Forkers Central

Huh?







- Mere "come on, amuse me" 1975

I lost my voice. Is that an excuse?

zen "hacking cough that sucks" momma

work is a real live motherfucker right now.

All I want to talk about is Josh and/or Ben...broken record me.

i was bored all day but i did not have much to say so, there you have it.

i fell asleep on the sofa last night and went to bed early once I'd woken up. someone's cough keeping me up

I wasn't being quiet, I was just out of ear shot.

Did you know that the whole Besty Ross flag story is probably a fraud? This is why I never trust 18th century white ladies.

I wasn't being quiet, I was just out of ear shot.

Did you know that the whole Besty Ross flag story is probably a fraud? This is why I never trust 18th century white ladies.

I saw that tv special too.

I was chaperoning a cabinful of 5th graders in East Texas.

5th graders reeeeallllly stink like something terrible.

Why you so quiet?

This paper seeks, first, to discover what Gnosticism is, and to demonstrate by way of its likeliest origins, its antecedence to Christianity. As antecedent to Christian orthodoxy, and therefore distinct from it, it will then be shown that rather than being the result of an early Christian schism, Gnosticism developed parallel to Christianity before becoming syncretic to it, and that its eventual categorization as a Christian heresy is therefore not adequately supported by historical evidence, nor by the definitions of the terms in question, namely schism, heresy, and religion. As sources contemporary to these developments, Tertullian, Valentinus, and the Apostles Paul and Luke, as well as Plato, Lao Tzu, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Marcion to lesser degrees have been considered and consulted. Secondary sources by Stephan A. Hoeller, Elaine Pagels, Karen Armstrong, Thomas Merton, Roland Herbert Bainton, essays and lecture notes by Dr. L. J. Andrew Villalon, and The Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.org have been consulted, as well.

i can play that game too (the introductary statement to my proposal)....

Discourses of Hope, Death and Denial in Hospital Based Palliative Care

Advances in biomedical knowledge and technology have served to create a sense of possibility in American hospitals that death can be indefinitely postponed through the application of science and technological interventions (Kaufman 2005). As a result, patients, families, and practitioners often approach hospitalization for those with life-threatening conditions hoping for a positive outcome. But what happens when curative treatments are exhausted and the patient is left facing the possibly or probability of death? Palliative care, a multidisciplinary plan of care designed to ease the suffering of patients who are facing a painful sickness or who are near the end-of-life, is one way that biomedicine addresses this dilemma (Blank et al 2007). Palliative care has become a subject of international human rights discussions, drawing the attention of the World Health Organization, Pope Benedict XVI, as well as several national and multinational committees on health (Brennan 2007). For the first time, in 2008, physicians in the United States will be able to become board certified in hospice and palliative care (Kuehn 2007). This “switch from curative to palliative activity, however, is often fraught with conflict because the core purpose of hospital medical care is to maintain life” (Kaufman 2005:29). When biomedicine cannot fulfill a curative goal, patients must contend with the contradiction between the culturally shaped expectation of an optimal outcome and the loss of hope (Becker 1997).
This research seeks to examine the role of palliative care in construction of expectations in the face of potential death through the investigation of how patients, their networks, and biomedical clinicians negotiate discourses on critical illness and death in a Dallas, Texas hospital. Specifically, this research is designed to identify how the biomedical discourses on death are mediated by both hope and denial. Hope, defined as a positive expectation for the future, and denial, defined as an expectation that contradicts biomedical opinion, are both subjective, social constructed, fluid constructs which stem from uncertainty and anxiety about the future (Becker 1997; Bovens 1999; Lin et al 2003; Little and Sayers 2004; Telford et al 2006; Scioli 2007). In the event of life-threatening illness, both patients and their physicians may need to renegotiate hopes for the future, and potentially alter the course of health care from curative to palliative. The objective of this research is to critically analyze the aspects of the process through which hospitalized patients and their decision making networks come to accept, modify or reject the palliative discourses on dying. Building on existing research on end-of-life issues in American hospitals (Kaufman 2005) as well as research on the narrative construction of hope in cases of chronic illness and disability (Good et al. 1990; Becker 1997; Boven, 1999; Nekolaichuk 1999; Ezzy 2000; Little 2004; Eliott 2007; Scioli 2007), this research will add new dimensions to the analysis of how expectations are generated. Specifically, the study will investigate how expectations such as hope evolve over time within the structure of biomedical hospitalization and the role of denial both as a means of resistance and an alternate route to hope for patients. This will allow for a critical interpretive analysis of individual and institutionalized discourses on hope, death, and denial within the context of a biomedicine institution through the description of practices and broader structures influencing the cultural construction of knowledge and meanings (Lock and Scheper-Hughes 1996; Becker 1997).

