Le Caire. Entretien avec Edward Said

Dans un entretien accordé à deux anciens étudiants, Edward Said évoque la façon dont sa jeunesse au Caire lui a permis de se penser d’Ailleurs sans l’éprouver comme un manque. Le Caire est une ville multiple dont la dualité elle-même se dédouble : la vieille ville offre à l’Occident le rêve archéologique qu’il désire, la ville moderne a été modelée par la présence coloniale mais aussi par des formes diverses de résistance anticoloniale. Mégalopole qui accepte l’inachèvement, Le Caire constitue une grande alternative à la civilisation urbaine de l’Occident. Des collectivités très hétérogènes coexistent dans un tissu urbain beaucoup moins obsédé par l’ordre et la cohérence visibles que la ville type européenne. Sans souci de construire une leçon historique univoque, la cité offre un écheveau d’itinéraires historiques inachevés, dont chacun peut tirer un fil s’il accepte un désordre (des archives, des traces, de la mémoire…) finalement plus libérateur que destructeur. Le Caire est « une ville qui permet d’être étranger », « out of place », comme aime à se définir Edward Said

Humanism as resistance

Hace nueve años escribí un epílogo para Orientalismo en el que, al intentar aclarar lo que había dicho y no había dicho, no sólo subrayaba los numerosos debates suscitados desde la aparición de mi libro, en 1978, sino el modo en que una obra sobre las representaciones de «Oriente» se prestaba a creciente tergiversación. Que ello me provoque hoy más ironía que irritación muestra lo que he envejecido. Los recientes fallecimientos de mis dos grandes mentores intelectuales, políticos y personales, Eqbal Ahmad e Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, me han producido, además de tristeza y sentimiento de pérdida, resignación y una especie de terco empeño en seguir adelante. En mis memorias, Fuera de lugar (Grijalbo, 2001), hablaba de los extraños y contradictorios mundos en los que me eduqué y ofrecía a los lectores un relato detallado de las circunstancias que me formaron en Palestina, Egipto y Líbano. Pero era un texto muy personal, que se detenía justo antes de mis años de compromiso político, iniciado tras la guerra de 1967 entre árabes e israelíes.Nine years ago wrote an epilogue to Orientalism in which, in trying to clarify what I had said and not said, I highlighted not only the many debates that had arisen since the appearance of my book in 1978, but the way in which a work on the representations of "the East" lent itself to increasing distortion. That this causes me more irony today than irritation shows how much I have aged. The recent deaths of my two great intellectual, political and personal mentors, Eqbal Ahmad and Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, have produced in me, in addition to sadness and feelings of loss, resignation and a kind of stubborn determination to move on. In my memoirs, "Out of Place" (Grijalbo, 2001), I spoke of strange and contradictory worlds in which I was educated and offered readers a detailed account of the circumstances that shaped me in Palestine, Egypt and Lebanon. But it was a very personal text, which stopped just before my years of political engagement, which began after the 1967 war between the Arabs and Israelis

Dragons in the Drawing Room: Chinese Embroideries in British Homes

Chinese embroideries have featured in British domestic interiors since at least the seventeenth century. However, Western imperial interests in China during the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century created a particular set of meanings around Chinese material culture, especially a colonial form of nostalgia for pre-nineteenth century China, with its emperors and 'exotic' court etiquette. This article examines the use of Chinese satin-stitch embroideries in British homes between 1860 and 1949, and explores how a range of British identities was constructed through the ownership, manipulation and display of these luxury Chinese textiles

National security, Islamophobia, and religious freedom in the U.S.

