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Caesar's Things is a semi-autobiographical novel combining modernist literary experimentation with narrative structures derived from the Bible. This unfinished work is seldom analyzed by literary scholars, in part because Fitzgerald's Christian conversion in the 1930s coincided with a mental breakdown, which made her faith and writing both suspect. Criticized as “incoherent,” the novel nonetheless becomes legible when Fitzgerald's religion is disentangled from madness and its contributions examined. The novel confesses the spiritual impoverishment of the Jazz Age protagonist, then seeks her redemption, healing the divide between the self and her soul, between the material world and the kingdom of God.

Based in the context of Marxist China, Chinese intellectuals with no church background or affiliation have yet shown a keen interest in reading and applying the insights of western Christian theology. In Chinese literary studies, such scholars, who are secular in orientation, integrate both theory and theology in their work. This Sino-theological scholarship is virtually unknown in literary studies in the USA. Yet as demonstrated in the work of Yang Huilin and Liu Xiaofeng, among others, it contributes to a globalized understanding of literary studies. It also challenges current understandings of secularism, adding a new dimension to post-secular theory.

This article outlines the development and validation of a classroom observation instrument for use in low and middle income countries. The Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes Systemⓒ (TIPPS) was designed to be a rigorous research instrument as well as a practical feedback tool. Based on data from 197 Ugandan secondary schools, we were successful in assessing the quality of instructional practices and classroom processes in this context. The results reveal a 3-factor structure, good rater reliability, and concurrent validity with in biology, English, and mathematics scores. Strengths and limitations as well as future directions of the study are discussed.

In recent years, there has been an increase in the demand for and supply of early childhood education (ECE) in low- and middle-income countries. There is also growing awareness that unless ECE is of high quality, children may attend school but not learn. There is a large literature on the conceptualization and measurement of ECE quality in the United States that focuses on the nature of teacher-child interactions. Efforts to expand access to high quality ECE in low- and middle-income countries will require similar measurement efforts that are theoretically-grounded and culturally-adapted. This paper assesses the factor structure and concurrent validity of an observational classroom quality tool to assess teacher-child interactions—the Teacher Instructional Practices and Processes System© (TIPPS; Seidman et al., 2013)—in Ghanaian pre-primary classrooms. We find evidence of three conceptually distinct but empirically correlated domains of quality: Facilitating Deeper Learning (FDL), Supporting Student Expression (SSE), and Emotional Support and Behavior Management (ESBM). Teachers’ schooling level, training in early childhood development, and professional well-being positively predict the three quality domains in different ways. SSE and ESBM predict classroom end-of-the-school-year academic outcomes, and SSE predicts classroom end-of-the-school-year social-emotional outcomes. Implications for the field of international education and global ECE policy and research are discussed.

Utilizing data to improve teacher professional development presupposes a need to know how it can serve people in the education delivery system. In Gujarat, India progress is steered by using data to build personal agency and integrate actionable evaluation for improvement. The shift in the system, however, manifests from the core: the administrators, principals, and teachers. These individuals are leveraging data to improve their contribution to the system, and in the process, improving the system as a whole. The data that flow between these different levels are meaningful, easy to understand and use. The data are used in different ways, district administrators use them to hone their teacher training programming, principals use them to differentiate their support by teacher needs, and teachers use them for self-reflection and improving the quality of education in their classrooms. Previously siloed levels of the education system are connecting through the shared goals of professional and personal growth. And as a consequence, the Teacher Professional Development system is moving toward a person-centric focus, and moving away from a data-centric focused one.

Author(s): dela Cruz, Jonathan; Fulks, Tyler; Baker, Mark; Kegg, Jason; Austin, Richard; Jain, Jimmy; Boehler, Michael; Kim, Sharon; Jaeger, Cassie

