Reading the Irishwoman: Studies in Cultural Encounter and Exchange, 1714-1960

In 1700 few Irishwomen were literate. Most lived in a rural environment, rarely encountered a book or a play or ventured much beyond their own domestic space. By 1960 literacy was universal, all Irishwomen attended primary school, had access to a variety of books, magazines, newspapers and other forms of popular media and the wider world was now part of their every-day life. This study seeks to examine the cultural encounters and exchanges inherent in this transformation. It analyses reading and popular and consumer culture as sites of negotiation of gender roles. This is not an exhaustive treatment of the theme but focusses on three key points of cultural encounter: the Enlightenment, emigration and modernism. The writings and intellectual discourse generated by the Enlightenment was one of the most influential forces shaping western society. It set the agenda for scientific, political and social thought for the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The migration of peoples to north America was another key historical marker in the development of the modern world. Emigration altered and shaped American society as well as the lives of those who remained behind. By the twentieth century, aesthetic modernism suspicious of enlightenment rationalism and determined to produce new cultural forms developed in a complex relationship with the forces of industrialisation, urbanisation and social change. This study analyses the impact of these three key forces in Western culture on changing roles and perceptions of Irish women from 1700 to 1960.

A Royal Encounter: space, spectacle and the Queen’s visit to Ireland 2011

This commentary reflects on the first official visit made by a British monarch to Ireland since its independence. Focusing on three key moments of Queen Elizabeth's itinerary – the Garden of Remembrance, the Irish National War Memorial, Islandbridge, and the state banquet, Dublin Castle – I suggest that efforts to simultaneously honour rebels/soldiers in acts of public remembrance sought to re-position the past between these two islands in ways which recognised conflict but also aspired towards reconciled understandings of how that past could be more peacefully calibrated.

An invasive-native mammalian species replacement process captured by camera trap survey random encounter models

Camera traps are used to estimate densities or abundances using capture-recapture and, more recently, random encounter models (REMs). We deploy REMs to describe an invasive-native species replacement process, and to demonstrate their wider application beyond abundance estimation. The Irish hare Lepus timidus hibernicus is a high priority endemic of conservation concern. It is threatened by an expanding population of non-native, European hares L. europaeus, an invasive species of global importance. Camera traps were deployed in thirteen 1 km squares, wherein the ratio of invader to native densities were corroborated by night-driven line transect distance sampling throughout the study area of 1652 km2. Spatial patterns of invasive and native densities between the invader’s core and peripheral ranges, and native allopatry, were comparable between methods. Native densities in the peripheral range were comparable to those in native allopatry using REM, or marginally depressed using Distance Sampling. Numbers of the invader were substantially higher than the native in the core range, irrespective of method, with a 5:1 invader-to-native ratio indicating species replacement. We also describe a post hoc optimization protocol for REM which will inform subsequent (re-)surveys, allowing survey effort (camera hours) to be reduced by up to 57% without compromising the width of confidence intervals associated with density estimates. This approach will form the basis of a more cost-effective means of surveillance and monitoring for both the endemic and invasive species. The European hare undoubtedly represents a significant threat to the endemic Irish hare.

A Reflective Encounter With the Fine Sand Area in a Nursery School Setting

This article draws on a model of reflection that involves creating meanings through repeated encounters with evocative objects. Responses to one such evocative object, a 20-second video clip of children playing in the fine sand area, illustrates the “turning toward” and then “turning away” from the object to engage with broader themes. Parten’s play types are used when analyzing children’s play in the fine sand area (the evocative object). The focus then turns away to themes of English as a second language, messy play, energies of childhood, and Foucault’s docile bodies. The intention was to integrate loosely formulated research aims relating to quality of the physical environment within the evolving life of the nursery setting to encourage a developing research orientation and reflective dis-position. This way of approaching practitioner research is well adapted to a longer-term engagement with enduring areas of interest, such as developing the potential of the physical environment.

Recollections of a conference interpreter: a brief encounter with the European Parliament

Polissema: Revista de Letras do ISCAP 2001/N.º 1- Tradução

The human rights dilemma : an east-west encounter : Germany and China in 1996 /

Conflicts over human rights in relations between East Asia and the West have increased since the end of the Cold War. Western governments express concern about human rights standards in East Asian countries. In the East, these expressions have been perceived as interference in internal affairs. Due to dramatic economic development, East Asian nations recently have gained in pride and self-confidence as global actors. Such development is observed with suspicion in the West. Concerned about the decline of global U.S. influence, some American scholars have re-invented the notion of "culture" to point at an alleged East Asian threat. Also East Asian statesmen use the cultural argument by claiming the existence of so-called 'Asian values', which they allege are the key to Eastern economic success. This thesis argues that issues of human rights in East-West relations are not only a consequence of well-intended concern by Western governments regarding the human rights and welfare of the citizens of East Asian nations, but are in fact dominated by and used as a pawn in interplay with more complicated questions of global power and economic relations between East and West. The thesis reviews the relevance of culture in East-West relations. In the West, particularly Samuel P. Huntington with his prediction of the Clash of Civilizations stands out. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew has been very vocal on the Eastern side. Whereas the West tries to cope with its decrease of global influence, after hundreds of years under Western hegemonism, the East believes in an Asian way of development without interference form the West. Most of this dispute revolves around the issue of human rights. The West claims the universality of rights which in fact emphasizes political and civil rights. Western countries critizise poor human rights standards in East Asia. The East, in return, accuses the West of hypocritical policies that seek global dominance. East Asian governments assert that due to a different stage of development they have to stress first their rights to development in order to assure stability. In particular, China argues this way. The country's leadership, however, shows concern about human rights and has already improved its human rights record over the past years. This thesis analyses the dispute over human rights in a case study on Germany and China. Both countries have a mutual interest in trade relations which has conflicted with Germany's criticism of China's problematic human rights record. In 1996, the two countries clashed after the German parliament passed a resolution condemning China's treatment of Tibet. This caused a lot of damage to the Chinese-German relationship which in the course of the year went back to normality. In the light of these frictions a German human rights policy that focuses on unspectacular grass-roots support of China, for example in strengthening China's legal system, would be preferable. Such co-operation must be based on mutual respect.