i can play that game too (the introductary statement to my proposal)....

Discourses of Hope, Death and Denial in Hospital Based Palliative Care

Advances in biomedical knowledge and technology have served to create a sense of possibility in American hospitals that death can be indefinitely postponed through the application of science and technological interventions (Kaufman 2005). As a result, patients, families, and practitioners often approach hospitalization for those with life-threatening conditions hoping for a positive outcome. But what happens when curative treatments are exhausted and the patient is left facing the possibly or probability of death? Palliative care, a multidisciplinary plan of care designed to ease the suffering of patients who are facing a painful sickness or who are near the end-of-life, is one way that biomedicine addresses this dilemma (Blank et al 2007). Palliative care has become a subject of international human rights discussions, drawing the attention of the World Health Organization, Pope Benedict XVI, as well as several national and multinational committees on health (Brennan 2007). For the first time, in 2008, physicians in the United States will be able to become board certified in hospice and palliative care (Kuehn 2007). This “switch from curative to palliative activity, however, is often fraught with conflict because the core purpose of hospital medical care is to maintain life” (Kaufman 2005:29). When biomedicine cannot fulfill a curative goal, patients must contend with the contradiction between the culturally shaped expectation of an optimal outcome and the loss of hope (Becker 1997).
This research seeks to examine the role of palliative care in construction of expectations in the face of potential death through the investigation of how patients, their networks, and biomedical clinicians negotiate discourses on critical illness and death in a Dallas, Texas hospital. Specifically, this research is designed to identify how the biomedical discourses on death are mediated by both hope and denial. Hope, defined as a positive expectation for the future, and denial, defined as an expectation that contradicts biomedical opinion, are both subjective, social constructed, fluid constructs which stem from uncertainty and anxiety about the future (Becker 1997; Bovens 1999; Lin et al 2003; Little and Sayers 2004; Telford et al 2006; Scioli 2007). In the event of life-threatening illness, both patients and their physicians may need to renegotiate hopes for the future, and potentially alter the course of health care from curative to palliative. The objective of this research is to critically analyze the aspects of the process through which hospitalized patients and their decision making networks come to accept, modify or reject the palliative discourses on dying. Building on existing research on end-of-life issues in American hospitals (Kaufman 2005) as well as research on the narrative construction of hope in cases of chronic illness and disability (Good et al. 1990; Becker 1997; Boven, 1999; Nekolaichuk 1999; Ezzy 2000; Little 2004; Eliott 2007; Scioli 2007), this research will add new dimensions to the analysis of how expectations are generated. Specifically, the study will investigate how expectations such as hope evolve over time within the structure of biomedical hospitalization and the role of denial both as a means of resistance and an alternate route to hope for patients. This will allow for a critical interpretive analysis of individual and institutionalized discourses on hope, death, and denial within the context of a biomedicine institution through the description of practices and broader structures influencing the cultural construction of knowledge and meanings (Lock and Scheper-Hughes 1996; Becker 1997).

Bitchin.

Also, I see your MLA style and am totally jealous. In history, it's all footnotes, apparently. Chicago style, bitches.

Also, I see your MLA style and am totally jealous. In history, it's all footnotes, apparently. Chicago style, bitches.

it's actually AAA (American Anthropology Association) style - the bibs have a different format

squeez "geek" le

runs away screaming....in Jackie style

Ah... AAA. I see. I did notice the lack of comma and year instead of page number. That's MLA, right?

I can't remember anymore. It's all this damn FOOTNOTING... Chicago style.

Reprazent.