Objectives Amiodarone is a commonly used antiarrhythmic drug. Hepatotoxicity following chronic oral administration occurs in 1% to 3% of patients. Hepatotoxicity following intravenous (IV) administration is infrequent but may be associated with dramatic increases in serum transaminases. We describe the incidence of liver toxicity among patients receiving IV amiodarone during a 5-year period. Methods This was a single-center retrospective review of patients receiving IV amiodarone for any cause. The outcome measures were development of elevated serum transaminases and the relation of transaminitis to all-cause 30-day mortality. Results A total of 1510 patients received amiodarone intravenously between 2005 and 2011; 77 (5%) developed elevated liver enzymes. Enzyme elevation was divided into mild (100-300 IU/L), moderate (300-1000 IU/L), and severe (>1000 IU/L). The median alanine aminotransferase was 189 (37-10,006) IU/L and aspartate aminotransferase was 253 (84-12,005) IU/L. The 30-day mortality among those with transaminitis was 22%; however, no patient died of amiodarone-related liver disease. Conclusions Amiodarone can cause severe elevation in liver enzymes. The incidence of severe transaminitis is low; deaths following IV amiodarone are rarely caused by drug-induced liver failure.

Much research has been conducted on the various functions that Korean Protestant churches provide for Korean immigrants and the centrality of the church for the community. Most of this research, however, focuses on the Korean American church as an immigrant enclave. Korean American churches are studied essentially as ethno-religious enclaves, detached and secluded from the larger society. Counterbalancing this tendency, this paper examines the multidimensional ways that Korean American Protestants and their churches are extending beyond their ethnic borders. Korean immigrant churches are civically and religiously moving beyond the enclave while also catering to the needs of co-immigrants. Second-generation Korean American congregations are also engaging the broader society even as they create unique hybrid spaces for themselves. Finally, there are Koreans who enter the United States specifically as missionaries to evangelise individuals in and outside of the Korean Diaspora, including white Americans. In their varied ways, Korean American evangelicals are taking part in efforts to bring spiritual revival and renewal in America and beyond.

During a sunset in Italy, Ralph Marvell’s aesthetic pleasure in the landscape crosses into a visionary experience, one distinguished by the unusual perceptual means by which he sees it. His vision resembles the “saturated phenomenon” theorized by Jean-Luc Marion, in which the presence of being becomes so concentrated in a physical manifestation that it results in a bedazzlement of vision. Because such perception does not operate in Cartesian or Subject-centered terms, it does not reduce or objectify what is seen. The saturated gaze thus presents a rare alternative to the predatory modes of vision seen in The Custom of the Country (1913) and criticized in contemporary theory. It also forms the basis of an equally rare form of cosmopolitanism, one that is not a disguised version of narcissism, provincialism, or imperialism. Ralph’s vision, however, is short-lived, disintegrating in the destructive ways of seeing that empower his wife Undine.

OBJECTIVES In drug trials involving subjects with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), the placebo effect seems to be very important. However, events even before starting the study may also impact patient expectations. In this study, we utilized consent language from prior studies of diarrhea predominant IBS (D-IBS) drug trials to determine whether the knowledge imparted during this process affects the response to different therapies. METHODS Consecutive IBS subjects who met the Rome III criteria for IBS were enrolled. Patients were presented with a mock trial and randomized to 1 of 3 questionnaires with consent using similar language from consent forms of 3 drugs used in D-IBS: desipramine, alosetron, and rifaximin. Demographics, IBS symptoms using visual analog scale, and percent improvement needed for patients to report adequate relief of IBS from theoretically taking their assigned drug was asked. Data were expressed as mean ± SE. RESULTS Subjects who were anticipating rifaximin had the highest expectation of improvement to determine adequate relief of 87.3 ± 10.9% compared with 73.4 ± 18.0% for desipramine (P

This study, based on 108 interviews and participant observation at 22 churches, examines the tension among newly formed second-generation Korean American churches in Los Angeles over its ethnic boundaries. Although all of the newly formed churches are open to non-Koreans, not all envision or desire a multiracial church. First, some pastors want their churches to remain predominately Korean American because they believe that the church is the main institution responsible for preserving the Korean culture and passing it down to subsequent generations. Others want to stretch their boundaries to include all Asian Americans. They argue that the similarities in life experiences and cultural orientation, largely derived by their shared status as children of immigrants and as racial minorities in the United States, among different Asian American groups serve as the common denominator. Finally, several pastors are determined to transform their churches into multiracial congregations. Documenting the current stage of experimentation and transition, this study of second-generation churches provides important insights on the role of religion and religious organizations in immigrant adaptation and identity formation.

