Schedule of Events

New and stronger viruses have posed significant challenges for medical experts and the public health systems. Changes in these viruses mean that the multi-billion dollar vaccine business is constantly fluctuating.The Center of Disease Control (CDC), a U.S. federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, works with the United Nation’s World Health Organization (WHO). Together, these two organizations try to provide optimal levels of health for global populations.They collaborate with others to modify the components of vaccines which have become ineffective: academic and professional researchers, industrial and commercial companies, and public policy makers. Members of this conglomerate group regulate each other with a system of checks and balances in an attempt to make the best vaccines available.The CDC and WHO send the new vaccines to the FDA to test for approval. In the U.S., pharmaceutical companies sell these vaccines using a national rhetoric that, as my research demonstrates, is being increasingly (and often legitimately) questioned by the public. 

The portrayals of lawyers in British and American literature have often been perceived as negative. But my examination of some of the most well known of these literary characters reveals that despite such negative perceptions, they have often been fitted with many positive attributes. In British literature, although the Sergeant of the Law in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales “semed bisier than he was,” he was also “war and wys,” “ful riche of excellence,” and “of greet reverence.” In The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare fashions Portia as a woman who assumes the role of a lawyer for an altruistic purpose. The lawyer in Charles Dickens’ Bleak House seems cold-hearted and power-hungry, but Dickens gives him redeeming qualities--portraying him as being highly respected and trustworthy as well. In American author Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson, attorney David Wilson uses negative perceptions about lawyers to his advantage in the civil process of solving a murder. Harper Lee’s Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, probably the most highly respected lawyer in all American literature, upholds the law in its most ideal form. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller gives us two lawyers: Hathorne, portrayed as being pious and trustworthy, and Danforth, whose sole desire is to exercise his power and influence over others. The contrasts between these two attorneys reflect the contrasts between the negative and redeeming qualities traceable in the famous lawyer characters in our literature. 

Literary accounts of epilepsy deserve our attention because they form part of the cultural history of this neurological disorder and society’s responses to it. Epileptics appear in several works of fiction and reveal a wide range of perceptions about the disorder. Some authors are well-informed, whereas others are simply fascinated with epilepsy, perhaps because of its intriguing history and its ancient associations. The common traits associated with epilepsy include impulsive behavior, a vivid imagination, and intense dreams induced by drowsiness. Writers who are themselves epileptic characterize epileptics in their texts in a variety of ways, offering insight into the variables of the epileptic makeup. Their personal experiences with this disorder provide distinctive insights that enable them to portray varied and specific experiences. Epileptic authors, including Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Charles Dickens, and Alfred Tennyson construct their epileptic characters through the lens of personal experience and thus give their readers authentic depictions of the epileptic condition. 

Ireland’s tumultuous struggles are evident in the literature of William Butler Yeats, James Joyce, and Seamus Heaney. Their poetry and prose reflect regional political positions and beliefs that offer insight into Ireland's broader national conflicts. My research, though, revealed a surprise—because the differing regional and religious perspectives of all of these authors were marginalized by a common allegiance to moral law. Their objection to violence overrides popular views held by those in their respective regions and religions. Yeats was born a Protestant in 1865 in the Catholic suburb of Dublin. Although he encouraged the desire for independence among his countrymen, he also disapproved of the violent revolutionaries. His strong nationalistic spirit inspired people like Patrick Pearse, whose 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic ignited a rebellion against British rule in Ireland. Like Yeats, Joyce was born in a Dublin suburb. His work made the fact of foreign control vividly apparent to the Irish citizenry, but he did not promote violent rebellion: "I resent violence or intolerance," he wrote in Ulysses. “It never reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due installments plans." Unlike Yeats and Joyce, Heaney hailed from Northern Ireland. As a Catholic in the Protestant region of Ulster, Heaney experienced “The Troubles,” a period of guerrilla warfare in Northern Ireland from the 1960s to the late 1990s. As a result, Heaney objected strongly to acts of targeted violence in the country, whether against Catholics by Protestants or as perpetrated by the Irish Republican Army.