Suchergebnisse

I approach Suzan-Lori Parks's play Fucking A from the perspectives of postmodern drama and show how the discourse of postmodernism enables Parks to make intertextual links with some other literary works in order to reinvent the past and address a number of social ills and historical scars in the present. I also explore a number of key preoccupations of postmodern aesthetics, which contribute to the creation of indeterminacies in the play and argue how the creation of indeterminacies enables the playwright to increase incredulity toward a number of dominant metanarratives—manifesting themselves in the form of ruling economic, social, cultural, and political systems. Furthermore, I show how Parks raises the issue of African American history and imprints it from a fresh perspective to reshape identities for African Americans in her neo-slave narrative.

In the present essay, I examine Venus from the standpoint of Black feminism. I study the impact factor of intersectionality on Black women and their lives and study how the perversion of Black womanhood as well as scientific racism can help the White men hail institutionalized discrimination, displacement, and sexploitation at them and scientifically promote themselves. In addition, I examine how the perversion of Black body helps the White entertainers to gain profit and White spectators to achieve pleasure. To this end, I employ a range of associated theories to show how Venus lends itself to the concerned theories of Black feminism to utter the concerns of Black women and at the same time create identity for them.

Abstract
Background Inflammatory responses, including macrophages/microglia imbalance, are associated with spinal cord injury (SCI) complications. Accumulating evidence also suggests an anti-inflammatory property of azithromycin (AZM).
Material and Methods Male Wistar rats were subjected to T9 vertebra laminectomy. SCI was induced by spinal cord compression at this level with an aneurysmal clip for 60 seconds. They were divided into three groups: the sham-operated group and two SCI treatment (normal saline as a vehicle control vs. AZM at 180 mg/kg/d intraperitoneally for 3 days postsurgery; first dose: 30 minutes after surgery) groups. Locomotor scaling and behavioral tests for neuropathic pain were evaluated and compared through a 28-day period. At the end of the study, tissue samples were taken to assess neuroinflammatory changes and neural demyelination using ELISA and histopathologic examinations, respectively. In addition, the proportion of M1/M2 macrophage polarization was assessed by using flow cytometry.
Results Post-SCI AZM treatment (180 mg/kg/d for 3 days) significantly improved locomotion (p < 0.01) and decreased sensitivity to mechanical (p < 0.01) and thermal allodynia (p < 0.001). Moreover, there was a significant tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) decline (p < 0.01) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) elevation (p < 0.01) in the spinal cord tissue of the AZM-treated group compared with the control groups 28 days post-SCI. AZM significantly improved neuroinflammation as evidenced by reduction of the M1 expression, elevation of M2 macrophages, and reduction of the M1/M2 ratio in both the dorsal root ganglion and the spinal cord tissue after SCI compared with controls (p < 0.01).
Conclusion AZM treatment can be considered a therapeutic agent for SCI, as it could reduce neuroinflammation and SCI sensory/locomotor complications.