1,355,509 research outputs found
Erotismo e intimismo nell'opera Rāʼiḥat al-qirfa di Samar Yazbik
No full textThis article deals with the last novel Ra'ihat al-qirfa (Smell of cinnamon, 2008) by Samar Yazbik, a prolific author of the new generation of Syrian writers. In this novel, Samar Yazbik relates the story of two women of different ages and belonging to different social classes in contemporary Damascus, who fall in love with each other. The article focuses on words and figures relating to the senses of smell and of touch, used by the author to represent an erotic and intimist dimension in the text. This particular choice of words and images enables the direct expression of the inner emotions and feelings of the main characters who, through their lesbian relationship, try to oppose the oppressive society in which they live
A glimpse of the limits of the European economic governance through the legislative and jurisprudential route of the "after-Weimar" German "economic constitution"
No full textEl objetivo de esta investigación es reconstruir los límites de la gestión de las finanzas públicas en la Unión Monetaria Europea, utilizando la perspectiva del camino de la "constitución económica" alemana posterior a Weimar. El proceso federativo de la UE no presenta las mismas características legales de ningún otro, incluido el alemán. Sin embargo, algunos problemas son necesariamente similares y similares soluciones se pueden encontrar. En consecuencia, esto documento se centra en la sucesión de reformas en la governance económica europea desde 2008 analizando, en particular, el tema de compartir las obligaciones de la deuda a nivel europeo, esto a través del diálogo entre el Bundesverfassungsgericht y la institución de la UE
Šibh al-ǧazīra al-ʻarabiyya di Salwā al-Naʻīmī
No full textIn her latest novel, Šibh al-ǧazīra al-ʻarabiyya (2012), Salwā al-Naʻīmī narrates the experience of exile of a Syrian woman who lives in France. Through the protagonist’s first-person account, the author questions the meaning of nation, membership to a collective and identity for an Arab woman settled in France. The main character embodies the exiled subject – or the ‘nomadic subject’ (Braidotti, 2002) – who severs her ties with family, nation, Ba‘ṭ’s party and religion. This painful process of liberation leads her to a global re-signification of the notion of Arab identity. The protagonist succeeds in releasing the meaning of Arab identity from the idea of normative membership to a collective. al-Naʻīmī choice to narrate the experience of exile in Arabic helps to restore a link between the individual and the community, here identified with the community of speakers
Migration Narratives in Contemporary Arab Novels
No full textMigration has been a structuring topos of Arab modern and contemporary literature (Censi and Paniconi 2023). In the first decades of the Twentieth century, the “Mahjar” poets established a new literary sensibility that exercised a vast influence on modern Arab poetry. Meanwhile and later, up to the Fifties, several canonical Arab novels like Adīb (1935) by Ṭāhā Ḥusayn, Qindīl Umm Hāshim (1945) by Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī and al-Ḥayy al-Laṭīnī by Suhayl Idrīs (1953) employed the literary trope of cultural migration to Europe to develop plots including discourses about citizenship, modernity, identities, and cultural westernization, therefore creating a new narrative space (Casini 2013). Since the Sixities the Arab migration/exile in the Gulf area has been increasingly expressed through modernist techniques, and inscribed in narratives of historical alienation, particularly after the 1967 military and political defeat of the “Naksa”.
