bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Schizoanalysis and the Internet 1
Authors: Buchanan Ian
Published: May 2022

This chapter asks how the internet should be understood from the perspective of Deleuze and Guattari’s thought. It notes that almost since its inception, the internet and more especially the world wide web have been described as rhizomatic, with many commentators also stating its similarity to the body without organs. This chapter argues that this way of using these two concepts is misplaced because it misunderstands what Deleuze and Guattari meant by rhizome and body without organs. It offers then a corrective view of these concepts. It argues that we should instead follow Deleuze and Guattari in starting by deciding what kind of a problem the internet is and working forward from there.
The ‘Clutter Assemblage’
Authors: Buchanan Ian
Published: May 2022

This chapter investigates the relationship between the artist’s studio and the work produced there using the concept of the assemblage as its basic framework. It asks whether the state of the studio can be used to understand the art produced in it. It is prompted by an essay on ‘clutter’ by British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips which deals with the case history of an unnamed artist who came to see him as a patient because he was concerned that he was becoming agoraphobic. The patient’s principal concern though was that artistic talent depended on his feeling of agoraphobia. He had been prompted to think this by recalling a photograph of Francis Bacon’s notoriously messy studio. This chapter then explores Deleuze’s account of Bacon in light of what we now know about his studio. It concludes by arguing that the clutter in the studio can be understood as an assemblage.
The Self-Help Assemblage
Authors: Buchanan Ian
Published: May 2022

This chapter juxtaposes Deleuze and Guattari’s thought with the work of Timothy Gallwey, particularly his global bestseller The Inner Game of Tennis. It notes that Deleuze and Guattari describe their work as pop philosophy and asks what that means in practice. Gallwey’s work, despite being a self-help book for tennis players, poses an interesting philosophical problematic inasmuch that its premise is that competence by itself is not sufficient to achieve success and that it is our sense of self that disrupts our competence. We get in our own way. This chapter takes up this problematic and tries to frame a solution using Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the assemblage.
Theory of the Object
Authors: Nail Thomas
Published: May 2022

Throughout the history of science and technology, objects have been understood in many ways but rarely have they been understood to play an active role in the production of knowledge. This has led to largely anthropocentric theories and histories of science, which treat nature as passive objects viewed by independent observers. Thomas Nail approaches the theory of objects historically in order to tell a completely new story in which objects themselves are the true agents of scientific knowledge. They are processes, not things. It is the first history of science and technology, from prehistory to the present, to illuminate the agency, knowledge and mobility of objects.
The Flow of Matter
Authors: Nail Thomas
Published: May 2022

This chapter shows that objects emerge and persist through flows of matter. Flow is defined as an indeterminate process of energy and momentum that is not reducible to any directly observable object. However, through their pedesis and turbulence, flows also fold and unfold into metastable patterns we call “objects.” As such, flows always coexist with objects just as the river inseparable from its whirls and eddies. “Flow” is the first concept of my kinetic theory. Every product presupposes a process. All objects come from somewhere and dissolve in something else. They persist only momentarily in various forms because some activity is continually running through them. This is the flow of matter.
The Prehistoric Object
Authors: Nail Thomas
Published: May 2022

This chapter looks at the historical emergence of ordinal objects in prehistoric science. The argument here is that these ordinal objects are neither static forms nor mental constructs. They are metastable states created by the three kinetic techniques described in the previous chapter. This chapter shows how these techniques are at the heart of three major prehistoric sciences: tool-making, signs, and tallies. The aim here is to demonstrate that prehistoric peoples invented many different kinds of ordinal objects through the same centripetal pattern. In this chapter, it is shown how the first kinds of scientific objects emerged through the prehistoric practices of tool-making, signs, and tallies. With hopes that the reader has also seen how the three primary features of ordinal objects described in the previous chapter emerged through these concrete historical techniques.
The Elastic Object
Authors: Nail Thomas
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses how the most unique and powerful kind of object in the modern world was the “potential” object. “Potential objects” were the most abstract of all because one cannot reduce them to any single state or series. Instead, modern scientists treated them as possible objects with a range of yet-to-be-determined states. A potential object is something that is thrown into motion and produces a singular occurrence. The potential range of possibilities is real because it is based on the actual occurrence, but it is not actual in the same way as the occurrences. The science of potential objects began to blossom around the middle of the 18th century and spread through all the 20th century sciences, but it had its origins in something much earlier: dice. This chapter and the next show how this object emerged with the rise of statistical sciences, digital logic, and transcendental mathematics. This chapter begins by providing a synthetic definition of the modern object’s core kinetic features.
Lustful Women and Male Fantasies of Female Desire
Authors: Lord Hall Joan
Published: May 2022