The encounter with the real and post-Soviet trauma : fantasy construction in Russian popular cinema /

This thesis examines the impact of the Soviet Union's collapse on the Russian Symbolic as represented through popular cinema of the post-Soviet period. The disintegration of the USSR in 1991 became one of the most traumatic experiences for many Russian people. The trauma of the collapse of the Soviet Union penetrated the everyday reality of the Russian Symbolic, leaving the traces-symptoms in different cultural fonns like literature, arts, television and cinema. Because popular culture usually reacts very quickly to any social, political and economical shifts in society, it is an excellent barometer for deeper changes in society. Focusing on postSoviet popular cinema, this thesis analyzes the symptoms of cultural and individual trauma occasioned by the momentous changes of the 1990's. This study is grounded in post-analytic theory of Jacques Lacan and its interpretation by Slavoj Zizek, which emphases the traumatic encounter with the Real as a "hard core" of our reality. According to this paradigm, a new chain of signifiers is structured around the traumatic breach in the Symbolic, initiating a process of fantasy construction to deal with consequences of trauma and, thus, to support our Symbolic order. This thesis examines three major fantasy constructions - drinking, traveling to a "happy land" and family reunion and money - in popular films by Alexander Rogozhkin, Yurij Mamin, Georgij Shengelia, Dmitrij Astrakhan, Valerij Todorovskij, Alexej Balabanov, Sergej Bodrov Jr. and Petr Buslov. According to Zizek, enjoyment underlies any fantasy constructions, and that is why after the intrusion of the Real every individual and culture should go through the process of fantasizing about some substitutes which can help to minimize the traumatic effect and which can lead to a partial enjoyment. By analyzing the fantasies about drinking, "happy land", reconstruction of the family bonds and money in Russian popular cinema since 1991, this thesis demonstrates how the traumatic engagement with the Real affected the everyday lives of Russian people, and how individuals tried to fill the gap, the lack, in the post-Soviet Symbolic and "return" the lost feeling of unity and plenitude.

A Narrative Study of Patient Encounter Accounts of Physicians, Nurses, and Medical Receptionists after Two Decades of a Paradigm of Patient-Centered Care

Despite recent well-known advancements in patient care in the medical fields, such as patient-centeredness and evidence-based medicine and practice, there is rather less known about their effects on the particulars of clinician-patient encounters. The emphasis in clinical encounters remains mostly on treatment and diagnosis and less on communicative competency or engagement for medical professionals. The purpose of this narrative study was to explore interactive competencies in diagnostic and therapeutic encounters and intake protocols within the context of the physicians’, nurses’, and medical receptionists’ perspectives and experiences. Literature on narrative medicine, phenomenology and medicine, therapeutic relationships, cultural and communication competency, and non-Western perspectives on human communication provided the guiding theoretical frameworks for the study. Three data sets including 13 participant interviews (5 physicians, 4 nurses, and 4 medical receptionists), policy documents (physicians, nurses, and medical receptionists) and a website (Communication and Cultural Competency) were used. The researcher then engaged in triangulated analyses, including N-Vivo, manifest and latent, Mishler’s (1984, 1995) narrative elements and Charon’s (2005, 2006a, 2006b, 2013) narrative themes, in recursive, overlapping, comparative and intersected analysis strategies. A common factor affecting physicians’ relationships with their clients was limitation of time, including limited time (a) to listen, (b) to come up with a proper diagnosis, and (c) to engage in decision making in critical conditions and limited time for patients’ visits. For almost all nurse participants in the study establishing therapeutic relationships meant being compassionate and empathetic. The goals of intake protocols for the medical receptionists were about being empathetic to patients, being an attentive listener, developing rapport, and being conventionally polite to patients. Participants with the least iv amount of training and preparation (medical receptionists) appeared to be more committed to working narratively in connecting with patients and establishing human relationships as well as in listening to patients’ stories and providing support to narrow down the reason for their visit. The diagnostic and intake “success stories” regarding patient clinical encounters for other study participants were focused on a timely securing of patient information, with some acknowledgement of rapport and emapathy. Patient-centeredness emerged as a discourse practice, with ambiguous or nebulous enactment of its premises in most clinical settings.