Walking the imperial metropolis : Janet Frame’s The Envoy from Mirror City

Este ensayo analiza el tercer volumen de la trilogía autobiográfica de Janet Frame (1924-2004), una de las figuras más representativas de la literatura neocelandesa. Publicado por primera vez en Gran Bretaña por la Feminist Press, The Envoy from Mirror City (1984) narra la lucha de la autora por adquirir reconocimiento internacional en el mundo literario londinense de los años 1950. El análisis se centra en la apropiación por parte de la autora de los espacios públicos de la metrópolis, un poder imperial decadente y meca de la emigración colonial en la época. El ensayo argumenta que la condición colonial de Frame, su liminalidad como neocelandesa, le proporciona la libertad y movilidad necesarias para llevar a cabo el papel de artista-flaneur, una actividad característica del artista masculino. Así mismo, el trabajo analiza el impacto que la condición colonial de Frame tiene en su percepción de la metrópolis, especialmente, su especial sensibilidad hacia la construcción cultural de la diferencia.This paper focuses on the third volume of Janet Frame’s autobiographic trilogy, The Envoy from Mirror City (1984), first published in Great Britain by The Women’s Press. In this volume, Frame (1924-2004), a titanic figure of New Zealand literature, recounts the beginning of her career as an internationally known writer in mid-1950s and early 1960s London. The essay charts Frame’s narrative of her appropriation of the public spaces of the metropolis, claiming her as a flaneur-artist, an activity generally carried out by male artists. An important part of my argument has been to highlight Frame’s colonial condition, and its impact on her perception of the city. Her un-Englishness grants her a marginal status in metropolitan society, which results in a high degree of detachment and freedom to move. Her cultural background provides her with a special awareness of the construction of difference, as well as a critical vision of London, a declining imperial power in the post-war period, and its urban landscape

Empathizing with the Rights of Others: Reading Jamaica Kincaid’s My Brother and Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying as Humanitarian Narratives

This paper addresses the underrepresentation of autobiographical texts in studies of narrative empathy by drawing attention to the humanitarian narrative as an apt example of this conjunction, given its reliance on the work of empathetic identification. I propose a reading of Jamaica Kincaid’s My Brother (1997) and Edwidge Danticat’s Brother, I’m Dying (2007) as humanitarian narratives which, through their appeals to empathy, ask readers to recognize their fundamental sameness and shared vulnerability with the distant others at the center of the texts, and also seek to expose and redress their deprivation of individual rights. The pairing of these texts offers opportunities to scrutinize the complex workings of empathetic identification by looking at, for example, how certain narrative representational choices, themes or techniques potentially favor or block its construction, as well as how the relational dynamics specific to familial memoirs impinge upon their capacity to elicit empathetic responses in readers. Both authors exploit the richness and generic undefinability of autobiography, with its double referential and anti-mimetic impulse to generate empathy, combining the impact of the personal story with the effects of narrative techniques ranging from characterization and transportation to repetition or the epiphany

Beyond forgiveness and suicidal behaviour in adolescence: the moderating role of gender

With the development of positive psychology, forgiveness has received increasing attention among psychologists from different social science fields . Empirical evidences have suggested associations between forgiveness and suicidal ideation and behaviours, but moderator’s role of gender has been scarcely studied. The aim of the present study was to test the role of gender as a potential moderating factor in the relationship between forgiveness and suicidal behaviour in adolescence. A total of 586 Spanish adolescents from three different high school centres took part in this study. Their average age was 15.51 (SD= 1.17) and 51.2% were men. We conducted moderation analyses and used age and personality factors as control variables. First, we found negative association between forgiveness and risk suicide. Moreover, results showed that gender moderated the relationship between forgiveness and suicidal ideation. Specifically, males compared to females were found to show significantly higher tendency of suicidal behaviour depending on their level of forgiveness. Thus, males who showed higher scores on forgiveness tend to report lower levels of suicidal behaviour, whereas males who reported lower scores on forgiveness showed greater levels of risk suicide. Our findings suggest that forgiveness may operate as a key buffering factor against suicidal risk underlying the importance of examining gender differences in this association. These findings provide therapeutic targets to reduce risk of suicide in this high-risk group of adolescent males with lower levels of forgiveness. Our results are discussed in terms of the need of using gender perspectives in positive psychology intervention programs.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

'Trust them to Figure it Out': Toni Morrison's Books for Children

Toni Morrison has joined the ranks of those writers whose work includes texts for both adults and children. This paper examines this less known side to Morrison's work in an attempt to define its characteristic features and its place within ethnic and African-American children's literature. The texts will be read in the light of the ideas of such thinkers as John Dewey and Martha Nussbaum, among others, who advocate a liberal model of education that fosters autonomy and critical thinking. Depictions of children in Morrison's adult fiction, for the author has shown a life-long interest in childhood, will also be engaged