Chapter 3 examines how far Shakespeare’s plays incorporate or challenge polarized stereotypes of women as pure madonnas or promiscuous whores. Through his chaste but desiring heroines, such as Juliet, Desdemona, and Rosalind, the playwright offers a middle ground. His poem ‘Venus and Adonis’ represents fierce female libido (‘will’) sympathetically, while virginal Adonis, refusing to be seduced, reinforces the traditional dichotomy between love and lust. In contrast, Shakespeare’s early collaborative plays present females (Joan la Pucelle and Margaret in the Henry VI plays and Tamora in Titus Andronicus) as unruly women whose bold sexuality is part of their threat to patriarchy and legitimate succession. Mainly, however, it is male characters—the insecure husbands Othello, Posthumus and Leontes—who fantasize darkly about women’s ‘monstrous’ appetites and accuse their chaste wives of infidelity. The chapter concludes that even Shakespeare’s prostitutes and bawds (Mistress Quickly and Mistress Overdone) are presented as tender-hearted rather than morally corrupt. They generate sympathy as part of the vulnerable underclass in a patriarchal society.
Romantic Love and Sexual Desire: The Fickleness of Fancy, Eyes and Love’s Mind
Authors: Lord Hall Joan
Published: May 2022

Chapter 4 analyses how in Shakespeare’s comedies ‘fancy’, or fickle infatuation, is based on visual attraction. The eyes advance erotic desire (‘will’) while ‘love’s mind’ also reflects irrational desire. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream superficial attraction is symbolized by the love-in-idleness potion which, placed on sleeping eyes, directs the object of male ‘fancy’. By the end of the play, however, ‘fancy’ expands in meaning to signify the creative imagination that can positively transfigure the loved one and promote lasting romantic love. The chapter goes on to discuss how Love’s Labour’s Lost explores the tension between spiritual Neo-Platonic love (as demonstrated in Castiglione’s The Courtier) and the reality of physical desire; the play also suggests that the ideal itself works against a relationship based on knowing and appreciating the loved one as an individual. Ending in separation, Love’s Labour’s Lost offers no guarantees that high-flown romantic love can be reconciled with sexual desire and lead to the more grounded commitment of marriage.
Sex, Love and Paradigms of Marriage
Authors: Lord Hall Joan
Published: May 2022

Chapter 6 discusses how far Shakespeare’s plays reflect the views of his age—that marriage is less a romantic and sexual bond than a partnership based on “friendship or ‘amity’. This Protestant paradigm of ‘companionate’ marriage remains in tension with the older patriarchal model of marriage in which the husband is ‘head’ of his wife. A Comedy of Errors explores the conflict between the two paradigms, with the bold wife Adriana arguing for equality between intimate marital partners while Luciana takes the traditional view that a wife should subject her ‘will’ (her sexuality and self-determination) to that of her husband. The Taming of the Shrew also questions whether wilful Kate can retain any independence as a wife. The chapter ends by suggesting how in Antony and Cleopatra the lovers—Cleopatra calls Antony ‘husband’ by the play’s conclusion—enact a new paradigm of marriage. By bending conventional gender roles, this androgynous pair escapes patriarchal assumptions of male mastery, balancing libido (‘will’) with romantic love that extends beyond death.
Awakening to the Music
Authors: Otterbeck Jonas
Published: May 2022

Chapter 2 establishes the study field. It opens with a discussion about how to find a niche in the general study field of Islam and music. It reflects on the development of pop music in Muslim contexts as the author has experienced it from the 1980s and onwards. In 2008, the author attends a pop-nashid concert and meets Sharif Banna, CEO of Awakening, and the first notes for this study is made. Next, the main empirical material is presented. To enable some precision in the study, the chapter introduces a terminological distinction between traditional nashid, pop-nashid and Islamic pop. It also features discussions between the author, the artists and the CEO of Awakening about what to call the music and why it is not easy to find precise terms.
Awakening Takes to the Stage
Authors: Otterbeck Jonas
Published: May 2022

Chapter three describes the formation and growth of Awakening. It introduces its artists and their recordings giving special attention to Sami Yusuf, Mesut Kurtis, Maher Zain and Raef, who were all interviewed for the book. The author has followed the three latter on tours. It also examines some of Awakening’s other media production, mainly its books, arguing that two strong themes are discernible in the book production, namely Muslim contribution to integration, and Islamic ethics. It also documents how the book production aligned with a rather conservative theological agenda in the very beginning but has since developed towards an emphasis on practical Islamic ethics and entrepreneurship.
Habit’s Time: Between Routine and Compulsion
Authors: Pont Antonia
Published: May 2022

This chapter involves a close reading of the notion of habit in Félix Ravaisson, and later Deleuze. It situates habit in relation to practising, and its first and second criteria: acquiring a structured behaviour; then, intentional repetition of that set of doings. Whereas habit moves in the direction of a reduction of intention, practising applies intention where it seems to be superfluous. The argument follows the Deleuze of Difference and Repetition in associating habit with the time of the ‘living present’, which is an anticipatory temporality, focused on the practical, and which can harden into patterns we may not find wholly satisfying. While habit has many benefits to offer a life, its extremes of routine and compulsion can thwart efforts to live well or creatively and may not be easy to ‘lose’ or ‘drop’. This chapter offers a rigorous account of why this is, and a methodological strategy for how to work intelligently with habit (without forgoing its benefits), following the insights of Ravaisson, Deleuze, Grosz and other thinkers. It opens the discussion onto a clear disambiguation of habit and practising, and an understanding of how habit creates us as beings in one kind of time.
Relaxation: That Unnatural Effort
Authors: Pont Antonia
Published: May 2022

