Family Dining: Food and Drink in The Sopranos – a Gastrocritical Approach

This thesis uses gastrocriticism to explore food and drink in the 86 episodes of the long-form narrative HBO television series The Sopranos. Gastrocriticism is an emerging branch of literary criticism that draws on scholarship from a range of disciplines such as sociology, anthropology and cultural studies. A deeper understanding of the series was gained by using a structured framework of enquiry to explore narrative, setting, characterisation and genre through the lens of food and foodways. The Sopranos is a story of an Italian-American crime family and food is abundant in the series and bound up with the identity of the main characters. This study highlighted how the intertextual food tropes in The Sopranos are a continuation of the gangster genre, recalling expressions of Italian-American identity, family, esprit de corps and power. Food is central to the plot and is used in a variety of ways; as a key narrative device; an embodiment of the personality of the lead character; as a vehicle to access the subconscious; as a symbol of greed; as a symbol of power, as a token of identity, and as a signal of outlier status. Looking at food and foodways offered insight into the nuances of the characterisations and Italian-American identity, and how this identity is evolving as the population is becoming more assimilated in America. A gastrocritical viewing of The Sopranos has provided a more in-depth understanding of the series and the cultural landscape of the time. This study shows how foodways are a foundational component of ethnic identity

Monstrous Mothers and the Cult of the Virgin in Rosario Castellanos' 'Oficio de tinieblas'

Lisa Davies begins her article by showing how the image of the mother seems to be at the heart of Mexican culture. But whilst the pure and idealised mother is represented by the Virgin of Guadalupe, within the very same culture there exists another more sinister mother figure, that of La Malinche. Patriarchal society imposes on women the myth of the good, self-sacrificing Virgin mother and tries to deny and banish the sexualised, and strong figure of Malinche, perceived as being extremely dangerous to patriarchal values. In analysing Castellanos’ text, Oficio de tinieblas, Davies points out how the author, in line with the strong influence of Simone De Beauvoir, maintains that the will to bear children and care for them is a product of social pressure rather than free choice. Throughout her fiction, Castellanos deconstructs the saintly images of the Mother that patriarchy is promoting and shows how the myths created around motherhood are central to a patriarchal society which depends on woman’s reproductive function and willingness to nurture the children for it to survive. Davies illustrates how Castellanos’ text reflects the status of women, accepted in Mexican society only as mothers, contextualizing the experiences of two women, one a biological mother, the other an adoptive mother, but ‘monstrous’ because they wish, and bring about, in a ritual re-enacting of the Crucifixion, the death of their child. For Davies, Castellanos’ text, with its emphasis on race and class, the symbiotic relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor, becomes even more political when the author denounces, in a more sinister and violent re-writing of Biblical narrative, the oppressive and misleading myths surrounding motherhood, which keep women marginalised within the culture and history of Mexico

The Perceptions of High School Counselors\u27 Roles in Developing a College-Going Culture

The role of high school counselors includes providing equitable access to college and career opportunities for students (College Board, 2011). Attending college is viewed as a national priority that includes pre-college activities to promote postsecondary access (Savitz-Romer, 2012). High school counselors may have ambiguous roles that complicates their efforts (Engberg & Gilbert, 2014). Role confusion may arise when the high school counselors are asked to provide mental health services rather than professionally focus on college acceptance and completion for students. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of public high school counselors regarding their roles in developing a college-going culture. The participants were asked to share practices, policies, and resources specific to promoting a college-going culture. This case study included in-depth interviews that shed light on successes and struggles encountered by the high school counselors. The criteria for participants included serving a minimum of three years as a high school counselor and possessing a Tennessee school counseling license. The interviews consisted of 15 semi-structured questions framed in response to the three research questions guiding this study. The findings resulted in the emergence of four themes relative to answering the three research questions. The 11 participants expressed their roles as facilitators to students’ understanding, knowledge, and transition to access postsecondary education. The 11 participants provided insights and personal illustrations regarding the four themes. The findings revealed perceptions recognized from the participants’ experiences in the development of a college-going culture. Participants reported an expanded view of the term college and reflected that the college-going culture may be structured to address the needs specific to the respective high school’s environment. The participants responded that family influences are key elements that determine students’ entry to postsecondary education. Recommendations included practices that strengthened communication to students and parents and raising the rigor of academic coursework. The recommendations for practice included increasing the number of licensed school counselors with master’s degrees to reduce student caseloads. Currently, research from the American School Counseling Association (2017) suggests a student-to-counselor ratio of 250:1. Further research should explore barriers that prevent high school counselors from providing resources for the development of a college-going culture

Assessing the probability of patients reoffending after discharge from low to medium secure forensic mental health services: An inductive prevention paradox

