text:
My genre of choice over the last couple of years has been of the psychological and suspense thriller variety. Each are memorable in their own way with the expected twists and turns. The First Mistake by Sandie Jones is a standout in this genre for the usual reasons, but the twists and turns at the end had me exclaiming out loud with shock and disbelief by asking myself how this twist could be possible!
The story begins with successful businesswoman Alice who seems to have it all – a great interior design firm that she founded, a gorgeous home outside London, a dedicated husband and two typical teenage daughters. But Alice’s life had not always been so perfect. Her first husband’s tragic accident weighs heavily on every aspect of their lives, from the business that Alice and her first husband started, to their teenage daughter that they shared (who was a toddler when her father was taken away). In her free time, Alice makes time for her best friend, Beth, whose children attend the same school.
Alice is juggling a potential career changing interior design commission along with her home life, when she starts to notice a change in her husband, Nathan. Distant and secretive, Alice is convinced that he is having an affair. With evidence that she cannot ignore, Alice confides her suspicions to Beth that something is not right with Nathan. Alice soon learns that Beth’s background is just a tumultuous. As secrets are shared, Alice wonders if Beth is all that she seems and if she is hiding something.
If you are a fan of this genre, add The First Mistake by Sandie Jones to your list. You may think that you have the plot figured out but I am confident that when the final twist arrives you will be exclaiming out loud as well!
Those People is another standout suspense / thriller novel from Louise Candlish, who expertly crafts domestic thrillers with neighbors who are not exactly who they seem. The narrative it told in alternating chapters of past and present, so the reader knows that some future tragedy has taken place but the who, what, where and why has yet to be uncovered.
Candlish’s latest novel takes place just south of London in a tiny enclave which encompasses the picturesque street of Lowland Way. Comprised of upper class, professional couples whose homes are impeccable and whose children play harmoniously together, the neighborhood is shocked when “outsiders” Darren and Jodie take up residence in an inherited house. Couples Ant and Em, Ralph and Naomi, Finn and Tess make up the neighborhood, along with recent widow Sissy.
Darren and Jodie are polar opposites of their neighbors. They play their music loudly at all hours of the night, begin renovations without proper equipment and have a variety of abandoned vehicles on the property. The residents of Lowland Way quickly lose patience with the new residents and emotions run high on both sides. The neighbors are plotting among themselves all the different ways they can rid themselves of the new eyesores in the neighborhood. Within the cluster of friends, alliances begin to form and betrayals begin. Are they willing to do whatever it takes to bring “their” neighborhood back?
Events take a tragic turn when someone loses their life in the middle of the night. Accusations fly and neighbors begin to undermine each other wondering who is to blame. Then, another tragedy occurs and the rumors and speculation intensifies. Candlish crafts a suspenseful tale where red herrings abound and the group of neighbors wonder who they can trust. Those People has a tendency to build slowly with careful character development. Even though the pace can move a little slowly, I recommend Those People as a domestic thriller with a unique twist.
Publishing executive Chloe Taylor has the perfect life in Alafair Burke’s new stand alone thriller, The Better Sister. Chloe’s career is on an upward trajectory, her husband, Adam, is a successful attorney and their son, Ethan, is thriving as a high school student. Splitting their time between New York City and their second home on Long Island, the family is the envy of all their friends. But, the truth behind the facade tells a very different tale.
In reality, Chloe has had a strained relationship with her family for decades, especially her sister, Nicky, with whom she has been estranged since Ethan was a toddler. Nicky has long struggled with jumping from men to men and job to job and has continued to make bad choice after bad choice. Most who know Chloe and Adam would be shocked to learn that Adam was married to Nicky years ago and she is actually Ethan’s biological mother.
Shockingly, Adam is found dead in the family’s Long Island home, the victim of a burglary gone wrong. Or was the attack more personal and the burglary just a cover? When police believe the culprit may be someone within the family, the sisters put their past differences aside and come together. The sisters must face their current troubles by revealing and acknowledging the deceptions in the past.
The Better Sister is a highly recommended read and is another thrill ride from Alafair Burke. It would appeal to readers of Ruth Ware, Clare Mackintosh, Gillian Flynn or Laura Lippman.
Single mother and English teacher Clare Cassidy’s days are filled with teaching classrooms full of high school students in The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths. Luckily for her, she is able to devote one class a year to her specialty, the literary works of Gothic writer R.M. Holland, focusing on his most famous story, The Stranger. Clare is considered an expert on Holland and as a teacher at Talgarth High, she has access to the private quarters of Holland, who lived in part of the school during his lifetime.
Clare’s world is rocked when a close colleague is murdered and the death becomes more bizarre when a note found next to the body quotes a line from The Stranger. She is shocked when the police reveal that they suspect someone close to her. Could it be a fellow teacher? Maybe someone else who has a fixation on Holland? Prompted by the police to recall an event with the deceased teacher the summer before, Clare turns to an old diary in the hopes it will spark a remembrance that may prove helpful. Events begin to get even stranger when she begins to find writings next to her own that are in a different handwriting.
Hallo Clare. You don’t know me.
Soon thereafter another body is found, this time in Holland’s old residence in a small concealed room. The teacher’s body is found with the same note as the previous victim, an ominous sentence from The Stranger. Is Clare in danger or is she hiding something more sinister? The discovery of the bodies begins to mimic the plot from Holland’s masterpiece and everyone wonders who will be next? Will life imitate art?
The Stranger Diaries is a fabulous thriller and suspense novel with a hint of the supernatural added. The setting of Talgarth High has just enough of the eerie “haunted house” quality to make the school almost have a life of its own. If you are a fan of the mystery and suspense genre I highly recommend the latest by Elly Griffiths!
American heiress Consuelo Vanderbilt provides a rich inspiration for this fictionalized novel of her life beginning in the 1890s. In American Duchess, Consuelo, a member of the privileged Vanderbilt family, is engaged and married, against her will, to the 9th Duke of Marlborough. Overruled by her dominating and controlling mother Alva, she is merely a pawn in Alva’s desire for an even higher social status as well as the Duke’s need to preserve his family’s estate and financial well-being.
We first meet Consuelo on her wedding day to the Duke of Marlborough in 1895. She is in tears as she is about to marry not the man she loves, but the man her mother has chosen for her. With her sense of duty to her family’s legacy, she carries on and enters the church to marry the Duke. It is only after her marriage that we learn that she was actually in love with a man who her parents did not approve of as a suitable match for their daughter. Alva has her sights set on matching her daughter with British royalty and does everything in her power to play matchmaker. Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Duke’s family, is in need of money to maintain the estate and who better to supply the money than the Vanderbilt family with a bride for the Duke?
After the wedding, Consuelo, now the Duchess of Marlborough, attempts to find her place, helping the less fortunate in the surrounding areas and learning more about her new role as head of the household. Throughout her time at Blenheim Palace, a close ally emerges in her husband’s cousin, Winston Churchill, and the two share a close friendship. As time passes, the relationship between she and the Duke grows more and more strained to a breaking point. Consuelo finds the strength to eventually follow her heart and make difficult, but necessary decisions.
This novel is a fictionalized account of a fascinating, yet little known historical figure whose life did not start the way she had envisioned. Throughout her life she gathered the strength and courage to live her life on her own terms. Many believe that Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, is the first American born Duchess but it turns out that over 100 years ago, England welcomed an American Duchess, Consuelo Vanderbilt. This novel gives the reader a good sense of the challenges she faced in her new country.
Author Kristin Hannah has a knack for creating vast sweeping sagas spanning multiple generations in a family’s story. In The Great Alone, Hannah crafts the story of teenager Leni Allbright who is growing up the the Pacific Northwest in the early 1970s. Leni’s father, Ernt, has just returned from the Vietnam War and is struggling with his life back in the United States. Her mother, Cora, attempts to cope as best as humanly possible, but struggles with trying to navigate a new life with her husband and growing daughter. Soon after Ernt returns from the war, he is informed that one of his soldier friends, who was killed in Vietnam, has left him a large swath of land in Alaska. Without much forethought, Ernt announces to his wife and daughter that they are packing their van and heading from Washington state to Alaska.
After arriving in Alaska, the trio quickly realize that living in the wild will not be as easy as they initially thought and they are woefully unprepared. They befriend a group of folks, some Alaska natives and some with the same dreams as they did upon their arrival, to live on their own terms. It soon becomes clear that the scars of war are still affecting Ernt and his mental health continues to deteriorate as the dark and cold winter approaches. Before too long Leni and Cora become isolated, both mentally and physically, by Ernt. When a small dispute arises with the neighbors and escalates, Leni has to choose sides, with possibly treacherous results.
Although the story is set in the 1970s, many of the issues facing the Allbright family align with events that are current in today’s world. The Great Alone isn’t always an easy read and the characters face choices that are part necessary and part catastrophic. In the end, a novel that is well worth the investment.
A non-fiction work that reads like a fast paced fiction novel, Bad Blood by John Carreyrou of the Wall Street Journal, is the story of Theranos, a start-up company in Silicon Valley run by a charismatic young entrepreneur whose fraud, arrogance and lies make for a stunning story.
Carreyrou leads the reader through the rise and fall of Theranos, a Silicon Valley medical company started by Elizabeth Holmes when she was a student at Stanford. According to her claims, Theranos had developed a blood testing device that was simpler, more cost-effective and could test a person for hundreds of diseases with a single drop of blood. Holmes promised to revolutionize the entire medical industry with the invention. In addition to the above claims, Theranos had amassed a large number of wealthy investors and was initially valued at nearly $9 billion, with Holmes being named by Forbes magazine as the youngest self-made billionaire, with a net worth of $4.5 billion. Theranos and Holmes were everywhere – magazine covers, television stories and other high-profile places. Simultaneously, a handful of their 800 employees were beginning to realize that the claims being made about the testing device were simply not true – it did not work.
Carreyrou’s book, which grew from an earlier Wall Street Journal story, details how the company defrauded and lied to employees, corporations and investors. His article, in part, set Theranos on a downward trajectory with the deception exposed. Presently, the United States attorney’s office in California has filed charges against Elizabeth Holmes and another executive. They have pleaded not guilty.
Initially, I was not sure if I would enjoy this book coming from a non-medical background, but I quickly became engrossed in the story and the massive deception that occurred within the company. A highly recommended read!
Cross Her Heart is another hit for author Sarah Pinborough (after another great novel, Behind Her Eyes). Written in alternate chapters by different characters, Cross Her Heart is a fabulous addition to the psychological suspense genre. Taking place in present day Britain, single mother Lisa is overly cautious and very protective of her teenage daughter, Ava. Ava is annoyed at her mother’s clingy nature, which only increases when she is in the company of her friends, whose parents are much more trusting of their own children.
Lisa’s life consists of work and her home life with Ava. Her nights out are few and far between and they are usually with a close co-worker, Marilyn, and her husband, Richard. But, unbeknownst to anyone who knows her, Lisa’s life is starting to unravel when glimmers from her past begin to emerge. She wakes up every day with panic that her past will come back to haunt her carefully constructed life. But Lisa isn’t the only one with secrets. Ava has also been keeping secrets from her mother and is involved with someone older who says they care for her, or do they?
While attending a town festival, Ava rescues a toddler from a near tragedy and the fanfare that develops around Lisa and her daughter has catastrophic results for the two of them. Someone recognizes Lisa and the life she has built for herself and her daughter is in jeopardy. Both Lisa and Ava are at danger and Lisa leans on her trusty friend Marilyn for support. With asking Marilyn for help, also means that Lisa has to be completely honest with her which could put everyone at risk.
The twists and turns in Cross Her Heart are fast and jaw dropping. If you love this genre, Sarah Pinborough is a great author to check out.
An Act of Villainy is the fifth book in the delightful Armory Ames Mystery series written by librarian Ashley Weaver. The series of mysteries jet-sets across Europe in the 1930s with amateur sleuths Armory Ames and her husband, Milo. In this installment, Armory and Milo find themselves back at home in London and during a night on the town, the couple runs into old friend and playwright Gerald Holloway.
Holloway invites Armory and Milo to a dress rehearsal of his latest play and the couple readily accepts the chance to be among the first to see the production. It is only when they arrive at the theater do they realize that Holloway has cast his mistress, Flora Bell, in the leading role. The duo quickly find out the real reason for the invitation to the dress rehearsal is that Ms. Bell has been receiving threatening notes slipped under her dressing room door. The anonymous author has detailed her demise and Holloway needs their help, imploring Armory and Milo to investigate and find out who is threatening his lady-love. Time is of the essence when the threats increase and Flora Bell’s life could be in danger. It is clear that many others have motive to cause harm to the rising starlet and Armory and Milo are bound and determined to get to the bottom of the mystery before opening night.
Ashley Weaver has created two clever and enchanting characters, whose banter with each other has the ability to sting. I have enjoyed the complicated relationship between Armory and Milo and their growth and development throughout the books from newlyweds to established couple and, at times, everything in between. Weaver brings Armory to life with her stylish wardrobe, wealthy hobbies and pampered lifestyle. If you are a fan of cozy, traditional mysteries with two adventurous personalities, try the Armory Ames Mystery Series!
Elin Hilderbrand’s books are the perfect combination of complex drama and noteworthy characters. Her latest book, Winter in Paradise, is the first book in a planned three-part series. At the beginning of the novel, we meet Irene Steel on a cold and snowy New Year’s in Iowa City. Patiently waiting for her husband, Russ, to return from his business trip, she decides to meet a friend for an early dinner. Irene’s world is turned upside down later that evening when she receives a cryptic phone call telling her that her husband has been killed in the Caribbean island of St. John in a helicopter crash.
Irene is blindsided with the news of her husband’s unexpected death. Not only did she think her husband was only a few states away for work, she had no idea why he would be on a small island in the Caribbean. Irene, along with her two grown sons Baker and Cash, gather from across the country and make their way to the island to make the necessary arrangements.
Upon their arrival, Irene and her sons begin to learn the magnitude of Russ’ deception and delve unwillingly into his secret life. The pieces of the puzzle all start to come together when the trio befriends various residents of the island and learn more about the husband and father that they thought they knew. Along with the ripple effect of his death, the three must come to terms with secrets in their past too. Just when the reader comes to end of the book, another exposed secret throws everything into a state of flux, setting the stage for the next book in the trilogy. With the cliffhanger at the end of Winter in Paradise, I am anxiously awaiting book two in the series, which will hopefully be released this year!