This chapter takes up the third criterion of practising as the ‘hinge’ moment that most clearly distinguishes habit from practising: relaxation. Offering many accessible examples of how relaxation works, as well as a clear definition, this chapter frames relaxation as an effort that is unnatural since it involves refraining from automatically exerting spontaneous or ‘natural’ effort. It discusses intention in relation to effort, as well as linking relaxation to the Bergsonian schema discussed in Chapter 3, and a state of reminiscence. There is an exploration of what constitutes ‘sensing’ in the practice vocabulary of yoga, and the relation between Deleuzian ‘thought’ and the sensed. There is a discussion of the role of suitable spaces for relaxation experiments, such as retreats, and the notion of resting, culturally and methodologically.
Conclusion: A Theory of Practising
Authors: Pont Antonia
Published: May 2022

This chapter draws together the arguments of the book as a whole, going via an example in visual art (David Hockney) and the idea of planned spontaneity. It discusses the atmosphere attending long term practitioners in various modes, and accounts for why this might be in terms of practising’s effect on identity. It notes the importance of making a break in the flow of usual time, or the habitual living present—not in a destructive sense, and not in order to forgo habit entirely, but in order sometimes to allow for creativity and newness to arise. It concludes with the ‘enoughness’ that a regular engagement with practising can cultivate, leaving open for the reader’s consideration the political, environmental, economic and interpersonal implications of this perspective.
Becoming a Diaspora: The Kurds and the Kurdish Activists in Denmark
Authors: Sofie Schøtt Anne
Published: May 2022

This chapter analyses the emergence of the main actor included in this study, that is, the Kurdish diaspora in Denmark. The chapter traces the emergence of the Kurdish diaspora in Denmark from the arrival of the first labour migrants from Turkey in the late 1960s to the influx of Kurdish refugees from Syria during the Syrian Civil War. As part of the examination of the socio-economic position of the Kurdish community in Denmark, who constitutes at least 30,000 people, a reference is made to the development of the Kurdish diasporas in Sweden and Germany, the two Kurdish mobilisation hubs in Europe. The chapter provides an overview of the actors and organisations in the Kurdish diaspora milieu in Denmark, identifying two main movements, being the Öcalan and the Kurdistan movements, and a few independent activists, which reflects the key divisions of the transnational Kurdish community. The chapter also dedicates a section to the position of the Syrian Kurds in Denmark.
Casting ‘a haunting light’: Katherine Mansfield’s Modernist Vision of Childhood
Authors: Miao Tracy
Published: May 2022

This chapter discusses Katherine Mansfield’s appreciation and revision of the Edwardian ideal of childhood as personified by Peter Pan. Though tropes related to Peter Pan abound in Mansfield’s writings, they are redressed as troubled, liminal, and gothic imaginings slanting towards modernist understandings of children and childhood. The chapter thus traces prominent strands of Mansfield’s creative rethinking of literary childhood inherited from the Edwardians. It concludes that by acknowledging childhood’s innate complexity, Mansfield demonstrates that a true vision of childhood is created in a time and place where darkness and light coexist and converge, rather than in a stagnant though eternal Neverland.
Mansfield and Murry: Two Children Holding Hands
Authors: Jones Kathleen
Published: May 2022

Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry had an unorthodox partnership; they were lovers for seven years and then husband and wife for five before Mansfield’s premature death in 1923. After the ‘beatitude of first love’, there were periods of cohabitation and estrangement with infidelities on both sides. Mansfield’s declining health and inability to conceive a child adversely affected their relationship, but there was a fundamental incompatibility from their first meeting. Mansfield looked for practical and emotional support from Murry, which he was unable to give, and he often felt himself to be ‘Katherine’s inferior’. One of the most crucial aspects of their relationship was the working, literary partnership of editor and author; ‘we are – apart from everything else – each other’s critic’, wrote Mansfield. But on a personal level they were, in her words, ‘children to each other’, sharing a childlike love that never matured. It was a view that Murry also held, describing them at one point as ‘dream-children’. Using Mansfield and Murry’s letters and journals, including unpublished material, this essay considers their relationship on both personal and creative levels, and its influence – both positive and negative – on Mansfield’s writing.
The Thoughtful Child: The Sentimental Origins of Katherine Mansfield’s Children
Authors: Martin Todd
Published: May 2022

Although Katherine Mansfield was childless, children factor significantly in some of her best stories. One need look no further than ‘Prelude’, ‘At the Bay’, or ‘The Doll’s House’ to find children who are not only memorable but whose portrayals feel true. Yet, while it is commonly accepted that the origins of many of Mansfield’s children stem from her own childhood experiences, little attention has been paid to the actual stories she wrote during her youth – stories often written about children. Mansfield referred to some of these as her ‘baby’ stories, and in 1907 she planned to collect some of her stories and poems in a book for children. While the project never came to fruition, many of the stories survive in her notebooks. They are often sentimental and are certainly not representative of Mansfield’s mature writing; however, they offer a glimpse not only into the mind of a developing artist, but also reveal a view of children indicative of that popularized in the fiction of the day. This chapter explores her early portrayal of children (particularly in her ‘Thoughtful Child’ stories), suggesting that the sentimentality of these early stories anticipate the tragic transformations of her later children.
Katherine Mansfield’s Sleeping Boys
Authors: Baldt Erika
Published: May 2022