Citizens of developed societies are troubled by those who commit ‘irrational' crimes against the person. Reoffending by ex-patients following their release from secure mental health services triggers particularly intense angst when amplified by media and political scrutiny. Forensic mental health service providers are expected to minimise the occurrence of such transgressions by releasing only those patients who are judged acceptably unlikely to reoffend. However, reoffending probabilities can only be estimated by observing behaviour in secure institutional settings designed specifically to prevent patients from transgressing. The article explores this ‘inductive prevention paradox' which arises when the implementation of measures designed to avoid an adverse event obscures direct observation of what might have happened if prophylaxis had not been attempted. The analysis presented draws on data obtained in 1999–2003 from two qualitative studies in medium to low secure UK institutions, one providing forensic mental health services and the other forensic learning disability services. We explored the views of 56 staff members and 21 patients about risk management in forensic services and undertook additional 25 staff interviews for case studies of the 21 patients. The wider applicability of the inductive prevention paradox will be considered in the Discussion. We argue that the prognostic limitations arising from prevention have been underestimated by policy makers and in official inquiries; and that the prevailing personal risk assessment framework needs to be complemented by greater attention to the environments which patients will be discharged into

The role of the pedunculopontine region in basal ganglia mechanisms of akinesia

There has in recent years been a resurgence of interest in the treatment of Parkinson's disease by stereotactic surgical techniques. The phenomenal success of levo-dopa in the 1960s led to the virtual disappearance of surgery for Parkinson's Disease. However, two decades after its introduction the problems associated with the long-term administration of levo-dopa became well recognized. Over the same period the advance in our knowledge of the neural mechanisms underlying parkinsonian symptoms has been remarkable. Studies established that the loss of the nigro-striatal dopaminergic projection results in overactivity of the GPm and SNr inhibitory output, which in turn depresses the motor activity of thalamic and brainstem structures to which they have been shown to project, thus leading to the clinical manifestations of parkinsonism. It has long been assumed that the increased inhibitory output of the GPm acts via the thalamocortical feedback route to produce akinesia. However, this view fails to explain the clinical and experimental observation that thalamotomy, despite relieving tremor, rarely improves akinesia. Conversely medial pallidotomy may alleviate akinesia but has a lesser effect upon tremor, whereas high frequency stimulation or lesioning of the STN improves both symptoms. As thalamic lesioning does not affect the descending outputs of the basal ganglia, whereas pallidotomy and subthalamic nucleotomy do, a logical conclusion would be that overactivity of descending projections to the pedunculopontine area in the upper brainstem, rather than the overinhibition of the thalamic motor nuclei, is responsible for the akinesia of Parkinson's Disease. Therefore I have studied the effects of lesions of the PPN on movements in monkeys. The results establish that in the normal monkey a unilateral lesion of the PPN will result in a temporary akinetic state, whereas bilateral PPN lesions will generate a lasting Parkinsonian like akinesia. Results are consistent whether the lesioning method is by radiofrequency thermocoagulation, or by pressure injection of a neuron specific excitotoxic agent. Clinically, I have worked with the Oxford Movement disorder group studying the effects of lesioning, and deep brain stimulation in the basal ganglia of Parkinsonian patients

UK Renal Registry 18th Annual Report : Chapter 12 Epidemiology of Reported Infections amongst Patients Receiving Dialysis for Established Renal Failure in England 2013 to 2014: a Joint Report from Public Health England and the UK Renal Registry

From 1st May 2013 to 30th April 2014 there were 35 episodes of Methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteraemia in established renal failure patients on dialysis. This is now fairly stable year-on-year equating to a rate of 0.15 episodes per 100 dialysis patient years, following an initial decline in rates from 4.0 episodes per 100 dialysis patient years in 2005 when reporting began. Methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA) bacteraemia rates were slightly higher this year at 2.23 per 100 dialysis patient years (compared with 1.59 episodes per 100 dialysis patient years last year) with 526 episodes of blood stream infection reported. In 2005, the first year this was reported, there were 1,114 MSSA bacteraemias in 54 centres. There were 247 Clostridium difficile infection episodes with a rate of 1.05 per 100 dialysis patient years, slightly higher than last year at 0.55 episodes per 100 dialysis patient years. Escherichia coli infections occurred at a rate of 1.49 per 100 dialysis patient years, very similar to the rate reported last year (1.32 episodes per 100 dialysis patient years). This report has utilised a new methodology to identify cases, linking all established renal failure cases known to the UK Renal Registry (UKRR) with all infections reported to Public Health England and avoids the need for the local microbiology team to flag the patient as a renal patient. This may have increased the reliability of diagnosis at the UKRR level. In each infection for which access data were collected, the presence of a central venous catheter appeared to correlate with increased risk.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Evaluating the Cephalonia method of library induction

This is a PDF version of an article published in SCONUL Focus© 2007. SCONUL Focus is available online at http://www.sconul.ac.uk/publications/newsletterThis article discusses the results of a survey carried out at the University of Chester library into student feedback of the Cephalonia method of library induction