domain: literature


text:
Pre-clinical and early phase clinical virus production
- Guaranteed virus production yields equivalent to R&D grade PEIpro®
- Manufactured according to a well-established process
- Fully characterized product with extensive Quality Controls
- Supplied with appropriate Documentation
Plasmid DNA and co-delivery of several plasmid DNA
Large scale virus production for pre-clinical and early phase clinical trial
Mainly adenovirus, Adeno-Associated Viruses (AAV), Lentiviral Vector (LV), influenza virus, retrovirus, Virus-Like Particles (VLP)
Mammalian producer cell lines (HEK-293, HEK-293 derivatives, BHK, VERO cell lines, virus-specific packaging cell lines) grown in adherent or suspension cultures
|Number of transfections|
1 L of PEIpro®-HQ is sufficient to transfect on average 500 L of cell culture
5°C ± 3°C, 3 years from manufacturing date
Certificate of Analysis
|Regulatory documentation available upon request|
Batch Production Documentation
PEIpro®-HQ is a Highly Qualified version of PEIpro® DNA transfection reagent. Large-scale transfection protocols established with PEIpro® during process development are guaranteed to be seamlessly applicable with PEIpro®-HQ for manufacturing of viral vectors for pre-clinical and early phase clinical trial.
PEIpro®-HQ is manufactured according to a robust and extremely reproducible process supported by appropriate Quality Controls and is therefore suitable as raw material for manufacturing of therapeutic viral vectors (eg. AAV, lentivirus) to be used in pre-clinical and early phase clinical trial.
|Reference Number||Amount of reagent|
|301-400||4 x 100 ml|
|301-01K||10 x 100 ml|
Manufactured according to a well-established process
PEIpro®-HQ is manufactured and formulated using a well-established and controlled manufacturing process (Fig. 1). Each lot of PEIpro®-HQ meets extensive and stringent release specifications to ensure reliable and reproducible supply of remarkably high-quality DNA transfection reagent. Hence, with each lot of PEIpro®-HQ comes a Batch Production Documentation available upon request that comprises the summary of the manufacturing process and Quality Controls.
Read the article published in Cell & Gene Therapy Insights: Addressing scaling-up limitations: optimized PEI-mediated production of clinical grade viral vectors
Read the article published in GEN: Simplifying the Efficient Clinical-Grade Production of Viruses
Guaranteed seamless transition from PD to pre-clinical grade virus production
PEIpro® and PEIpro®-HQ are exactly the same in terms of chemistry and formulation – both use exactly the same protocol and give identical virus production yields. PEIpro®-HQ only differs from R&D grade PEIpro® in that we offer more comprehensive lot-release Quality Controls with stringent specifications and extensive documentation that enable its use as raw material in large scale production of viral vector-based Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs). During Process Development, it is beneficial to choose raw materials from reliable suppliers that exist as higher quality grades to facilitate transitioning from Process Development (PD) to therapeutic-grade virus production. For more information on optimal transfection efficiency and virus production yields, see here.
With PEIpro® product range, we have the quality level that meets your needs!
Fully characterized Product with extensive Quality Controls
There is an increase in regulatory scrutiny on raw materials for production of therapeutic viral vectors used in pre-clinical and early phase clinical trial. It has thus become mandatory to meet higher quality levels of raw materials as early as possible during development of ATMPs for their use in pre-clinical and early phase clinical trial. PEIpro®-HQ fully addresses these needs with extensive Quality Controls to assess identity, potency, safety and purity on both bulk material and formulated PEIpro®-HQ. Potency of PEIpro®-HQ is controlled with a standardized transfection assay to ensure reliability and reproducibility of transfection efficiency under optimal conditions for virus production. Safety of PEIpro®-HQ is tested to ensure complete sterility and absence of mycoplasma and very low level of bacterial endotoxins. Purity of PEIpro®-HQ is controlled with an impurity profile, assessment of residual organic solvent and heavy metal content. A comprehensive list of Quality Controls is available upon request .