This chapter explores Mansfield’s use of the image of a sleeping boy as a symbol for the young men who died in the Great War. Drawing on the Classics, particularly Greek and Roman poetry and drama, Mansfield equates sleep with death in an attempt to immortalize those whose lives were lost, bestowing the qualities of the epic hero not only upon her own brother, who was killed in 1915, but all of the beloved brothers and sons who made the ultimate sacrifice. This chapter examines three of Mansfield’s mature stories, “The Garden Party,” “Psychology,” and “Six Years After,” as well as some of her earlier work, including her first ever published piece, “His Little Friend,” to trace the development of this imagery.
‘Real Childhood’: The Daring of Katherine Mansfield and Alice Meynell
Authors: Marshall Ann Herndon
Published: May 2022

In ‘Real Children’ and other essays in The Children and Childhood, the influential critic and poet Alice Meynell stresses aspects of the child that Katherine Mansfield brings to life in fiction: the child’s distinctive sense of time and close relation to nature; the child’s desire for dominance and awareness of death. Mansfield was well-acquainted with Meynell’s family, and the like-mindedness of Mansfield and Meynell is striking in the way they both feature challenging aspects of children. Both writers reject the Victorian dichotomy of innocent, precious children vs. ‘bad,’ obstreperous ones, a moralizing paradigm designed to make adults comfortable. They replace the model with a daring modern stress on the independence and force of the child’s mind.
‘The Chorus Girl and the Tariff’
Authors: Mansfield Katherine
Published: May 2022

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
‘Transatlantic Bibliopoly’: Carlyle’s Early American Print Career
Authors: Sommer Tim
Published: May 2022

This chapter deals with the American reprinting of Carlyle’s books from Sartor Resartus (1833–34) to Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (1845). It draws on a rich body of archival sources to illuminate the economic background of these ventures and reveal the extent of Emerson’s activity as an Anglo-American literary agent, bookseller, editor and critic. The chapter details which economic and logistical strategies he and Carlyle developed to maximise the latter’s income from his foreign publishing (from the circulation of manuscript copies to the transatlantic import and export of whole print runs). The chapter highlights Carlyle’s efforts to achieve an American recognition of British writers’ copyright claims and demonstrates how in the 1840s he and Emerson succeeded in securing agreements with American publishers despite the absence of such transatlantic legal authority.
Terms of Discussion
Authors: Budick Sanford
Published: May 2022

Keats famously claimed that there was an easy flow from Shakespeare’s personality trait (or “quality”) of “negative capability” to representations that express that personality. This chapter begins to describe the ways in which Shakespeare achieves a “negative capability” through varieties of arduous negative representation. This he achieves especially in a systematic language of the “nothing” that is closely correlated with the use of the figure of chiasmus. Both of these usages are illuminated by Edmund Husserl’s account of a meditative “bracketing” that produces the space of the negative which he called the “epoché.” As Husserl no doubt realised but did not acknowledge, in Kant’s writings on the sublime he described a means (which Husserl’s system could not provide) for producing something closely equivalent to the epoché – and to Shakespeare’s “nothing” of chiasmus. Husserl, as well as Kant, provide springboards for understanding the depth of Shakespeare’s achievement in going beyond theatricalisation. Yet Shakespeare in fact goes deeper than the philosophers. In Shakespeare’s practice, experience that goes beyond theatricalisation enables the transformation (conversion) into the condition of an onlooker that itself facilitates the disclosure of an inward self—for the playwright, the spectator, and, at times, for the protagonists as well.
The Second Epoché of Othello and The Merchant of Venice
Authors: Budick Sanford
Published: May 2022

The Merchant of Venice and Othello are twinned so extensively that it is tempting to believe that, already in composing The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare prepared for the necessity, of providing a mirroring between this play and a future other play. Yet only with the composition of Hamlet and As You Like It did he come to see how such a twinning could be made to work and what it might produce. In his turning toward such a fulfilment between Othello and The Merchant of Venice, the figure of chiasmus again became central to the completions of his design. As in the case of Hamlet and As You Like It, contemplating these plays together, extra-theatrically, in chiastic form, produces an object of reflection that is outside theatricalisation. In the partnership of The Merchant of Venice and Othello the epochés that are produced within the chiasmata of theatricalisation of each play are transformed by an over-chiasmus between the plays that finally produces the conceptual object of reflection. Contemplating—looking on—that chiastic object opens a second epoché. Reflection on this extra-theatrical object transforms the playwright and the spectator into intersubjective onlookers, each engaged in the derivations of self and other.
Intentionality toward Being: Blessing in King Lear and The Winter’s Tale
Authors: Budick Sanford
Published: May 2022