After discussing the formative phases of Arab migration narratives, our chapter will focus on literary texts written after 1990, from the perspective of undocumented migrants, refugees, and exiled. In particular, we will analyze Taytānīkāt ifrīqiyya (2008) by Abū Bakr Khāl (Eritrea), a novel about the failed crossing of the Mediterranean sea; Sāq al-Bambū (2012) by Saʻūd al-Sanʻūsī (Kuwait), a story of transcultural identity between Kuwait and the Philippines; the epistolary novel Barīd al-layl (2017) by Hoda Barakāt (Lebanon), dealing with the general condition of homelessness experienced, in the European metropolis, by migrants from the Global South. 21st-century Arab narratives on migration overcome the old, fixed identity paradigms, such as the idealization of the European experience, the national-based characterization of the (male) heroes, and the modernist – often idealized - understandings of exile (Sellman 2022). Giving voices to hyper-realistic narratives of forced migration, recent novels from the Arab world explore both new forms of processual identities (Nyers 2006, Nail 2015) and new discourses within the global migration movement
Tra critica sociale ed erotismo, un esempio della nuova narrativa siriana : Ḥurrās al-hawā' di Rūzā Yāsīn Ḥasan
No full textThe aim of this article is to show the importance of the narration of the female body in women contemporary Syrian novel. As an example, I will use the novel Ḥurrās al-hawā' (The guardians of the air), written by the young Syrian writer, Rūzā Yāsīn Ḥasan, published in 2009. This novel is notably interesting in order to describe this new trend. In fact, although it is presented as a critical work against the autocratic regime in Syria, we discover that also the erotic component is a pivotal element. Finally, I remark that the body is the centre of the plot and affects all the characters’ world. We may conclude that the author uses the social and political criticism as a means to express and represent the dimensions of the body which in the text are many: sex, pregnancy, illness, death, physiological functions and torture
Rewriting the body in the novels of contemporary Syrian women writers
No full textIn the present essay I explore the different representations of the body in a selection of Arabic novels, published by Syrian contemporary women writers: Ḥurrās al-hawā’ by Rosa Yāsīn Ḥasan, Rāʼiḥat al-qirfa by Samar Yazbik and Imrāʼa min haḏā al-ʽaṣr by Hayfāʼ Bīṭār. I rely on a plural methodology able to integrate the tools of comparative literature with the theoretical framework of gender and feminist criticism, in the attempt to analyze the role that the body plays in representing and questioning the key issues of contemporary Syrian society. I specifically refer to the theme of political repression, minorities, the gap between social classes, the division between the two sexes and the broader relationship between tradition and modernity. Each of these novels examines a different aspect of Syrian society that is represented through the body. I incorporated in my methodology the interviews I have conducted with the authors, to establish a dialogue between the voice of the literary text and that of the author herself. These two agents interact with each other by providing a complete picture of the society in which they co-exist. In Ḥurrās al-hawāʼ, Rosa Yāsīn Ḥasan deals with the themes of political repression and of minorities, represented through the love story between a young Alawite woman and her Druze partner, detained in prison for having participated in illegal political activities against the repressive regime. The author puts in the foreground sexuality, in that it represents the characters' evolution, through the dimensions of pleasure and violence. The erotic body is not only the place of the encounter with the other, but also the space of the search for self-assertion. The body is the medium through which the character reveals himself to the other, and, in addition to that, it is the space in which he discovers himself. The separation of the two lovers, due to his detention, is told through the stories of their bodies, which, after years of distance, no longer recognize each other. Identity, rooted in memory, disintegrates in the present, therefore becoming unrecognizable. Thus, in a community-oriented society, the body is no longer the place of the relationship with the other, but it becomes the place of a self-seeking process. On the other hand, memory loses its function of connection between the individual and the community. In Rāʼiḥat al-qirfa, Samar Yazbik deals with the division between sexes and the gap between social classes in contemporary Syria, through the homosexual relationship between the two female protagonists. As Samar Yazbik says: “Actually I wanted to talk about the change of Syrian society, the disappearance of the middle class and the great difference between the world of upper classes and that of lower classes [...]