domain: chemistry


Article by: Isaac Roca | Last update: April 10, 2022
An electrical capacitor is a passive device, used in electricity and electronics, capable of storing energy by sustaining an electric field.
- 1 What type of energy does a capacitor store?
- 2 What does the capacitor store?
- 3 How does the capacitor store charge?
- 4 What does a capacitor contain?
- 4.1 What are the parts of an electrical capacitor?
- 4.2 How is a parallel plate capacitor formed?
- 4.3 How is electrical charge stored?
- 4.4 Where is potential energy stored in a capacitor?
- 4.5 What is the function of a capacitor?
- 4.6 How is the energy stored in a flat capacitor?
- 4.7 What kind of energy does a coil store?
- 4.8 How is potential energy stored?
- 4.9 How to store electrical energy at home?
- 4.10 What is the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor?
- 4.11 How is the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor determined?
- 4.12 What is a trainer and what are its parts?
- 4.13 How is kinetic energy stored?
- 4.14 Where do we find potential energy?
- 4.15 How is potential energy produced?
- 4.16 What type of energy is presented in the Tesla coil?
- 4.17 What about the coils with direct current and with alternating current?
- 4.18 What is a coil and what are its properties?
- 4.19 What is a flat capacitor?
- 4.20 What is the function of a capacitor in an electric motor?
What type of energy does a capacitor store?
A capacitor accumulates energy (voltage) as current flows through an electrical circuit. Both plates hold equal charges, and as the positive plate picks up a charge, an equal charge flows out of the negative plate.
What does the capacitor store?
Capacitance is the ability of a component or circuit to collect and store energy in the form of an electrical charge. Capacitors are devices that store energy, available in many sizes and shapes.
How does the capacitor store charge?
How does the Capacitor store Charge? To store the electrical charge, it uses two conductive plates or surfaces in the form of sheets separated by a dielectric material (insulator). These plates are the ones that will be electrically charged when we connect it to a battery or a voltage source.
What does a capacitor contain?
Basically a capacitor is a device capable of storing energy in the form of an electric field. It is made up of two parallel metal frames (usually aluminum) separated by a dielectric material. with a certain separation, in which case the dielectric is said to be air.
22 related questions found
What are the parts of an electrical capacitor?
The most significant parts of a capacitor are:
- Neck. It is the connecting element with the exhaust of the steam turbine. … Casing or body. … Water boxes. … Tubes. … Tube sheets. … Support plates. …Hot well. … Air cooling zone.
How is a parallel plate capacitor formed?
(a) A parallel plate capacitor consists of two plates of opposite charge with area A separated by a distance d. (b) A wound capacitor has a dielectric material between its two conducting sheets (plates).
How is electrical charge stored?
Electrical energy cannot be stored as such and it is necessary to transform it into other types, such as mechanical or chemical energy.
Where is potential energy stored in a capacitor?
More specifically, the energy is stored in the electric field that is in that region. The above equation is, in general, true although we obtained it in the special case of a parallel plate capacitor. If an electric field E exists at any point in empty space (in a vacuum).
What is the function of a capacitor?
The capacitor is an electronic device that stores energy in an internal electric field. It is a basic passive electronic component along with resistors and inductors.
How is the energy stored in a flat capacitor?
The total work done on the capacitor modifies the energy U=CV2/2 stored in it in the form of an electric field. The force of attraction between the plates Fe=-Fm is inversely proportional to the square of their separation x.
What kind of energy does a coil store?
An inductor or coil is a passive component of an electrical circuit that, due to the phenomenon of self-induction, stores energy in the form of a magnetic field.
How is potential energy stored?
Elastic potential energy is stored energy that results from applying a force to deform an elastic object. The energy is stored until the force is removed and the elastic object returns to its original shape, doing work in the process.
How to store electrical energy at home?
If you are thinking of having your own solar panels and enjoying their benefits, pay attention to the following tips to store solar energy at home:
Install the panel in the right place. …Buy good quality batteries. … Check local regulations. … Don’t waste energy.
What is the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor?
One plate has a +Q charge, and the other has a -Q charge. d; therefore, Substituting this result, we find that the capacitance is given by : This means that the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor is proportional to the area A of these and inversely proportional to the separation d between them.
How is the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor determined?
9. When you want to calculate the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor, the following mathematical expression is used: C=εA d Where C = capacitance in farads (F).
What is a trainer and what are its parts?
A capacitor is a two-terminal electrical component used to store energy in an electric field. Capacitors include two or more metal conductors or plates, separated by an insulating layer known as a dielectric.
How is kinetic energy stored?
There are various forms of energy storage. The best known are chemically in the form of batteries. However, energy can be stored in many other forms, for example as potential energy, which is used in prey.
Where do we find potential energy?
In other words, potential energy is the ability to generate work as a result of the position of a body. For example: a kite, balloons, a roller coaster. The potential energy of a physical system is that which the system has stored.
How is potential energy produced?
For this reason it is said that the potential energy of a given body is the result of multiplying its mass by its height and also by gravity. The mathematical formula is as follows Ep = mgh where m is the mass, g is the force of gravity and h is the height of the object.
What type of energy is presented in the Tesla coil?
The tesla coil is an electromagnetic generator that produces discharges of high voltage and high frequencies (radio frequencies) with perceptible effects such as its ability to ionize air or gas at a defined distance from it in such a way that it can cause it to turn on. – turn on a low consumption light bulb.
What about the coils with direct current and with alternating current?
Coils or solenoids store energy in the form of a magnetic field. When connecting a direct current, the coil retains the passage of electrons until the magnetic field is established. When the battery is removed, the energy from this magnetic field continues to move electrons, a phenomenon called self-induction.
What is a coil and what are its properties?
Coils are electrical components that, like capacitors, store energy. The coil is made up of an electrical conductor wound in a spiral. The conductive material is, as a general rule, copper wire that is wound on a body of plastic material.
What is a flat capacitor?
A parallel plane capacitor consists of two parallel planes placed opposite each other, it serves to accumulate charge. Capacitors are generally charged and discharged alternately, giving some use to an electronic circuit.
What is the function of a capacitor in an electric motor?
The capacitors or starting capacitors fulfill the function of increasing the initial motor torque, and allow the motor to be turned on and off quickly in such a way that when a current circulates in the primary winding, it will create a rotating magnetic field which induces a voltage in the secondary winding.
Always Check Techlyfire for more how to related articles.


text:
Kay bojesen monkey
Kay Bojesen Children’s Tableware Set, pcs. Kay Bojesen Student’s cap for medium-sized monkey. BufretOversett denne sidenKay Bojesen’s Monkey was born in 1951.
A little Monkey with the great personality which has come to signify a gift from a very special person. Kay Bojesen’s Monkey was born in 1951. This version is a large personality measuring cm in height. Like its younger brother, this Monkey holds a special .
Kay Bojesen has more than 20pieces of decorative art on his conscience. He is best known for his playful and cheerful monkeys, royal life guards and other . The bottom of one foot has the mark impressed in the wood – Kay Bojesen Denmark It is hard to read without a loupe – at least at my age. The wooden Monkey, designed by Kay Bojesen, is a beloved classic of Scandinavian design. The monkey with its mischievous look and light coloured belly has .

domain: design


text:
Founded 160 years ago in the heart of the northern Côtes du Rhône, Delas Freres today crafts world class wines from both northern and southern Rhône.
Tending the steep sloping vineyards, which total some 30 hectares of vines, the team adapt their growing practices to each plot of vines to let the terroir of the Rhône shine through in the wines.
Crafted by winemaker Jacques Grange (who is originally from Burgundy), the wines from Delas Freres epitomise finesse and elegance. Recent vintages from the vineyards of Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Côte Rôtie, Condrieu, Côtes-du-Rhône and Côtes-du-Ventoux have bee lauded in the press for their intensity of flavour and excellent value.
Soils are very stony with various depths, mainly consisting of large quartz stones mixed with red, sandy clay.
Chateauneuf du Pape is the driest area of the Cotes du Rhone where the Mistral is vitally important to grape ripening. 2,800 hours of sunshine a year are reflected by the large stones on the surface of the soil.
Grapes are destemmed and fermented into concrete vats followed by 8-10 days of maceration. The wine is aged for a period of 8-14 months in 60 hectolitre oak tuns.
A rainy winter followed by a dry, warm spring gave good water reserves combined with high temperatures which resulted in early bud burst and a quick and healthy start to the vegetative cycle. In mid-May, flowering was followed by exceptional fruit set with almost every flower bearing fruit. July and August were cooler and the rain returned, in small amounts, but every weekend. Although not enough to disrupt the vegetative cycle, it was enough to worry the wine growers. The end of summer was sunny and windy with ideal weather for healthy vines with optimum ripeness levels. This ensured perfect conditions for harvesting. Delas was one of the last to harvest, particularly in the Côte-Rôtie (between the 22nd and the 24th of September) ensuring good phenolic ripeness.
2014 was an excellent year for the hillside vineyard parcels which produced low yields of outstanding quality.
Strong spicy aromas that reveal a rich, powerful body that is delicate, yet has a tightly-knit tanninc framework. On the palate, the wine is rich and unctuous, revealing intense licqorice-like flavors.
Perfect served with traditional "provencale" stews.
91 Points Wine Spectator
On the rustic side, with noticeable bay, leather and pepper notes amid crushed red currant and plum fruit flavors. Lots of tobacco and singed chestnut accents line the finish. For the old-school crowd. Best from 2017 through 2025.
Chateauneuf du Pape AOC