Deep Learning-based Computer-Aided Diagnosis systems: a contribution to prostate cancer detection in histopathological images

In this work, novel computer-aided diagnosis systems for medical image analysis focusing on prostate cancer are proposed and implemented. First, the histopathology of prostate cancer was studied, along with the Gleason Grading System, which measures the aggressiveness of a tumor through different patterns with the purpose of driving therapies dealing with this disease. Furthermore, a study of Deep Learning techniques, particularly focusing on neural networks applied to medical image analysis, was conducted. Based on these studies, a Deep Learning-based system to detect malignant regions in gigapixel-size whole-slide prostate cancer tissue images was proposed and developed, which is able to report spatial information of the malignant areas. This solution was evaluated in terms of performance and execution time, obtaining promising results when compared to other state-of-the-art methods. Since the implemented system locates malignant regions within the image without providing a global class, a customWide & Deep network was developed to report a slide-level label per image. The proposed system provides a fast screening method for analyzing histopathological images. Next, a neural network was proposed to assign a specific Gleason pattern to the malignant areas of the tissue. Finally, with the purpose of developing a global computeraided diagnosis system for prostate cancer detection and classification, the three aforementioned subsystems were combined, allowing a complete analysis of histopathological images by reporting whether the sample is normal or malignant, and, in the last case, a heatmap of the malignant areas with their corresponding Gleason pattern. The studied algorithms were also used for other medical image analysis tasks. The performance of these systems were evaluated, discussing the obtained results, presenting conclusions and proposing improvements for future works

Multicultural children's literature and values education

Este trabajo se centra en la noción de educación en valores y la urgente necesidad que tienen los profesores y educadores de promover valores democráticos dada la creciente diversidad de las sociedades contemporáneas. Pretendo hacer hincapié en las oportunidades que ofrece la literatura multicultural para niños para trabajar temas transversales tales como la educación en diversidad, para la tolerancia y la paz. Tras explorar los temas de la educación en valores, el potencial cívico de la literatura y el desarrollo de la literatura multicultural para niños, se analizarán cuatro textos publicados en los Estados Unidos. Tres de estos textos son libros ilustrados, lomás and the Library Lady (1997) de Pat Mora, Sittis Secrets (1994) de Naomi Nye e Hiroshima No Pika (1980) de Toshi Maruki; Remember: The Journey to School Integration (2004) es un foto-ensayo de la autora Toni Morrison.This paper brings to the forefront the notion of values education and the pressing need for teachers and educators to enforce democratic values in our This paper brings to the forefront the notion of values education and the pressing need for teachers and educators to enforce democratic values in our[Archivio: /home/kike/Descargas/ailij/2009.pdf] increasingly diverse contemporary societies. I intend to emphasize the opportunities that children's multicultural literature offers for promoting such cross-curricular topics as education for diversity, tolerance or peace. After addressing the issues of values education, the civic potential of literature and the development of multicultural literature for children, four multicultural texts published in the United States will be presented as case studies. These include three picture books, Pat Moras Tomás and the Library Lady (1997), Naomi Nye's Sittis Secrets (1994), Toshi Marukis Hiroshima No Pika (1980), and Toni Morrison's photo-essay Remember: The Journey to School Integration (2004). I will show how these texts promote positive images of minority children, cross-cultural understanding and habits of empathy

The relationship between public and private bicycle use: the case of Seville

Despite the success achieved by Public Bicycle Sharing Systems (PBSS) across the world, several researchers provide evidence on their limitations and constraints in a medium-long term, and bicycle ownership may be considered as a complementary tool to promote a 'bicycle-culture'. This paper aims to cover the gap about the interaction between both systems (public bicycle / private bicycle) and which are the key aspects to explain the bicycle-buying decision. After a fieldwork based on surveys conducted in Seville (Spain), one of the cities currently acknowledged worldwide for its successful policy of promoting cycling, we apply a Discrete Choice Model. Our findings show that among the socio-demographic factors that favor the move from the PBSS to the private bicycle are: having a higher level of education, being more progressive ideologically-speaking, and being a resident of the city itself; while age and gender do not appear to be conclusive. Experienced users, for whom the bicycle is a part of his /her healthy lifestyle, state a greater willingness to buy a bicycle. And the main obstacles to make the jump from the PBSS to the private bicycle, and that any action plan to support private bicycle usage should take into account, are: the lack of proper parking at the origin/destination, and fear of theft

La métaphore spatiale du terroir dans le roman français d'entre-deux-guerres. Étude de Raboliot de Maurice Genevoix et de Malicroix d'Henri Boco.

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