The MATE survey: men's perceptions and attitudes towards menopause and their role in partners’ menopausal transition

Supplemental Digital Content is available in the text

D ue to the increasing longevity of women in the United States, women may live up to 40% of their lifespan after menopause. 1 Menopausal women have marked declines in estrogen levels and increases in follicle-stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone, and often have bothersome symptoms, such as vasomotor symptoms and dyspareunia due to vulvar vaginal atrophy (VVA). 2 Up to 75% of women are likely to be symptomatic during menopause. [3][4][5][6] Traditionally, surveys have targeted menopausal women to assess their perceptions and attitudes regarding menopause, menopausal symptoms, and available treatment options. 1,[7][8][9][10][11][12] To date, very few surveys have targeted women's male partners to assess their understanding of menopause, and they have been limited in scope. [12][13][14] The Clarifying Vaginal Atrophy's Impact on Sex and Relationships (CLOSER) online survey mainly explored the impact of VVA on sex, relationships, and intimacy for 1,000 couples, and reported that most men believed vaginal discomfort caused their partners to avoid intimacy, experience loss of libido, and find sex painful. 12 A small Turkish survey of 33 married men reported that they knew very little about menopause and treatment options. 13 Finally, another small Turkish study (n ¼ 60) showed that men had positive attitudes toward menopause. 14 Therefore, the awareness and attitudes of menopause shared by men are still largely unknown; yet, male partners may influence how women cope with and manage their menopausal symptoms.
The Men's perception and Attitudes Toward mEnopause (MATE) survey was designed to gauge men's awareness of menopausal symptoms and understanding of menopause and its treatment options, evaluate the impact of menopausal symptoms on men, and determine the influence of men on their partner's menopausal symptom management.

MATE survey
A 35-question online survey was conducted by Therapeu-ticsMD (Boca Raton, FL) in May, 2018. The MATE survey was designed based on our clinical experience and captured basic demographic information and men's perspectives on menopause and related symptoms; impact of menopausal symptoms on men, female partners, and relationships; interactions with partner regarding menopause and related symptoms; and treatment awareness. The survey questions are shown in Table 1. Multiple-choice and open-ended questions were included in the survey. Some multiple-choice questions (excluding demographic questions) allowed respondents to select more than one answer.

Screening criteria and data analysis
Men residing in the United States who were registered with an online global insight exchange marketplace (Cint) were invited to participate in the survey and had to double-opt in via e-mail. Men were eligible to participate if their female partners were between 45 and 64 years old and experienced one or more of the following symptoms: hot flashes, night sweats, sleepless nights/difficulty sleeping, low libido/less desire for sexual contact, mood swings, pain during sex, or vaginal dryness. In addition, men and their female partners were required to either live together full time, or live separately, but reside together regularly two or more times per Have the symptoms your partner is experiencing personally affected you in any way? How have these symptoms personally affected you? a How did your partner's symptoms impact (very positive, positive, neutral, negative, very negative) you personally, your relationship, and your partner? How do you think your partner is dealing with her symptoms (extremely well, very well, fairly well, not too well, not well at all)? To what degree your relationship, family life, and your partner have been affected as a result of her symptoms (scale 1-5, where 1 is less and 5 is more) on the following: romantic/nurturing with me, involved/loving to our kids, likely to be patient vs abrupt, likely to be active/go out, upbeat/ optimistic, forgetful, no mood swings, confidence, concerned about her appearance, make love Knowledge of menopause and menopausal symptoms Which of these reasons account for your partner experiencing these symptoms: feeling emotionally down/depressed, having a specific condition/ problem/disease other than menopause, going through menopause, being pregnant, being overweight, going through some other personal crisis, something else? b If a male friend asked you to describe/explain what menopause is, what would you tell him? a What types of symptoms do you think women typically experience when they go through menopause? a Is your partner currently going through menopause? Has your partner directly told you that she is going through menopause? Have you ever talked about the symptoms your partner is experiencing? Who initiated the conversation: yourself, your partner, someone else in your family, a friend, a medical professional, someone else? What specifically did you discuss in your talks? a (data not shown) Which of the following best describes the tone of the conversation you had: relaxed, engaged, polite, stressful/uptight, somewhat angry, frustrated, uneasy, relieved, fun/upbeat, something else? Aside from talking to your partner, what, if anything, did you personally do regarding your partner's symptoms? a Knowledge of treatment options for menopausal symptoms Are you aware of any treatment options for symptoms related to menopause? List the treatment options you are aware of a Have you brought up any treatment options to your partner? Would you be comfortable bringing up and discussing treatment options with your partner? Is your partner currently using some type of treatment or made/added any type of lifestyle changes to help alleviate the symptoms she is experiencing? Has she reached out to any medical or health/wellness professionals for help with her symptoms? What type of medical or health/wellness professionals has she seen/spoken with (GP/internal medicine, gynecologist or OB/GYN, nurse practitioner/ physician assistant, dietician, other health and wellness professional, some other medical professional, don't know)? Which of the following is your partner using/taking/doing to alleviate her symptoms: hormone/estrogen therapy, medications other than hormone therapy, lubricant, OTC pain medication, healthier diet, consuming more organic/natural foods, exercising more at home/gym/playing sports, holistic activities like yoga or meditation, changing sheets/clothes often, fanning herself/ being near fan or air conditioning, something else? b How influential would you say you were in getting your partner to seek treatment or begin to make lifestyle changes to address her symptoms? GP, general practice; OB/GYN, obstetricians/gynecologists; OTC, over the counter. a Open-ended question. b More than one answer could be selected

MEN'S AWARENESS AND PERCEPTION OF MENOPAUSE
week. Men were excluded from the study if they were never married and not dating, and/or not in a steady relationship with one woman, never married and dating for less than 1 year, or living in separate locations, but staying together only occasionally (once per week or less often). Another specification of the study was that the same number of surveys with female partners aged 45 to 54 and 55 to 64 years had to be included. Participants received a small rewards incentive for completing the survey. Completed surveys were checked, and those with a majority of incomplete or unclear responses were not included in the analysis. Data are reported numerically; no statistical comparisons were performed between subgroups.

Survey population
Invitations for the survey were sent to 1,356 potentially eligible men, and 450 completed the survey (33.2% response rate). The majority of respondents were between 50 and 69 years old (80%), married (not separated) to their partners (90%), and living together (97%; Table 2). Their female partners were either between 45 and 54 years (50%) or 55 and 64 years old (50%). Most couples had been in a relationship for more than 21 years (61%).

Men's awareness of menopause and related symptoms
When men were provided with a list of symptoms their female partners could be experiencing (Fig. 1A), sleepless nights/difficulty sleeping (54%) was the most commonly identified symptom, followed by tiredness/lack of energy (49%), low libido/less desire for sexual contact (48%), mood swings (47%), and hot flashes (46%). Men attributed their partner's symptoms to menopause (26%; including the change/hormonal changes), getting older (22%), and other medical (11%) and work-related issues (7%; stress/long hours); 24% of men did not know or did not answer the question. When prompted to specifically choose from a list of potential reasons, 55% of men believed menopause accounted for their partner's symptoms. Other common reasons were feeling emotionally down/depressed (40%), being overweight (34%), and other health issues (28%). When asked how they would describe menopause to other men, the most common response described the irrational or emotional mood of their partners (22%). Men also used the terms hormonal change (21%) or physical/biological/chemical changes (10%), or noted the inability to bear children (13%), lack of menstrual cycles (12%), and change in sex drive (7%). When asked what types of symptoms women typically experience when going through menopause (Fig. 1B), the most common symptoms cited were hot flashes/sweating (55%) and mood swings (44%), followed by low libido (18%), irritability (14%), and depression/sadness (13%), weight gain/bloating (10%), night sweats (10%), low energy (8%), and trouble sleeping (7%).