domain: agronomy


text:
This is the result of too little editing and too much belt love -
I have belts hanging here
and here. But that's not all.
I live in a rambling old house with teeny tiny closets so when we moved in eleven years ago I converted the smallest bedroom - and it is almost too small to even call it a bedroom into my walk in dressing room. Because the house is old I don't have all of the cool built ins of a newer home. I would love big pull out drawers with dividers for all of my belts and jewelry like I saw on The Rachel Zoe project or at Ikea in their big closet models. I would also love a huge wall with hooks so I could see everything at a glance. Alas, wall space is at a premium in my vintage space although I do have about three feet floor to ceiling that I could work with.
These current belt hook bars really aren't cutting it for me. They look a bit messy, they hang one on top of another and the whole thing lacks that inspired touch. I am thinking of maybe putting up a painted peg board. Any suggestions are welcome. I am kind of hitting a creative wall with this.
I like to keep my favorite belts out where they are easily viewable. I know it looks like quite a few faves but these really are my chosen go- to belts and they work well with everyday looks. I have others that either don't hang well, are seasonal or total glam for parties and holidays. These I have organized into a great set of Ikea shoe organizers called skubbs.
with the drawer inserts You can't beat these prices and they are so easy to use. Plus they come in black, white or orange. I, of course, had to go with the black and white but I like them mixed together. Then I labeled each drawer accordingly.
I am one of those out of sight out of mind kind of people so the tag reminders are a necessity for me. They also keep me organized and nudge me to put things away where they belong. Everyone thinks I'm neat and tidy and orderly. I am so not. That's why I do this.
So now this has become my overflow storage of the things I can't part with but still love. I had one drawer left at the bottom that I tagged for receipts. I'm thinking of adding another set or two of these skubbs. I could use them for costume jewelry or tights and leggings. I could also see them used in a craft room. You just need a bar to hang them from.
As for the tags. I printed them on my computer and then used my Making Memories tag maker and rims to complete the look. The tag maker took a little practice and I learned that I need to use card stock not just scrapbook paper but now that I have it mastered this little beauty has almost replaced my label maker.