. I wanted to make a comparison between the world of the rich and the poor through the lives of two women, even to say that woman is oppressed everywhere.” (Interview with Samar Yazbik). One of the central aspects of Rāʼiḥat al-qirfa is the representation of the body in the dimension of sexuality that becomes violence in heterosexual relationships, while it acquires an erotic appearance in the homosexual ones. Women shelter in homosexual relationships whenever they cannot find satisfaction in the relationships with men. The author uses sexuality in her novel in a bid to express the crisis of a society that does not allow freedom for the individual. Women suffer such a repression twice, although men are victims as well. In Imrāʼa min haḏā al-ʽaṣr, the body is represented in the dimension of illness and suffering. The chemotherapy of the main character, suffering from breast cancer, generates a memory process that becomes part of the treatment. The protagonist begins seeking for her femininity through the exploration of her past experiences with men. The relationship between sexes is problematic, clamped between the community logic tied to tradition and the claim for individual liberation. Through the choice of this female troubled character, the author aims at criticizing her society, divided between the desire to conform to a stereotypical idea of modernity and the commitment to tradition. In a nutshell, the body is the place where the tension between these two aspects appears. Through a comparative analysis of these three novels, I noticed how they dialogue with each other, contributing to the representation of a society in the throes of the dialectical tension between the drive for collective control and individual claims. The body is used to represent human relationships ‒ heterosexual and homosexual ‒ and their changes. The body is the point of contact between individuals and, as such, it ends up being the place of negotiation between individual and collective dimensions. Besides, it becomes a metaphor of the individual as a “desiring subject”, in opposition to the concept of “subdued”. The fact that women writers deal with the male body shows that they prioritise the matter of the individual rather than women's emancipation. The emphasis on the body symbolizes the need to affirm the individual beyond the distinctions of sex and gender. Through a twofold process of liberation ‒ both from the pressures of the patriarchal system and from political censorship ‒ Syrian women writers, by narrating female and male bodies, do not merely advocate for their own liberation, yet for the liberation of the whole society
Synthesis, characterisation and cytotoxicity of platinum(II) complexes containing natural ligands with biological activity
No full textCancer always is among the major causes of death worldwide and only limited progresses were carried onto in order to reduce its morbidity and mortality. Starting from its approval in 1979, cisplatin became probably the most important component of chemotherapy for treating the ovarian, testicular, lung and bladder carcinomas, as well as lymphomas, myelomas and melanoma. Although, cisplatin is a widely used anticancer drug, its clinical exploitation leads to several side effects (decline of kidney, tubular and marrow cells, auditory system). Moreover, several cancer cells are not or poorly sensitive to the cis-Pt action. As a consequence, the recognition of suitable alternatives able to reduce of side effects during the anticancer therapy, some researches were carried out for providing other cis-Pt type complexes free from these contraindications. Therefore, several hundreds of cisplatin analogues were tested during the last 20 years, and many of these species were rejected in preclinical or early clinical stages of testing. Then, the development of more selective and less toxic Pt-based drugs than cisplatin is still highly desirable. Recently, the anticancer activity of naturally occurring substances obtained from plants, such as flavonoids, curcumin and caffeine, has been tested and about 20 new drugs derived from natural products were introduced from 2001 to 2005. So, a lack of knowledge also occurs about the possibility to combine the anticancer capability of cis-Pt related complexes with the limited contraindications for the human health given by the exposure to substances obtained from plants.
This study is focused on the scope to fill this gap providing information about the cytotoxic activity of cis-Pt type complexes synthetized using ligands extracted from natural substances obtained from plants. The research was carried out according two different paths. Firstly, these new complexes were synthetized, characterized according spectroscopic investigations and then their cytotoxic activity assessed towards several cancer cell lines in terms of IC50 values. As follows, further investigations were carried out in order to provide information about the extent of interactions between DNA and the new synthetized Pt-complexes with curcumin and caffeine, that were obtaining through different characterization techniques. Our results suggest that the exploited metal complexes act as efficient DNA binders. Suitable crystals for XRD analyses were also obtained for some of the synthesized complexes
Annotazioni linguistiche e glossario
No full textEsame dei tratti grafico-fonetici di origine volgare nel latino primo-trecentesco del Libro dei Censi; indice ragionato dei volgarismi lessicali
Italian School as seen by Teacher Writers
No full textNel testo viene valutata la creazione letteraria come una forma di analisi del contesto scolastico che diventa particolarmente penetrante quando l’autore ha vissuto, continuativamente e nell’esercizio della professione, le esperienze narrate e sopratutto la relazione allievo docente.This work aims to analyze some aspects of the relationship between teachers and students by examining the literary work of five Italian teacher-writers: Lodoli (2003), Mastrocola (2004), Onofri (2000), Rossi Doria (1999) and Starnone (1995), whose books have been published in Italy in the last 15th years with success of public and critics.
It is not a mere analysis of the testimony of some privileged observers; it is, instead, a careful study of real-life experiences as elaborated by the teacher-authors in their narrative
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