2 results
3 - The Bl ind Owls of Modernity: Of Protocols, Mirrors and Grimaces in Sohrab Shahid Saless’s Films
- Edited by Azadeh Fatehrad
-
- Book:
- ReFocus: The Films of Sohrab Shahid-Saless
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 10 October 2020
- Print publication:
- 28 May 2020, pp 43-63
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
-
Summary
Of what use are all the revolutions if people are
not capable of revolutionising themselves?
The Last Summer of Grabbe (1980)
HASHTI (ANTEROOM)
Let me begin by quoting a passage from Siegfried Kracauer's posthumously published book fragment, History: The Last Things Before the Last (1969), a text in which he tackles the problem of subjectivity and the restriction to a single perspective in historical interpretation. For the author, the tiniest facts of history can be made accessible only through what he calls a ‘micro history’ of ‘close-ups’ (Kracauer 1995, 105), an approach he undoubtedly favours over the distortions of macro histories and their panoramic views, which oversee the details following a synthesising, subsumptive logic.
As I see it, the vast knowledge we possess should challenge us not to indulge inadequate syntheses but to concentrate on close-ups and from them casually to range over the whole […] This allegedly smallest historical unit itself is an inexhaustible macrocosm. (Kracauer 1995, 137).
This is not tantamount to an immersion in details until complete (self-) extinction. Rather, for Kracauer, this breaking down of macro entities into their smallest elements through close-ups entails a ‘minimum distance that must be upheld between the researcher and his material’ (Kracauer 1995, 86). The observer has to re-introduce the macrocosm into the microcosm:
‘This allegedly smallest historical unit itself is an inexhaustible macrocosm’ (Kracauer 1995, 116). But how is it possible for the stalker of close-ups to keep this minimal distance? According to Kracauer, he should penetrate the façade and materials of history with the eyes of an exile who resides in a ‘no-man's land’: that is, as a silent, emotionally detached observer, similar in this respect to the photographer who is excluded from the field of vision.
I am thinking of the exile who as an adult person has been forced to leave his country or has left it of his own free will […] his identity is bound to be in a state of flux; and the odds are that he will never fully belong to the community to which he now in a way belongs. (Nor will its members readily think of him as one of theirs.) In fact, he has ceased to ‘belong’. Where then does he live?
AIDS, Emergency Operations, and Infection Control
- Mark Matthias Wittmann, Annemarei Wittmann, Dietmar H. Wittmann
-
- Journal:
- Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology / Volume 17 / Issue 8 / August 1996
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 02 January 2015, pp. 532-538
- Print publication:
- August 1996
-
- Article
- Export citation
-
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may turn out to be the largest lethal epidemic of infection ever. The estimated global number of HIV-infected adults in 1993 was 13 million, with projections of up to 40 million by the year 2000. Human immunodeficiency virus infections and AIDS are relevant to surgeons with respect to the surgical management of AIDS patients in general, the treatment of the increasingly long list of surgical complications specific to AIDS patients in particular, and the risks of patient-to-surgeon and surgeon-to-patient HIV transmission. Because of migration of individuals and populations throughout the world, even surgeons practicing in relatively unaffected regions should be familiar with the potential surgical implications of AIDS. Ethical considerations arise, as well. Are surgeons obliged to operate on HIV-positive or AIDS patients? Some surgeons adhere strictly to the Hippocratic Oath, whereas others reserve the right to be selective on whom they operate, except in emergencies. Other common ethical considerations in the AIDS patient are similar to those arising in the terminal cancer case: whether to operate or not; whether to provide advanced support such as total parenteral nutrition or hemodialysis. Answers are not simple and require close collaboration between the surgeon, the AIDS specialist, and involved members of other specialties. Emergency operations become necessary to treat AIDS independent disease such as acute cholecystitis and appendicitis or AIDS-related life-threatening conditions such as gastrointestinal bleeding, obstruction, perforation, or ischemia complicating Kaposi's sarcoma, lymphoma, and cytomegalovirus or disseminated nontuberculous mycobacterial infections. Delays and errors in diagnosis are frequent. Poor nutritional state with weight loss, low serum albumin, and leukocyte count prevails in most patients requiring emergency operations and account for a high mortality. By applying solid judgment and selecting management appropriately, the surgeon has the ability to prolong life and to improve the quality of life for these unfortunate patients, and to do so with extremely minimal risk to himself and his team.