Impact of menopausal symptoms on men, partners, and relationship
Menopausal symptoms impacted men, with 63% (284/450) of survey respondents reporting that their partner's symptoms had personally affected them. Specifically, men affected by menopausal symptoms noted that the symptoms put an emotional strain on their relationships (34%; arguments, unappreciated, tension, etc), reduced the frequency of sex/intimacy (33%), and contributed to trouble sleeping (10%). Some men (11%) noted that it was upsetting or frustrating to see their partners going through this transition. Most men affected by menopausal symptoms believed the symptoms had a very or somewhat negative impact on them (77%), their relationships (56%), or their partners (70%). Approximately 10% of men thought the symptoms had a positive influence on them, their relationships, and partners.
The majority of respondents believed that menopausal symptoms had a great or negative impact on their partners (Table 3), including an impact on love making (65%), mood

MEN'S AWARENESS AND PERCEPTION OF MENOPAUSE
swings (63%), being romantic (58%), patience (58%), and activity level (54%). Most men (74%) thought that their partners were coping fairly to very well with their symptoms, and 22% responded that their partners were not coping too well; only 4% responded ''not well at all.'' Interactions with partner regarding menopause and related symptoms Nearly half of men surveyed (48%) thought that their partners were going through menopause, with 84% indicating their partners had told them this directly. The remainder either indicated that their partners were not going through menopause (31%) or that they were unsure (22%). Most men (72%) had talked with their partners about the symptoms they were experiencing; and of those who had discussed their symptoms, 72% of the men's partners had initiated the conversation. Tones of the conversations were mostly relaxed (49%), engaged (40%), and polite (32%), but some were also stressful/uptight (19%), frustrated (21%), and uneasy (15%); 20% were relieved (data not all shown).
Of 357 men who answered whether they had taken additional actions in response to their partners' symptoms, 31% reported trying to be more patient/supportive/compassionate toward their partners, 11% listed avoidance actions like giving their partners space or staying out of their way, 10% performed online research regarding menopause and treatment options, 8% asked how they could help their partners to make them feel better, and 8% recommended that their partners seek medical attention.

Men's awareness of treatment options for menopause
Less than half of men surveyed (46%) were aware that there are treatment options for menopausal symptoms. The men cited options (Fig. 2) that included hormones/hormone therapy (35%), medications/pills (31%), herbal/natural supplements/remedies (5%), and dietary supplements/vitamins (5%). Of those aware of treatment, 41% said they had suggested these treatment options to their partners. In general, 65% indicated they would feel comfortable discussing treatment options with their partners, whereas 18% did not think they would be comfortable, and 16% were unsure.
Less than a third of men (28%; n ¼ 126) reported that their partners were currently using some type of treatment or had made and/or added lifestyle changes to help alleviate the symptoms. Among those women who sought treatment, men reported that the majority (86%) had consulted with medical or health/wellness professionals (gynecologists/obstetrics- PARISH ET AL dieticians [8%]) for help with their symptoms. In addition to seeking medical attention, men noted that their partners changed to a healthier diet (46%), began an exercise regimen (39%), and used hormone/estrogen therapy (37%) to alleviate their symptoms (Fig. 3). Most men (75%) believed they were somewhat or very influential in getting their partners to seek treatment or begin lifestyle changes to address menopausal symptoms; only 6% thought they had no influence at all.

DISCUSSION
In this study, we have characterized men's knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions of menopause. Our findings demonstrate that men were aware of their partners' symptoms, but did not consistently relate the symptoms to menopause. Just over half of men knew that treatments were available for menopausal symptoms, but their knowledge of specific treatment options was limited. Men realized the significant impact of menopausal symptoms on themselves, their partners, and their relationships, and understood their influence on their partners' menopausal symptom management. This is one of the first large surveys exclusively interviewing women's male partners with regard to their understanding of menopause. [12][13][14][15][16] This may represent a unique opportunity to provide important health information about menopause to men, so that they can better support their partners in the management of their menopausal symptoms. Educational interventions would further benefit men's awareness of menopause and available treatment options as suggested by other authors. 12,13,15 In a recent study reported by Yoshany et al, 15 men's knowledge of menopausal health (and also their female partners' marital satisfaction scores) significantly increased among those who participated in an educational program compared with men who did not participate in the program (P < 0.001). This further underscores the value of educational training for men to offer the best support to their partners during this transition period.
Overall, our survey findings corroborate previous reports that surveyed men about their perceptions regarding menopause and its associated symptoms. For instance, in the CLOSER survey, 39% of men reported a worse-thanexpected impact of menopause on their intimate relationships. 12 The overall low uptake or use of certain therapies reported in the MATE survey may be due to lack of awareness of all available therapies as suggested by the responses of North American women in the CLOSER survey. 12 Another survey confirmed that men were not generally aware of treatment modalities for menopause and believed such therapies were related to conceiving children and sustaining the

MEN'S AWARENESS AND PERCEPTION OF MENOPAUSE
woman's menstrual cycle. 13 Unlike other studies, the current analysis did not focus on any particular menopausal symptom, for example, hot flashes or vaginal discomfort, 12 but rather assessed the impact of menopausal symptoms in totality on men and their partners, which may provide a more realistic perspective from men who may have had no prior experience with menopause before taking the survey. As with other online surveys, this descriptive analysis was limited by aspects of the study design and administration. MATE survey recruitment was restricted to registered Cint members and thus was limited to men who had internet access. In addition, the MATE survey was designed to assess men's perceptions about their partners' menopause transition; female partners were not interviewed, thus, men's responses regarding their partners could not be confirmed or validated. Furthermore, men's biases toward treatment options (eg, alternative therapies, medications/hormones, exercise attitudes, behaviors) were unknown and may have affected their perceptions and suggestions made to their partners. Because limited demographic information was collected (eg, race, ethnicity, occupation data not collected) from the participants, these data may not be generalizable to all populations. Also, study participants received a small rewards incentive for completing the survey, which may have had an impact on how they answered the questions. Finally, there is a potential for recall bias due to the selfreported nature of the questionnaire. While a response rate of 33% appears low, the rate is similar or higher than other published online surveys, which have response rates ranging between 14% and 58%. 7,17,18 Despite these limitations, this analysis is noted for its larger sample size compared with previous reports [12][13][14][15][16] and for its ability to capture men's perceptions in key areas in which information was lacking: awareness and management of symptoms, understanding of menopause, impact of menopausal symptoms, and treatment awareness, and influence on menopausal symptom management.

CONCLUSIONS
Men are cognizant of changes experienced by women during their menopause transition; however, additional training and/or resources for men (eg, brochures, websites, materials at doctors' offices) could greatly benefit both menopausal women and their male partners in coping with menopause. Male partners may offer a unique opportunity to further disseminate information regarding menopause and treatment options for bothersome symptoms and improve midlife women's health and well-being.


s2fieldsofstudy: Art Psychology

text:
SOPHOCLES' OEDIPUS AND CONFLICTS OF IDENTITY IN POST-COLONlAL CONTEXTS

Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is an investigation of past events and identities that are apparently unknown but are partly suspected and partly suppressed. The past history of Oedipus is something that is also present; it has to be confronted. Ironically, the impact ofFreud's psychoanalytic theory on modern conceptionsof Oedipus has sometimes been used to claim that it is not easy to rewrite or adapt Sophocles' play in the context of modern politica! debates.I. Yet the performance history of the play attests to its potential for radical politica! and social critique.2 Adaptations of Sophocles' play in the last fifty years have built on its potential to say the unsayable and have explored culturally and politically dangerous or contmversial materiaL Important examples include Ola Rotimi's The Gods are not to Blame (1968) in which the play became an analogue for the internal conflicts in Africa, especially the Biafran war. More recently, Rita Dove's The DarkerFace of the Earth (published 1994, frrst performed at the Oregon Festival in 1996 and subsequently at the Royal National theatre in London) set the story in an ante-bellum cotton plantation in the southern states of the USA and explored the institution of slavery as the souree of poll u ti on. Incest was replaced as a focus by miscegenation.3 In film, the Columbian production Edipo Alcalde (Mayor Oedipus, with screen-play by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabtiel Marquez, relocated the story in present-day war-torn Columbia with the country's civil strife corresponding to the Theban plague. Thus the performance history of the play defies cultural stereotyping and exemplifies rewriting in the context of the moment.