text:
FEMINIST POSTMODERN DISRUPTION OF THE PATRIARCHAL SYSTEM OF BINARY OPPOSITIONS:
PRAXIS IN FOUR PHASES
HANAN A. MUZAFFAR
As a feminist concerned with elevating the fight against women’s oppression, I am interested in trying to seek out the causes for such subjugation and the ways by which women are able to put an end to this subjugation. One of the strongest arguments posed in this direction is one that sees that women’s oppression is connected to the Western view of the world and that understanding this view enables women to understand the reasons for their subjugation and consequently work towards ending this subjugation.
My critique in this dissertation is limited to Western philosophy as an attempt to analyze the subjugation of women from one angle. There is no doubt that this Western philosophy and its effect is not universal to all women but is limited to the West, though its critique can be used to analyze other cultures as long as we remember that there are other criteria that contribute to the subjugation of women in other cultures.
The Western view rests on a strong belief in the validity of observing the world in terms of binary oppositions and in the necessity of proving that one side of the binary is always elevated above the other side. The binary male/female is one vivid example in which male is made superior to female and therefore male becomes capable of oppressing female to maintain his superiority. The need to disrupt this belief in the binary system is therefore a necessary one if women are to succeed in escaping their oppression. This dissertation will present a theory of phases through which feminist disruptions of binary oppositions in selected literary works occur, providing examples of the literature that manifests these phases, and demonstrating how such a theory advances the feminist struggle to end the subjugation of women.
The rendering of our world in terms of opposing binaries reflects and enables the subjugation and oppression of those located on one side of these binaries. Western thought’s bipolar division of the world posits male against female, human against non-human, and self against other, in a complex operation in which the first depends on the second, but seeks nevertheless to eliminate it; male, human, and self set at destroying female, non-human, and Other. Emerging from these more or less general binaries, other more specific binaries also exist: real/imaginary, sane/mad, science/myth, speech/silence. Similarly here the division is forced and the interdependence is neglected, and female, non-human, and Other become defined with, and restricted to, the imaginary, madness, myth, silence, and so on. Iris Young demonstrates how Western metaphysics, in its desire for unity, forces such binary divisions:
Western conceptualization . . . exhibits . . . a logic of identity. This metaphysics consists in a desire to think things together in a unity. . . .
The desire to bring things into unity generates a logic of hierarchical opposition. Any move to define an identity, a closed totality, always depends on excluding some elements, separating the pure from the impure . . . any definition or category creates an inside/outside distinction, and the logic of identity seeks to keep those borders firmly drawn. (303)
And it is by maintaining this binary opposition that these borders between male and female, inside and outside, are kept.
One of the main ideas that unites most feminists is their refusal to acknowledge that system which justifies their oppression on the ground of their being linked to the non-human, the mythical, the mad, or the silent. Toril Moi explains how feminists—and she uses Hélène Cixous as an example—reject this system with its negative implications for women:
For one of the terms to acquire meaning, she claims, it must destroy the other. The ‘couple’ cannot be left intact: it becomes a general battlefield where the struggle for signifying supremacy is forever re-enacted. In the end, victory is equated with activity and defeat with passivity; under patriarchy, the male is always the victor. Cixous passionately denounces such an equation of femininity with passivity and death as leaving no positive space for women. (105)
Therefore, feminists try to expose this division either by proving the fictionality of the division itself, or by asserting that, even within that system, the grounds for oppressing women do not hold.
The contradictions found within this system of dualities result in its collapse as a valid way of representing the world. Not only are the two sides of the fictional binary interdependent, but there are also variations within them that render their fixed division false. It is when this man-made system—that is presented to us as the “natural” way of things or as “common sense”—is exposed that we can come to understand that the two sides of the binary are not separate each in its position but are rather more connected than we are led to believe. Chris Weedon exhibits this point when she argues that any definition—of the natural for example—is elusive as it depends on “common-sense knowledge” which is in itself contradictory:
Common-sense knowledge is not a monolithic, fixed body of knowledge. It is often contradictory and subject to change. It is not always necessarily conservative in its implications. Its political effects depend on the particular context in which it is articulated. However, its power comes from its claim to be natural, obvious and therefore true. It looks to ‘human nature’ to guarantee its version of reality. . . . As common sense changes, ‘human nature’ has to undergo redefinition, and gender is a particularly active site of such change. (74)
Thus our definition of gender and the divisions seen in such a definition must be re-described and the division itself deconstructed and discredited.
Feminists are working on the disruption from various perspectives through works of fiction that try to envision a world outside this binary system and through more theoretical approaches that hypothesize a system of thought that does not force a division of the world in terms of male/female and all its other divisions. While many feminists are working towards this disruption through their work, the need arises for us to attempt to formulate a method by which this work comes together in order to effect a more comprehensive way of changing the social framework that enables women’s oppression. A theoretical approach is therefore needed in order to enable an introduction to, and a discussion of, the disruption of binary oppositions.
Through my study of various feminist arguments I have come to see that their critique of women’s oppression can be enriched if it is coupled with the postmodern critique of Western metaphysics that attempts its own disruption of the binary male/female as it seeks the disruption of all binaries. One of the strongest critiques of the binary system launched from a position other than the feminist one is found in the postmodern critique of Western metaphysics. This critique offers feminists a chance of revising their own critiques using alternative routes to the ones they usually tread. Postmodern theory critiques the binary system of representation that is dominant in Western thought, and it is this critique of the binary system that is useful for feminists who seek to critique Western thought.
The deconstruction of these notions of common sense and/or human nature is best carried out in feminist and postmodernist arguments that demonstrate how these notions, and our belief in them, are all constructs, social or linguistic, that are not based on any true or actual demonstration of the world. There is an affinity that exists between feminism and postmodernism as both theories invite new voices to ask questions pertaining to the formations of power and knowledge. Various feminists have written on this affinity as both theories question the modern philosophies that govern our social and academic practices; philosophies that are constructed around the idea of totalization and universality. Feminism as a set of practices has “initiated the cultural work of exposing and articulating the gendered nature of history, culture, and society,” as Susan Bordo explains (219). Similarly, postmodernism can serve as a kind of pointer that “opens up a space for or points towards the realm of the political” (Alcoff, “Politics” 7), or as a tool which feminists can use to work at deconstructing the system of thought in which they live.
By developing some of the arguments of postmodernism, feminists have demonstrated how this disruption of binaries can be accomplished. Nancy Fraser and Linda Nicholson are among the critics who see a need for constructing a postmodernism that suits feminists’ needs. Weedon also argues that regardless of its limitations, post-structuralism (or postmodernism) can be used as a tool to critique the oppression of women and is, therefore, a useful tool for feminist practice.1 Jane Flax sees in postmodern theory a way by which feminists can deconstruct common perceptions of gender division:
Feminist theorists enter into and echo postmodernist discourses as we have begun to deconstruct notions of reason, knowledge, or the self and to reveal the effects of the gender arrangements that lay beneath their neutral and universalizing facades. (42)
Joan W. Scott finds in postmodern theory—and she uses the more practical term poststructuralism here—new ways of interpreting the system of Western metaphysics. She writes:
In my own case, however, it was reading poststructuralist theory and arguing with literary scholars that provided the elements of clarification for which I was looking. I found a new way of analyzing constructions of meaning and relationships of power that called unitary, universal categories into question and historicized concepts otherwise treated as natural (such as man/woman) or absolute (such as equality or justice). (134)
Postmodernism then serves as a descriptive discourse that enables the articulation of feminist arguments. Seyla Benhabib argues that “social criticism without some form of philosophy is not possible, and without social criticism the project of a feminist theory which is at once committed to knowledge and to the emancipatory interests of women is inconceivable” (225). Or to use Weedon’s much criticized division, feminist practice can use postmodern theory.2
The task that faces us as feminists is how to utilize the tools of postmodernism in order to help us in the struggle against oppression. Postmodernism opens the grounds for maneuvering within different and multiple positions that we need to occupy so that the binary opposition that causes our oppression can be disrupted. Because of its critique of the view that our subjectivities are fixed, postmodernism offers a place where feminists can manipulate our multiple subject positions in order to provoke changes to the system necessary to our cause. This idea of multiple and changing subjectivity allows us to work within postmodernism without necessarily acquiescing to all its postulates. Our multiple subject positions also allow us to take our fight through multiple phases through which we can understand and disrupt the working of the binary oppositions. And it is by maneuvering between these phases that we can provide the best critique of this system.
The critique of this Western system, either that launched from the feminist standpoint or the postmodern one, branches into three major critiques: that of the subject, the object, and the sign. The subject of Western metaphysics is the individual, or the self, who perceives the object, that being knowledge, the truth, science, or such concepts, and tries to interpret them or define them using the sign, or the language through which these concepts are mediated. Therefore, the three major critiques arise from psychoanalytic theory, which attempts to explain the self; philosophy, which concerns itself with knowledge; and language theory, which studies the sign. I find myself hesitant in assigning the names of thinkers who deconstruct each of these terms: subject, object, and sign. These names are, not surprisingly, male. And although there exists a number of female thinkers in these three fields, the major critics of these three concepts are male. In psychoanalytic theory it is Jacques Lacan whose name is mostly associated with the deconstruction of the subject. And although Juliet Mitchell and Jacqueline Rose are the two women who introduced Lacan to me—and I believe to most English-language readers—their work is still mostly dependent on Lacan. In philosophy, and when ideas such as “the truth,” “knowledge,” or “science” are deconstructed, it is originally through the works of Jean-Françoise Lyotard or Michel Foucault. And as for the concept of the sign and its deconstruction, it is the name Jacques Derrida that springs to mind. However, as Weedon, Scott, Alcoff, and the numerous writers who contributed to Linda Nicholson’s volume have demonstrated, our reservations about who introduces the theory should not inhibit us from using such theory.3 In the following pages I will present, briefly, these three critiques of the subject, the object, and the sign and demonstrate their usefulness for the feminist struggle.
I will begin with the deconstruction of the notion of the subject that is carried out in psychoanalytic theory, specifically in the work of Lacan and his translators into English, Mitchell and Rose. As Lacan expanded on Freud’s theories of the development of the subject, he proved that what has been originally believed to be a fixed subject is indeed a fragmented one, and one that is dependent upon the notion of the lack. The lack is felt when the child, in order to adjust to the phallocentric world, learns to repress her/his desire for the mother. Toril Moi explains how in this primary repression the unconscious is opened up as a place where the child keeps the repressed desire for the mother:
The phallus . . . comes to signify separation and loss to the child. The loss or lack suffered is the loss of the maternal body, and from now on the desire for the mother or the imaginary unity with her must be repressed. This first repression is what Lacan calls the primary repression and it is this primary repression that opens up the unconscious. In the Imaginary there is no unconscious since there is no lack. (99)
She thus demonstrates that Lacan comes to define the subject as a lack, or as that which is not since “the speaking subject that says ‘I am’ is in fact saying ‘I am he (she) who has lost something’” (99).
Such concepts as the unconscious or the lack are recurring ones in psychoanalytic theory that is dependent upon the distinctions made between conscious and unconscious and other such binary distinctions like self/other, or symbolic/imaginary. Yet this frequent reference to the ways the psyche is dependent upon binary oppositions is not indicative of the theory’s advocacy for the opposition. Lacanian psychoanalysis is descriptive of the way the individual is formed in this patriarchal society and not constitutive of this formation, i.e., it describes not prescribes. And although feminist critics have attacked psychoanalysis for its insistence on appropriating those same concepts that construct patriarchy, what these theories contribute to the feminist struggle is their attempt to draw attention to the ways the self is dependent upon the other. Lacan and his followers demonstrate how this concept of lack or desire works and how subjectivity is a construct that is dependent upon the relation between the self and the other, and as a construct it loses its claims for unity. Weedon explains, “the political significance of decentering the subject and abandoning the belief in essential subjectivity is that it opens up subjectivity to change” (32). Psychoanalysis, therefore, becomes another tool that feminists may use to deconstruct the system of patriarchy first by exposing the belief in the fixed subject to be a false one, and second by showing how the two sides of the binary are co-dependent, thus the inferiority of one to the other is questioned.
The object of the Enlightenment is the search for the truth. And it is this concept of truth that many postmodernists seek to deconstruct as they expose that the objectivity of the search for the truth is a false criterion since the knowledge produced is dependent upon who produces or defines it. Knowledge becomes power as it allows those who have it superiority over those who do not. Yet this power is self-reproductive, because whoever has it is capable of gaining more power while those who lack it remain continuously in the dark. Postmodernism questions the modernist legitimation of knowledge that allows it to be monopolized by the Western male. As the power of knowledge is put in the hands of one group, it leaves the other groups without such power. Postmodernism shows how this power is being de-legitimated. In The Postmodern Turn Ihab Hasan writes:
The modern episteme, starting early in the nineteenth century, has nearly run out its course; during its movement, the dispersal of discourse, the indeterminance of knowledge, the disappearance of man occur gradually; we may be approaching a new logos, a new immanence of language. (53)
