Homero y Tolkien. Resonancias homéricas en 'The Lord of the Rings', de Luz Pepe de Suárez

Fil: Errecalde, Alejandro Martín. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación; Argentina.

Allegory, It Happens: A Multi-Perspective Case Study of The Lord of the Rings

Allegory is not obsolete as Samuel Coleridge and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe have claimed. It is alive and well and has transformed from a restrictive concept to a concept that is flexible and can form to meet the needs of the author or reader. The most efficient way to evidence this is by making a case study of it with a suitable work that will allow us to perceive its plasticity. This essay uses J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings as a multi-perspective case study of the concept of allegory; the size and complexity of the narrative make it a suitable choice. My aim is to illustrate the plasticity of allegory as a concept and illuminate some of the possibilities and pitfalls of allegory and allegoresis. As to whether The Lord of the Rings can be treated as an allegory, it will be examined from three different perspectives: as a purely writerly process, a middle ground of writer and reader and as a purely readerly process. The Lord of the Rings will then be compared to a series of concepts of allegorical theory such as Plato’s classical “The Ring of Gyges”, William Langland’s classic The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman and contemporary allegories of racism and homoeroticism to demonstrate just how adaptable this concept is. The position of this essay is that the concept of allegory has changed over time since its conception and become more malleable. This poses certain dangers as allegory has become an all-round tool for anyone to do anything that has few limitations and has lost its early rigid form and now favours an almost anything goes approach.

Knowledge Organization in Transmedia Fictional Worlds: A Study of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Marvel Universe, and Star Wars

Currently there is no structured data standard for representing elements commonly found in transmedia fictional universes. There are websites dedicated to individual universes, however, information found on these sites separates the various formats into books, movies, comics, etc.; concentrate on only the bibliographic aspects of the material; and are only full-text searchable. We have created an ontological model that will allow researchers, fans, brand managers, and creators to search for and retrieve the information contained in these worlds based on how they are structured. We conducted a domain analysis and user studies based on the contents of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, the Marvel Universe, and Star Wars in order to build a new model using the Ontology Web Language (OWL) and an artificial intelligence reasoning engine. This model can infer connections between characters, elements of power, items, places, events, etc. This model will facilitate better search and retrieval of the information contained within these vast story universes for all users interested in them. The result of this project is and OWL ontology that is intuitive for users; can be used by AI systems; and has been updated to reflect real user needs based on user research.

Playing with the history of Middle-Earth: board games, transmedia storytelling, and The Lord of the Rings

Contemporary cases of transmedia storytelling have thrown many conventional understandings of ‘adaptation’ into disarray. The resurgence of tabletop game culture has thus far played a significant role in this, though scholars have largely neglected the subject, particularly in terms of how transmedia relationships reconfigure the meaning(s) shaped by and through games by players. This paper addresses this phenomenon through a close analysis of two board games based on The Lord of the Rings, in which the (re)construction of the story-world of the source text(s) impacts strongly on ‘conventional’ modes of narrative and identification. Governed by the adoption of various mechanics and innovative uses of the ‘competitive-cooperative’ spectrum, such transformations frequently have significant implications for how narrative meanings might be generated through play.

CONFORMATION OF PHENYL RINGS IN THE HELICAL CHAIN POLYMER POLY(TRIPHENYLMETHYL METHACRYLATE)

The conformation of phenyl rings in the side groups of the helical chain polymer poly(tripenyl-methyl methacrylate) (1) in solution was studied by spectroscopic methods. According to the Raman spectrum the phenyl rings of 1 and triphenylmethyl methacrylate in solution have the same depolarization ratio at 1002 cm-1. The electronic spectra (ultraviolet and fluorescence) of 1 are similar to those of model substances, except for the "red shift" of the spectra of about 5 nm. It was concluded that the phenyl rings can rotate around the phenyl-C bond.

Multi-Study Assessment of Vaginal Cytokines and Microflora in the Safety Evaluation of Intravaginal Rings in Pig-Tailed Macaques

BACKGROUND: HIV microbicide trials have emphasized the need to evaluate the safety of topical microbicides and delivery platforms in an animal model prior to conducting clinical efficacy trials. An ideal delivery device should provide sustainable and sufficient concentrations of effective products to prevent HIV transmission while not increasing transmission risk by either local mucosal inflammation and/or disruption of the normal vaginal microflora.

METHODS: Safety analyses of macaque-sized elastomeric silicone and polyurethane intravaginal rings (IVRs) loaded with candidate antiretroviral (ARV) drugs were tested in four studies ranging in duration from 49 to 73 days with retention of the IVR being 28 days in each study. Macaques were assigned to 3 groups; blank IVR, ARV-loaded IVR, and naïve. In sequential studies, the same macaques were used but rotated into different groups. Mucosal and systemic levels of cytokines were measured from vaginal fluids and plasma, respectively, using multiplex technology. Changes in vaginal microflora were also monitored. Statistical analysis (Mann-Whitney test) was used to compare data between two groups of unpaired samples (with and without IVR, and IVR with and without ARV) for the groups collectively, and also for individual macaques.

RESULTS: There were few statistically significant differences in mucosal and systemic cytokine levels measured longitudinally when the ring was present or absent, with or without ARVs. Of the 8 proinflammatory cytokines assayed a significant increase (p = 0.015) was only observed for IL8 in plasma with the blank and ARV loaded IVR (median of 9.2 vs. 5.7 pg/ml in the absence of IVR). There were no significant differences in the prevalence of H2O2-producing lactobacilli or viridans streptococci, or other microorganisms indicative of healthy vaginal microflora. However, there was an increase in the number of anaerobic gram negative rods in the presence of the IVR (p= < 0.0001).

CONCLUSIONS: IVRs with or without ARVs neither significantly induce the majority of potentially harmful proinflammatory cytokines locally or systemically, nor alter the lactobacillus or G. vaginalis levels. The increase in anaerobic gram negative rods alone suggests minimal disruption of normal vaginal microflora. The use of IVRs as a long-term sustained delivery device for ARVs is promising and preclinical studies to demonstrate the prevention of transmission in the HIV/SHIV nonhuman primate model should continue.