Dementia and detectives: Alzheimer's disease in crime fiction

Fictional representations of dementia have burgeoned in recent years, and scholars have amply explored their double-edged capacity to promote tragic perspectives or normalising images of ‘living well’ with the condition. Yet to date, there has been only sparse consideration of the treatment afforded dementia within the genre of crime fiction. Focusing on two novels, Emma Healey’s Elizabeth is Missing and Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind, this article considers what it means in relation to the ethics of representation that these authors choose to cast as their amateur detective narrators women who have dementia. Analysing how their narrative portrayals frame the experience of living with dementia, it becomes apparent that features of the crime genre inflect the meanings conveyed. While aspects of the novels may reinforce problem-based discourses around dementia, in other respects they may spur meaningful reflection about it among the large readership of this genre

British Romanticism and the Global Climate

As a result of developments in the meteorological and geological sciences, the Romantic period saw the gradual emergence of attempts to understand the climate as a dynamic global system that could potentially be affected by human activity. This chapter examines textual responses to climate disruption cause by the Laki eruption of 1783 and the Tambora eruption of 1815. During the Laki haze, writers such as Horace Walpole, Gilbert White, and William Cowper found in Milton a powerful way of understanding the entanglements of culture and climate at a time of national and global crisis. Apocalyptic discourse continued to resonate during the Tambora crisis, as is evident in eyewitness accounts of the eruption, in the utopian predictions of John Barrow and Eleanor Anne Porden, and in the grim speculations of Byron’s ‘Darkness’. Romantic writing offers a powerful analogue for thinking about climate change in the Anthropocene

Collective Patient Participation : Patient Voice and Civil Society Organizations in Healthcare

The importance of engaging patients in the development of healthcare services and policy has received increasing attention over the last decades. However, this attention has mainly been directed towards various forms of involvement of individual patients. This dissertation shifts focus to the collective forms of patient participation and the specific values they bring. The overall aim of the dissertationis to explore how collective patient participation is shaped, in an increasingly individualized and marketized society. The articles included in the dissertation analyze aspects such as advocacy work, representation mechanisms and coproduction practices at different levels of healthcare. These aspects are studied from the perspective of civil society organizations navigating current social trends such as individualization and marketization. Taken together, the findings point to the importance of considering the preconditions of the individual patient to engage in patient participation in a collective form. This appears to be an important factor in the shaping of collective patient participation, as well as a potential challenge for both advocacy and representation. The findings also indicate that individual and collective forms of participation should not be seen as two conflicting interests, but could rather be mutually strengthening, something that should be considered both by civil society organizations and healthcare policymakers. Furthermore, this dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the diverse nature of patient participation, and how these variations all play important yet distinct roles in improving democratic and quality aspects of healthcare

Коллективизм и материализм в повести А.П. Платонова Котлован.

This thesis examines the treatment of ideological matters in Andrej Platonov’s 1930 novel Kotlovan. The examination is based on Ol’ga Meerson’s theory of non-estrangement, which is applied to the depiction of ideology in Kotlovan. The specific themes examined are collectivism and materialism, which were viewed in the early Soviet period as important aspects of Marxist-Leninist ideology. The findings suggest that both collectivism and materialism are core issues in Kotlovan. Contrary to what one might suppose, however, these themes are not treated primarily in the famously dissonant and often ideologically coloured language of the surface of the text. Rather, the treatment of ideology seems to be conducted on a deeper level, where these issues are veiled by means of non-estrangement. By hiding away these core issues, the text requires the reader to accept them as given premises of the reality described in the text, in order to be able to proceed with the reading process. Объектом исследования предлагаемой работы выступает повесть А.П. Платонова Котлован. Предметом же исследования является трактовка в тексте Котлована вопросов идеологической тематики, а более точно – коллективизма и материализма, воспринимаемых в качестве важнейших составляющих марксизма-ленинизма. В представленной работе применительно к идеологической тематике исследуемой повести использована разработанная Ольгой Меерсон теория неостранения. Результаты исследования указывают на центральную роль коллективизма и материализма в повести Котлован, которые при этом обсуждаются не столько на уровне платоновского специфического, нередко идеологически подкрашенного языка, сколько в более глубинном пласте текста, скрытые методом неостранения. Именно эта скрытость центральных тем в тексте заставляет читателя принимать их за данность изображаемой в Котловане действительности.

The Role of Pensioner Councils in Regional Healthcare Policy : A Holistic Perspective

To ensure older individuals actively engage in healthcare service development and policymaking, it is crucial to counteract declining social and civic participation with age. It is also necessary to clarify the potential and impact of participatory activities. This study examines citizen participation among older adults in Swedish health policy development. Using Thurston et al.‘s (2005) holistic framework, the study analyzes pensioner councils (PCs) in politically governed healthcare regions. Through 13 interviews and six years of PC meeting minutes, findings from a deductive content analysis suggest that PCs build trust and foster deeper dialogues between older adults and politicians, due to their long-term nature. A trusting relationship between citizens and decision-makers may benefit society at large by enhancing the legitimacy of policy decisions. Although achieving direct policy impact is challenging, these councils serve vital participatory and deliberative democratic functions, contributing to a stronger policy community and increased transparency in the democratic process. This study highlights the complexities of assessing PCs solely based on policy influence and immediately evident outcomes, emphasizing their role in promoting democratic values, while also drawing attention to the tension between participatory and representative democracy