SOPHOCLES' OEDIPUS AND CONFLICTS OF IDENTITY IN POST-COLONlAL CONTEXTS Lorna HARDWICK
Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is an investigation of past events and identities that are apparently unknown but are partly suspected and partly suppressed. The past history of Oedipus is something that is also present; it has to be confronted. Ironically, the impact ofFreud's psychoanalytic theory on modern conceptionsof Oedipus has sometimes been used to claim that it is not easy to rewrite or adapt Sophocles' play in the context of modern politica! debates.I. Yet the performance history of the play attests to its potential for radical politica! and social critique.2 Adaptations of Sophocles' play in the last fifty years have built on its potential to say the unsayable and have explored culturally and politically dangerous or contmversial materiaL Important examples include Ola Rotimi's The Gods are not to Blame (1968) in which the play became an analogue for the internal conflicts in Africa, especially the Biafran war. More recently, Rita Dove's The DarkerFace of the Earth (published 1994, frrst performed at the Oregon Festival in 1996 and subsequently at the Royal National theatre in London) set the story in an ante-bellum cotton plantation in the southern states of the USA and explored the institution of slavery as the souree of poll u ti on. Incest was replaced as a focus by miscegenation.3 In film, the Columbian production Edipo Alcalde (Mayor Oedipus, with screen-play by the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Gabtiel Marquez, relocated the story in present-day war-torn Columbia with the country's civil strife corresponding to the Theban plague. Thus the performance history of the play defies cultural stereotyping and exemplifies rewriting in the context of the moment.
The play has proved no less fertile as a field for debate by theorists and critics. Charles Segal has pointed to the ways in which Sophocles' play has come to be regarded virtually as a souree for the Oedipus myth as well as a version of it.4 Levi-Strauss has analysed the myth in terms of its mediation of opposites, Vernant has grounded it historically as a treatment of politica! excess and tyranny. Girard has focused on the myth's exploration ofviolence and its controL There have also been discussions that use the myth itself to critique or extend Freudian theory. Lacan has related the Freudian notion of the unconscious to the discourse of the Other which is misunderstood or denied by the conscious self. Deleuze and Guattari have offered a critique of 'the imperialism of Oedipus' as an influence on every area of life, including politics and global economie power. s Against this background of performative and theoretica! diversity, I propose to examine the potential of the play for the identification, interrogation and transformation of fissures in national, cultural and moral senses of identity in relation to post-colonial situations. Because each post-colonial history is different I have chosen to focus in some detail on the forma!, linguistic and contextual aspects of one example, the Oedipus written by David Greig and staged by theatre babel in Scotland in 2000, directed by Graham McLaren. The theme of this conference in Gent invites us to read Oedipus as a way into discussion of cultural differential thinking. This theme suggests reflection on differential thinking within cultures as well as between them. It opens the way to questioning monolithic notions of culture and to the identification of points of stress and starting points for realignment. An understanding of this kind of cultural differentiation, of sensitivity to uncertainties and dilemmas and to the masking of the past in the present may perhaps lead to communication across cultural groupings as well as within them.
My framework for this paper is therefore four-fold: 1) Sophocles' play, with its outsider/foreigner who is not and its mystery of self-discovery is a rich field for exploring modern crises of identity and self-recognition-politica! and cultural as wellas psychologicaL 2) Modern staging of Greek drama is a significant means of exploring postcolonial situations. Greek drama is both tainted and empowering through its place in colonial education and yet paradoxically is liberated from that context through its exploitation by post-colonial writers. Recent research on post-colonial writing and classica! material has ·challenged facile identification of Greek culture with the value systems of its appropriators, Western or otherwise, and has drawn out the distinctions between Greek humanism and colonial cultures.6 3) Colonisation and Decolonisation have many phases. 'Decolonisation of the mind' , to borrow the term used by Ngugi wa Thiong' o, may begin while physical colonisation is still in place. 7 Equally, the process may be hard and long-drawn out, continuing long after liberation. Decolonisation of the mind is important among both the colonisers and the colonised and also those who occupy the space between. 4) When comparing souree text and adaptation, the forma! conven ti ons are as important as the myth and the director-led aspects of staging. It is the interaction of the form, language and context of performance that gives tragedy its capacity .for radical critique.
Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus is a prime· example ·of a text of central cultural dominanee (it underlays the Aristotelian paradigm for Greek tragedy) which nevertheless becomes the vehicle for eliallenging dominance. In translated and adapted form it has become a roetaphor for the fraught discovery and exposure of enslavers and colonisers. Here, I want . to focus on a less obvious aspect of the play's capacity as an agent for the decolonisation of the mind and to suggest that among the certainties challenged by Oedipus are those of unexainined politica! and cultural origins and of easy distinction between colcmisers and colonised. The play was a central text for the showcase in Glasgow, Scotland, in the year 2000, when three leading Scottish playwrights were commissioned (supported by a grant from the National Lottery) to adapt Greek tragedies as a mark of the flourishing of theatre arts in the years before and following Scottish devolution.
Devolution of mostaspectsof self-government in Scotland came about after the referendum of 1997 and the elections of 1999 as aresult of which the Scottish Parliament was reconvened after a gap of almost 300 years. The previous Parliament in the Scottish capita!, Edinburgh, had been subsumed in the Westminster ParHament in London after the Treaty of Uni on in 1707 (The Uni on of the· Crowns had taken place a century earlier when James VI of Scotland became J ames 1 of England after the death of Queen Elizabeth 1).
Devolution and the reconvening of the ParHament were marked by celebrations of Scottish culture and identity and a re-examination of socio-politica! assumptions. The three classica! plays chosen for the festival and gathered together under the title Greeks were Sophocles' Electra ( adapted by Tom McGrath), Euripides' Medea (Liz Lochhead) and Sophocles' Oedipus the King (David Greig). The Glasgow-based company theatre babel performed all three over a week in the Old Fruitmarket, a converted warehouse in the centre of the Merchant Quarter of Glasgow, Scotland's industrial city and formerly known as the second city of the British Empire. The week culminated in an evening performance when all three plays were performed, beginning with Oedipus. As the director Graham McLaren put it, 'Politically Scotland is changing and with the millennium the world is changing. N ow is the time to be defining what it is to be, not ju st a Scot in Scotland but what it is to be human in the world .. .. Oedipus is as closetoa universa! text as you'll get. It starts off with the simple mystery of who kil-I 1 379 led Laius but finishes up by asking absolute questions about what it is to be human'.8 However, between the mystery of the of the killer and the questions about the nature of the human, David Greig's adaptation explored ambivalences about identity which were both hlstorical and contemporary. At the time of Devolution there was a sense that Scotland was emerging from domination by the English. Yet it was also the case that Scots played an important, even dominant role in the govemment of Great Britain, in industry, education, medicine, arts and sport. Great Britain represented a Union .between Scotland, England and Wales (which also won some measure of devolution at this time). Could Scots be British as well as Scots? What had been the role of Scots historically in the centuries between the Treaty of Union and the present day, centuries in which the British Empire had developed and then retreated from a position of commercial, military and politica! dominanee in several continentsof the world? How did the cultural politics of Scotland deal with this ambivalent status?
Certainly, the role of Scots in the growth of the British Empire had been extensive and the articulation of various aspects of Scottish identity in the 18th and 19th centuries had been closely interwoven with El mpire. The recent study by Tom Devine (Scotland's Empire 1600 -1815) examines the advantages in direct trade with the colonies that foliowed the Treaty of Union -'the tobacco trade transformed the social and cultural world of Glasgow .. . with capita! provided by British merchants, planters in Alnerica could purebase slaves and indentured Iabour' .9 Furthermore, the claim that Glasgow, unlike Bristol and Liverpool, played little part in the slavetrade has been refuted. Not only has the Scottish role in trafficking slaves from Africa to the Caribbean been underestimated but it has been shown that Scotland was heavily involved in the development of a colonial economy which 'could not have functioned without an entrenched and expanding system of slave Iabour' .10 Scottish regiments were (with Irish) at the military heart of British imperia! expansion in India and even before the expansion of Empire Scots were major bolders of East India Company stock. 11 Warren Hastings, Govemor-General of India 1774-1785, was known as Scotland's Benefactor, promoting Scots in the civil andcmilitary services and placing them at the centre of power. ·Later on, in the 19th and 20th centuries, the con tribution of Scots to the military extension of Empire and its policing and administration were also extensive. Yet this picture also has to be balanced by the position of poor Scots whose displacement and extensive enforced migration, including eviction of the Gaels or Gaelic speakers from their crofts and small landholdings during the Highland clearances, left them in a more oppressed position than even the indentured labourers who had preeerled them overseas. Devine argues that the new Scotland that emerged from the later 18th century was largely grounded in the imperia! project -'The Scots were not only full partners in this grand design but were at the very cutting edge of British global expansion' .12. Devine's other major recent study of Scotland, The Scottish Nation 1700 -2000, makes a corresponding point by showing how the Scottish sense of national identity was shaped by Empire.l3 Thus the differences and social conflicts in the Scottish imperia! experience became potential faultlines in the Scottish sense of identity. David Greig's adaptation of Oedipus explored the issues of politica! identity and the holding and transfer of power in a way which got to the heart of the ambivalence in the identity of Scots as both colonisers and colonised. His treatment drew on ways in which the psychological and politica! dimensions of incestuous relationships reflect a similar ambivalence and mirror the language of motherbood and sexual intercourse that has become a roetaphor for colonial relationships.l4. The production explored these issues through the coherence of its setting, design and language and through the ways in which it reworked Greek dramatic conventions.
