"No funk" - shame, violence and the black body: An investigation of Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and God Help the Child

This thesis will provide an analysis of Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye (1970) and God Help the Child (2015) in light of historical context and gothic literary tropes, with the main focus on shame and the black body, violence and the inheritance of shame in families. I will show how an intertextual gothic reading of characters highlights the structural problems of racism in the shadow of slavery and racist violence. My methodical approach is close reading of passages and characters in the two novels, and I will also draw some parallels to other works by Morrison. My theoretical framework is current gothic and African American literary theory and Morrison’s own academic writing. First, I take a close look at the two narratives separately in light of gothic tropes and internalized shame. Secondly, I analyze inherited shame, representations of violence and the doubling of characters from the two novels. Finally, I look at Morrison’s narrative resistance to systemic racism

Rehabilitating Observation: The Persistence of Observational Documentary in the Age of Post-Truth Politics

With the postmodernist realignment of our epistemological foundations, contemporary documentary has come to be marked by the idea that problematizing the relationship with the real is inherently good and progressive, and that the core quality of contemporary documentary has come to be its suspicion towards its own relationship to the real (Steyerl 2011; Rangan 2014; Takahashi 2015). In a time, which the assertion of the indiscernibility between fact and fiction has been appropriated by discourses of power I will argue that the facticity of reality needs our attention and care more than our suspicion. Thus, following philosophical proposals for a new empiricism (Latour 2004; Haraway 1988), and a Bazinian ontologization of cinema (Bazin 2005a, 2005b), I will argue for the persistence of observational documentary and a new critical realism set in the vein of contemporary observational documentary practises like Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s Leviathan (2012) and Kevin Jerome Everson’s Tonsler Park (2017)

A quantum-mechanical perspective on linear response theory within polarizable embedding

The derivation of linear response theory within polarizable embedding is carried out from a rigorous quantum-mechanical treatment of a composite system. Two different subsystem decompositions (symmetric and nonsymmetric) of the linear response function are presented, and the pole structures as well as residues of the individual terms are analyzed and discussed. This theoretical analysis clarifies which form of the response function to use in polarizable embedding, and we highlight complications in separating out subsystem contributions to molecular properties. For example, based on the nonsymmetric decomposition of the complex linear response function, we derive conservation laws for integrated absorption cross sections, providing a solid basis for proper calculations of the intersubsystem intensity borrowing inherent to coupled subsystems and how that can lead to negative subsystem intensities. We finally identify steps and approximations required to achieve the transition from a quantum-mechanical description of the composite system to polarizable embedding with a classical treatment of the environment, thus providing a thorough justification for the descriptions used in polarizable embedding models

Clinical use of pregabalin in the management of central neuropathic pain

Central neuropathic pain (central pain) is treated with antidepressants, various anticonvulsants, opioids, and cannabinoids, but in many cases treatment is insufficient and associated with a range of side-effects. This review addresses a new treatment for neuropathic pain, the anticonvulsant pregabalin. We review the pharmacology, mode of action, pharmacokinetics, and safety of pregabalin as well as two randomized efficacy studies in central pain and a brief overview of efficacy in peripheral neuropathic pain. Pregabalin appears to have efficacy in treating central pain comparable to that in peripheral neuropathic pain as well as efficacy of other recommended drugs for central pain. Pregabalin also improves disturbed sleep and anxiety. Pregabalin is well tolerated; the most common side-effects are somnolence, dizziness, ataxia, and weight gain. Pregabalin is suitable for patients on multiple drugs although there may be additive CNS-related side-effects. Thus, pregabalin has a primary role in central pain patients

History Dependence of Freely Chosen Index Finger Tapping Rhythmicity

Highlights: Voluntary, rhythmic, stereotyped, automated motor activities are basic to humans Participants did initial submaximal tapping at low and high target tapping rates Subsequently, they tapped at a freely chosen rate The freely chosen rate was relatively low following the initial low tapping rate The freely chosen tapping rate was found to be history dependent Objective: To test the following hypothesis. Initial submaximal tapping at preset relatively low and high target tapping rates causes a subsequent freely chosen tapping rate to be relatively low and high, respectively, as compared with a reference freely chosen tapping rate. Methods: Participants performed three 3-min bouts of submaximal index finger tapping on separate days. In one bout (C, considered reference), the rate was freely chosen, throughout. In another bout (A), initial tapping was performed at a relatively low target rate and followed by freely chosen tapping. In yet another bout (B), initial tapping was performed at a relatively high target rate, followed by freely chosen tapping. Results: At the end of bout A, the rate was 14.6±23.7% lower than the reference value during bout C (p = 0.023). At the end of bout B, the rate was similar to the rate during bout C (p = 0.804). Conclusions: Initial tapping at a preset relatively low target rate caused a subsequent freely chosen rate to be lower than a reference freely chosen rate. The observation was denoted a phenomenon of motor behavioural history dependence. Initial tapping at a preset relatively high target rate did not elicit history dependence