King Lear is that concludes with a fulfillment of the action that first sets the tragedy in motion, namely, the distribution and sharing of the kingdom. This final distribution expresses the larger impulsion that this play continually represents, namely, the drive towards shared consciousness of being itself. Implicit in this aim is the idea that we only have experience of the being of our ego or self when it is engaged in a reciprocity of recognition with an Other that is not time dependent. In King Lear and The Winter’s Tale this idea finds its defining expression in a reciprocal intentionality of “benediction”—aimed, in other words, at sustaining each Other’s being, even and especially in the face of death. Shakespeare’s representations of this depth of blessing build upon the effects of a narrative of the zero and a language of nothings that produce suspension of self in the condition of the “nothing” or epoché. In The Winter's Tale these chiastic effects are especially attained in structures of horticultural and Pauline grafting. Finally, the intricate interrelations between King Lear and The Winter's Tale realise the playwright’s and the spectator's now of blessing in the wake of these awesome suspensions.
Ecosophical Chaoids: Towards an ‘Infinite Cinema’ with Hollis Frampton’s Zorns Lemma (1970) and Gloria! (1979)
Authors: Gardner Colin
Published: May 2022

Like Beckett, Hollis Frampton liked to ‘drill holes’ into the surface fabric of language in order to discover what lurks underneath, just as silences and intervals interrupt the sonic progression of a piece of music. Zorns Lemma is a classic example of this as it consists of two verbal ‘bookends’: readings from the Bay State Primer, Euro-America’s first grammar book; and an epilogue that features six female voices reading selected passages, in rondo, from the 1225 treatise, On Light, or the Ingression of Forms by Robert Grosseteste, (c. 1175-1253). The 50 minute middle section consists of complete silence over one second shots of New York street signs, each beginning with a different letter, from A to Z, which are gradually replaced by non-alphabetic scenes until the whole sequence is non-alphabetical. However, the film’s structure makes us aware of the latent organizing power of linguistic rhythms and patterns even as the letters disappear, a method that spills over to Frampton’s Gloria!, which employs a digital green screen relating textual memories of his grandmother to interrupt archive footage of silent films depicting Finnegan’s Wake, thereby fusing James Joyce, family genealogy, personal memory and silent film history into an overarching infinite archive.
The Children of Barthes and Paris Match : Godard, Prostitution and the Rhetoric of the Image
Authors: Gardner Colin
Published: May 2022

Unlike in Lang’s M, where silences are used to forge different elements of the dispositif – the police, the army, the underworld, capitalism and prostitution – Godard does the opposite, representing capitalism (and its corollary, prostitution) through a cacophony of sound and uses silence to break its homogeneity and uniformity to suggest an alternative socio-economic reality. Using Roland Barthes’s semiology – particularly the ‘rhetoric of the image’ represented by the Paris Match photo spread – this chapter analyzes a quote from Godard whereby all analysis of his films should start with the question of money: from the cash raised to produce it and the monetary value displayed by the signs expressed semiotically by the onscreen sounds and images. Using the specific examples of Une femme est une femme, 1961), Bande à part (1964), Vivre sa Vie, 1962) and Deux ou Trois Choses que je sais d’elle (1967) we discover that in each case silence is used in a Brechtian fashion, either as a Mother Courage form of negative critique or as an affirmation of a highly politicized ‘return to zero,’ which Godard will explore in his Dziga Vertov films with Jean-Pierre Gorin.
‘See You at Mao’: The ’60s Left Returns to Zero with the Dziga Vertov Group
Authors: Gardner Colin
Published: May 2022

The ‘return to zero’ in Godard and Gorin’s Dziga Vertov Group films is used as a means of clearing both the linguistic and semiotic ground in order to enable a radical reconstruction of both film and political language on progressive, non-Eurocentric lines. Heavily influenced by the events of May ’68, we see all the philosophical and ideological facets (especially Maoist) come together in the four films discussed here: Le Gai Savoir (1967-8); Un film comme les autres (1968); British Sounds, 1970; and Ici et Ailleurs (1975). All use silence to break through the received wisdom of dominant bourgeois culture by using the film screen as a form of blackboard, deconstructing language and ideology as a means of discovering alternative semantic and didactic methods. While Le Gai Savoir and Un film comme les autres focus specifically on the need to build a political coalition between workers and students, British Sounds explores sound and silence to explore the problems of Taylorist working conditions while Ici et Ailleurs splits the Palestinians’ struggle into a dialectic between time past (the ‘there’ of Syria and Lebanon) and time present (the ‘here’ of a Parisian family watching the same events on TV).
On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Formal Sense: Silence as Resistant Punctum in Abbas Kiarostami’s The Chorus (1982), Homework (1989) and Close-Up (1990)
Authors: Gardner Colin
Published: May 2022

Working in the pre-and post-revolutionary periods for the Center for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kānun-e parvaresh-e fekti-e kudakān va nowjavānān), Kiarostami was heavily influenced by the Modernist poetry of Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens but also Arabic and Iranian poets such as Sohrab Sepheri and Forugh Farrokzhad. Indeed, his whole objective is to create a cinematic equivalent of such sources, which means eschewing a solid structure or clear-cut conclusion. Kiarostami thus creates holes and fissures which the audience can climb through so that they can provisionally complete the film themselves. Using Barthes’s contrast between the photographic studium or what is conventional and ‘likeable’ about an image – and the punctum or ‘prick’ that jumps out of an image like a projectile and jabs us in the eye, this chapter explores Kiarostami’s use of silence on both levels in films such as Chorus (1982), Homework (1989) and Close-Up 1990).
‘The Abyss Also Looks into You’: From Syncinema to ‘Sin’ Cinema in Mike Figgis’s Leaving Las Vegas (1995) and Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers (2009)
Authors: Gardner Colin
Published: May 2022