It is frequently the case that in adaptations of Greek drama modern resonances are signalied to the audience by directoria! fiat -by choice of setting and design or by changes made to the acting script. Now, I do not at all subscribe to the view put forward by some classicists that such input is improper. Theatrical productions are artistic events in their own right and in any case the Greek plays were written in order to be performed not just to be analysed by philologists. However, I do share the view, put forward most recently by Rush Rehm in Radical Theatre: Greek Tragedy and the Modern World, that it is in the ancient · play-text, its story, language and form, including its theatrical conven ti ons, that the energy for its adaptation to modern politica! and artistic concerns is to be found. Thus according to Rehm, 'Greek tragedy reminds us that humans live reallives (the only ones we have) and die real deaths (no matter how hard we try to deny it). Those hard truths provide the inspiration for tragic performance, and suggest simply and directly why this ancient form of theatre might be particularly timely now' .Is I therefore propose to examine Greig's Oedipus with reference to his treatment of the conventions of Greek tragedy as well as with reference to the set and design. The play was short, as Oedipus goes, with a running time of approxima------------381 tely one hourand twenty minutes. I shall frrst discuss the setting and then consider how this setting was integrated with the language and formal conventions of the play.
The costume and setting suggested the India of the British Raj. The same basic set was used as for the other plays in the sequence. There was a mid-blue backcloth which the lighting design tinged with pink at the lower level. Incorporated with this was a plain entrance which had the appearance of an upright stele. For Oedipus, a dead tree was added towards the rear of the acting space. In the centre was a ritual circle used for taking auspices and, at the end, for enacting the verbal image of ashes with glowing embers and smoke. The driedup tree signalied aridity and drought as a man erawied in search of the last dregs of water in the dried-up river in a silent and stunning opening sequence to the play.
Costume also explored class gradations in the Indian setting. Oedipus and Creon wore white high buttoned coats and trousers. Tiresias was dressed like an Indian holy man, the Chorus as simple people (rather than the Elders of Sophocles' play). The Indian context and associated religious ritual distaueed the struggle for politica! change from the modern time and place of the performance yet there was contemporary impact in the theme of transfer of power and the exposure of corruption and the causes of disease. The combination of costume and set design suggested that the sun was setting over a colonised city -an ironie allusion, perhaps, to the British Empire over which, it used to be said, the sun never set. The language and acting styles ensured that there was never a simplistic or closed definition of who or where was colonised. Both usurper and liberator spoke English with Scots' accents and i di om and the identification of Creon and Oedipus with the roles of usurper and liberator fluctuated throughout the play. The setting and focus reminded anyone who was tempted to forget that Scots, too, were leaders in the expansion and organisation of the British Empire and the play resisted equation with the notion that post-devolution Scotland was simply emerging from colonial rule. Yet both colonial histories, of the Raj, of devolution, were there, in the context of the associated crises of identity.
The tone and focus of the play was set by Greig's adaptation of the Greek theatre conventions, especially Chorus, Agon (including the stichomythia of the sharp exchanges) and Messenger speech. The Sophoclean prologue was replaced by the immediate intervention of the Chorus. As they sat under a dead tree one man among them erawied towards the palace. The Chorus (of seven, both genders, dressed in white, barefoot) asked god to give them the power to see such pain and yet feel no pity, a feeling fatal to humans: He wants water. There's none. Re's licking at the dust... He' s sniffing at the ground, he thinks he can smell a river ... A cruel river trick that: to leave its smell bebind ... Give him a kick. See if he moves (When the man slumps) I think we should say a prayer ... We beg you god. Kill the pity in us. Make us like you. Give us the power of your bate. The power of god to see pain and feel nothing. Hear our prayer. Plunge our hearts into divine frre. Cauterize our souls against this fatal human feeling -pity. Re's dead now.I6 This Chorus introduces the twin themes of drought and the ironies of pity that permeate the play, combining the effect of the priest and the parodos in Sophocles but also communicating an intensified communal desperation. The cause of their despair is not immediately explained, in contrast to the very specific and conallusions in Liz Lochhead's version of the parodos in Thebans, 2002, whtch refers to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease that devastated British in 2001 to the SARS virus that was at the time causing panic in western Citles.l 7 In Gretg's play the stress on drought and the absence of the Ionged-for river resonates with images of water in post-colonial critica! discourse example, Ngugi wa Thiong' o has written in his hook Decolonisation of Mmd of the way in which rivers can becomes bridges rather than barriersls. The riverin setting is dried up, a souree only of thirst and plague and a symbol of suffenng rather than communication. Later in the play, the Chorus, in its role both people and commentator, also elaborates on the language assoctated With the plague that is ravaging Thebes: This plague's tearing out the heart of everything. It's cut open scars And picked at scabs. Leave it alone.19 Greig alludes to the scars that have become images of the wounds of in the writing of post-colonial writers such as Derek Walcott. I think of Philoctetes' scar in Omeros, caused not by a snake-bite as in Homer but by a rusty anchor left bebind by an imperial navy. In Walcott's work more generally, and in Seamus Heaney's version of Philoctetes, A Cure at Troy (1990), the scars of colonial histories are seen as wounds of affliction and oppression which may be reopened by poetry but which nevertheless have then to be allowed to heal if new futures are to be created. zo Finally, the closing Chorus looks at what Oedipus stood for and tely destroyed him. These are the material achievements and effects of tmpenalism, many associated with Scots: Look at him. This is Oedipus. Dam builder. Road maker. Visionary. He has been consumed by the frre of his own life ... Look at him closely. What do you see. Nothing beyond. Only Ashes. And the memory of the fire.2 1 Greig also exploited the Greek convention of the agon, the verbal contest between two leading characters. It is through the agon that Sophocles presents the successive ebaHenges to Oedipus' assumed identity as _rul er and protector of the people. In Greig's play the exchanges wtth Ttrestas follow the Sophoclean pattem quite closely. Greig uses the with to th: dual aspects of the struggle for power inherent m the between Oedtpus status as a supposed bringer of better times and Creon s mhentance as a memher of a family of kings. The sub-text is that ironically these aspects are Creon could have brought better times by avoiding mistreatment and explmtatt?n of the people (shown in his contemptuous dismissalof t?e of life and their environment, an analogy perhaps with the Scottish clan chtefs destruction of the traditional way of life of their people and their own consequent absorption into the ruling class of Great Britain after the Union) while Oedipus, ostensibly the reforming outsider, is actually the legitimate of power who becomes the destructive insider. In the contest between Oedtpus and Creon, the ambivalence of identity of power-holderand complicit ruling .class, of coloniser and colonised is given a coruscating focus.
The Greek convention of the Messenger Speech uses focalised narrative and refinements of diegetic space to enable the audience to imagine off stage action and to explore its own perspectives as well as those of the stage characters. Sophocles refines this by using the apparent messengers, the herrlsman and the driver, to interact with Oedipus' growing self-awareness. Greig's version takes this further. The driver weaves into the action the Pity motif set out in the opening Chorus with his ironie My pity saved him Nursed him And brought him through time To a cross roads near where three rivers meet . 22 The meeting of three rivers is substituted for Sophocles' motif of the three roads. The servant's account of Joeasta's suïcide-by drowning in the brown-red water, not by hanging as in Sophocles -followed by Oedipus' self-blinding, unites the motifs of water, aridity and blood in Oedipus' history. Finally, Oedipus in a post-Freudian rhesis reflects on pity and 'The facts of my life' Inside my skin is all the agony the world can make I hold it in me My skin protects you. Outside my skin the world is good. 23 Thus the production resisted crude or reductionist contemporary allusion while retaining contemporary impact. Graham McLaren, the director, wrote: 'With this project I wanted to create lasting work that would impact on Scottish culture. I wanted to commission writers that could truly articulate the principal elements of the myths and so create plays that would transform great and ancient classica! works into pieces that would speak not only directly to a Scottish audience but also of universa! modern experience24'.
In addressing the ambivalent identity of Scots as both colonisers and colonised, Greig's version of Oedipus also addressed modern experience -and vice versa. The process of decolonisation of the mind persists long after the end of Empire. In his adaptation of Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus, David Greig created 385 a metaphorical territory on which the concealed past of Scottish colonial experiences could be explored and the basis of community memories questioned. T. Devine, Scotland 's Empire 1600-1815, London, 2003, p 73. Devine, op.cit., p 74. Devine, op.cit., chapter 11. Devine, op.cit., p 360. Devine, The Scottish Nation 1700-2000, London, 1999 See, for example, Seamus Heaney's poem 'Act of Union' in, North, London, 1975, pp 43-4. The title of the poem puns on the incorporation of the North of Ireland within the United Kingdom after the rest of Ireland had gained independence. In the poem Heaney uses the act of impregnation as a roetaphor for the repeated recolonisation of a 'half-independent' Ireland:

NOTES
And I am still imperially Male, leaving you with the pain The rending process in the colony . . . No treaty I forsee will salve completely your tracked And stretch marked body, the big pain That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again. ' for death is everywhere death blights our crops they blacken in our fields death bas ravaged our herds and flocks the buming pyres of their biebbed and blistered remains send up a pall that chokes us our babies abort themselves unbom we elders anaesthetise ourselves with alchohol we young folk pervertour lives with poisons ... new diseases daily invent themselves the spares of mutating pestilence in each polluted gasp of air we breathe.


A Cross-disciplinary Approach to BIM-based Façade Design for Wind Performance

Abstract This paper examines a cross-disciplinary approach to a high-rise façade design proposal for Hong Kong where the initial architectural design concept provides a negotiable boundary for an architectural engineering design process. A crucial aspect of this process is the consideration of high wind loads on the façade, as they frequently occur in Hong Kong due to regularly occurring typhoons. Design for wind performance is typically outside of the expertise of architectural designers and thus requires close collaboration between architects and structural engineers. Conventionally trained structural engineers may however not be accustomed to work with unusual building form or to consider architectural design ideas as part of engineering proposals. In the context of this paper, building information modeling (BIM) is used to facilitate cross-disciplinary dialogue as well as interdisciplinary workflows during the early design stages.

Architecture across Boundaries
Bissoonauth at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University [2]. The architectural design aim for the facade is to extend limited living space in high density residential architecture of Hong Kong and to create higher quality high rise living. To this end, the architectural designer proposes an extension of Hong Kong's urban coastline of the Kennedy Town area on Hong Kong Island, into the waters of Victoria Harbour. In the high density residential high rises of Hong Kong, inhabitants tend to make up for the lack of natural urban green by placing potted plants on the exterior of buildings, typically on top of the ubiquitous air conditioners or on the dryer racks located on the façades of the buildings, creating diverse safety issues [3] Taking a cue from these observations, the design concept integrates green space and semi-external space for residents in a "deep" façade system. While extending quality living space in this manner, the façade proposal also needs to deal with Hong Kong's polluted environment and subtropical climate. According to data collected by the Hong Kong Observatory from 1961 to 2009, Hong Kong is affected by around 4∼6 typhoons every year [4]. At the same time, the site location of the project on reclaimed land, extending out into the sea, leads to a particularly low orography factor. Despite the high wind speeds typically encountered in this building type and location, natural ventilation for Hong Kong's residential spaces is a major factor in reducing the energy consumed as well as pollution and heat generated by conventional air conditioning units. These key issues posit the challenge of the façade design between resisting wind pressure on the façade for safety on one hand, and creating a livable and naturally ventilated semi-external space on the other hand.
While the architectural proposal created a coherent and well received vision of high-rise, high-density living, available time as well as available engineering skills initially did not permit a rigorous and detailed development of the façade system. This became possible when the initial architectural design project was followed through to a second design stage as part of the Final Year Project of the first author in the Bachelor of Architectural Engineering programme [5]. During this second stage, the author collaborated with the architectural designer to develop a revised façade system satisfying both architectural design aims as well as structural engineering requirements.
To address the engineering challenge in this project, the façade design employs BIM as a platform for exchange between architect and engineer during the conceptual design stage [6]. An architectural conceptual 3D model in Rhinoceros3D is used as exchange platform for building information in this project, linking between architectural modelling software and wind performance simulation software. BIM, understood here as a collaborative digitally organized workflow rather than a specific software tool, is rapidly gaining importance in cross-disciplinary design processes. BIM provides the DOI 10.18502/kss.v3i27.5554 Page 523 Architecture across Boundaries possibility to link architectural design intentions as expressed in form with performance testing early on and offers a flexible platform for cross-disciplinary design processes but is not widely embraced in this function in the local Chinese construction industry [7].

