Transcultural satire in German fiction of Turkish migration: Self-deprecation, ethnic impersonation, intertexuality

My dissertation presents a study of satire in contemporary German Fiction of Turkish migration. Engaging with a body of works hitherto neglected in scholarship, I examine how satirical texts, films, and plays intervene critically in discourses on post-unification German national identity. Drawing on the seminal work of scholars such as Leslie Adelson, Tom Cheesman, B. Venkat Mani, Petra Fachinger, and Deniz Göktürk, my dissertation expands the scholarship of Turkish German Studies by linking a discussion of satire as a critical rhetoric to the question of how we talk about what it means to be German.

Chapter one offers a novel framework of the satirical vis-à-vis standard conceptions of satire and deconstructionist theories of reading. I understand satire as a form of rhetoric that creates moments of ambiguity by bringing together intersectional categories like gender, ethnicity, race, religion, in order to challenge the audience’s practices of interpreting cultural otherness. Chapter two examines the use of ethnic self-deprecation as one such strategy in Osman Engin’s short stories and his first novel, Kanaken-Ghandi through the lens of Bakhtinian polyphony and Judith Butler’s work on hate speech. Engin, I argue, employs ethnic selfdeprecation as a narrative strategy to straddle the line between deconstructing and re-affirming cultural stereotypes. Investigating the role of ethnic impersonation in Hussi Kutlucan’s film Ich Chef, Du Turnshuh, the third chapter turns to the question of ethnicity as a visual signifier for the negotiation of cultural inclusion and exclusion in post-1990 film. In dialogue with Katrin Sieg’s work on ethnic drag and Amy Robinson’s theory of passing, I show how the film challenges ethnically-coded narratives of Germanness. In the final chapter on Nurkan Erpulat and Jens Hillje’s play Verrücktes Blut, I discuss how intertextuality and adaptation (Hutcheon, Genette) of different story and character worlds are used to create moments of ambiguity and overdeterminacy in the play, in order to challenge the audience’s perception of what an inclusive German society might look like.

Potassium Measures and Their Associations with Glucose and Diabetes Risk: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA).

BACKGROUND: Recent studies have found low-normal potassium (K) to be associated with increased diabetes risk. We sought to verify these associations in a multi-ethnic US cohort; and to determine if these associations extend to US Hispanics and Asian-Americans. METHODS: We analyzed data from Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) participants who were free-of-diabetes at baseline. We examined cross-sectional associations between measures of K-serum, dietary, and urine-with fasting glucose and HOMA-IR. We examined longitudinal associations between K and diabetes risk over 8 years. FINDINGS: In multivariable models, compared to those with higher serum K (≥4.5mmol/L), those with lower serum K (<4.0mmol/L) had significantly higher fasting glucose [1.3 mg/dL (95%CI 0.2, 2.4), P-value = 0.03]. Incident diabetes developed in 1281 of 5415 at-risk participants. In minimally-adjusted models, we found inverse associations between serum and dietary K and diabetes risk. Compared to those with higher serum K, those with lower serum K had an HR (95% CI) of incident diabetes of 1.23 (1.04, 1.47), P-value = 0.02. However, these associations were attenuated in fully-adjusted models. We found no significant interaction between potassium and ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS: In this multi-ethnic cohort, we found a significant inverse association between serum K and fasting glucose but no significant association with longer-term diabetes risk. This inverse association between potassium and glucose must be studied further to understand the physiology and its potential impact on chronic health.

Role of patient factors, preferences, and distrust in health care and access to liver transplantation and organ donation.

Despite major improvements in access to liver transplantation (LT), disparities remain. Little is known about how distrust in medical care, patient preferences, and the origins shaping those preferences contribute to differences surrounding access. We performed a single-center, cross-sectional survey of adults with end-stage liver disease and compared responses between LT listed and nonlisted patients as well as by race. Questionnaires were administered to 109 patients (72 nonlisted; 37 listed) to assess demographics, health care system distrust (HCSD), religiosity, and factors influencing LT and organ donation (OD). We found that neither HCSD nor religiosity explained differences in access to LT in our population. Listed patients attained higher education levels and were more likely to be insured privately. This was also the case for white versus black patients. All patients reported wanting LT if recommended. However, nonlisted patients were significantly less likely to have discussed LT with their physician or to be referred to a transplant center. They were also much less likely to understand the process of LT. Fewer blacks were referred (44.4% versus 69.7%; P = 0.03) or went to the transplant center if referred (44.4% versus 71.1%; P = 0.02). Fewer black patients felt that minorities had as equal access to LT as whites (29.6% versus 57.3%; P < 0.001). For OD, there were more significant differences in preferences by race than listing status. More whites indicated OD status on their driver's license, and more blacks were likely to become an organ donor if approached by someone of the same cultural or ethnic background (P < 0.01). In conclusion, our analysis demonstrates persistent barriers to LT and OD. With improved patient and provider education and communication, many of these disparities could be successfully overcome. Liver Transplantation 22 895-905 2016 AASLD.