Postmodernism finds itself in this position where it puts into question the very concept that shapes the modernist view of knowledge, what Nicholson terms “God’s eye view.” Hasan’s “indeterminance of knowledge” suggests that knowledge cannot be approached from one single viewpoint—that what constitutes knowledge is ever changing. Therefore, knowledge and truth cannot be universal, as they are not fixed elements.
Similarly, Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition refers to the metanarratives that shape modern philosophy showing that they are no longer valid in our postmodern world. These metanarratives can no longer constitute our way of perceiving knowledge. He writes:
Knowledge, then, is a question of competence that goes beyond the simple determination and application of the criterion of truth, extending to the determination and application of criteria of efficiency . . . of justice and/or happiness . . . of the beauty of a sound or color . . . etc. (18)
So truth that was assumed to constitute knowledge is itself constituted by other factors and by external criteria. It becomes a question of whose truth and whether it can be proven or not.
Since knowledge needs to be legitimated, it remains in the hands of those who have it as they are reluctant to legitimate the knowledge of others. When Lyotard differentiates between the two types of knowledge, scientific and narrative, he exhibits how scientific knowledge, which is the type of knowledge accredited in our age, refuses to acknowledge other types of knowledge, such as the narrative type, and is thus limited to its own circle. Therefore, this scientific knowledge exerts its power to legitimate itself while refusing such power to other types of knowledge. Yet, Lyotard and Foucault both remind us that this power does not come from one source. As Foucault outlines the history of sexuality, he demonstrates how the repression of sex has a multiplicity of points as the power exerted to repress it comes from many foci: religious, familial, legal, etc. So he writes that “power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization” (92). And it is in this multiplicity of foci that power relations are played out as they are dependent upon the multiple points of resistance that “play the role of adversary, target, support, or handle in power relations” (95).
Feminists move along parallel lines as they question this idea of knowledge and who constitutes it. Nicholson explains that the mere idea of the objectivity of truth is refuted by feminists who believe that what is seen as universal truth is only so in the eyes of the men who constituted it:
Feminists, too, have uncovered the political power of the academy and of knowledge claims. In general, they have argued against the supposed neutrality and objectivity of the academy, asserting that claims put forth as universally applicable have invariably been valid only for men of a particular culture, class, and race. (5)
Much in the same way as postmodernists question the objectivity of truth, feminists question its validity to anyone other than those who constructed it—these being predominantly white men. As postmodernism looks at the economical, political, or social paradigms that shape the formation of truth and knowledge, most feminisms regard the gender issue as the main factor that allows such paradigms to operate.
Again in this deconstruction of the object of the Enlightenment we come to see how two sides of the binary are dependent on each other as power is seen to depend on its multiple points of resistance. Thus Foucault and Lyotard offer feminists another angle from which they can attack the phallocentric views of the world. And although these theories of knowledge are criticized for lacking a practical political outcome, they can become tools much needed in the feminist struggle against patriarchy. Sandra Harding views such theories as a defense against the criteria of knowledge in patriarchy, or:
a defense against . . . the traditional discourses of both objectivism and “interpretationism.” . . . Objectivism places women and feminists firmly outside a tightly defended barricade within which is claimed to lie all there is of reason, rationality . . . [interpretationism] discounts feminist knowledge claims in scientific and everyday contexts . . . by taking the position that while feminists certainly have a right to their interpretation . . . that is just their opinion. (87-88)
Trinh T. Minh-ha also argues that theory that relies on reason—man’s reason—cannot be used by women to liberate them (80). She critiques the quest for a higher truth explaining that knowledge:
leads no more to openings than to closure. The idealized quest for knowledge and power makes it often difficult to admit that enlightenment (as exemplified by the West) often brings about endarkenment. . . . Theory oppresses, when it wills or perpetuates existing power relations, when it presents itself as a means to exert authority – the voice of knowledge. (40-42)
Here theory and knowledge, in their patriarchal sense presented as the only valid theory, become problematic not just for women, but for any group working outside the “existing power relations.” As the term “closure” suggests, theory as “the voice of knowledge” closes the arena for any critique that works from different perspectives. So if, as Weedon suggests, these theories of knowledge “can produce in feminist hands an analysis of patriarchal power relations which enables the development of active strategies for change,” then we need to appropriate them in any way possible (13).
Finally, we come to the postmodern critique of the sign, or the system of representation, more commonly known as poststructuralism or deconstruction, and most frequently associated with Derrida. Derrida argues that the sign, or language, is the instrument that sets the world in binary opposition. He exposes this opposition when he proves that the meanings of words are always changing as their references change, or as Toril Moi puts it:
the interplay between presence and absence that produces meaning is posited as one of deferral: meaning is never truly present, but is only constructed through the potentially endless process of referring to other, absent signifiers. (106)
And since meaning is never fixed, the positing of words in terms of binary oppositions is also never fixed. Thus Derrida’s analysis exposes the fictional closure of binary opposition as it demonstrates the changeability of each of these terms.
This Derridean analysis of language is the base upon which the literary arguments stand in this dissertation since it is the play of meaning that allows me to find meanings that might not be overt in those texts I choose, but meanings that allow for different interpretations to surface. Weedon sees in poststructuralism a way for feminists to analyze the relationship between language and society as she writes:
I would argue the appropriateness of poststructuralism to feminist concerns, not as the answer to all feminist questions but as a way of conceptualizing the relationship between language, social institutions and individual consciousness which focuses on how power is exercised and the possibilities of change. (19)
And it is by using the techniques of poststructuralism and deconstruction that the texts I choose for this dissertation will be read and that the theory itself will be constructed.
In this dissertation, I will be using critiques that are brought out of an analysis of the world that falls within the postmodern realm, epistemologically, psychologically, or linguistically. My approach would therefore follow Fraser and Nicholson’s call for a theory that “would look more like a tapestry composed of threads of many different hues than one woven in a single color” (35). My search is for a productive and flexible theory, one I will create using the techniques of those theorists I have mentioned.
Some feminists might argue against the use of theory in the feminist struggle, one that is by its very nature political and dependent upon personal experiences. They argue that postmodernism is limited in its failure to promote a future for feminists and thus its failure as a ground for political struggle.4 Moreover, some see that postmodern theory ignores the role of experience, a role that has always been important in beginning feminist struggle. And by refusing to acknowledge the role of experience, we deprive feminism of the role of the subject in its struggle:
If we fail to recuperate the subject in feminist terms, are we not depriving feminist theory of a notion of agency that casts doubt on the viability of feminism as a normative model? Without a unified concept of woman or, minimally, a family resemblance among gender-related terms, it appears that feminist politics had lost the categorical basis of its own normative claim. (Judith Butler 327)
Linda Alcoff further argues that this refusal to acknowledge the role of experience has taken feminism from one extreme to another: from “the extreme of taking personal experience as the foundation for knowledge to [the extreme of] discrediting experience as the product of phallogocentrism” (11). Yet the critique of the legitimacy of the criterion of experience in defining our lives does not annul the role of experience totally but merely objects to its role as the only factor in determining knowledge about women, especially the concept of experience is used in contradistinction to theory.
A complete dependence on the notion of experience in determining the appropriate feminist struggle has its own limitations as it draws boundaries around whose experience is to be legitimated as useful to the feminist struggle. It also suggests that there is an essential femaleness that makes the experience of one woman significant to all women. By totalizing woman, some voices of women will still be silenced and oppressed. Therefore, it became necessary for feminism, in order for it to work best, to displace itself from such binary opposites. It is here that women need to identify themselves away from such ideas of totalization. When women in any setting are regarded as one whole group with similar experiences, there develops a threat that leads to excluding those women who do not conform to the characteristics of that particular group. As a result, race, class, or sexual preference will have the same effect as gender does for the patriarchal system. Shared experience serves well as the ground on which coalition politics is built but it should not serve as the only ground that legitimates women’s knowledge.
Earlier feminists found a position in women’s experience from which to construct an identity for women separate from that of men. Yet, as these experiences failed to prove themselves a valid source of truth about all women, it became obvious that using the experience of women in feminist struggle could not avoid becoming a product of phallocentrism as it uses the same criteria of categorizing what is considered femininity and masculinity (Alcoff 10-11). It is important that, as we try to establish our feminist philosophy, we do not fall into this trap. The experiences of women are not universal. Differences exist among women at various levels as they do between women and men and one’s personal experiences cannot be the determining factor of establishing a one and only feminism.
The setting of binaries that was manipulated by patriarchy to separate women from men should not be re-used by women as they try to find their own voice. Very often groups of women who unite to fight the oppression of the patriarchal system fall prey to using the same categorizing that patriarchy enforces. Hence their work and studies focus mainly on women who belong to their group. bell hooks has been among the first to alert to white feminists’ role in excluding black feminists because of their dependence on experience by white feminists. She explains this position clearly in the following lines:
The group of college-educated white middle and upper class women who came together to organize a women’s movement . . . revealed that they had not changed, had not undone the sexist and racist brainwashing that had taught them to regard women unlike themselves as Others. Consequently, the Sisterhood they talked about has not become a reality, and the women’s movement they envisioned would have a transformative effect on American culture has not emerged. Instead, the hierarchical pattern of race and sex relationships already established in American society merely took a different form under “feminism.” (121)
Failure to acknowledge the differences that exist among women leads to the exclusion of such groups as those to which hooks refers: African-Americans, Chicanas, Asian-Americans and other racial groups are very often excluded in feminist books, as are lesbians and lower-class women. Differences exist among women; race, class and sexual preference play important roles in these differences. Yet it is important to remember that differences exist even among women of the same race or class. Not even all lower-class, heterosexual Asian-Americans posses the same identity, and to be led into universalizing is a mistake that needs to be avoided.
Chandra Talpade Mohanty explains that Western feminists, by positioning themselves in the center, resemble the liberal humanists’ attitude that they strive to work against. In the same way that men construct the binary male/female to subjugate women, Western feminists use a similar binary first world/third world to show themselves as having more power:
Universal images of ‘the third-world woman’ . . . images constructed from adding the ‘third-world difference’ to ‘sexual difference’, are predicated on (and hence obviously bring into sharper focus) assumptions about western women as secular, liberated and having control over their own lives. (215)
What Western feminists do not seem to realize is that claiming the center weakens their position as without the periphery—here being third world women—the center cannot hold. “It is not the center that determines the periphery,” Mohanty reminds us, “but the periphery that, in its boundedness, determines the center.” (215)
Depending on women’s experience means that we have to define what “woman” stands for and, as Jane Flax argues, “within feminist theory a search for a defining theme of the whole or a feminist viewpoint may require the suppression of the important and discomforting voices of persons with experiences unlike our own” (48), and it also assumes “an already existing individual subjectivity which awaits expression” (Weedon, 79). Alcoff explains how Scott views this notion of experience:
Scott, thus, turns the naïve empiricist or foundationalist account of experience on its head. In her account, experience is an epiphenomenona, never cognitivey originary but instead constitutively dependent on orders of meaning that originate outside of the individual, and its explanatory value is thereby eclipsed by the theorization of language. (13)
Our understanding of our experiences is filtered through the language we use to represent these experiences. As such, experience in itself cannot serve as the sole foundation of feminist knowledge and politics. Therefore, Moi rightly claims that within these arguments it seems that “feminist theory might thrive better if it abandoned the minefield of femininity and femaleness for a while and approached the questions of oppression and emancipation from a different direction” (148).
The problem, of course, is that any theory, by presenting itself has to refute other theories, therefore placing itself as the theory that works best. Postmodern theory, although built on the critique of universality, is criticized for falling into the same trap when it presents any of its arguments. Thus arguing for the theory becomes a contradiction in itself as it implies the inappropriateness of other theories. Some postmodern feminists realize this problem and warn against the theory’s incorporation of its own universality by positioning itself on the opposing side of modernist theories (Nicholson 11).
In “Social Criticism without Philosophy: An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism,” Fraser and Nicholson explain that:
in early feminist social theories. . . .Theory was understood as the search for the one key factor which would explain sexism cross-culturally and illuminate all of social life. In this sense, to theorize was by definition to produce a quasi-metanarrative. (29)
Believing in the existence of one definite answer led some feminists to form their own metanarratives and to present their provisional theories as “the voice of knowledge,” thus again working within the same Western philosophy that they think they are rejecting.
As the humanist notion of subjectivity is critiqued by postmodernists, there emerges an insistence on this idea of difference as opposed to the notion of a unified agent that is considered by humanists as an autonomous and universal identity. On the construction of identity, Patricia Waugh writes:
for those marginalized by the dominant culture, a sense of identity as constructed through impersonal and social relations of power (rather than a sense of identity as the reflection of an inner ‘essence’) has been a major aspect of their self-concept long before post-structuralists and postmodernists began to assemble their cultural manifestos. (3)
Waugh rightly reminds us that women and other “marginalized” groups have preceded postmodernists in their realization that the self is not constructed autonomously but rather by external factors.
