Life, death, and subjectivity : moral sources in bioethics

"This book presents an exploration of concepts central to health care practice. In exploring such concepts as Subjectivity, Life, Personhood, and Death in deep philosophical terms, the book aims to draw out the ethical demands that arise when we encounter these phenomena, and also the moral resources of health care workers for meeting those demands."--BOOK JACKET.

The death and life of the great Australian suburb

Inspired by the approach to understanding, critiquing and rebuilding both planning and the urban environment that Jane Jacobs did so well in her Death and Life of Great American Cities, this paper begins with the personal experience of living in one suburban neighborhood in Melbourne, Victoria. Particular elements which make this both a positive and negative experience are then connected to the geographical, planning and urban studies literature to offer a broader context in which better suburbs can be planned, developed and activated.

Life (or more so death) after Barns v Barns

Critical analysis of the High Court decision in Barns v Barns - relationship between mutual wills and testator family maintenance legislation - whether an agreement for mutual wills was void for public policy reasons - whether property of a deceased that was obligated under maintenance legislation could be passed to an applicant contrary to the mutual wills agreement - implications of decision.

Life and death : metabolic rate, membrane composition, and life span of animals

Maximum life span differences among animal species exceed life span variation achieved by experimental manipulation by orders of magnitude. The differences in the characteristic maximum life span of species was initially proposed to be due to variation in mass-specific rate of metabolism. This is called the rate-of-living theory of aging and lies at the base of the oxidative-stress theory of aging, currently the most generally accepted explanation of aging. However, the rate-of-living theory of aging while helpful is not completely adequate in explaining the maximum life span. Recently, it has been discovered that the fatty acid composition of cell membranes varies systematically between species, and this underlies the variation in their metabolic rate. When combined with the fact that 1) the products of lipid peroxidation are powerful reactive molecular species, and 2) that fatty acids differ dramatically in their susceptibility to peroxidation, membrane fatty acid composition provides a mechanistic explanation of the variation in maximum life span among animal species. When the connection between metabolic rate and life span was first proposed a century ago, it was not known that membrane composition varies between species. Many of the exceptions to the rate-of-living theory appear explicable when the particular membrane fatty acid composition is considered for each case. Here we review the links between metabolic rate and maximum life span of mammals and birds as well as the linking role of membrane fatty acid composition in determining the maximum life span. The more limited information for ectothermic animals and treatments that extend life span (e.g., caloric restriction) are also reviewed.

The life and death of Aceh's peace process

The collapse of the peace process has seen Aceh return to a cycle of violence

Rich in death, as in life

Dr. Cassandra Atherton's tribute to the late American poet Adrienne Rich, who died aged 82.

Death and life at the cinematic beach

In this article, I will examine the ways in which the beach and its shoreline is designated as both a mortal and immortal location in cinema. On the one hand, I will suggest that the beach and the shoreline can bring death to those who visit it temporarily or who go there to claim it as a permanent home of their own. The beach creates a set of narrative and aesthetic possibilities for tragic endings, murderous encounters, physical and existential suicides, and spectacular battles between opposing forces to take place. The dangerous beach, then, is locatable as a site that participates in, and helps enact, loss and the death wishes of those who come to contemplate endings, kill or fight on its shifting sands, watery edges and lost horizons. On the other hand, the beach and its shoreline will be understood as a liminal place and space, where regeneration possibilities are enacted. In cinema, death at the beach and its shoreline may not always be the end but a new start beyond the life of the frame. At the beach, within the coastal water, mortality becomes immortality, flesh and body becomes transcendence and spirit, and the death of one self can lead to the (re)birth of another.

Cross-artform creative practice as still-life recovery: Chinese-Western materialisms of time, writing and death

As argued by Norman Bryson, the still-life genre is sorely neglected by theorists and critics, largely because its concern with ‘low-plane reality’ (everyday items and acts) has obscured its genuine relevance to material thinking. By reappraising rather than abandoning the genre’s traditional themes of death and time—using a cross-cultural, Chinese-Western approach—it is possible to re-energise materialisms of time, writing and death within still life. Such a move depends above all on a re-evaluation of still life as ‘Vanitas’—the term which to date has unified, and more to the point limited, traditional still-life understandings of death and time. This article tracks a more explosive and creative materialism of still life simultaneously through the specifically Chinese approach to death (which includes the ‘Yin Yang’ 阴阳 as a sort of author of time) and via Gilles Deleuze’s cinematic philosophy of the time-image; what connects these is the very Deleuzean notion of time that subtends Chinese engagements with death. In this way, the still-life genre may be recovered from its current critical and theoretical malaise. Reconnecting with practice is a crucial aspect of this recovery, and so in its early stages this article analyses an example of still-life, creative non-fiction (authored by Cher Coad), and it concludes by establishing the value of this potentially ‘new chapter of the “still life” genre’ (in Matilde Marcolli’s terms) for the cross-artform analysis of the short story ‘Nhill’ (authored by Patrick West). Analysis, though, is only half the picture: a fully recovered still-life genre would see theory and practice endlessly circulating through each other, spurring on practice and impelling theory. Coad’s and West’s literary examples are introduced in the hope that they might trigger fresh theoretical and practice-based, still-life discoveries in prose and also in poetry.

