Stealing Fire: Political Re-Appropriation of Verse Drama in Tony Harrison’s Prometheus and Liz Lochhead’s Medea

Critical opinion of verse drama has long considered it to be an outdated and classist form. Yet in the early 21st century, certain dramatists have provided examples of how the form may be subverted not only to expose its privileged history but to provide a context for new lines of ideological enquiry. This article examines how verse drama has been re-appropriated to serve as a vehicle for socialist and feminist concerns in Liz Lochhead's Medea and Tony Harrison's Prometheus

Stealing Fire: Political Re-Appropriation of Verse Drama in Tony Harrison’s Prometheus and Liz Lochhead’s Medea

Critical opinion of verse drama has long considered it to be an outdated and classist form. Yet in the early 21st century, certain dramatists have provided examples of how the form may be subverted not only to expose its privileged history but to provide a context for new lines of ideological enquiry. This article examines how verse drama has been re-appropriated to serve as a vehicle for socialist and feminist concerns in Liz Lochhead's Medea and Tony Harrison's Prometheus

Should Health Professionals Screen All Women for Domestic Violence?

Background to the debate: The US and Canadian task forces on preventive health recently declared that there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against routine universal screening of women for domestic violence. Yet some experts argue that routine enquiry is justified

'The stories we tell ourselves to make ourselves come true': feminist rewriting in the Canongate Myths Series

In 2005, Canongate, an Edinburgh-based publisher, launched the first volumes in the Canongate Myths series, a project which commissioned renowned authors to retell ancient mythologies for contemporary audiences. Securing novellas from authors including Su Tong, Philip Pullman, A.S. Byatt and thirteen others, the project explores what is understood by myth today and how mythology remains relevant for a twenty-first century audience. It also asked female writers to engage directly with ancient mythologies which have perpetuated misogynistic narratives for millennia, encouraging those writers to self-consciously consider representations of gender contained within their selected source myths. This thesis uses the female-authored Greco-Roman mythologies in the series, from Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith and Salley Vickers, as a unique corpus in which to locate arguments regarding the efficacy and effect of a ‘feminist’ approach to rewriting mythology. Critical opinion has been split regarding whether a ‘feminist rewriting’ is, in fact, attainable, with some detractors asserting that any revision necessarily replicates the language and structure of the original. Yet by looking at the individual retellings and at the project as a whole, this project will argue that when viewed as a collaborative, ongoing process, engagements with ancient mythologies may in time yield results which are beneficial for representations of femininity and may, in turn, help to destabilise the masculinised model of the subject. The thesis contends that mythology can act as a framework through which female authors can evaluate the gendered implications of the personal, public and meta aspects of mythmaking and storytelling more generally, by considering the time and context-bound production of both the source myths - from Homer to Ovid, Sophocles to Freud - as well as the revisions themselves. The Canongate Myths series also serves as a distinct source for considering the character of rewriting within a post-postmodern literary landscape. With all four texts indicating a preoccupation with questions of ‘truth’, ‘reality’, and ‘authenticity’, the Myths series contributes to ongoing critical discussions regarding the shifting critical climate of twenty-first century literature. In particular, the texts selected from the series suggest an ongoing relationship with modernism and its engagements with mythology; the thesis helps to advance current discussions pertaining to contemporary literature’s relationship with its modernist past. These references, and each myth’s presentation of a distinct theoretical perspective, indicates that despite Lyotard’s assertions, we have not yet seen the death of all metanarratives. These self-consciously constructed novellas show that questions around metanarratives of patriarchy and mythology are ongoing and that feminist rewriting continues to have a relevant role to play in their dismantling or recalibration

Use of Ecomaps in Qualitative Health Research

Qualitative health research plays a central role in exploring individuals’ experiences and perceptions of wellness, illness, and healthcare services. Visual tools are increasingly used for data elicitation. An ecomap is a visual tool that applies ecosystems theory to human communities and relationships to provide an illustration of the quality of relationships. We describe the use of ecomaps in qualitative health research. Searches across eight databases identified 407 citations. We screened them in duplicate to identify 129 publications that underwent full text review and included 73 in the final synthesis. We classified and summarized data based on iterative comparisons across sources. Benefits of using ecomaps include improving rapport and engagement with study participants, facilitating iterative question development, and highlighting the social contexts of relationships. When used in conjunction with interviews, they promote data credibility through triangulation. Investigators have used ecomaps as a tool to facilitate primary and secondary analysis of data. Researchers have adapted the ecomap to meet their health research needs. Challenges to their use include additional time and training needed to complete, and potential privacy and confidentiality concerns. Ecomaps can be useful in qualitative health research to enhance data elicitation, analysis, presentation, and to augment study rigor

Towards an ecological understanding of readiness to engage with interventions for children exposed to domestic violence and abuse: Systematic review and qualitative synthesis of perspectives of children, parents and practitioners.

Children who grow up in homes affected by domestic violence and abuse (DVA) are at risk of poor outcomes across the lifespan, yet there is limited evidence on the acceptability and effectiveness of interventions for them. A recent review of child-focused interventions highlighted a gap in understanding the factors influencing the willingness of parents and children to engage with these programmes. We conducted a systematic review of qualitative evidence on the experiences of receiving and delivering interventions with the aim of identifying factors at different levels of the social-ecological context that may influence parent and child readiness to take up interventions. We searched literature till April 2016 and found 12 reports of eight programmes. Two authors independently screened papers for inclusion, extracted data and identified the first- and second-order constructs. The third-order constructs were derived and fitted to the ecological framework to inform a picture of readiness to engage with interventions. Three key findings emerged from this review: (a) parent and child readiness is influenced by a complex interplay of individual, relationship and organisational factors, highlighting that individual readiness to take up child-focussed interventions must be viewed in an ecological context; (b) the specific process through which women become ready to engage in or facilitate child-focussed interventions may differ from that related to uptake of safety-promoting behaviours and requires parents to be aware of the impact of DVA on children and to focus on children's needs; (c) there are distinct but interlinked processes through which parents and children reach a point of readiness to engage in an interventions aimed at improving child outcomes. We discuss the implications of these findings for both practice and research

Risk indicators to identify intimate partner violence in the emergency department

Background: Intimate partner violence against women is prevalent and is associated with poor health outcomes. Understanding indicators of exposure to intimate partner violence can assist health care professionals to identify and respond to abused women. This study was undertaken to determine the strength of association between selected evidence-based risk indicators and exposure to intimate partner violence. Methods: In this cross-sectional study of 768 English-speaking women aged 18–64 years who presented to 2 emergency departments in Ontario, Canada, participants answered questions about risk indicators and completed the Composite Abuse Scale to determine their exposure to intimate partner violence in the past year. Results: Intimate partner violence was significantly associated with being separated, in a common-law relationship or single (odds ratio [OR]