Wildness and colonialism in “The Story of Two Dogs” by Doris Lessing

Dogs play an important role in colonial society, especially in Africa. While the project of colonisation involves settling in a new country and confronting wild animals, the dog is one animal on which the settler can rely as an ally, protector and companion. Settler dogs whose breeds stem from Britain are in a sense the animal counterpart of the human settler. When these animals desert their owners either by cross-breeding with indigenous dogs or reverting to the wild, it can seem like a betrayal of their settler owners and of the colonial project. Doris Lessing explores this dilemma in “The Story of Two Dogs” which is a semi-autobiographical story of her family and their dogs. She grew up in the 1930s on a farm in colonial Rhodesia. Lessing creates an ironical narrative voice that undermines colonial discourse and exposes racial and class prejudice among the settler community. Through the lens of the dogs she also draws attention to gender conflict and the subjugation of women in matters of dog training and hunting. In addition, conflict between adults and children is brought out which points to possibilities of a more open approach to the question of dog breeding, training and ownership. She also raises questions about the ultimate nature of the dog and its status as a domesticated animal

Reading Space and Place in Chris Mann's Bird Poems in Lifelines

Abstract Michael Bennett makes an important point about the construction of space in a literary text, and reminds us that the literary analysis of space and place is something that has contributed to making ecocritical criticism different from what went before. 'If ecocriticism has taught us anything, it has taught us to view "settings" not just as metaphors but as physical spaces that inform, shape, and are shaped by cultural productions' (Bennett 2001:197). In this essay I use the concepts of space and place as a framework to analyse Chris Mann's bird poetry from Lifelines. I argue that the spaces created between human and nonhuman, contribute to an understanding of the type of relationship that exists between them. In a complex mixture of humility in the face of the unknowable dimension and a powerfully experienced encounter with the animal, Mann attempts to convey the essential qualities of that animal, free of stereotypical associations. He inverts the common usage of animals as metaphors for human society and instead uses human metaphors to describe the bird and the spaces which surround it. Keywords: birds, Chris Mann, space, place, ecocriticism. The human experience of the world is permeated through and through, on every possible level, by animality-by our relationships with other animal beings on the planet and b

Book Review: The Printmaker

Book Title: The PrintmakerBook Author: Bronwyn Law-Viljoen Cape Town: Umuzi, 2016. 267 pp. ISBN 9781415209127

Effects of once-weekly exenatide on cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: The cardiovascular effects of adding once-weekly treatment with exenatide to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes are unknown. METHODS: We randomly assigned patients with type 2 diabetes, with or without previous cardiovascular disease, to receive subcutaneous injections of extended-release exenatide at a dose of 2 mg or matching placebo once weekly. The primary composite outcome was the first occurrence of death from cardiovascular causes, nonfatal myocardial infarction, or nonfatal stroke. The coprimary hypotheses were that exenatide, administered once weekly, would be noninferior to placebo with respect to safety and superior to placebo with respect to efficacy. RESULTS: In all, 14,752 patients (of whom 10,782 [73.1%] had previous cardiovascular disease) were followed for a median of 3.2 years (interquartile range, 2.2 to 4.4). A primary composite outcome event occurred in 839 of 7356 patients (11.4%; 3.7 events per 100 person-years) in the exenatide group and in 905 of 7396 patients (12.2%; 4.0 events per 100 person-years) in the placebo group (hazard ratio, 0.91; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.83 to 1.00), with the intention-to-treat analysis indicating that exenatide, administered once weekly, was noninferior to placebo with respect to safety (P<0.001 for noninferiority) but was not superior to placebo with respect to efficacy (P=0.06 for superiority). The rates of death from cardiovascular causes, fatal or nonfatal myocardial infarction, fatal or nonfatal stroke, hospitalization for heart failure, and hospitalization for acute coronary syndrome, and the incidence of acute pancreatitis, pancreatic cancer, medullary thyroid carcinoma, and serious adverse events did not differ significantly between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with type 2 diabetes with or without previous cardiovascular disease, the incidence of major adverse cardiovascular events did not differ significantly between patients who received exenatide and those who received placebo