Difference here has to be understood not in its binary male/female but rather as a site for multiplicity. Postmodern theory insists that the subject should be read as a multiple existence. Henry Giroux describes subjectivity within the postmodern as “multiple, layered, and nonunitary”; he proceeds to add, “rather than being constituted in a unified and integrated ego, the ‘self’ is seen as being ‘constituted out of and by difference and remains contradictory’” (24).
This idea again finds its parallel in feminist theory. Teresa deLauretis writes:
I see a shift, a development . . . in the feminist understanding of the female subjectivity: a shift from the earlier view of woman defined purely by sexual difference (i.e., in relation to man) to the more difficult and complex notion that the female subject is a site of differences. (qtd. in Curti 141)
As feminism was attacked from within for being a movement only concerned with a certain class and race of women, this idea of difference becomes vital in the development of the older ideals of feminism that insisted mainly on the difference between men and women, disregarding the differences found between women themselves.
It also became clear that when women work from such binary oppositions as those constructed by Western philosophy the result would be a mere reversal of hierarchy that still works within the same system:
If the struggle for a just society is seen in terms of the move from powerless to powerful for women as a group, and this is the implication in feminist discourse which structures sexual difference in terms of the division between the sexes, then the new society would be structurally identical to the existing organization of power relations, constituting itself as a simple inversion of what exists. (Mohanty 213)
As binary divisions are no longer seen as a factor in constituting the subject, the subject takes on its postmodern non-unitary, almost non-existing self—that is not existing within any fixed criteria. The main argument against such perception of the subject comes from feminists who do not see it as the best time for women to have such a deconstruction of the subject. This becomes a sort of fear of allowing a place within feminism for the decentered subject at the time when the female subject is just beginning to find its place in this discourse:
Once women have experienced themselves as ‘subjects’, then they can begin to problematize and to deconstruct the socially constructed subject positions available to them, and to recognize that an inversion of the valuation of ‘maleness’ and ‘femaleness’ will not in itself undermine the social construction of ‘masculinity’ and femininity. (Waugh 25)
Feminist struggle, therefore, needs a more theoretical account of oppression than the one experience provides. It thus turns to postmodernism because of its “need for a deeper methodological critique of the roots of sexism and patriarchal assumptions in all existing domains of knowledge than an experiential-based feminism could provide” (Alcoff, “Politics” 11). Scott further explains:
It is not sameness or identity between women and men that we want to claim but a more complicated historically variable diversity than is permitted by the opposition male/female, a diversity that is also differently expressed for different purposes in different contexts. (143-4)
Postmodernism provides the tools by which this diversity can be analyzed and by manipulating these tools the feminist struggle can be enriched. It is not necessary for the feminist struggle to refuse the postmodernist decentering of the subject on the claims that it does not allow the category “woman” to exist. Insisting on maintaining a definition of feminism by defining the essential female “hinder[s] alliances with other progressive movements,” as Fraser and Nicholson explain (33). And although the lack of a definition means that feminism cannot be categorized and stabilized, this diversity “adds fuel to the feminist fires of plurality, multiplicity, and difference” (Tong 217). As many feminists have already stated, the category “woman” can be useful as a temporary strategy or as a political tool in describing and criticizing how femininity is perceived currently, without acquiescing to this definition being a universal one (Butler 325, Weedon 66). Toril Moi explains:
It is in the patriarchal interest that these two terms (femininity and femaleness) stay thoroughly confused. Feminists, on the contrary, have to disentangle this confusion, and must therefore always insist that though women undoubtedly are female, this in no way guaranteed that they will be feminine. (65)
Both feminism and postmodernism are needed if we are to attempt to remedy the current injustices of patriarchy. As Fraser and Nicholson maintain, “A postmodernist reflection on feminist theory reveals disabling vestiges of essentialism while a feminist reflection on postmodernism reveals androcentrism and political naivete” (20).
In this dissertation I will theoretically define four phases towards the disruption of the system of binary oppositions, demonstrate how literature manifests these phases, and analyze their implications for literary theory and criticism. Jacques Derrida suggests that women, being located on the margins of the dominant ideology, are best equipped to launch a critique against it. Rosemarie Tong demonstrates:
The condition of Otherness enables women to stand back and criticize the norms, values, and practices that the dominant culture (patriarchy) seeks to impose on everyone, including those who live on its periphery—in this case, women. Thus, Otherness, for all of its associations with oppression and inferiority, is much more than an oppressed, inferior condition. Rather, it is a way of being, thinking, and speaking that allows for openness, plurality, diversity, and difference. (219)
Feminists such as Nancy Hartsock and Tong also suggest that those located on the margins, being the “Other,” have the openness needed to critique and expose the system within which they live:
we need to dissolve the false “we” I have been using into its real multiplicity and variety and out of this concrete multiplicity build an account of the world as seen from the margins, an account which can expose the falseness of the view from the top and can transform the margins as well as the center. The point is to develop an account of the world which treats our perspectives not as subjugated of disruptive knowledge, but as primary and constitutive of a different world. (Hartsock 171)
Thus the position of womanhood becomes a useful category as it enables women to transform the power which subjugates them. The role of victim that the woman plays becomes therefore double-edged as it resists this power imposed and also transforms it while resisting (Moi 148).
Because there is constant change in the position of the marginal—the line defining the center from the margins is always shifting—the marginalized have the ability of a critique that not only subverts the system of binaries but also one in which the foundations for the system collapse and the binaries are disrupted. Bordo writes:
For the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion (as history had just taught us) are played out on multiple and shifting fronts, and all ideas (no matter how liberating in some contexts or for some purposes) are condemned to be haunted by a voice from the margins, either already speaking or presently muted but awaiting the conditions for speech. (221)
In the literature I have chosen to demonstrate these phases, most of the characters and writers exist on these margins whether by reason of their gender, skin color, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or other differentiations. And it is within their position as the “Other” that they are able to construct a way of being that is not limited to either side of the binary. Lacan argues that if the Other is able to speak the whole symbolic order which holds the Other in its position will crumble (Tong 222). The subversion of this system of binary opposition and the system of patriarchy can best be articulated in literature, as bell hooks has stated, since within literature these subversions are not threatened by the reality of forms of repression that exist in the real world, except for censorship.
The different works I have chosen will reflect how each of my four theoretical phases are practiced in the literature. Although the majority of this literature is written by late twentieth-century American writers who are considered marginalized—women, African Americans, Native Americans, Chicanos and Chicanas—I have also chosen a few examples of earlier writers, non-American writers, and non-marginalized writers.
I need to emphasize here that the works I have chosen are not limited to the phases to which I have assigned them. I am using them merely to find examples of these phases. That Toni Morrison’s Paradise for example was included in the first phase does not mean that we cannot find in Paradise examples of later phases. The work is not limited to the phase it is assigned but rather used as an explanation of this phase. Needless to say, the phases are not a hierarchy. Thus again if Morrison’s Paradise exists in the first phase and Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima exists in the fourth it does not mean that Anaya has accomplished more that Morrison has, merely that I chose a sample of his work to explain certain theoretical concepts.
The use of the term “phases”—rather than steps or stages—suggests that they are not defined in a linear structure in which the need for the first step is negated when we move to the second step. These phases operate cyclically and each one provides a necessary threshold for this critique. And because of the ability of the marginalized to move between these four phases, their literature provides the best example of this critique.
Chapter One, “Understanding the System of Binary Oppositions,” will introduce the first phase towards the disruption of the binary oppositions, to understand how the system works and what is gained and lost by it. I will begin by presenting the theoretical background to this phase found in the work of Jean-François Lyotard, Sandra Harding, and Drucilla Barker, who provide an analysis of what this system jeopardizes. These critics argue that the binary system posits two types of knowledge as opposing and finds justifications for applying one while refusing the other. Based upon this argument I will also briefly introduce the psychoanalytic side of the argument found in the work Lacan, and how this argument introduces the same binary working within each individual in the split between self and other.
After the theory is introduced, Toni Morrison’s Paradise will be analyzed as one text which introduces the system of binaries as it manifests itself in a society of African Americans. Linda Hogan’s Dwelling will also be introduced here as an explanation of how one system of beliefs becomes destroyed under the more dominant system and what are the dangers of this destruction. Morrison’s Sula and Kate Chopin’s The Awakening provide further examples to support the argument.
Chapter Two, “When the ‘Other’ Speaks: Subverting the System,” will argue that as a result of this system of binaries, those who are located on the “Other” side of the dominant one will try to speak in order to subvert the system that tries to kill them. French feminists, such as Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, will be presented as those who argue for women, or the “Other,” to acknowledge their worth by using those same attributes that were used to pronounce them “Other.” The argument here is for women to subvert the system of binaries by showing how those features which make them “Other” can actually be those same ones which will liberate them.
Women’s link to nature, silence and madness are also here employed as features that will free women from their position as “Other.” Djuna Barnes’s Nightwood and Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace will be my major examples in this chapter in which silence and madness become tools in liberating the characters. These will be supported by Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony.
Chapter Three, “On Multiplicity and Reciprocity,” introduces the third phase in which the system of binaries itself is questioned. I will present two arguments that question this system. The first one will be Donna Haraway’s theory of situated knowledges which posits that since our positions are shifting, and since what we have is always situated knowledges, we cannot exist completely on either side of the binary but are rather multiple in our positions. The second argument is that presented by ecofeminists who argue that the proof of the fictionality of the binary system is found in nature and it is through our interaction with nature that we can escape the limitations of the system.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness will demonstrate Haraway’s argument that we all have situated knowledges and shifting positions, while Gerald Vizenor’s Dead Voices demonstrates how it is our interaction with nature that allows us to understand our multiplicity. Emanuel Puig’s Kiss of the Spider Woman will also be used to demonstrate how a person’s subjectivity cannot be fixed to either side of the binary.
The second and third phase are sometimes referred to as essential and anti-essential positions, and in the fourth phase, “Essentialism and/or Constructionism: The Marginal Disrupts the Binary,” I will demonstrate that the two positions are interactive. Similarly, the two sides of the binary can also be shown to be interactive. Diana Fuss demonstrates how essentialism and anti-essentialism are not opposites because they are interrelated. Fuss argues that “the binary articulation of essentialism and difference can also be restrictive, even obfuscating, in that it allows us to ignore or to deny the differences within essentialism” (xii). And it is by understanding how the two sides are interrelated that the binary system can be disrupted. Here I will demonstrate that the position of the marginalized allows for this disruption because by its existence on the margins of dominant thought it becomes more receptive and open to different systems of thought.
Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima, Edna Escamill’s Daughter of the Mountain, and Alice Walker’s The Temple of My Familiar will be used as examples of how the marginalized possess an openness that allows them to exist on the two sides of the binary without the need to kill either side. So, for example, Walker portrays a character, Lissie, whose openness allows her to accept her former existence as a white man even while acknowledging the injustices laid upon her current character by white men.
By existing on the margins of dominant thought, I argue that the marginalized are more open to incorporating the diverse systems they find around them. It is important as I alert to the importance of being open-minded and receptive of other knowledges, that I endorse this concept in this presentation of four phases by inviting additions to the four phases. So, although I end my dissertation with phase four, I hope to invite further work on this area in which not only the marginalized are seen to possess this ability of disrupting the binary, but also those who are considered to belong to the dominant sex, race, class, etc. Deconstructing the binary oppositions that influence most of our lives cannot be done simply by a decision to stop believing in the binaries. It is a process that takes time, and for that reason, a theory of phases enables a constant revision of the dangers of viewing the world in terms of binary oppositions. As I introduce the ability of the marginalized to best effect this disruption, it is important to revisit our definition of the marginalized as we revisit our definitions of other concepts. An important aspect of deconstructing the binaries is the need to move beyond the limitations of fixed definitions and closed doors, and for that reason, I hope for that my readers will be able to leave this dissertation with the ability to revisit, and add to it further phases in order for the dissertation itself not to be fixed and closed.
1. I see the difference between postmodernism and poststructuralism in that the former is an epistemological theory more general that the latter that refers to the application of postmodern critiques on texts. It can thus be said that poststructuralism is the practice and postmodernism is the theory. While postmodernism deconstructs knowledge, poststructuralism deconstructs language.
2. The title of Weedon’s book is Feminist Practice & Poststructural Theory, a title which incorporates the binary practice/theory which she criticizes as she critiques the system of binaries itself.
3. Some feminists, nevertheless, argue that we cannot use the man’s tools to deconstruct his house. Audre Lorde is one example. I, however, remain a firm believer in advocating and using any tools that are handy. Tools, after all, “possess neither memory nor loyalty; they are as effective as the hands wielding them” (Ling 779).
4. Carol A. Stabile, for example, writes:
In fact, postmodernism replicates the workings of contemporary political debates in the U.S.: both refuse to confront political realities and both operate at a level of abstraction that bears little relation to the realities experienced by ordinary people on a daily basis. (405)


