This paper will examine the representation of movement in, and around, queer bodies exemplified in texts such as Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2008) and Vu Tran’s Dragonfish (2016). These genre novels show how migrations disrupt conceptualizations of identity and citizenship across transcultural borders. A symbolic marking of queer individuals (using the expanded definition utilized by Judith Butler and others) is aligned with a literal one, becoming apparent through the movements made by the books’ characters. As José Esteban Muñoz tells us, ‘the here and now is a prison house’, and through the spectre of past and future, their bodies become constrained along axes that are simultaneously theoretical, cultural, and textual. This paper will examine the legacies of those transcultural and transhistorical migrations, linking with Jabir K. Puar’s description of ‘perverse racialized bodies’ to read the multitude of ways that perversion can be read, understood, and displaced to create what Díaz calls a kind of narrative counterspell. Ultimately, I will discuss how these texts are part of a growing corpus of cultural memory that destabilize static borders, often through narrative and genre devices that foreground liminality. Attending to their textual and cultural dynamics, this paper will discuss the implications of these books for a queer re-imagining of the transcultural that can be deconstructed through the world(s) of genre.

The United Kingdom’s (UK) built heritage is iconic, world class (ranked 4th out of 50 nations by potential visitors) and appeals to all ages. It includes cultural, religious, archaeological, commercial, industrial and domestic homes, buildings and structures dating from 2300BC to the Industrial Revolution and later. What is the cost of protecting, preserving and conserving this multitude of houses, castles, theatres, churches, piers, bridges, industrial buildings and urban social history and, more importantly, is it sustainable? There is a paucity of literature regarding the economics of built heritage, yet the numbers are enormous: 19000 scheduled monuments, 1600 registered parks and gardens, 28 world heritage sites and over 370,000 listed buildings (one for every 161 heads of population). The research investigated the business models employed by statutory bodies, private owners, charities, businesses and trusts and sought to calculate the current and ongoing burden of this plethora of historical structures. Although many buildings are over a century old and often much older, the research found that planned conservation rarely looked further than a decade ahead, if that. The list of listed buildings continues to grow and for every building considered “at risk” of being lost and, subsequently, conserved, another is added to the at risk register. It is intended that a series of recommendations and examples of good practice will be made available to relevant organizations.

This paper examines the trade relationships that the Leeward Caribbean Island of Antigua maintained with the American colonies during the American Revolution and the subsequent decade (ca. 1775-1854). The paper focuses more specifically on the trade in perishable goods, which often operated illicitly at the edges of the idealized colonial dependency that the Navigation Acts aimed to maintain. Drawing from archaeological and documentary evidence, this paper follows the transformation of long-term regional trade partnerships linking the Caribbean island of Antigua, the neighboring island of Guadeloupe and continental America during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, in order to better understand how the restrictions dictated by metropolitan laws, such as the Navigation Acts, played out on in colonial contexts. The paper illustrates the enduring presence of informal trade, smuggling and illicit exchange between Antigua, Guadeloupe and the United States during periods of colonial conflict, by combining a close reading of correspondence relating to the administration of the Betty's Hope Plantation, with the analysis of material cultural evidence recovered at the Betty’s Hope Plantation archaeological site (Antigua). This diverse dataset shows that, despite metropolitan legislation aiming to restrict trade partnerships in the colonial Caribbean, Antigua continued to obtain large volumes of produce, cattle and lumber from the continental United States after the Revolution; it also consistently relied on fresh water supplies from the French colony of Guadeloupe during the severe drought that plagued Antigua throughout the eighteenth century. Implications for the history of pan-Caribbean and transatlantic trade, for example in contrast with North Atlantic fisheries, are considered.