"The turn to religion" describes a recent surge in papers, books, and panels on religion or a religious subject. This marked increase seems to come from three different factors: 1) 9/11 and the post-9/11 climate, which have foregrounded religion's power; 2) prominent literary theorists writing on religion; 3) scholars who have always been interested in this subject but whose work is now more noticeable than before or who are now finding their voice. In this climate, it is particularly important for Christian scholars to be aware that individual critical strategies fall into patterns and that these patterns have histories. Individual Christians often end up making the same intellectual moves as their Christian colleagues, even when they work independently and in ignorance of their peers and predecessors. I have used the trope of "culture" to describe these intellectual patterns, because "culture" conveys more of a totality of being than "pattern." Such totality in intellectual terms includes logic, language, theory, belief, values, frame of reference, bibliography, network, aesthetic taste, and practices (research, publishing, pedagogy). Other possible, but inadequate, terms for "culture" include "methodology" "rhetoric" "theoretical orientation," "discourse community," and "a shared conception of literary studies." American evangelical scholars have had a different intellectual culture than that of other segments in the academy, and this cultural difference is a significant but unexamined factor in Christian dialogue with critical theory. Although members of this culture are concentrated in evangelical Christian colleges, there are American evangelicals in secular institutions who demonstrate the same intellectual traits that I'm calling a "culture." These traits come in combination with Christian belief and are not the beliefs themselves. Because this culture is an intellectual culture, it corresponds to what Wilson Brissett has called the "secular self." American evangelicals, even when working independently, tend to have similar ways of defining and developing their secular selves, which sometimes diverge from the secular selves of non-American-evangelicals (whether non-evangelical-Christian, non-Christian, or non-American). Scholars who think in categories like "Christian scholarship" tend to believe that academic dialogue only involves the encounter between Christian and non-Christian, or religious and secular. However, this contact also involves divergent conceptions of "scholarship" itself, which complicates any religious divide. Since the "scholarship" part is supposed to be the common ground between Christian and non-Christian scholars, these concepts have been rather difficult to explain to American evangelicals, especially those who have been most committed to reading theory. Yet differences in intellectual culture, not anti-Christian bias, may explain why the extensive number of titles like Christian Criticism in the Twentieth Century: Theological Approaches to Literature (Cary 1975), Toward a Christian Poetics (Edwards 1984), Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology (Ingraffia 1999), or Towards a Christian Literary Theory (Ferretter 2003) (2) have been largely invisible--even to those most interested in this subject. Susan Felch has remarked that my use of the trope of culture represents a paradigm shift from the previous generation of American evangelicals, who seemed to conceptualize their presence in the academy in terms of war. Through readings of five Christian responses to postmodern theory, I will attempt to show concretely how intellectual cultures affect the writing and reception of literary criticism. I chose samples from the previous decade because it allows some historical distance for analysis and because a mature effort toward critical dialogue today should be informed by similar efforts of the past. The first two examples come from American evangelicals situated at Christian colleges. …

Although not typically associated with literary epiphany, Wharton was one of the first to recognize its significance to modernist fiction. In The Writing of Fiction, Wharton made epiphany central to her theory of fiction and used it to enter into a dialogue with the modernism she viewed from a critical distance. Wharton distinguishes between two different epiphanies: the moral epiphany and the modern epiphany, which stresses the materiality of aesthetic perception. Wharton links the discontinuity of modernist fiction with the ahistorical thrust of modern epiphany. She argues instead for continuity with the narrative patterns inherited from literary history, patterns that interpolated moral epiphanies. In Hudson River Bracketed and The Gods Arrive, Wharton develops a third form of epiphany, one that combines the aesthetics of modern epiphany with a subjective and historical continuity that has its roots in an older, perhaps more female, source of creative production.

In their studies of epiphany, literary critics often arrive at a distinction between two different types: epiphany as an experience and epiphany as a textual record of that experience. As Herbert Tucker has quipped, epiphany is the “account of an experience” and “the account of an experience” (1208; original italics); it is “something lived through, yet also something written down” (1208). Critics keep returning to this insight because the terms of analysis must shift if the object of study is a lived event or if it is a text. Are we talking about Stephen Daedalus’s epiphany while walking down Eccles Street, or are we talking about the poem Stephen wrote to capture it? Or are we talking about James Joyce’s novel about Stephen Daedalus walking down Eccles Street, having an epiphany, and writing a poem about it? Yet when it comes to epiphany and who has one, or who writes about it, there remains a third axis in addition to the author or the character: namely, the reader, who may suddenly “see” something in or through a text while reading. Such experiences are moments of critical or interpretive fire. What role does epiphany play in the process of critical reading?

