Vital lines drawn from books: difficult feelings in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and Are You My Mother?

This article examines the representation of a transnational archive of queer books in Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoirs Fun Home and Are You My Mother? for the insights it provides into role of reading in making sense of the often difficult “felt experiences” of lesbian life. In both memoirs, books serve an important narrative function in the portrayal of Alison’s lesbian identification and its complex emotional entanglements with the lives of parents who are trapped – killed even, in the case of the father – in the wastelands of patriarchy and heterosexual expectation. The article argues that in this complex family dynamic in which “sexual identity” itself is a problem and emotions remain largely unspoken, books act as fragile conduits of feelings, shaping familial relationships even as they allow Alison to contextualise her life in relation to historical events and social norms. Reading books allows her to understand the apparently U.S.-specific history of her family in relation to a wider queer history in the West

Comics Activism: An Interview with Comics Artist Kate Evans

This is an interview with comics artist Kate Evans, author of Red Rosa (2015) and Threads: From the Refugee Experience (2017), as well as a number of other comics, about her recent work, which operates at the intersection of several of the most exciting genre developments in comics in recent years. In the interview Evans reflects on recent shifts in comics journalism, as well as other trends in the field such as the rise of graphic memoir, through examples taken from Evans’s own work as well as that of Joe Sacco, Lynda Barry, Alison Bechdel and others

Sonography Education in Australia, Canada, and The United States

Sonographers are healthcare professionals who perform medical diagnostic procedures that use high frequency sound waves to produce visual images of human organs, tissues, or blood flow inside the body. Sonography students must attend either secondary degree programs or postsecondary degree programs, depending on the country in which they receive their education. In this Literature Review, a comparison of the secondary and post-secondary educational process within Australia, Canada, and the United States will be discussed. An overview of the general primary and secondary educational systems are briefly described. The different accrediting and credentialing bodies are discussed in each of the three countries. Australian sonography program accreditation is performed through the Australian Sonographer Accreditation Registry (ASAR). The programmatic accrediting body in Canada for sonography programs is known as the EQualTM Accreditation. The sonography programs in the United States receive accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). Understanding the various educational systems, as well as the accrediting and credentialing bodies in Australia, Canada, and the United States allows those interested in working in these countries to gain knowledge in the pathway to become a sonographer.https://digitalcommons.misericordia.edu/research_posters2021/1005/thumbnail.jp

Fun Home (September 30-October 2, 2021)

Program for Fun Home (September 30-October 2, 2021). To view the photos from this production of Fun Home., please click here

A Healthier Community for Generations to Come: Creating Resilient and Equitable Development on Lower 9th Ward Corridors

The Healthier Community for Generations to Come report provides Sankofa Community Development Corporation with programmatic recommendations to assist in the revitalization of the Lower Ninth Ward (LNW). This report draws on extensive research in urban planning best practices to propose strategies that promote economic revitalization, housing sustainability, community health, and environmental resilience. The research was guided by an Urban Land Institute (ULI) Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) which engaged the LNW community to inform recommendations. Sustainability analysis, equity planning, resilience planning, market analysis, and GIS analysis methodologies were employed to create the report. The final report recommendations included a site SWOT, housing framework, main street strategies, and a resilience district model

Beyond the martial façade: gender, heritage and medieval castles

Gendered interpretations are rare both within castle-studies and heritage discourses on medieval castles. Yet, castles hold potential to inform multi-vocal accounts of the medieval past and to inspire meaningful heritage interpretations to achieve greater societal impact. This article explores the role that gender currently plays in interpretations of medieval castles in Britain, supported by three case-studies written by heritage professionals. The enduring narrative of militarism at medieval castles sites is discussed, together with issues of authenticity in relation to the historical record, which is in itself biased and inherently gendered. Outcomes from a collaborative workshop highlight the need to address interpretative issues where gender is considered to equate to ‘making women visible’. Finally, we pose the question: What makes a ‘good gendered interpretation’ at a public heritage site

MODELING TRANSPORTATION RESOURCE CAPACITY AND OPTIMIZING SECURE SHIPPING OPERATIONS

ABSTRACT The Department of Energy owns a number of nuclear materials that require physical protection. This protection is required for the materials in transit as well as in storage. The resource capacity for protecting these materials in transit was allowed to decline after the end of the cold war. As Records of Decision regarding the disposition of surplus special nuclear materials (SNM) are implemented, the Department's secure transportation workload will increase dramatically. New resources cannot be added fast enough to support the growth in work scope unless secure shipping operations become more efficient. This paper describes our effort to model integrated secure shipping operations and to recommend changes to shipping plans that reduce workload and increase capacity. INTRODUCTION The Transportation Safeguards System, TSS, provides protected transport of the Department's SNM. The protection is provided with engineered systems in the transport vehicles and with specially trained security forces that escort the shipments. The TSS maintains federal agents and special vehicle resources in three separate locations. These resources are chartered to support secure transportation between 37 shipper/receiver sites. The first challenge was to collect detailed shipping plans from each of these sites and integrate them into a comprehensive TSS workload forecast. The second challenge was to develop a model that could generate an optimized secure shipping solution set. The resulting model is called TRIPS -for Transportation Resource Integrated Planning System. TRIPS combines rules on TSS operations with workload projections and a detailed description of all the resources constraining transportation of these materials. The resource constraints include shipper and receiver site capabilities and the availability of federal agents, transporters, and certified packages to support the work. This paper details the challenges of building such a model, and providing it with validated data on a regular basis. Although the model is still evolving, it has already provided critical data on supportable project schedules, as well as recommending where managers should focus limited assets to support overall Departmental commitments

Best practice framework and principles for monitoring the effect of coastal development on marine mammals

As the worlds human population increases along the coastal zone with major alteration of coastal embayments increased on-water activities and a plethora of other intrusions into the coastal zone there is a simultaneous increase in pressures on marine mammals. Growing evidence indicates that many marine mammals are highly susceptible to declines resulting from direct and indirect impacts arising from diverse human activities. Too frequently assessment of the impact from coastal developments on marine mammals has been inadequate or completely lacking. At worst this has led to catastrophic decline in some populations. Without rigorous ecological assessments along with adaptive management frameworks prior to the initiation of developments the number of marine mammal populations likely to be adversely impacted will continue to rise. To address these shortcomings we present a globally applicable best practice framework by; (i) describing guiding principles and; (ii) reviewing appropriate procedures for assessment and monitoring of impacts of coastal developments on marine mammals. The approach outlined is embedded in Environmental Impact Assessment processes as a means by which decision makers and stakeholders can be informed. Recommendations presented are designed to encourage the application of robust scientific evaluation that applies appropriate survey design with sufficient statistical power to detect changes before trigger thresholds are reached. We emphasize that there is an urgent need to ensure assessments are comprehensive effective and integrated with monitoring and adaptive management actions in order to minimize or effectively mitigate the impacts of human activities on marine mammal population

The Influence of Manga on the Graphic Novel

This material has been published in The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel edited by Jan Baetens, Hugo Frey, Stephen E. Tabachnick. This version is free to view and download for personal use only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. © Cambridge University PressProviding a range of cogent examples, this chapter describes the influences of the Manga genre of comics strip on the Graphic Novel genre, over the last 35 years, considering the functions of domestication, foreignisation and transmedia on readers, markets and forms