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In digital age there is a “reciprocity of images and bodies during regular, multiple and multisited encounters.” (Harbison 16). Westerman asserts performance as ‘inframedium’, that is ontologically situated between life and image (Westerman n.p.). As such it is well placed to critically address the production of normative subjectivities, in the context of a radically accelerated, embodied relationship to the image through digital media. This paper will explore the work of two contemporary Irish queer/genderqueer artists, Francis Fay and Day Magee, examining their work across live and digital practice. Foregrounding my own acts of reading (after Jones), I seek to mobilise the operation of taken for granted digital/social media formats in the production of meaning. I will examine how these artists utilise the ontology of performance practice in a digital age, to posit queer futurities that conjure alternative social relations, and resist and challenge normative subjectivity as fixed through heterosexual logics. A l’ère du numérique, on constate « une réciprocité des images et des corps au cours de rencontres régulières, multiples et multisites » (Harbison 16). Westerman situe la performance comme « inframedium », c’est-à-dire ontologiquement placée entre la vie et l’image (Westerman, n.p.). A ce titre, elle est pertinemment située pour émettre un jugement critique sur la production de subjectivités normatives, dans le contexte d’une relation à l’image par le truchement du médium numérique radicalement accélérée et incarnée. Cet article analysera les travaux de deux artistes irlandais queer/genderqueer, Francis Fay et Day Magee, par le prisme de leurs pratiques scéniques et numériques. Utilisant ma propre lecture (dans le sillage de Jones), je cherche à mettre en avant le fait que les formats numériques et ceux des réseaux sociaux sont considérés comme acquis dans la production du sens. J’étudierai comment ces artistes se servent de l’ontologie de la pratique de la performance à l’ère numérique, pour explorer des futurités queer faisant appel à des relations sociales alternatives, qui à la fois résistent à la subjectivité normative et la remettent en question telle qu’elle est imposée par les logiques hétérosexuelles.

This dissertation tracks evolving metaphors about women as objects in the eighteenth-century novel. Objectification of women is an oft-cited concept for feminist theorists, but remains a fluid term among scholars. In “She Objects: On the (Im)Mobility of Women in the Eighteenth-Century Novel,” I argue that the eighteenth-century novel is a starting point for understanding and categorizing structures of objectification. The Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of the novel is a period associated with the emergence of the liberal subject, the interiority of characters, and contractualism. However, this project considers a parallel narrative about the circulation of commodities, the fluid lines between “stuff” and “characters” in the eighteenth-century novel, and the potential for agency without subjectivity. Fundamentally, this dissertation seeks to question the binaries between subjects and objects in the eighteenth-century and uncover the histories and experiences of women caught up in a mechanism of objectification during this period. Chapter One, “Cost Benefit Analysis: Circulating Women and the Virtues of Objectification,” introduces the circulating woman and draws connections between women and commodities through Daniel Defoe’s economic metaphors in Moll Flanders and Roxana. Defoe’s protagonists demonstrate how women are connected to markets and commodities through metaphors about money, trade routes, and the figure of Lady Credit. Alongside Defoe, I turn to Eliza Haywood to read into patterns of circulation a system of desire that demonstrates female agency. Fungibility, anonymity, and circulation emerge as a type of objectification in which it is possible to claim agency without subjectivity. Chapter Two, “The Other Side of the Coin: It-narratives and The Metaphorics of Feminine Objects,” offers a reading of it-narratives and a parallel process of personification of objects during the eighteenth-century. The personified it-narrators of the genre often show a kinship with women and employ similar kinds of metaphorical language. Chapter Three, “Pamela Petrified: Transitioning from Circulation to Stasis,” continues the story of transition between circulation and sentimentality with Richardson’s ground-breaking novel Pamela. I consider Pamela’s fraught relationship with money and disguise, as well as the claustrophobic lack of movement in the novel. In my account, Richardson tames the circulating woman of earlier amatory fiction, offering a new vision of womanhood and objectification suited to domestic fiction. His novel self-consciously rewrites the parameters of objectification and foreshadows the key features of sentimental objectification. My final chapter, “Playing for Keeps: Sentimental Women and the Vices of Objectification,” concludes with an explanation of sentimental objectification: its metaphors, plots, and pitfalls. I argue that sentimental objectification is a process of fixing women into place under the sentimental gaze. Women that are sentimentalized are often objectified in a way that feeds off their suffering and drinks in the image of their aestheticized corpse. The vampiric impulses of the sentimental gaze is pernicious because it eliminates the fungibility of women, thereby eradicating the potentials for agency within objectification. Sentimental objectification is not agential, but, paradoxically, it is rarely registered as objectification at all.

Introduction: Although HER2 and ER pathways are predominant pathways altered in breast cancer, it is now well accepted that many other signaling pathways are also involved in the pathogenesis of breast cancer. The understanding of these additional pathways may assist in identifying new therapeutic approaches for breast cancer. Methods: 13 invasive ductal carcinoma tissues and 5 benign breast tissues were analyzed for the mRNA expression level of 1243 cancer pathway-related genes using SmartChip (WaferGen, CA), a real-time PCR-base method. In addition, the levels of 131 cancer pathway-related proteins and phosphoproteins in 33 paired breast cancers were measured using our innovative Protein Pathway Array. Results: Out of 1,243 mRNAs, 68.7% (854) were detected in breast cancer and 395 mRNAs were statistically significant (fold change >2) between benign and cancer tissues. Of these mRNAs, 105 only expressed in breast cancer tissues and 33 mRNAs only expressed in normal breast tissues. Out of 131 proteins and phosphoproteins, 68% (89) were detected in cancer tissues and 57 proteins were significantly differentiated between tumor and normal tissues. Interestingly, only 3 genes (CDK6, Vimentin and SLUG) showed decreases in both protein and mRNA. Six proteins (BCL6, CCNE1, PCNA, PDK1, SRC and XIAP) were differentially expressed between tumor and normal tissues but no differences were observed at mRNA levels. Analyses of mRNA and protein data using Ingenuity Pathway Analysis showed more than 15 pathways were altered in breast cancer and 6 of which were shared between mRNAs and proteins, including p53, IL17, HGF, NGF, PTEN and PI3K/AKT pathways. Conclusions: There is a broad dysregulation of various pathways in breast cancer both at protein levels and mRNA levels. It is important to note that mRNA expression does not correlate with protein level, suggesting different regulation mechanisms between proteins and mRNAs.

The catalogue demonstrates the scope and vibrancy of current inquiries and pays tribute to the creative capacity and investment of UCA research students. It brings together contributions from students who are at different stages in their research ad/venture. Their explorations are connected by the centrality of contemporary material practices as focal point for the reconsideration of societal values, cultural symbols and rituals and their meaning, and the trans/formation of individual, collective and national identities The media and formats employed range from cloth, jewellery and ceramics to analogue film, the human voice and the representation of dress and fashionin virtual environments. Thematic interests span from explorations at the interface of art and medical science to an investigation of the role of art in contested spaces, or the role of metonymy in ‘how the arts think’ And whilst the projects are motivated by personal curiosity and passion, their outcomes transcend the boundaries of individual practice and offer new insights, under-standing and applications for the benefit of wider society. Prof. Kerstin Mey