Assuaging death anxiety in older overseas-born Australians of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds hospitalised for end-of-life care

BACKGROUND: Death anxiety is a known phenomenon in older people of culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (CALD) hospitalised for end-of-life (EOL) care . Little is known about how nurses assuage death anxiety in this population. AIMS: To investigate strategies used by nurses to assuage death anxiety and facilitate a good death in older CALD Australians hospitalised for EOL care.

METHODS: Advanced as a qualitative descriptive inquiry, a purposeful sample of 22 nurses was recruited from four Victorian healthcare services. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis processes.

FINDINGS: Nurses used three key strategies: recognising death anxiety; delineating its dimensions; and initiating conventional nursingcaring behaviours to help contain it. Contrary to expectations, cultural similarities rather than differences were found in the strategies used.

CONCLUSIONS: Nursing strategies for recognising, delineating, and managing death anxiety in older CALD people hospitalised at the EOL is an important component of quality EOL care.

Death and late-stage dementia in institutions : a cultural analysis

The first purpose of this study was to describe the deaths of fifteen nursing home residents with late-stage dementia. The devastating effect of dementia on a person has been called a ‘living death’ (Woods, 1989). The caring which occurs when someone is going through this process in a nursing home was recorded and analysed. In analysing this act of caring, the second purpose was to look for the origins of the structures and the sources of pressure that shaped the context and therefore helped determine the behaviour of the various groups under observation. These groups were residents and their relatives, the staff of the nursing home and the treating doctors. Before commencing observations and carrying out this study, an understanding needed to be developed of: the condition of dementia as it is perceived by health professionals and presented in the media; the institutions in which the majority of people with dementia end their days; the background and conditions of the staff who nurse in them; the models of care that guide and determine policies; and the conceptions of life and death which underpin relevant laws and moral standpoints. Accordingly, in part 1. chapter 1 the history, causes, pathology and effects of dementing conditions are examined. Relevant medical and lay literature including media influences are examined which pertain to the subject of death and dementia and nursing home care. The history of this institutional care is briefly examined together with the growth of the discipline of gerontological nursing. Chapter 2 discusses some of the effects of this history on present day care and the concept of emotional work being carried out within the present day aged care public policy regulations. The moral arguments surrounding illness and dying in Australian society today are briefly discussed. Chapter 3 describes the conceptual framework for the study, the ethnographic method that has been employed and an outline of critical theory as the basis for analysis. The chapter concludes by recounting the practical steps taken to arrange the field work, secure the consent of participants, record data and gather documents, and outlines the ethical considerations given to the undertaking of the study. Chapter 4 describes the context in which the study took place and the first tentative exploration of the culture from an etic perspective. Part 2 describes the death trajectories observed and raises some questions about alternative strategies that may have been considered within a different paradigm of caring. In chapter 5 the death trajectories of each of the fifteen residents in the study are described, each written with a particular emphasis to illustrate aspects of the culture of care that emerged through thematic analysis. Observations, comments and feelings from staff and family are wound in and around these case studies. Chapter 6 looks more closely at the impact of policy and institutional pressure on the milieu in which these deaths took place. Part 3 draws conclusions from the observations and makes suggestions for emancipatory change as viewed from the author's standpoint of critical ethnographic analysis. In the final chapter an argument is presented for policy change that leads a movement towards palliative care practices for people with late-stage dementia. Approaches to implementation of palliative care will need to take account of any expression by the resident such as an advanced directive, indicating a preferred approach to treatment in the period prior to death; a need for a better understanding of such issues as the significance of body breakdown, the manifestations of pain and electrolyte imbalances; the surrounding ethical complexities and shift in public opinion, and perhaps, most of ail, the culture of the institutions in which this dying will take place. A definition of late-stage dementia which might be used in determining patterns of care is set out. A discussion about changes in practice which relate lo communication with treating doctors, the administering of antibiotics, the relief of pain, the mobilisation of residents and the provision of food and water takes place in light of the evidence found. The discussion of these issues is raised in the form of debate. Each aspect needs more rigorous analysis and information so that evidence-based practice, rather than care which is value-laden and emotional, can be used when treatment decisions are made for people with late-stage dementia.

Inaccurate autobiography – the ‘true-invention’ of a life

This paper takes the Aristotelian binary of praxis and poiesis and approaches the process of autobiography via its double lens. Drawing on a reading of Hannah Arendt done by Julia Kristeva, it considers the question of whether the activity (that is: praxis) of making-narrative might constitute an activity that is particularly ‘human’. It is framed by the playful and serious challenge offered by Derridean deconstruction to think two things at once, and to practice an inhabiting of binary ultimatums. Given this, it goes on to suggest that making in an autobiographical fashion, rather than involvinganythingprimarily representative or documentary, is more paradoxically akin to the invention of what is most true about that which we are in the habit of calling ‘our life’. Indeed, it can be argued that this praxisinvents that very ‘life’ – the latter being an entity or categorythat logically does not precede thesame writing that purports to describe it, but rather arises with its activity. This self-reflexivity (a manoeuvre that at once describes and invokes the very thing described) coincides with Derrida’s explication of invention’s mechanism.