47 combined with irradiation showed a significant increase in the survival rate and a significant decrease in tumor growth than those that received a single treatment. However, the use of irradiation may result in potential toxicity to normal CNS cells that are not susceptible to macrophage phagocytosis in anti-CD47 monotherapy. We have now extended these studies to test the effect of combining anti-CD47 and irradiation on macrophage-mediated phagocytosis of central nervous system cells. We analyzed phagocytosis of normal human neural stem cells exposed to different irradiation doses in combination with anti-CD47 treatment to assess for the potential toxicity that uniquely exists with this treatment combination.</jats:p

Using Frailty Measures to Predict Functional Outcomes and Mortality After Type II Odontoid Fracture in Elderly Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study

Study Design Single-center retrospective cohort study Objectives Type II odontoid fractures occur disproportionately among elderly populations and cause significant morbidity and mortality. It is a matter of debate whether these injuries are best managed surgically or conservatively. Our goal was to identify how treatment modalities and patient characteristics correlated with functional outcome and mortality. Methods We identified adult patients (&gt;60 years) with traumatic type II odontoid fractures. We used multivariate regression controlling for patient demographics, Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), modified Rankin Scale (mRS) score, modified Frailty Index (mFI-5 and mFI-11), fracture displacement, and conservative vs operative treatment. Results Of the 59 patients (mean age 77.9 years), 24 underwent surgical intervention and 35 underwent conservative management. Operatively managed patients were younger (73.4 vs 80.6 years, P &lt; .001) and had higher degree of fracture displacement (3.5 vs 1.0 mm, P = .002) than conservatively managed patients but no other differences in baseline characteristics. Twenty-four patients (40.7%) died within the study period (median time to death: 376 days). There were no differences between treatment groups in functional outcomes (mRS or Frankel Grade) or mortality (33.3% in operative group vs 45.7%, P = .34). There was a statistically significant correlation between higher presentation mRS score and subsequent mortality on multivariate analysis (OR = 2.06, 95% CI 1.04-4.10, P = .039), whereas surgical intervention, age, GCS score, CCI, mFI-5, mFI-11, sex, and fracture displacement were not significantly correlated. Conclusions Mortality after type II odontoid fractures in elderly patients is common. mRS score at presentation may help predict mortality more accurately than other patient factors. </jats:sec