scholarly journals Hauntological dimensions of heart transplantation: the onto-epistemologies of deceased donation

2021 ◽  
pp. medhum-2020-011982
Author(s):  
Margrit Shildrick
Keyword(s):  
Cardiac Function ◽  
Heart Transplantation ◽  
Organ Transplantation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Organ ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Extended Life ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Moment

The practice of human organ transplantation studies is shot through with questions concerning the concepts of selfhood and identity that continually reach out towards transmigration, displacement and haunting. In particular, heart transplantation is the site at which the parameters of human life and death are tested to their limits, not simply for the recipient but for the donor too. In conventional biomedicine, the definition and therefore the moment of death is a matter of ongoing and disturbing dispute between two major channels of thought. Should we understand life to end at the point of cessation of cardiac function, or alternatively that of the brainstem? That whole logic is predicated, however, on the familiar binary of life/death that fails to address urgent concerns in three arenas: social-cultural imaginaries, postmodernist philosophy and increasingly exploratory bioscience. If there is always something about death that is uncanny, that exceeds rationalist thought, then we need to queer the concept and ask whether there are more sensitive ways of thinking the process of dying. The very concept of extended life for the recipient is no simple outcome, and the question of whose life has been prolonged is far from clear. My contribution touches on the idea of thinking transplantation in the mode of parasitism but will suggest an alternative Deleuzian way forward.

scholarly journals “The Meaning of Life” during a Transition from Modernity to Transhumanism and Posthumanity

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sirkku K. Hellsten
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
Technological Evolution ◽  
Historical Experience ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Clear Cut ◽  
The Moment ◽  
The Universe

The articles argues that due to the rapid development of new technology the boundaries of life and death, as well as the different phases of our physical, social and spiritual life are getting less clear-cut and evident than they have been before in the Western, traditionally dualistic cultural and historical experience. Thus, at the moment we are in a transitional stage in our understanding of “human life” is gaining new dimensions in form of “post-humanism” and “trans-humanism”. The current neo-holistic view of the universe and the human place in it requires us to consider the “existential risks” and seriously ponder the effects of the technological evolution to our social, cultural, ethical and metaphysical frameworks and normative principles.

Staying Alive

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 20-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margrit Shildrick
Keyword(s):  
Heart Transplantation ◽  
Organ Transplantation ◽  
Personal Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Organ ◽  
Complex Emotions ◽  
The Gift ◽  
The Face ◽  
Transplantation Procedures

The field of human organ transplantation, and most particularly that of heart transplantation where the donor is always deceased, is one in which the rhetoric of hope leaves little room for any exploration or understanding of the more negative emotions and affects that recipients may experience. Where a donated heart is commonly referred to as the ‘gift of life’, both in lay discourse and by those engaged in transplantation procedures, how does this imbricate with the alternative clinical term of a ‘graft’? For recipients of donor organs, the experience of living on in the face of otherwise certain death is fraught with complex emotions, not only about the self and the now dead other, but the persistence of the other within the self. In contrast to our expectations of the feel-good narrative of the gift of life, recipients are often significantly troubled by the aftermath of the procedure, which may fundamentally challenge notions of personal identity, as well as having deep implications for our understanding of the relation between death and ‘staying alive’. Drawing on recent research into heart transplantation, I shall theorise the field through a reflection – drawing on both Mauss and Derrida – on the meaning of the gift, before moving on to consider whether a Deleuzian approach to both the assemblage and the ‘event’ of death might offer a more productive framework.

Ważyk metafizyczny? / Ważyk – A Metaphysician?

2013 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
Jerzy Święch
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Late Phase ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Strict Sense ◽  
Ontological Security ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
Self Sufficiency