A central argument in Hurd’s (2015) Beyond Religious Freedom is that the religious freedom policy framework pursued by the United States not only entrenches lines of division between religious faiths, but also is constructive of those very divisions. Where foreign and domestic policies purport to promote tolerance and respectful pluralism in the name of religious freedom, Hurd (2015, 41) contends they instead create ‘new forms of social friction defined by religious difference.’ Utilizing Hurd’s (2015) categories of Official, Governed, and Lived religion I examine Islamophobia and the racialization of Muslims in the United States and demonstrate how over-identification with religious groups can exacerbate social tensions; how the ‘agenda of surveillance’ (Hurd 2015) disproportionately targets Muslims in the United States; and argue that recourse to law and policy alone in response to anti-Muslim discrimination is unlikely to transform social attitudes towards Muslims. Finally, I utilize a contemporary reworking of Adam Smith’s sympathetic imagination and radical democratic theory to propose an alternative pathway towards dissolving the pejorative ascription of difference to religiously othered individuals

Suture-method versus Through-the-needle Catheters for Continuous Popliteal-sciatic Nerve Blocks: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

BACKGROUND:The basic perineural catheter design has changed minimally since inception, with the catheter introduced through or over a straight needle. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently cleared a novel perineural catheter design comprising a catheter attached to the back of a suture-shaped needle that is inserted, advanced along the arc of its curvature pulling the catheter past the target nerve, and then exited through the skin in a second location. The authors hypothesized that analgesia would be noninferior using the new versus traditional catheter design in the first two days after painful foot/ankle surgery with a primary outcome of average pain measured with the Numeric Rating Scale. METHODS:Subjects undergoing painful foot or ankle surgery with a continuous supraparaneural popliteal-sciatic nerve block 5 cm proximal to the bifurcation were randomized to either a suture-type or through-the-needle catheter and subsequent 3-day 0.2% ropivacaine infusion (basal 6 ml/h, bolus 4 ml, lockout 30 min). Subjects received daily follow-up for the first four days after surgery, including assessment for evidence of malfunction or dislodgement of the catheters. RESULTS:During the first two postoperative days the mean ± SD average pain scores were lower in subjects with the suture-catheter (n = 35) compared with the through-the-needle (n = 35) group (2.7 ± 2.4 vs. 3.4 ± 2.4) and found to be statistically noninferior (95% CI, -1.9 to 0.6; P < 0.001). No suture-style catheter was completely dislodged (0%), whereas the tips of three (9%) traditional catheters were found outside of the skin before purposeful removal on postoperative day 3 (P = 0.239). CONCLUSIONS:Suture-type perineural catheters provided noninferior analgesia compared with traditional catheters for continuous popliteal-sciatic blocks after painful foot and ankle surgery. The new catheter design appears to be a viable alternative to traditional designs used for the past seven decades

Vitamin D Status of HIV-Infected Women and Its Association with HIV Disease Progression, Anemia, and Mortality

Vitamin D has a potential role in slowing HIV disease progression and preventing mortality based on its extensive involvement in the immune system; however, this relationship has not been examined in large studies or in resource-limited settings. Vitamin D levels were assessed in 884 HIV-infected pregnant women at enrollment in a trial of multivitamin supplementation (not including vitamin D) in Tanzania. Women were followed up for a median of 69.5 months, and information on hemoglobin levels, HIV disease progression, and mortality was recorded. Proportional hazard models and generalized estimating equations were used to assess the relationship of these outcomes with vitamin D status. Low vitamin D status (serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D<32 ng/mL) was significantly associated with progression to WHO HIV disease stage III or greater in multivariate models (incidence rate ratio [RR]: 1.25; 95% confidence intervals [CI]: 1.05, 1.50). No significant relationship was observed between vitamin D status and T-cell counts during follow-up. Women with low vitamin D status had 46% higher risk of developing severe anemia during follow-up, compared to women with adequate vitamin D levels (RR: 1.46; 95% CI: 1.09, 1.96). Women in the highest vitamin D quintile had a 42% lower risk of all-cause mortality, compared to the lowest quintile (RR: 0.58; 95% CI: 0.40, 0.84). Vitamin D status had a protective association with HIV disease progression, all-cause mortality, and development of anemia during follow-up in HIV-infected women. If confirmed in randomized trials, vitamin D supplementation could represent a simple and inexpensive method to prolonging the time to initiation of antiretroviral therapy in HIV-infected patients, particularly in resource-limited settings

Intellectual interventions: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and the ethics of texture and messiness

This article aims to reframe understanding of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s recent public intellectual interventions by reading them as a meditation on messiness and texture. In doing so, it sheds light on the precarious politics and ethics that affect the work and reception of literary celebrities