Façade boundary setting
The architectural conceptual 3D model (Figure 1, left) in this project was exchanged between architect and engineer in the form of a Rhino3D object which defined the shape of the slabs for each floor. The external shape is loosely defined by the floor edges which form an envelope around the building. In order to implement an initial wind pressure analysis of the building for design purposes, the 3D model is used to define the inner façade that determines the boundary between indoor and semiexternal space. To maintain flexibility of the architectural layout, parametric modeling is used to define the boundary of the façade system through restructuring the architectural volume's geometric properties, and by generating curves for each floor. From this data, the maximum area between upper and lower floor generates the maximum floor plan area. Closely following the architectural concept, the façade is thus defined as shown in Figure 1, through the rationalised parametric model.

Inner façade wind pressure simulation
In order to improve wind blocking performance of the initially given façade proposal, first priority is given to developing a better understanding of how the building behaves under extreme wind velocities as they will happen in a typhoon. The computational DOI 10.18502/kss.v3i27.5554 Page 524 Architecture across Boundaries fluid dynamics (CFD) method is used in this project as initial wind performance testing tool to give insight into the feasibility of the architectural design. The parameter setting in the CFD software ( Figure 2) is detailed in table 1 below.

Engineering concept for exterior façade design
To support the architectural concept of creating a livable, naturally ventilated zone in a semi-external façade space even on high floors, several strategies were proposed to mitigate excessive and uncomfortable wind speeds ( Figure 4). Wind flow can be blocked and reoriented such that the maximum wind velocity is directed away from the façade through physical façade features following non-linear velocity gradient theory. At the same time, wind is partially able to flow within semi-external façade layers to minimise the Venturi effect.

Architectural concept design (Architect's feedback)
Feedback provided from the architect supported the integrated external façade system ( Figure 5). The key idea to be kept for the external façade is to design it in the form of different layers, with in between spaces of different layers available for plants and semi-external living spaces.

Extending the façade design based on the engineering concept
The external façade aims to integrate both architectural and engineering concept. Based on the architectural concept, the engineer provided different options for façade design proposals as shown in the following, implementing the initial design concept with some modifications for improved wind blocking performance.

Double / single layer façade
The double layer façade option aims to decrease the wind velocity in the semi-external space based on the engineering concept of non-linear velocity gradient theory, such that wind speed conditions in semi external space become more suitable to human occupation.

External façade cross section
The shape of the cross section of the external façade elements influences the wind blocking performance significantly. In this project, the design of the cross section of external façade elements is thus based on the CFD analysis results of monitoring the wind velocity of different shapes' cross sections.

Glass railing location
To further decrease the wind velocity in the semi-external façade, the influence of railing elements is additionally taken into account. Through comparing the different effects of railings located at different heights, wind blocking performance can be further improve.
In this project, railing from the floor level to 1.3m height and railing from 1m above the floor level to 2.5m height ( Figure 6) is tested for wind blocking performance.

Background setting of CFD simulation
Different from the background settings for measuring pressure, the purpose of this simulation is to monitor the wind velocity in the semi-external space. In this case, there are 5 reference points in the semi-external space that are monitored: 1 front, 1 back, 2 corners, and 1 side as Figure 6 (left) shows. As the purpose of the wind blocking façade

Simulation results and analysis
Following the façade design concept, three main facade aspects are tested for their wind blocking performance, based on a typical building floor. Results show that the wind flow behavior can be strategically adjusted by using a multi-layer façade, rectangular façade element cross-sections and strategically placed glass sheets that can serve not only as wind speed reducing elements but can also perform architectural functions such as railings or devices aiding in fire protection. The wind speed simulation shows that best results are obtained for railing placed from the floor level to 1.3m (Figure 9, left) and from 1m above floor to 3.1m height (Figure 9, right). The effects of these strategies are shown in the below comparative diagrams illustrating changes of wind speed in relation to façade geometry. In general, the corners of the buildings can be singled out as key areas facing excessive wind speeds and requiring increased design attention to allow the façade proposal to achieve its performance aims. In the below diagrams, lower wind speeds are desirable, with 5m/s typically assumed as the limit for human comfort [8].
It may be added that in Hong Kong, a subtropical climate zone with extended hot and humid summers, wind speed at the upper end of the normally assumed comfort zone, may not be seen as detrimental.

Discussion
Based on the results of a range of wind simulation analyses, the cross-disciplinary design team could identify promising strategies for façade design improvements.  cross sections, and employing planar railing elements. A selection of these strategies is shown in applied form in Figure 10, which however still requires a translation into an architectural façade proposal. In addition, the strategic location of semi-external spaces in the middle rather than the corner of each floor's façade is found to reduce typically occurring wind speeds to a comfortable level.

Conclusion
Examining a cross-disciplinary approach to the design of a façade for a conceptual high-rise building proposal for Hong Kong, this paper examines key moments in the design process as well as key simulation tools that informed the design process. From an architectural viewpoint, input from CFD modelling software is a key component in addressing the design goals of the façade, and can generate unexpected and interesting design approaches. From a structural engineering viewpoint, the architectural intentions provide a flexible boundary for providing technical design proposals that reach a considerable challenge compared to conventional standardised façade systems.
Based on a range of wind simulation analyses, the design team reached not only façade design improvements but could also summarise more general design strategies for wind that will benefit both sides of the design team in future. The project is ongoing and will require several more design cycles to reach the depth of resolution required from both disciplines, with time and scope of the project context limiting the depth of the project resolution. To its collaborators, the project has led to new understanding of performance-based architectural façade design and demonstrates how applied cross-disciplinary design aided by BIM as a platform for exchange and development can provide a fruitful platform for technical design innovation.


Analyzing the Laws of MIL: a Five-step Scientific Conversation on Critical Information Literacy

This essay mixes epistemological considerations on truth and science, a critical information literacy exercise on the 5 Laws of MIL (Media and Information Literacy), LIS theory and international experience reports. It is constructed in five parts, in line with the 5 Laws of Media and Information Literacy (Grizzle & Singh, 2016) and Ranganathan’s laws (1931). First, a critique of the Laws of MIL is presented; then a specific social context puts the first part into perspective; the feedback from the international community on the first two is followed by new research on library/MIL laws; and finally, matters of space, readers, staff and mutation are addressed in order to open the theme to other interlocutors and experiences that enrich the conversation. It concludes that the scientific method is neither perfectly objective nor completely useless: it has to be understood as a social construction. Furthermore, to put information neutrality utopia definitely behind us, we should expose our biases, rather than pretend to erase them, as a way to build a new trust in science.