The conclusion revisits two of the book’s themes – syncinema and Lang’s ‘sin’ cinema’ (i.e. Beckert’s internalized ‘snuff film’) to ask two key questions: what happens when you apply Lemaître’s ‘séance du cinema,’ with its focus on the site of the screening, to a commercial Hollywood film; and how do you deal with a videotape ‘found on a scrap heap’ that contains diegetic evidence of two murders and a kidnapping? While modern audiences are largely unprepared for ciné-club tricks, Mike Figgis challenges them by using a sound drop out in Leaving Las Vegas when Nicolas Cage blacks out after downing an entire bottle of scotch. By jarring the audience with the drop-out at the exact moment that Cage collapses, we stare into the abyss and share in the inexorable vector of death. In contrast, the silences in Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers accompany PLAY and REW screens, indicating that the video is made up of seven separate tapes. Korine admitted that he considered leaving the finished video outside a police station so that as potential evidence in a court of law it would incriminate everyone involved. Perhaps the essence of ‘sin’ cinema is: ‘You have the right to remain silent!’
Exogenous Ethylene Promotes Peel Color Transformation by Regulating the Degradation of Chlorophyll and Synthesis of Anthocyanin in Postharvest Mango Fruit
Authors: Chen Mingmin , Gu Hui , Wang Lirong , Shao Yuanzhi , Li Rui , Li Wen
Published: May 2022

Due to geographical location and climatic factors, postharvest storage and preservation of tropical fruits and vegetables are still facing huge challenges. Ethephon (ETH) is widely used as an ethylene donor to achieve the commercial color and flavor of climacteric fruits. However, the effect of ETH on fruit coloration was affected by many factors, such as fruit species, plant hormones, and storage conditions. In this study, the main mango variety “Guifei” in Hainan, China, was used to study the effects of different concentrations of ETH on fruit ripening and coloration during storage at 25°C. Results showed that postharvest treatment with ETH (300, 500, and 900 mg·L−1) enhanced the activities of ACS and ACO, stimulated the release of endogenous ethylene, and accelerated fruit softening and color transformation. Compared with control, ETH treatment not only accelerated the breakdown of chlorophyll with higher activities of Chlase and MDCase but also induced the synthesis of carotenoid and anthocyanin with higher activities of PAL, CHI, DFR, and UFGT. Moreover, the changes in DFR and UFGT activities coincided with the increase in ETH concentration. Further, correlation analysis showed that the production of endogenous ethylene induced by ETH was significantly negatively correlated with firmness and chlorophyll content, whereas positively correlated with MDA content and anthocyanin content. This study suggests that the positive effect of ETH on “Guifei” mango color transformation is concentration-dependent within a certain concentration range. Anthocyanin is the main pigment for the red formation of “Guifei” mango, and DFR and UFGT may play critical roles in anthocyanin synthesis. ETH promoted the red coloration by promoting the release of endogenous ethylene and enhancing the activities of anthocyanin synthesis enzymes.
How Beavers Are Changing Arctic Landscapes and Earth’s Climate
Authors: O’Donnell Jonathan A. , Carey Michael P. , Poulin Brett A. , Tape Ken D. , Koch Joshua C.
Published: May 2022

Beavers build dams that change the way water moves between streams, lakes, and the land. In Alaska, beavers are moving north from the forests into the Arctic tundra. When beavers build dams in the Arctic, they cause frozen soil, called permafrost, to thaw. Scientists are studying how beavers and the thawing of permafrost are impacting streams and rivers in Alaska’s national parks. For example, permafrost thaw from beavers can add harmful substances like mercury to streams. Mercury can be taken up by stream food webs, including fish, which then become unhealthy to eat. Permafrost thaw can also move carbon (from dead plants) to beaver ponds. When this carbon decomposes, it can be released from beaver ponds into the air as greenhouse gases, which cause Earth’s climate to warm. Scientists are trying to keep up with these busy beavers to better understand how they are changing Arctic landscapes and Earth’s climate.
Differential Occurrence of Cuticular Wax and Its Role in Leaf Physiological Mechanisms of Three Edible Aroids of Northeast India
Authors: Pieniazek Facundo , Dasgupta Madhumita , Messina Valeria , Devi Mayengbam Premi , Devi Yumnam Indrani , Mohanty Sansuta , Singh Satyapriya , Sahoo Bibhuti Bhusan , Nongdam Potshangbam , Acharya Gobinda Chandra , Sahoo Manas Ranjan
Published: May 2022