text: These five All American mixed breed pups are looking for homes. They’re just 17 weeks old and ready to conquer your shoes. If you’re interested in adopting, please visit them at Pet Pal Animal Shelter, 405 22nd St. S, St. Petersburg. Hours are 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday. The adoption fee is $200. Visit petpalanimalshelter.com or call (727) 328-7738.

domain: pet


text:
Whole Foods Cakes Menu Vancouver
Whole Foods Cakes Menu Vancouver is free HD wallpaper. This wallpaper was upload at January 24, 2019 upload by admin in .You can download it in your computer by clicking resolution image in Download by size:. Don't forget to rate and comment if you interest with this wallpaper.
Description wallpaper for Whole Foods Cakes Menu Vancouver
- Title: Whole Foods Cakes Menu Vancouver
- Link: http://cdn.publishyourarticles.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/mutton_biriyai_1.jpg
- Category: Uncategorized
- View: 0 View

domain: food


text:
EVALSDGs Insight #10 concerns a longstanding issue: gender inequality and the degree to which the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can assure equality and equity among peoples. Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) of SDGs implementation in 66 countries indicate that countries must act vigorously to achieve gender equity across all SDGs. This Insight proposes some solutions for strengthening gender responsiveness in evaluations of the SDGs.
Extensive course: Creating gender-responsive programmes and organisations'Gender’ is more than a buzzword in development jargon. This course builds your ability in dealing with inclusiveness and gender issues to ensure that development benefits all. You learn to systematically analyse differences in interest, power and decision making among different social groups; men and women, girls, boys, youth and elderly, able and disable, and how to capitalise on each group's strengths. What you will…See More
GPSDD and GIZ would like to invite you to a webinar on Monday, 31st of August 2:30-4pm Nairobi time.During this webinar, we will present a CGD guide for non-state actors in Kenya, who are keen to produce CGD that can be used for policy and decision-making, but also to complement official statistics. The content of the guide can be applied to non-state actors beyond Kenya.The guidelines were developed because of expressed demand from both state and non-state actors in Kenya, and is a buildup…See More

domain: sociology


text:
A celebration of the non-binary experience, told with minimalistic artistry and hints of magical realism.
Delightfully depressing dystopia dames dating.
I know the Devil. A magic realist, character-driven visual novel. Haunted by 80s synth-wave and the Blair Witch. I know the Devil. It’s queer, troubled and rebellious. Do you?

domain: artistic


Judgment in Khulubuse Zuma's case expected on Tuesday
Aurora's former director wants claims of around R1,5 billion against his company set aside.
JOHANNESBURG - The North Gauteng High Court will on Tuesday hand down judgment regarding Khulubuse Zuma's urgent application to have claims of R1,5 billion against his company set aside.
Zuma, who is the president's nephew, is the former director of Aurora Empowerment Systems, which was liquidated in 2011.
He is being accused, along with his co-directors, of mismanaging the mines they bought and for being responsible for around 5,000 job losses.
Zuma's lawyers have brought an urgent application to have the matter, which is due to be heard at the end of the month, set aside.
His company, Aurora, was appointed to manage two mines bought from Pamodzi Gold, but allegedly stripped the infrastructure and sold it for scrap instead.
Liquidators now want Zuma and his co-directors to be held personally liable for about R1,7 billion in damages.
The master of the court and lawyers for the liquidators want the application thrown out, saying it is simply a ploy to delay the hearing which is set down for the end of the month.
If Zuma's application is successful it'll hamper the mineworkers' chances of getting the money that is due to them.


FIGC CEO Michele Uva lamented about the lack of new stadiums built in Italy during the past ten years. Speaking as a guest on the program “La Politica nel Pallone” about infrastructure and youth policy, Uva did not mince his words.
“162 new stadiums have been built in the past ten years across Europe, only three of these have been in Italy,” said Uva. “This is a ridiculous and embarrassing percentage. This is an important subject which brings back stability to our game, without it there’s no future. Infrastructure and youth policy are the two key pillars from which the revitalization of Italian football will be based. It will take a lot of time but there are no more excuses today, there is a law and planned time to allow clubs to look at new structures.”
Uva went on to discuss additional topics such as VAR (Video Assistant Referees), women’s football, U-21 European championship, among others.
“In order to secure a rosy future for Italian football, it’s vital to build on infrastructure and youth policies and to keep investing in the women’s game. There must also be an awareness of technology and how VAR (Video Assistant Referees) can make a significant contribution but it cannot be the cure to all ills.”
According to the FIGC, while Italy still lags behind for its tardiness in sporting infrastructure, the work of the FIGC in recent years to promote women’s football has started to bare fruit.
“We’re investing in its development and the improvement can be seen,” added Uva. “Our Under-19 side beat Sweden and Norway and they’ll be involved in the European Championship finals in August. The fact that Juventus will be involved next season brings extra momentum and visibility to women’s football. Sassuolo and Empoli are already in Serie A and Fiorentina were crowned as champions of Italy. You also have to start from grassroots and the Under-12s are developing and this paints an interesting picture for the future in the medium and long term.
The Confederations Cup showed the positives and negatives of VAR with Italy taking a leading role in experimenting with the system which will be used next season in Serie A.
“The Italian refereeing class is ready to make this leap,” confirmed the CEO. “Offline experimentation has given indications and some very interesting internal data. Italy can be a reference point, we want to be at the vanguard of this. We have the resources, the AIA (referee association) has well-prepared referees, we gave everything to get over this hurdle and we moved forward. Now, we’ll look to explain that VAR isn’t the solution to every problem but it’s a natural step to help referees in their decisions.”
The Under-21 European Championship ended with the Azzurrini falling in the semi-final to Spain.
“We’re starting with Ulivieri and President Tavecchio to come up with a way of thinking, the path that we’re following is to work on the ‘Cantera’ but I wouldn’t exclude the possibility of Di Biagio taking us into the 2019 tournament in Italy.”
Uva also looked confidently ahead to the vital World Cup qualifier against Spain on September 2nd in Madrid.
“Italy is always Italy, we can’t be afraid of such a match, nor can we be afraid on playing an eventual play-off. We want to go to Russia and play in the World Cup, this goes without saying.”