Introduction
What is science? The unveiling of the truth? The proof of the laws of nature? Or something biased by politics, corrupted by pride, and ruined by financial interests? Most certainties and criticisms from both modern and postmodern traditions are challenged by recent post-truth phenomena and their consequences in our societies. In the spirit of a conscious critique from within, as Butler (2010) says in the epigraph, I propose that the scientific method is neither perfectly objective nor completely useless: it has to be understood as a construction, made by people, for people, with people's qualities and weaknesses, possibilities and goals.
Our feelings (which for a long time were seen as unimportant or even harmful) are now considered more important than facts and are taking the center of all decisions. But how are they formed? Is there a "pure" emotion, an inner opinion, or are feelings-as everything else-created within our context: that is, our cultural, social, political, economical, physical, historical, geographical (the list is endless), and personal experiences?
This paper intends to look at science (in general and to Library and Information Science-LIS-specifically) as a systematic approach to knowledge, socially constructed in a conversation or, as Grizzle and Singh (2016, p. 25-26) say, Ranganathan's ideal of "meeting of minds." It is constructed in five parts, in line with the Laws of Media and Information Literacy (Grizzle & Singh, 2016), based on Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science. The first movement was the abstract submitted to the 2018 Global MIL Week. The Five Laws of MIL discourse were analyzed from a critical point of view, to understand how it could be even more inclusive. The second movement emerged from the preparation for the conference presentation. Influenced by our context, Brazilian controversial elections, the presentation was prepared with a new perspective. The session called "Theorizing MIL Cities with a people focus: reflections on the Five Laws of MIL" is the third moment, based on the rich dialogue between a research and its audience. The fourth part explains the Doyle Analyzing the Laws of MIL [ PERSPECTIVES ] 116 COMMUNICATIONS IN INFORMATION LITERACY | VOL. 13, NO. 1, 2019 origins of the Five Laws of MIL, then dives into Ranganathan's Laws, and finally, the fifth section presents some challenges and possibilities for continuous work towards MIL. Media and Information Literacy is the most important set of competencies for every person in every country to understand their current world and prepare for a better future. This major theme has been relentlessly approached by UNESCO, which produced a set of fundamental documents to guide people and nations towards MIL's adoption and dissemination.
[ PERSPECTIVES ] Doyle Analyzing the Laws of MIL One of my favorite instruments is the graphic version of the Five Laws of MIL. It has many qualities: it is concise, visually attractive, and perfect to reach people from all horizons. However, some of its implicit thoughts can be misleading. In this sense, this investigation is a critical exercise of the Five Laws of MIL.
Each law will be analyzed for its wording, meanings, the confusions it may convey, and finally the overall document, through French discourse analysis.
The main points for consideration are gender binary language, social construction of information, information neutrality, and people's desires for information, as well as information ethics and critique.
Enlightened by Butler (2010), let's pay attention to gender binary language. Despite the idea of gender equality and all the important actions towards Goal 5 of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals-to guarantee girls and women the same rights as men-we should not forget that many people do not feel represented by the binary definition. They do not fit themselves in a male or female categorization, and the his/her language-intended to be more inclusive-could actually be oppressive. Especially in English, little changes can make significant difference, like employing generic words such as people or human beings and pronouns like they/theirs.
Although Law 3 states that information is socially constructed by people immersed in a certain culture and therefore subject to its influence, it also points out that "information, knowledge and messages are not always valued neutral or always independent of bias." If we are to overcome the false promise of objectivity brought by modern science while avoiding postmodern scepticism, it is necessary to put "information neutrality" behind and embrace the need to understand a wide range of specific conditions around any piece of information in order to perceive it a little better.
Information neutrality is just as utopic as the possibility of being completely Media and Information Literate. As with Law 3, I fully agree with Law 5, which states that MIL is a lifelong dynamic process. The problem is seeing literacy as a finite objective. Braman (2006) analyzes a "global emergent information policy regime" where technology, laws, state frontiers, and financial interests are all elements factored in understanding information production and dissemination. The belief that one can fully achieve information literacythat is, know everything around information-seems impossible. Whereas if we understand MIL as a state of constant alertness, we can relinquish the finish line and enjoy the ride.
MIL, understood as a basic human right that must be ensured and defended, is a great idea. But the principles found in Law 4, on what people supposedly want, are not convincing. It is tricky to speak about one's wishes and desires. Instead, we should make sure these rights are widely communicated and reinforced.
In addition to criticism about the wording found in some laws, there is the matter of the absence of the fundamental idea of ethics, especially as it was recently included in the definition of information literacy in key documents such as ACRL (2015) and CILIP (2018).
The conference paper aimed to be a constructive contribution to UNESCO's efforts, as part of a global team united to advocate for MIL's dissemination around the world and for the empowerment of all people.

Second movement: Every scientist his/her/their context
As context is key to understand information, the first turn of general elections took place in Brazil during the preparation for the Global MIL Week presentation. Since 2016, the country's constitution and institutions have been jeopardized by a corrupt government, in a public battle between corrupted institutions as Congress, the judiciary and media, supposedly to stop corruption. This is our "democracy." When the campaign started, Workers' Party candidate and former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (popularly called Lula) was arrested on charges of corruption. A legal battle for his candidacy started and ended 20 days before the first round, when Fernando Haddad, former Minister of Education and former mayor of São Paulo, became the official presidential candidate.
During the first part of the campaign, the far right grew in polls, and fake news was widespread, as seems to be standard nowadays. But the election of so many far-right governors and members of congress could not be foreseen. Even if centrists or moderate left and right politicians could overcome differences to fight extremism in the second round, the states and Congress bodies had already been turned.
While considering if the word "always" in Law 3 is a disservice to MIL's dissemination, the whole critical exercise seemed pointless. All I thought about were dystopias like 1984 (Orwell, 1949), The Handmaid's Tale (Atwood, 1985), or the fact that Iranian women wore bikinis in the 1970s and now they wear burkas.

Doyle Analyzing the Laws of MIL
The conclusion is that the very idea of "critical theory" (Horkheimer, 1937) is at stake here. Science is not neutral; it should aim to improve people's lives. If there was only one use or goal for Media and Information Literacy, it should be to prevent a man who diminishes women, praises torture, incites gun violence, and discriminates against many groups of people from becoming president of Latin America's biggest country. But we failed.

Third movement: Every presentation its audience
Session 3b was entitled "Theorizing MIL cities with a people focus: Reflections on the Five Laws of MIL." The auditorium was full and both authors of the document I was about to critique were present. The other presenters discussed a MIL curriculum for young citizens of a smart city and the idea of an infrastructure literacy (USA); formal, informal, and nonformal education (Brazil); the digital divide between developed and developing world (Egypt); and the Five Laws of MIL as a way to theorize therapy and treat children in tsunami-stricken areas (Japan). From the diversity of the themes, we can notice that the laws of MIL are being developed as a basis for very different theories worldwide.
It is a special moment when researchers are able to get feedback from people who are, at the same time, acquainted with (or interested in) the subject but not as intimate with certain perspectives. The first comment was about how important it is, in a major international conference, to have a moment to discuss MIL theory. Encouraging criticism and a theoretical dialogue was praised more than once. As a concept that demands lifelong (during the entire life) and lifewide (throughout every aspect of life) training and practice, it is, in fact, crucial to keep reflecting on MIL as context changes and brings new challenges.
Someone questioned the term "law," as it seemed rigid and outdated. Someone else pointed out that Ranganathan meant to say mantra in the original text. The authors explained that the term law is a statement of the importance of MIL and a metaphor in the sense of Ranganathan's laws: not as a legal rule to be followed, but more as an observation of the general way MIL should work.
Finally, a librarian pointed out that the term citizenship can be even more excluding than binary language. In the face of increasing migration waves (motivated by religious or political persecution or to escape misery), citizenship is not available for all. The mediator clarified that when UNESCO says citizenship it refers to global citizens of the world, not a specific nation, thus being as inclusive as it gets. Some political considerations were raised, and although the general discussions were very serious, the session ended with a hopeful tone.