Susan Warner’s The Wide, Wide World (1850) tells the story of a young girl, bereft of her parents, who is sent to live with a mean aunt on a farm. Despite her talent for cooking delicious country meals, the aunt does not know how to relate to her ten-year-old niece, Ellen Montgomery, or how to comfort her for the loss of her mother. She soon subjects Ellen to a life of arbitrary frustration. In her struggles, Ellen finds friends like Alice Humphreys, a young woman who shares Ellen’s love of nature, learning, and religion. Alice and her brother John welcome Ellen as an adoptive sister and teach her how to face her problems, helping her mature into a devout Christian.

In the trivial, ugly, sordid, and vulgar, a young James Joyce noted sudden perceptions that he called epiphany. The chatter in a pub, fake condolences, a bit of seaweed on a girl’s thigh—such negligible things unexpectedly lit up in the mind and sparked the writing of texts. Joyce wrote his epiphanies into a notebook then later spun them into poems and novels. Although he experimented with them for decades, casting them into a startling verbal pyrotechnics by Finnegans Wake (1939), Joyce never defined epiphany except through the manuscript Stephen Hero (1904–1906).

William Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses (1942) presents the epiphany of a nonpassive being: the bear. The bear is purely phenomenal, like Lily’s brushstroke, but unlike the brushstroke, it is alive. It moves, watches, and hunts, eluding the men who hunt it and make it an object of their games and tall tales. When Isaac McCaslin sees the bear, the bear looks back. It is a wild animal and thus an authentic Other: sentient but not human, conscious but without a human pattern of thought, unassimilable to human terms except through destruction. The look of this Other plays a decisive role in forming Isaac. More than the boy seeing the bear, Isaac’s being seen by the bear makes him the Ike who becomes uncle to half the county while father to no one.

Born in 1819, Susan Warner and George Eliot both grew intensely religious in the late 1830s, started publishing fiction in the 1850s, and died in the 1880s. Like Warner, Eliot adapted Pilgrim’s Progress and the paradigms of spiritual autobiography into her work, seen most clearly in The Mill on the Floss (1860).1 Yet while Warner brought this spirituality into novels of contemporary life, Eliot set most of her novels in the past—the historical past that is prior to her present day but just after the age of religious faith, somewhere in its “afterglow.” Her first novel Adam Bede (1859) takes place “half a century ago, while there was yet a lingering after-glow from the time when Wesley and his fellow-labourer … [carried] a divine message to the poor” (47). In Middlemarch (1872–1874), one of her last novels, the age of Saint Theresa is long gone, leaving only “dim lights and tangled circumstance” (xiii).

Joyce “invented” epiphany when he was 19 and still in college. Young, cocky, and poor, he wrote down his theory in pieces from 1901–1906, as he set about forging in the smithy of his soul the uncreated conscience of his race. Joyce would later portray epiphany as a youthful fad or infatuation. In the early twentieth century, however, an august, even “ponderous” (Safranski 410), thinker independently developed a parallel theory of epiphany: Martin Heidegger, whose Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) (1927) is one of the most significant philosophical works of the last century. Both the edgy novelist and the university professor offered epiphany as an aesthetic counterpoint to the modern technological eye. Both drew upon ancient Greek epiphaneia as a resistance to Roman Catholicism. Moreover, both referred to Thomas Aquinas to explain their theories of epiphany.

Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927) whirls with a myriad revelations, like “when all at once he realised that it was this: it was this:—she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen” (16). Sparked at random, these modern epiphanies constantly erupt into the text: Lily’s intuition that Mrs. Ramsay wants her to marry, the sudden attraction of the word “flounder” (49), the exquisite scimitar shape of rooks. The breeziness of Woolf’s style drives an endless firing of synapses in the brain, an energy Woolf craved since she found the Victorian epiphany both hackneyed and stale.

Bowen's disease (BD), or cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) in situ, is rare in children. BD usually occurs in Caucasian adults on sun-exposed areas and may progress to invasive cutaneous SCC. Most cases of periungual BD have been linked to human papillomavirus infection. We report an immunocompetent child with periungual BD.