The localization of cuticular wax (CW) on the leaf epidermis and its interaction with the physiological mechanisms of three edible aroids, Alocasia, Colocasia, and Xanthosoma, were assessed. CW in the leaf tissues was visualized using scanning electron microscopy, which was higher in Colocasia (10.61 mg·dm−2) and Xanthosoma (11.36 mg·dm−2) than in Alocasia (1.36 mg·dm−2). Colocasia CW exhibited superhydrophobic properties with a higher static contact angle (CA) (>150°) than Xanthosoma (99.0°) and Alocasia (128.7°). The higher CW in Colocasia and Xanthosoma resulted in better leaf chlorophyll stability, moisture retention ability, and cellular membrane integrity compared to Alocasia. CW acted as a protecting barrier against deleterious solar radiation in terms of sun protection factor (SPF). The glossy appearance of wax crystals in the Alocasia leaf cuticles resulted in higher SPF. Overall, Colocasia CW highly influenced the qualitative and protective mechanisms of the leaf. Our study sheds light on the pivotal role of CW in the physiological properties of aroid leaves, which would be useful for the selection of wax-rich plants for augmenting future breeding strategies. The information would also be useful for further exploration of the industrial potential of superhydrophobic wax crystals obtained from edible aroids.
Light Interception and Radiation Use Efficiency of Cassava under Irrigated and Rainfed Conditions and Seasonal Variations
Authors: Mahakosee Supattra , Jogloy Sanun , Vorasoot Nimitr , Theerakulpisut Piyada , Holbrook Carl Corley , Kvien Craig K. , Banterng Poramate
Published: May 2022

Determining the effect of irrigated and rainfed conditions on light interception, light extinction coefficient (k), radiation use efficiency (RUE), biomass, and storage root accumulation of cassava was the objective of this study. The field experiment was arranged in a randomized complete block design (RCBD) with four replications. The effect of irrigated and rainfed water conditions in cassava were evaluated under two planting dates for two years. Light interception depended on k and LAI which affected solar radiation accumulation and thus biomass production for cassava. The k values ranged from 0.49 to 0.93 a nd 0.46 to 0.86 for irrigated and rainfed crops, respectively. The RUEbi and RUEsr depended on water conditions and crop growth stages and seasons, whereas rainfed crops in the May planting were slightly lower in RUEbi than irrigated crops. RUEbi of the crop planted in November was not significantly different for irrigated and rainfed crops. Irrigation at the late growth stage could maintain higher LAI, light interception, and RUE for the crop planted in May, whereas those in November planting were not significantly different.
Agroforestry Extent in the United States: A Review of National Datasets and Inventory Efforts
Authors: Smith Matthew M. , Bentrup Gary , Kellerman Todd , MacFarland Katherine , Straight Richard , Ameyaw Lord
Published: May 2022

A comprehensive understanding of agroforestry adoption across a landscape is critical for effective agroforestry planning. The objectives of this study are to identify the sources of agroforestry data that can be used in the United States (U.S.) for national inventory purposes, discuss the possible uses and nuances of the datasets, synthesize the data to create regional maps, and provide recommendations for improving future agroforestry inventory efforts. To accomplish this, we queried multiple government databases containing agroforestry inventory data and spoke with agency representatives with in-depth knowledge of each dataset. Data from federal conservation programs were found to be useful for assessing practice-level adoption through a conservation program but not for general inventory use, since agroforestry systems can be established without federal assistance. For inventory purposes, the 2017 U.S. Census of Agriculture was found to be the most comprehensive dataset, with 30,853 farm operations reporting agroforestry use, representing 1.5% of all U.S. farms. However, this value is likely an underestimate, due to respondent unfamiliarity with agroforestry terminology. We propose several strategies to improve the accuracy of future agroforestry surveys, since a greater understanding of agroforestry adoption will influence decisions related to agricultural policies, technical assistance, and planning of these integrated systems.
Study on the Vibration Characteristics of Rape Plants Based on High-Speed Photography and Image Recognition
Authors: Zhan Guangchao , Ma Lina , Zong Wangyuan , Liu Wei , Deng Dinglin , Lian Guodang
Published: May 2022

The transmission characteristics of the vibration excitation of rape plants are of great significance to the study of the harvesting loss and threshing mechanism of rape during harvesting. Aiming to examine the problem that the existing vibration measurement method cannot be well adapted to the vibration measurement of small plants such as rape, this article proposes a vibration measurement method based on high-speed photography and image recognition and uses this measurement method to study the vibration characteristics of rape plants in the three states, i.e., sweep frequency, standing frequency, and free attenuation, with a default hydraulic shaker. The results showed that the average measurement error of the vibration amplitude of this method was 0.0068 mm, and the relative measurement error of the amplitude at 20 Hz was 0.45%, which met the test requirements. Based on this measurement method, a sweep frequency test of rape plants was carried out. It was found that the first-order and second-order vibration modes of rape plants were concentrated in the first 15 Hz. The resonance range of rape plants mainly occurred at 6–7 Hz and 11–12 Hz. The standing frequency vibration test showed that rape plants had strong resonance at 6 Hz and 11 Hz, and grain falling was 1.192% and 0.992%, respectively, which was greater than those of other frequencies. The free attenuation vibration of the rape plant showed that the average attenuation coefficients of the mark points on the lateral branch at 20 cm, 30 cm, and 40 cm from the branch node were 0.542, 0.475, and 0.441, respectively, and the attenuation coefficient decreased as the distance between the mark point and the branch node increased. The amplitude attenuation coefficient of the main branch had little difference, and the average value was 0.797. This research can provide some reference for exploring the threshing mechanism of the rape drum and optimizing the header structure and parameters.
Novel Methodology for the Assessment of Organic Carbon Stocks in German Arable Soils
Authors: Franko Uwe , Ruehlmann Joerg
Published: May 2022