Fourth movement: Save the time of the researcher
It is fascinating to hear about another scientist's thought process and path to conclusions. If scholarship is a conversation (ACRL, 2015), we do not always enter it right at the beginning or understand every reference. Another great advantage of meeting colleagues in person is the possibility to learn about the surrounding context of a research and its controversies.
It was really helpful (and time-saving) to retrace the origins of the authors' thoughts. The idea behind the Five Laws of MIL (Grizzle & Singh, 2016) is to extrapolate Ranganathan's vision about the social construction of knowledge in a Saramago style: imagining what Ranganathan would think/write if he lived today, when information can flow through the internet, media, and telecommunications instantly around the world.
Back to the original source, "The Five Laws of Library Science" (Ranganathan, 1931) I found a delightful reading. A serious yet simple text, mixing examples of prejudice and inequality with practical tips to diminish them. From general assertions to technical specificities, the author strolls through a universal library and solves different kinds of problems, making us imagine how wonderful it would be if all barriers to knowledge were lifted.
The Laws are elementary statements that few people openly contest, and even fewer put into practice: 1. Books are for use: not for preservation, not for exhibition, not for completing a collection. They ought to be out of the shelf, borrowed, in someone's hand or bag: books are to be read. Human dialogue is fostered when recorded knowledge can be accessed and used to inform new ideas. Aspects such as open access, library location, opening hours, spatial arrangements, shelf organization, and especially staff selection have to be thought with this "mantra" (Ranganathan, 1931, p. 20) in mind.
2. Every reader his/her book: means education is for every person, regardless of sex, gender, age, social class, and every other distinction imaginable. He gives the example of elites being afraid that education would make the poor rebel, but only until they needed workers to read to follow instructions, and of men doubting women's intellectual capacity, until realizing they were wasting half of the country's human resources. The same goes for people in the countryside, the disabled, the

[ PERSPECTIVES ]
Doyle Analyzing the Laws of MIL imprisoned, the illiterate-the list goes on. There is no exception to this law: every living person has the right to his/her/their book.
3. Every book its reader: From the knowledge perspective, this law states that human ideas should be widespread. If someone took the time to develop and publish a book (i.e., container of knowledge), it must be of use to someone else. He again talks about the space (highlighting new or rare books), the readers (how to attract them with a newspaper section, for instance) or the staff (proposing weekly themes or hosting cultural events), in order to "sell" their product to a larger number.
4. Save the time of the reader: although it may seem that this chapter is all about technical descriptions of library processes, the idea here is to maximize efficiency (like in business administration) in order to free time of readers and staff, so they can concentrate on fulfilling the other laws. The laws are hierarchically arranged from the most important/general to the most specific and they look at human knowledge from different points of view (books, readers, non-readers who should be readers, staff and the library institution per se), and they all point to one goal: access to information.
5. The library is a growing organism: finally the library institution is considered as a living being. It has to keep changing in order to maintain itself alive. It will obviously grow, as population increases and people keep researching and publishing new ideas. He looks at this growth as in previous laws, from multiple physical aspects: number of volumes (and the space needed), of readers, and of staff members. At last, he considers something I believe inspired Grizzle and Singh (2016): the library evolution. As life does, it adapts, mutates, and is supposed to become something entirely different in shape and content in order to keep its purpose.
What further stages of evolution are in store for this GROWING ORGANISM-the library-we can only wait and see. Who knows that a day may not come [...] when the dissemination of knowledge, which is the vital function of libraries, will be realized by libraries even by means other than those of the printed book? (Ranganathan, 1931, p. 414).
This reading brings new light to the Five Laws of MIL, whether in accordance or to propose new topics for revision, as the matter of Open Access/Open Science, so dear to Ranganathan, and the fact that MIL education is supposed to save the time of everyone but only if considered as central as investments in telecom infrastructure, for instance. As this topic seems to be as exciting as endless, I invite others to continue reflecting on that.

Fifth movement: Science is a growing organism
As did Ranganathan (1931), this section is organized into different points of view: space, readers, mutation, and staff. The venue (space) of the MIL Conferences was another experience that contributed greatly to our perception of MIL, LIS, and science in general. Lithuania and Latvia were the selected countries; Kaunas and Riga, respectively, the conference cities. Kaunas is a beautiful small historical city, largely under renovation since being selected as the European Cultural Capital of 2022. The city has developed a connection between its historical sites and a contemporary cultural life, as shown in several themed maps (Design, Architecture, Sougihara Route, among others) and the hashtag #kaunastic, showing potential to become a MIL City.
Riga is a magnificent European capital with medieval, modern, and futuristic buildings. The highlight of my visit, the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, is an associative museum funded by donations. The museum exhibits the sixty year occupation of the region, including Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Firstly, the three countries were "called" in a pact with Soviet Union, which sent troops in 1939; then occupied by Nazi Germany in 1940; reoccupied by the USSR when Germany lost the war; and finally regained independence in the 1990s, after Perestroika.
As said in the second movement, Brazilians were faced with a choice that divided the nation. Search algorithms stimulate incoherent polarization, filtering personal preferences based on past navigation. People (readers) were either tagged as members of a bank robber gang (#petralhas) or stupid irrational small creatures (#bolsominions).
For algorithms there is no different path: it is 0 or 1, black or white. For human complexity it becomes quite different, since we can see many shades of grey. But it seems that digital mediation in our everyday life is having some unexpected and possibly harmful consequences (mutation). The conclusion from the museum visit is that there is no good totalitarian regime. Left or right (and every variation in between), we are people. We should never reduce or accept to be reduced into an artificial binary opposition.
As elections are past, we are presented with the Herculean task of bursting the "this versus that" bubble, making an effort to understand each other and re-establish a human connection. When students ask what they can do to escape the algorithm prison, I always answer that offline meetings are still relevant to move beyond similar patterns and comfort zones.
In this sense, as other students and researchers in our program were working with related themes and had also participated in six information literacy international events, we decided to get together to share, in Portuguese, in person and online, our research and global experiences (staff).
The afternoon called MIL Dialogues revolved around two main themes: MIL Critics and MIL Genders. Figure 2 shows a summary of the event. The more experiences are shared, the more projects can be developed and the more people can be educated in MIL, in a critical and gender-inclusive way.

Final considerations
This paper involved different approaches, such as an experience report, scientific research on MIL critique, Ranganathan/LIS, algorithms, and epistemological/philosophical considerations on what is truth or science. Firstly, a critical information literacy exercise on the Laws of MIL were presented; then a social context that puts the first part into perspective; followed by the feedback from the international community; the continuous dialogue in the form of a new research on library/MIL laws; and finally, opening the theme to other interlocutors and experiences that enrich the conversation.
As with all research, there is a lot more to read and comment on. For instance, some other Brazilian thoughts on Ranganathan's Five Laws (Lucas, Corrêa, & Eggert-Steindel, 2016), on the Five Laws of MIL (Dudziak, Ferreira, & Ferrari, 2017), and the social construction of taste from a critical and informational view (Schneider, 2015). Readers are encouraged to pursue this direction, since Brazilian research on MIL, LIS, and critical social theory is abundant.
In order to try to answer the question that introduced this paper, I started to believe that this, here, is science, or at least, a new form of it: Science 4.0, or whatever version people are creating now. As I struggle to compose my thesis, all these questions-the value of science in the pursuit of reality, truth or social change; the choices about which theory and methodology to work with, the weight of European white male hegemony and how to escape it-made me wonder if instead of fighting bias we should not be embracing it.
Inspired by the 30th anniversary of Crenshaw's (1989) intersectional theory, and the recent contact with decolonial studies (Dussel, 2016;Silva, 2019), the idea of a "biased method," where the main choices and ideas that compose the arguments are contextualized, pointing out its inclinations instead of trying to mask or erase them, has been growing on me. If you are curious, bothered or even excited by this, feel free to get in touch and help keep this conversation alive.