In this project, I will demonstrate how working across interdisciplinary fields—film studies, cultural studies, and literary studies—provide the methodology to look at national borders and ethnic groups from transnational perspectives that help to forge connections that can be useful to audiences living in a globalized world increasingly concerned with “alien” toxins and refuges on the move due to corporate capitalism, environmental degradation, and elitist resource hoarding. Specifically, I examine South African-born Neill Blomkamp’s film, District 9, in which the main character transforms from human to “alien” in a landscape that suggests South Africa and recalls the years in that country when apartheid was practiced. Concerned with society’s tendency to marginalize “otherness,” Blompkamp utilizes the protagonist’s transformation to compel the audience, to use Claudia Sadowski-Smith’s words, to “move beyond dominant conceptualizations of who inhabits and can speak for the border.” Using a sci-fi alien population (metaphorically) to convey the ways in which some human ethnic minority or indigenous groups are made to appear as “outsiders,” redirects the internal focus of identity and boundaries towards a wider, global lens that moves beyond traditional conceptions of national identity and notions of “borderlands” to discussions of the “local and global commons.”

SESSION: F2.2 -- "Faces of Feminism Across the Globe"-- coauthor: Maleka Khambaty Temporal, spatial, and chronological look at the gender issues of the culture surrounding the Arabian Nights. Popular Culture Association of the South Conference [08–11/2006].

EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON INTERDISCIPLINARY SOCIAL SCIENCES

This paper offers an overview of British universities from the perspective of a prospective international student or educational manager looking for international collaboration. The authors explain criteria used to rank UK universities in University League Table 2015. They give an overview of specific terminology and jargon associated with British higher education explaining terms such as Oxbridge, Russell Group universities, Red brick universities, Scottish MA etc.

The focus of this research is in the area of Financing / Loans acquired by Pakistan over the decades. This study is very important for forecasting the future of Pakistan’s financial strength. The data was collected from the State Bank of Pakistan, period from 1949 to 2010. The findings from this research provide the evidence that the external debts are growing in a very fast rate, which will create a great hurdle in coming future for Pakistan. The main conclusions drawn from this research is that the external debts are growing at an average rate of 14.40% per year and also demonstrated that if external debts increase by PKR 1 million in a year, in the next year it will increase by PKR 1.155 million. This research recommends that the outstanding debt can be taken care a special attention when fiscal and monetary policies are made in which external debt repayment should be given high importance along with the strict control over corruption. Government must introduce easy trade policies, which may boost up the exports in order to generate balance of trade, which may help in repaying the external debts.

"The Blood is the Soul": The Use of poetic language in commentaries on the Soul (nephesh- in Hebrew)

Summary Background Past research in population health trends has shown that injuries form a substantial burden of population health loss. Regular updates to injury burden assessments are critical. We report Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2017 Study estimates on morbidity and mortality for all injuries. Methods We reviewed results for injuries from the GBD 2017 study. GBD 2017 measured injury-specific mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) using the Cause of Death Ensemble model. To measure non-fatal injuries, GBD 2017 modelled injury-specific incidence and converted this to prevalence and years lived with disability (YLDs). YLLs and YLDs were summed to calculate disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Findings In 1990, there were 4 260 493 (4 085 700 to 4 396 138) injury deaths, which increased to 4 484 722 (4 332 010 to 4 585 554) deaths in 2017, while age-standardised mortality decreased from 1079 (1073 to 1086) to 738 (730 to 745) per 100 000. In 1990, there were 354 064 302 (95% uncertainty interval: 338 174 876 to 371 610 802)new cases of injury globally, which increased to 520 710 288 (493430 247 to 547 988 635) new cases in 2017. During this time, age-standardised incidence decreased non-significantly from 6824 (6534 to 7147) to 6763 (6412 to 7118) per 100 000. Between 1990 and 2017, age-standardised DALYs decreased from 4947 (4655 to 5233) per 100 000 to 3267 (3058 to 3505). Interpretation Injuries are an important cause of health loss globally, though mortality has declined between 1990 and 2017. Future research in injury burden should focus on prevention in high-urden populations, improving data collection and ensuring access to medical care.