Accommodating Muslim Minorities in Secular Societies: Public Education in England, Scotland, Ontario, and Quebec

Abstract This thesis examines one of the most sensitive challenges facing contemporary democracies: the accommodation of Muslim minorities in public institutions and services. It focuses on the field of education, and on two particular issues: the public funding of Islamic schools and the accommodation of Muslim needs in public secular schools. The analysis is based on an examination of outcomes in four jurisdictions that differ significantly in the level of accommodation that has emerged: England, Scotland, Ontario, and Quebec. I seek to explain why such variation in outcomes exists among these four cases. I draw on four bodies of literature to underpin the theoretical framework: historical institutionalism, political mobilization by civil society, political parties, and ideationalism. My argument can be summarized simply; historic church-state settlements, unique in each case, are the most important factor explaining the variation in outcomes in England, Scotland, Ontario, and Quebec. In some cases, the historic church-state template is incrementally adapted to accommodate Muslim minorities. In other cases, relatively little accommodation occurs and the path-dependent trajectory of church-state relations remains entrenched. While the historic church-state template is a necessary factor in the explanation, it does not fully account for the variation. For a more complete picture, I demonstrate that there are several additional key factors that also shape the outcomes: first, national identity and public attitudes towards immigration and immigrants; second, the extent of mobilization by political agents, such as civil society organizations and historic churches; and third, the response of political parties to demands by Muslims for institutional accommodation. Ultimately, I conclude that Muslims in these jurisdictions are receiving some accommodation, but the process is slow and partial. This thesis makes important theoretical and empirical contributions to the discussion of Muslim integration in liberal democratic states. First, a framework has yet to be developed that considers the theoretical implications of institutional accommodation of Muslims; I address this gap. Second, this research demonstrates the utility of historical institutionalism in explaining the adaptation of church-state templates to accommodate Muslims’ demands. Last, this study makes an original contribution by comparing the cases of England, Scotland, Ontario, and Quebec in the accommodation of Muslims in education. A comparison of Canada with the United Kingdom has not yet been done.  

Facilitating Inclusion: Austrian Wisdom Councils as Democratic Innovation between Consensus and Diversity

Democratic innovations face the challenge of realizing deliberative democratic ideals in the context of structural inequality. Consensus decision making and expertise have been said to have exclusive effects on marginalized groups like women and ethnic and sexual minorities, which obstructs diversity. Wisdom Councils as practiced in Austria attempt to counter inequalities by including marginalized groups through the moderation technique dynamic facilitation. Exploratory participatory observations and interviews with a moderator and the participants of two Wisdom Councils in Austria provide a deeper understanding of the inclusive processes at work in Wisdom Councils facilitating a productive combination of consensus and diversity.

Rethinking Care Through Social Reproduction: Articulating Circuits of Migration

Care has come to dominate much feminist research on globalized migrations and the transfer of labor from the South to the North, while the older concept of reproduction had been pushed into the background but is now becoming the subject of debates on the commodification of care in the household and changes in welfare state policies. This article argues that we could achieve a better understanding of the different modalities and trajectories of care in the reproduction of individuals, families, and communities, both of migrant and nonmigrant populations by articulating the diverse circuits of migration, in particular that of labor and the family. In doing this, I go back to the earlier North American writing on racialized minorities and migrants and stratified social reproduction. I also explore insights from current Asian studies of gendered circuits of migration connecting labor and marriage migrations as well as the notion of global householding that highlights the gender politics of social reproduction operating within and beyond households in institutional and welfare architectures. In contrast to Asia, there has relatively been little exploration in European studies of the articulation of labor and family migrations through the lens of social reproduction. However, connecting the different types of migration enables us to achieve a more complex understanding of care trajectories and their contribution to social reproduction.

Dealing with the Legacy of Ethnic Conflict: Confronting ‘Othering’ through Transformative Adult Education—A Northern Ireland Case Study

Despite its peace process, Northern Ireland remains a deeply divided society. The legacy of a 30-year conflict has ensured that the state continues to be prone to outbreaks of violence over contentious issues such as Orange Order parading and the flying of national flags. This paper argues that in order to address this legacy, there is a need to confront the Othering processes that have helped to generate and sustain division. It will argue that programmes of adult education can play an important role in helping the conflicting groups to reimagine their ‘exclusive’ notions of the nation to one capable of incorporating the Other.

