"({})": Raunch culture, third wave feminism and the vagina monologues

Copyright © Benjamin Halligan and The Johns Hopkins University Press. This article first appeared in Theory & Event 17:1 (2014). Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press

Mind usurps program : virtuality and the “new machine aesthetic” of electronic dance music

This chapter outlines the changes in perceptions of Electronic Dance Music across the phase of the introduction of virtuality. The chapter argues that such music must be read in relation to its conception of its audience, and that the audience, often cognitively impaired, responds to the music in a way that suggests ideological positions that redeem the music from accusations of cliché and racism. The chapter notes early theorising of virtuality as giving rise to the idea or potential of a proletarian collective, as had been realised in rave cultures. Keywords: Virtuality EDM TAZ DJ disco Acid House Rave dancing dystopia The “Guru Register” The Californian Ideology Layo & Bushwacka! (dance group) Orientalism Leftfield (dance group

Altered engagement of autobiographical memory networks in adult offspring of postnatally depressed mothers

Maternal depression is associated with increased risk for offspring mood and anxiety disorders. One possible impact of maternal depression during offspring development is on the emotional autobiographical memory system. We investigated the neural mechanisms of emotional autobiographical memory in adult offspring of mothers with postnatal depression (N = 16) compared to controls (N = 21). During fMRI, recordings of participants describing one pleasant and one unpleasant situation with their mother and with a companion, were used as prompts to re-live the situations. Compared to controls we predicted the PND offspring would show: greater activation in medial and posterior brain regions implicated in autobiographical memory and rumination; and decreased activation in lateral prefrontal cortex and decreased connectivity between lateral prefrontal and posterior regions, reflecting reduced control of autobiographical recall. For negative situations, we found no group differences. For positive situations with their mothers, PND offspring showed higher activation than controls in left lateral prefrontal cortex, right frontal pole, cingulate cortex and precuneus, and lower connectivity of right middle frontal gyrus, left middle temporal gyrus, thalamus and lingual gyrus with the posterior cingulate. Our results are consistent with adult offspring of PND mothers having less efficient prefrontal regulation of personally relevant pleasant autobiographical memories

Notes

Notes by David S. Landis, William B. Lawless, Robert Oberfell, Thomas F. Halligan, Hal E. Hunter, Jr., Charles M. Boynton, John S. Warren, Norman B. Thirion, Vail Pischke, Peter F. Nemeth, Saverio J. Alonzi, and Peter T. Alonzi

PTSD symptoms and cortisol stress reactivity in adolescence: Findings from a high adversity cohort in South Africa

BACKGROUND: Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis is implicated in the pathophysiology of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, there has been little study of HPA stress reactivity in association with PTSD symptoms (PTSS) in children; and there is limited research on PTSD in low and middle-income countries, where trauma exposure is more common and co-occurring stressors more likely. METHOD: We assessed the relationship between PTSS and cortisol stress reactivity in children aged 13 years (N = 291) from an impoverished South African community. HPA axis stress reactivity was indexed by salivary cortisol during the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST). RESULTS: In regression analyses both trauma exposure and PTSS showed small inverse associations with total cortisol output (area under the curve with respect to ground) during the TSST, but PTSS effects did not withstand correction for covariates. In addition, hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) found that PTSS were associated with alterations in the shape of the profile of cortisol reactivity that were moderated by sex. In girls, PTSS were associated with reduced linear slope but larger quadratic slopes, whereas the opposite pattern was found in boys. Thus, elevated PTSS were associated with overall blunted profiles of cortisol stress reactivity in girls, but a larger quadratic slope in boys reflects a steeper cortisol increase and decline in boys. There was no relationship between trauma exposure (with or without PTSS) and cortisol reactivity profiles in HLM analyses. CONCLUSION: In children from a high adversity, low and middle income country context, sex specific associations were found between PTSS and cortisol responses to psychosocial stress. Further research should probe HPA axis functioning more comprehensively in such populations to understand the biological associations of PTSS