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The relationship between happiness and capitalism in the fiction of Don DeLillo
This thesis seeks to understand more about the intersections between emotion and capitalism, to uncover how capitalism functions through emotional means. It does this in two ways: through analysis of the work of Don DeLillo during the period associated with neoliberal capitalism, and through exploration of cultural theory and philosophy that touches upon capitalism, emotion, or both. Using DeLillo's fictions as contextual artefacts that depict the experience of a particular time and place, the thesis explores the emotional lives of his characters in combination with cultural theory, to develop a novel mode of reading that reveals emotions to be the language of neoliberalism.
The project is split into three parts, with the first providing an overview of the functional nature of emotions within neoliberal capitalism, building on the work of Mark Fisher and Gilles Deleuze in particular. It asks how emotions functionally enable the reproduction of neoliberalism. The second part looks more closely at the emotional and affective structures that underpin neoliberalism, asking how we can understand affective infrastructure to work, and how facets of capitalism such as crisis impact on the emotional experience of individuals. The final part explores both the global spread of neoliberalism, as well as its potential future. It asks what the impact of globalisation is on emotions, and whether emotions can be part of resistance movements against capitalism.
The three parts rely on theoretical works to outline the fundamentals of the various approaches, but it is through the analysis of DeLillo's fiction that the nuances of these intersections between emotion and capitalism emerge. His works enable us to see where capitalism makes happiness a tool of manipulation, where it is an indicator of success and performance, and where it is something promised but never delivered. His work reveals the fleeting nature of happiness in contemporary America and how it is more common to find an interlocking mixture of fear and hope at the heart of the neoliberal emotional landscape
Overall survival in the OlympiA phase III trial of adjuvant olaparib in patients with germline pathogenic variants in BRCA1/2 and high-risk, early breast cancer
Background: The randomized, double-blind OlympiA trial compared 1 year of the oral poly(adenosine diphosphate-ribose) polymerase inhibitor, olaparib, to matching placebo as adjuvant therapy for patients with pathogenic or likely pathogenic variants in germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 (gBRCA1/2pv) and high-risk, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative, early breast cancer (EBC). The first pre-specified interim analysis (IA) previously demonstrated statistically significant improvement in invasive disease-free survival (IDFS) and distant disease-free survival (DDFS). The olaparib group had fewer deaths than the placebo group, but the difference did not reach statistical significance for overall survival (OS). We now report the pre-specified second IA of OS with updates of IDFS, DDFS, and safety. Patients and methods: One thousand eight hundred and thirty-six patients were randomly assigned to olaparib or placebo following (neo)adjuvant chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation therapy if indicated. Endocrine therapy was given concurrently with study medication for hormone receptor-positive cancers. Statistical significance for OS at this IA required P < 0.015. Results: With a median follow-up of 3.5 years, the second IA of OS demonstrated significant improvement in the olaparib group relative to the placebo group [hazard ratio 0.68; 98.5% confidence interval (CI) 0.47-0.97; P = 0.009]. Four-year OS was 89.8% in the olaparib group and 86.4% in the placebo group (Δ 3.4%, 95% CI -0.1% to 6.8%). Four-year IDFS for the olaparib group versus placebo group was 82.7% versus 75.4% (Δ 7.3%, 95% CI 3.0% to 11.5%) and 4-year DDFS was 86.5% versus 79.1% (Δ 7.4%, 95% CI 3.6% to 11.3%), respectively. Subset analyses for OS, IDFS, and DDFS demonstrated benefit across major subgroups. No new safety signals were identified including no new cases of acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome. Conclusion: With 3.5 years of median follow-up, OlympiA demonstrates statistically significant improvement in OS with adjuvant olaparib compared with placebo for gBRCA1/2pv-associated EBC and maintained improvements in the previously reported, statistically significant endpoints of IDFS and DDFS with no new safety signals