Conclusion: patterns of non-territorial autonomy

This article seeks to generalise about the significance of non-territorial autonomy as a mechanism for the management of ethnic conflict on the basis of a set of case studies covering the Ottoman empire and its successor states, the Habsburg monarchy, the Jewish minorities of Europe, interwar Estonia, contemporary Belgium, and two indigenous peoples, the Sami in Norway and Maori in New Zealand. It begins by assessing the extent to which the spatial distribution of ethnonational communities determined the range of autonomy options available—whether these might be territorial or whether only non-territorial autonomy would be realistic. The article continues with an assessment of the significance of ‘autonomy’ in circumstances where the institutions with which it is associated enjoy a non-territorial rather than a territorial writ. It concludes by suggesting that in almost all cases where autonomy is extended to a minority within a state this is exercised on a territorial basis, and that in many cases of non-territorial autonomy, or national–cultural autonomy, the powers assumed by the ‘autonomous’ institutions are substantially symbolic. It argues that notwithstanding the limited empirical evidence for the existence of non-territorial autonomy, this device should not be written off at a normative level.

An Action Research Study Engaging in the Use of Storyboarding as Research-based Approach to Teaching to Identify Issues Faced when Working with People with Dementia from Minority Ethnic Communities

The common view that research informs teaching assumes a linear approach whereby teaching is considered an output of research. This paper reports the findings of an action research project that identified the issues and challenges faced by those working across health and social care when working with people with dementia from minority ethnic communities. It explored the research-teaching nexus by using an approach to teaching that was research-based as opposed to research-led. A storyboarding technique was used which involved identifying and dissecting real life experiences for discussion. The realisation that each story was unique to the individual demonstrated the benefits and importance of education and training for applying a person-centred approach to dementia care. This project also revealed the benefits of actively engaging course participants with research moving them from being recipients of research, to research- active. Such a process not only encouraged their intrinsic motivations but, also, critical thinking and reflective practice to support deep learning. Such findings demonstrate the benefits of linking teaching with research.

The Impact of Global English in Xinjiang, China: Linguistic Capital and Identity Negotiation among the Ethnic Minority and Han Chinese Students

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Trans-ethnic fine mapping highlights kidney-function genes linked to salt sensitivity

We analyzed genome-wide association studies (GWASs), including data from 71,638 individuals from four ancestries, for estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR), a measure of kidney function used to define chronic kidney disease (CKD). We identified 20 loci attaining genome-wide-significant evidence of association (p < 5 × 10(-8)) with kidney function and highlighted that allelic effects on eGFR at lead SNPs are homogeneous across ancestries. We leveraged differences in the pattern of linkage disequilibrium between diverse populations to fine-map the 20 loci through construction of "credible sets" of variants driving eGFR association signals. Credible variants at the 20 eGFR loci were enriched for DNase I hypersensitivity sites (DHSs) in human kidney cells. DHS credible variants were expression quantitative trait loci for NFATC1 and RGS14 (at the SLC34A1 locus) in multiple tissues. Loss-of-function mutations in ancestral orthologs of both genes in Drosophila melanogaster were associated with altered sensitivity to salt stress. Renal mRNA expression of Nfatc1 and Rgs14 in a salt-sensitive mouse model was also reduced after exposure to a high-salt diet or induced CKD. Our study (1) demonstrates the utility of trans-ethnic fine mapping through integration of GWASs involving diverse populations with genomic annotation from relevant tissues to define molecular mechanisms by which association signals exert their effect and (2) suggests that salt sensitivity might be an important marker for biological processes that affect kidney function and CKD in humans.

Diagnostic potential of structural neuroimaging for depression from a multi-ethnic community sample

Background At present, we do not have any biological tests which can contribute towards a diagnosis of depression. Neuroimaging measures have shown some potential as biomarkers for diagnosis. However, participants have generally been from the same ethnic background while the applicability of a biomarker would require replication in individuals of diverse ethnicities. Aims We sought to examine the diagnostic potential of the structural neuroanatomy of depression in a sample of a wide ethnic diversity. Method Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were obtained from 23 patients with major depressive disorder in an acute depressive episode (mean age: 39.8 years) and 20 matched healthy volunteers (mean age: 38.8 years). Participants were of Asian, African and Caucasian ethnicity recruited from the general community. Results Structural neuroanatomy combining white and grey matter distinguished patients from controls at the highest accuracy of 81% with the most stable pattern being at around 70%. A widespread network encompassing frontal, parietal, occipital and cerebellar regions contributed towards diagnostic classification. Conclusions These findings provide an important step in the development of potential neuroimaging-based tools for diagnosis as they demonstrate that the identification of depression is feasible within a multi-ethnic group from the community. Declaration of interests C.H.Y.F. has held recent research grants from Eli Lilly and Company and GlaxoSmithKline. L.M. is a former employee and stockholder of Eli Lilly and Company.