Ideology in The Lord of the Rings: a Marxist Analysis

A Marxist analysis of The Lord of the Rings reveals two major insights: firstly, Tolkien defends class division, one based on inheritance and, secondly, within the battles and courtly love themes, there is an embedded Catholicism. Tolkien’s formative years were marked by a decline in aristocratic values and, compounded by his experience of war, he lamented the passing of Edwardian England through myth. As with some Romantics and Pre-Raphaelites before him, he yearned for a pre-industrial past: this is evident when he compares the ‘furnace’ of the Dark Tower, with the ‘woods and little rivers of the Shire’. Fundamentally, however, Tolkien rejects the modern because its more rational approach to man’s condition presented a serious challenge to his conservative, Catholic beliefs: when social relations become more developed, they undermine and contradict religion more sharply. Tolkien’s defence of lineage and hierarchy is expressed in his creation of Middle-earth, which is rigidly organised. Only the ‘great’ are capable of important deeds, and so it is the lords among men, the ‘high’ elves, and the wizard, Gandalf, representative of Eru, or God, who decide upon ‘the perils of the world’; the ‘lesser’ figures, such as Gaffer Gamgee in the Shire – based on rural England – engage in pub triviality in The Ivy Bush. Within the Shire itself, there is a social structure, too, with its hobbits from ‘poor families’, and those of a higher status, such as Bilbo, and Frodo, the Ringbearer. For Tolkien, the storyteller is a ‘sub-creator’ who assists in the enrichment of the Christian creation story, and he combines the fairy-tale aspects of his fantasy to the Gospels. His story encompasses the Seven Deadly Sins, and the themes of resurrection, pity, and trust in God

Distinguishing between impairments of working memory and inhibitory control in cases of early dementia

Dementia (most notably, Alzheimer’s Disease) is often associated with impairments of both working memory and inhibitory control. However, it is unclear whether these are functionally distinct impairments. We addressed the issue of whether working memory and inhibitory control can be dissociated, using data from a sample of patients who were recruited in a longitudinal study (Crawford et al. 2013, 2015). The first case revealed a preserved working memory capacity together with poor inhibitory control in the anti-saccade task. A longitudinal follow-up revealed that the defective inhibitory control emerged 12-months before the dementia was evident on the mini-mental state examination assessment. A second case revealed a poor working memory together with a well-preserved level of inhibitory control. The dissociation of working memory and inhibitory control was confirmed statistically in 7 additional cases. These findings yield converging evidence that working memory and inhibitory control are distinct cognitive operations and challenges the Kimberg and Farah (2000) cognitive model of working memory

The disengagement of visual attention in Alzheimer's disease:a longitudinal eye-tracking study

Introduction: Eye tracking provides a convenient and promising biological marker of cognitive impairment in patients with neurodegenerative disease. Here we report a longitudinal study of saccadic eye movements in a sample of patients with Alzheimer's disease and elderly control participants who were assessed at the start of the study and followed up 12-months later. Methods: Eye movements were measured in the standard gap and overlap paradigms, to examine the longitudinal trends in the ability to disengage attention from a visual target. Results: Overall patients with Alzheimer's disease had slower reaction times than the control group. However, after 12-months, both groups showed faster and comparable reductions in reaction times to the gap, compared to the overlap stimulus. Interestingly, there was a general improvement for both groups with more accurately directed saccades and speeding of reaction times after 12-months. Conclusions: These findings point to the value of longer-term studies and follow-up assessment to ascertain the effects of dementia on oculomotor control

The dominant ethnic moment: towards the abolition of 'whiteness'?

International audienc

The Local Role in Homeland Security

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73848/1/j.1540-5893.2005.00236.x.pd

International genome-wide meta-analysis identifies new primary biliary cirrhosis risk loci and targetable pathogenic pathways.

Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) is a classical autoimmune liver disease for which effective immunomodulatory therapy is lacking. Here we perform meta-analyses of discovery data sets from genome-wide association studies of European subjects (n=2,764 cases and 10,475 controls) followed by validation genotyping in an independent cohort (n=3,716 cases and 4,261 controls). We discover and validate six previously unknown risk loci for PBC (Pcombined<5 × 10(-8)) and used pathway analysis to identify JAK-STAT/IL12/IL27 signalling and cytokine-cytokine pathways, for which relevant therapies exist

Dyslexia and the centre-of-gravity effect.

When human observers are presented with a double target display, a saccadic eye movement is triggered to an intermediate position close to the ‘centre-ofgravity’ of the configuration. This study examined the saccadic eye movements of dyslexic and normal readers in response to displays of single and double targets. Eye movement analyses revealed no differences in the spatial position of saccadic eye movements of dyslexic and normal readers in response to single targets presented at 5° or 10°. However, when presented with two targets simultaneously at 5° AND 10°, in contrast to normal readers who generated saccades to an intermediate position between the two targets (towards the ‘centre-of gravity’), dyslexics generated saccades that landed close to the near target eccentricity. These findings suggest that dyslexia is associated with a deficit in the processing of global spatial information for the control of saccadic eye movements