There is currently a significant focus on oil organic carbon, as interest in mitigating climate change by increasing soil carbon stocks is leading to efforts to include this within carbon farming and the trade of CO2 certificates. In addition, soil organic carbon controls many other soil functions, such as soil productivity. However, results from long-term field experiments suggest that an ever-increasing carbon content in soil, at some point, will no longer increase productivity, but will cause environmental risks, especially from excess nitrogen. In Germany, the most widely recognized soil organic matter (SOM) balance method, VDLUFA (Association of German Agricultural Investigation and Research Institutions), addresses soil management only, without a relation to the soil carbon stock. To close this gap, a methodology is developed based on results from European long-term field experiments that allows for an assessment of agricultural management both in terms of the carbon input to soil and the amount of carbon stored in soil. Due to the transformation of carbon stock into carbon flux, it is possible to apply the classification scheme of the VDLUFA balance to the carbon content of topsoils. This provides information to qualify further decisions about fostering carbon accumulation. This was demonstrated on experimental results from Bad Lauchstädt, as well as on data from the German Agricultural Soil Inventory (BZE-LW) for arable soils on a regional scale.
Delay of Feed Post-Hatch Causes Changes in Expression of Immune-Related Genes and Their Correlation with Components of Gut Microbiota, but Does Not Affect Protein Expression
Authors: Miska Katarzyna B. , Kahl Stanislaw , Schreier Lori L. , Russell Beverly , Kpodo Kouassi R. , Proszkowiec-Weglarz Monika
Published: May 2022

Because the delay of feed post-hatch (PH) has been associated with negative growth parameters, the aim of the current study was to determine the effect of delayed access to feed in broiler chicks on the expression of immune-related genes and select proteins. In addition, an analysis of the correlation between gene expression and components of the gut microbiota was carried out. Ross 708 eggs were incubated and hatched, and hatchlings were divided into FED and NONFED groups. The NONFED birds did not have access to feed until 48 h PH, while FED birds were given feed immediately PH. The ileum from both groups (n = 6 per group) was sampled at embryonic day 19 (e19) and day 0 (wet chicks), and 4, 24, 48, 72, 96, 144, 192, 240, 288, and 336 h PH. Quantitative PCR (qPCR) was carried out to measure the expression of avian interleukin (IL)-1β, IL-4, IL-6, IL-8, IL-18, transforming growth factor (TGF-β), toll-like receptor (TLR)2, TLR4, interferon (IFN)-β, IFN-γ, and avian β-defensins (AvBD) I, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. Protein expression of IL-10, IL-1β, IL-8, and IL-18 were measured using ELISAs. A correlation analysis was carried out to determine whether any significant association existed between immune gene expression and components of the ileal luminal and mucosal microbiota. Expression of several immune-related genes (TGF-β, TLR4, IFN-γ, IL-1β, IL-4, IL-6, and AvBDs 8 and 9) were significantly affected by the interaction between feed status and age. The effects were transient and occurred between 48 and 96 h PH. The rest of the genes and four proteins were significantly affected by age, with a decrease in expression noted over time. Correlation analysis indicated that stronger correlations exist among gene expression and microbiota in NONFED birds. The data presented here indicates that delay in feed PH can affect genes encoding components of the immune system. Additionally, the correlation analysis between immune gene expression and microbiota components indicates that a delay in feed has a significant effect on the interaction between the immune system and the microbiota.
Spatial Learning of Individual Cichlid Fish and Its Effect on Group Decision Making
Authors: Long Jiaxing , Fu Shijian
Published: May 2022

Learning and memory abilities and their roles in group decision-making have important ecological relevance in routine activities such as foraging and anti-predator behaviors in fish species. The aims of the present study were to explore individual spatial learning abilities of juvenile cichlids (Chindongo demasoni) in a foraging context, and to explore the influence of heterogeneity of memory information among group members on group performance in a six-arm radiation maze. In the context of an association between landmarks and food, learning ability was evaluated by the speed and accuracy of reaching the arm with food during seven days of reinforcement, and memory retention was tested at intervals of 2, 5, 8 and 11 days of detraining. Then, the speed and accuracy of an eight-member group with different proportions of memory-trained fish were measured. Both speed and accuracy of individual fish improved significantly and linearly in the first five days of training and leveled off between five and seven days, with values 60% shorter (in speed) and 50% higher (in accuracy) compared to those of the first day. Neither speed nor accuracy showed any decrease after 11 days of detraining, suggesting memory retention of the spatial task. When measured in a group, the speed and accuracy of the majority of the group (more than half) in reaching the arm with food changed linearly with an increasing ratio of trained members. This shows that cichlids can acquire associative learning information through a training process, and group behavior of cichlids seems not likely be determined by a minority of group members under a foraging context.