Summary Adam Ważyk’s last volume of poems Zdarzenia (Events) (1977) can be read as a resume of the an avant-garde artist’s life that culminated in the discovery of a new truth about the human condition. The poems reveal his longing for a belief that human life, the mystery of life and death, makes sense, ie. that one’s existence is subject to the rule of some overarching necessity, opened onto the last things, rather than a plaything of chance. That entails a rejection of the idea of man’s self-sufficiency as an illusion, even though that kind of individual sovereignty was the cornerstone of modernist art. The art of late modernity, it may be noted, was already increasingly aware of the dangers of putting man’s ‘ontological security’ at risk. Ważyk’s last volume exemplifies this tendency although its poems appear to remain within the confines of a Cubist poetics which he himself helped to establish. In fact, however, as our readings of the key poems from Events make clear, he employs his accustomed techniques for a new purpose. The shift of perspective can be described as ‘metaphysical’, not in any strict sense of the word, but rather as a shorthand indicator of the general mood of these poems, filled with events which seem to trap the characters into a supernatural order of things. The author sees that much, even though he does not look with the eye of a man of faith. It may be just a game - and Ważyk was always fond of playing games - but in this one the stakes are higher than ever. Ultimately, this game is about salvation. Ważyk is drawn into it by a longing for the wholeness of things and a dissatisfaction with all forms of mediation, including the Cubist games of deformation and fragmentation of the object. It seems that the key to Ważyk’s late phase is to be found in his disillusionment with the twentieth-century avant-gardes. Especially the poems of Events contain enough clues to suggest that the promise of Cubism and surrealism - which he sought to fuse in his poetic theory and practice - was short-lived and hollow.

HUMAN ORGAN TRANSPLANTATION: LEGAL SYSTEM MONITORING

2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (65) ◽  
pp. 128
Author(s):  
А. О. Yanchuk ◽  
S. О. Kuznichenko ◽  
Yu. V. Gradova
Keyword(s):  
Organ Transplantation ◽  
Legal System ◽  
System Monitoring ◽  
Human Organ

Surgical methods of treatment of chronic heart failure and their place in modern clinical recommendations

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 183-191
Author(s):  
O. T. Kotsoeva ◽  
A. V. Koltsov ◽  
V. V. Tyrenko ◽  
A. A. Ialovets
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Heart Failure ◽  
Chronic Heart Failure ◽  
Left Ventricle ◽  
Heart Transplantation ◽  
Mechanical Circulatory Support ◽  
Circulatory Support ◽  
Surgical Methods ◽  
The Moment

This review discusses a number of aspects of surgical methods for treating severe chronic heart failure: resynchronizing therapy, mechanical circulatory support systems, and heart transplantation. Surgical methods for the treatment of heart failure are a rapidly developing field of modern cardiology and cardiac surgery. The main surgical method of treatment was and remains orthotopic transplantation of a donor heart. The advent of implantable systems has affected the problem of heart transplantation. Over the past decade, the use of mechanical circulatory support systems has grown significantly. At the moment, there are 3 main directions: creating devices for auxiliary blood circulation, various modes and methods of electrical stimulation of the myocardium, creating devices that mechanically remodel the heart chambers (left ventricle). All of these directions to some extent (depending on the evidence base) have found their place in modern recommendations for the treatment of chronic heart failure. The use of mechanical left ventricular remodeling shows good results in patients suffering from symptomatic heart failure, which leads to a significant and persistent decrease in the volume of the left ventricle and improvement of its function, symptoms and quality of life. Despite the fact that at the moment the geography and prevalence of their use is small, the number of implanted devices will only grow. Thus, given the need for frequent hospitalizations and high treatment costs, it is necessary to improve modern methods of surgical treatment of severe and terminal heart failure, make them more accessible, which will affect the duration and quality of life of these patients.

Life and Death

2016 ◽  
pp. 422-442
Author(s):  
Jana Bennett
Keyword(s):  
Death Penalty ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Scientific Understanding ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Artificial Reproduction ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
The Creation

This chapter places Catholic teaching on questions of life and death against the background of a Catholic vision of salvation history, emphasizing that Catholics see no necessary opposition between Christian faith and progress in scientific understanding of the creation. The chapter then considers questions concerning abortion, contraception, and techniques for artificial reproduction. The second half of the chapter focuses on questions concerning death. Catholic teaching views human life in this world as finite, and thus sees death as intrinsic to the current human condition. After considering Catholic teaching on euthanasia, the chapter considers Catholic discussion of war, the death penalty, and care for the environment.

Combined Heart Transplantation with Other Organ Transplantation

2020 ◽  
pp. 383-401
Author(s):  
Katherine J. Kunkel ◽  
Maria Molina ◽  
Joyce Wald
Keyword(s):  
Heart Transplantation ◽  
Organ Transplantation
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