Self-Baptizing the Wicked Esperanza: Chicana Feminism and Cultural Contact in The House on Mango Street

[No abstract

A Pedagogical Heartbeat: The Integration of Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Education

With so many figurative references to the heart, the heart has become an overextended metaphor and threatens to become less meaningful. Widely circulated books on Critical Pedagogies and Contemplative Pedagogies refer to the heart. Though they may share a sense of learning as transformation, each has a very different method, which I identify as dialectical or dialogical.  And, each one defines its liberatory transformation in a very different way, one with “third space” and the other in relational and holistic space, which is considered transcendent. This essay describes two forms of heartfelt awareness, first-order heart-based knowledge and the heart’s second-order regulatory function. Then, through the lens of the heart’s regulatory function, it examines the differences between Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies. I do so in order to articulate, through the form and function of the actual heart, a model for how to measure the way contemplative and conventional philosophies of education might come together for transformative education

A Pedagogical Heartbeat: The Integration of Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies for Transformative Education

With so many figurative references to the heart, the heart has become an overextended metaphor and threatens to become less meaningful. Widely circulated books on Critical Pedagogies and Contemplative Pedagogies refer to the heart. Though they may share a sense of learning as transformation, each has a very different method, which I identify as dialectical or dialogical. And, each one defines its liberatory transformation in a very different way, one with “third space” and the other in relational and holistic space, which is considered transcendent. This essay describes two forms of heartfelt awareness, first-order heart-based knowledge and the heart’s second-order regulatory function. Then, through the lens of the heart’s regulatory function, it examines the differences between Critical and Contemplative Pedagogies. I do so in order to articulate, through the form and function of the actual heart, a model for how to measure the way contemplative and conventional philosophies of education might come together for transformative education

Canagliflozin and renal outcomes in type 2 diabetes and nephropathy

BACKGROUND Type 2 diabetes mellitus is the leading cause of kidney failure worldwide, but few effective long-term treatments are available. In cardiovascular trials of inhibitors of sodium–glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2), exploratory results have suggested that such drugs may improve renal outcomes in patients with type 2 diabetes. METHODS In this double-blind, randomized trial, we assigned patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuric chronic kidney disease to receive canagliflozin, an oral SGLT2 inhibitor, at a dose of 100 mg daily or placebo. All the patients had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 30 to <90 ml per minute per 1.73 m2 of body-surface area and albuminuria (ratio of albumin [mg] to creatinine [g], >300 to 5000) and were treated with renin–angiotensin system blockade. The primary outcome was a composite of end-stage kidney disease (dialysis, transplantation, or a sustained estimated GFR of <15 ml per minute per 1.73 m2), a doubling of the serum creatinine level, or death from renal or cardiovascular causes. Prespecified secondary outcomes were tested hierarchically. RESULTS The trial was stopped early after a planned interim analysis on the recommendation of the data and safety monitoring committee. At that time, 4401 patients had undergone randomization, with a median follow-up of 2.62 years. The relative risk of the primary outcome was 30% lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group, with event rates of 43.2 and 61.2 per 1000 patient-years, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.59 to 0.82; P=0.00001). The relative risk of the renal-specific composite of end-stage kidney disease, a doubling of the creatinine level, or death from renal causes was lower by 34% (hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% CI, 0.53 to 0.81; P<0.001), and the relative risk of end-stage kidney disease was lower by 32% (hazard ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.54 to 0.86; P=0.002). The canagliflozin group also had a lower risk of cardiovascular death, myocardial infarction, or stroke (hazard ratio, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.67 to 0.95; P=0.01) and hospitalization for heart failure (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47 to 0.80; P<0.001). There were no significant differences in rates of amputation or fracture. CONCLUSIONS In patients with type 2 diabetes and kidney disease, the risk of kidney failure and cardiovascular events was lower in the canagliflozin group than in the placebo group at a median follow-up of 2.62 years

Beyond Anticolonial Hope and Postcolonial Despair: A Chicana-Feminist Reconfiguration

During the 20th Century, Latin American theories of liberation moved allegorically from Shakespeare\u27s Ariel, The Tempest\u27s personification of hope, to the character of Caliban, the play\u27s foolish and violent brute. In so doing, theories of liberation not only replaced Ariel\u27s hopefulness with Caliban\u27s resistance, struggle and \u27freedom now,\u27 but also with a sense of despair. This paper examines the temporal and spatial nature of Ariel and Caliban\u27s respective signifying systems. Then it attempts to describe a Chicana-feminist configuration of hope by reading Gloria Anzaldúa\u27s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza within the debate in Latin American intellectual history that draws on Shakespeare\u27s tempestuous figures. Though the essay Ariel has been critiqued and dismissed, through a closer reading we can see how José Enrique Rodó\u27s essay complicated conventional notions of hope, in particular, its relation with despair. In Rodó\u27s discussion of hope, despair becomes inspiring and knowledge producing. The paper then reconnects Caliban with Ariel, and by allegorical extension, with hope. Finally, through this reappraisal of Latin American intellectual history, the paper describes how Anzaldúa\u27s Chicana feminism further complicates Caliban\u27s spatial representation, thereby enabling a reconfiguration of hope as a form of knowledge