bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ad-CD40L mobilizes CD4 T cells for the treatment of brainstem tumors
Authors: Wongthida Phonphimon , Schuelke Matthew R , Driscoll Christopher B , Kottke Timothy , Thompson Jill M , Tonne Jason , Stone Cathy , Huff Amanda L , Wetmore Cynthia , Davies James A , Parker Alan L , Evgin Laura , Vile Richard G
Published: May 2020

Background

Diffuse midline glioma, formerly DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma), is the deadliest pediatric brainstem tumor with median survival of less than one year. Here, we investigated (i) whether direct delivery of adenovirus-expressing cluster of differentiation (CD)40 ligand (Ad-CD40L) to brainstem tumors would induce immune-mediated tumor clearance and (ii) if so, whether therapy would be associated with a manageable toxicity due to immune-mediated inflammation in the brainstem.

Methods

Syngeneic gliomas in the brainstems of immunocompetent mice were treated with Ad-CD40L and survival, toxicity, and immune profiles determined. A clinically translatable vector, whose replication would be tightly restricted to tumor cells, rAd-Δ24-CD40L, was tested in human patient–derived diffuse midline gliomas and immunocompetent models.

Results

Expression of Ad-CD40L restricted to brainstem gliomas by pre-infection induced complete rejection, associated with immune cell infiltration, of which CD4+ T cells were critical for therapy. Direct intratumoral injection of Ad-CD40L into established brainstem tumors improved survival and induced some complete cures but with some acute toxicity. RNA-sequencing analysis showed that Ad-CD40L therapy induced neuroinflammatory immune responses associated with interleukin (IL)-6, IL-1β, and tumor necrosis factor α. Therefore, to generate a vector whose replication, and transgene expression, would be tightly restricted to tumor cells, we constructed rAd-Δ24-CD40L, the backbone of which has already entered clinical trials for diffuse midline gliomas. Direct intratumoral injection of rAd-Δ24-CD40L, with systemic blockade of IL-6 and IL-1β, generated significant numbers of cures with readily manageable toxicity.

Conclusions

Virus-mediated delivery of CD40L has the potential to be effective in treating diffuse midline gliomas without obligatory neuroinflammation-associated toxicity.
Effect of radiation therapy on cerebral cortical thickness in glioma patients: Treatment-induced thinning of the healthy cortex
Authors: Nagtegaal Steven H J , David Szabolcs , Snijders Tom J , Philippens Marielle E P , Leemans Alexander , Verhoeff Joost J C
Published: May 2020

Background

With overall survival of brain tumors improving, radiation induced brain injury is becoming an increasing issue. One of the effects of radiation therapy (RT) is thinning of the cerebral cortex, which could be one of the factors contributing to cognitive impairments after treatment. In healthy brain, cortex thickness varies between 1 and 4.5 mm. In this study, we assess the effect of RT on the thickness of the cerebral cortex and relate the changes to the local dose.

Methods

We identified 28 glioma patients with optimal scan quality. Clinical CTs and MRIs at baseline and 1 year post-RT were collected and coregistered. The scans were processed via an automated image processing pipeline, which enabled measuring changes of the cortical thickness, which were related to local dose.

Results

Three areas were identified where significant dose-dependent thinning occurred, with thinning rates of 5, 6, and 26 μm/Gy after 1 year, which corresponds to losses of 5.4%, 7.2%, and 21.6% per 30 Gy per year. The first area was largely located in the right inferior parietal, supramarginal, and superior parietal regions, the second in the right posterior cingulate and paracentral regions, and the third almost completely in the right lateral orbital frontal region.

Conclusions

We have identified three areas susceptible to dose-dependent cortical thinning after radiation therapy. Should future prospective studies conclude that irradiation of these areas lead to cognitive decline, they need to be spared in order to prevent this debilitating consequence of treatment.
Decreased Outpatient Fluoroquinolone Prescribing Using a Multimodal Antimicrobial Stewardship Initiative
Authors: Lin Kevin , Zahlanie Yorgo , Ortwine Jessica K , Mang Norman S , Wei Wenjing , Brown L Steven , Prokesch Bonnie C
Published: May 2020

Background

Fluoroquinolones are antibiotics prescribed in the outpatient setting, though they have serious side effects. This study evaluates the impact of stewardship interventions on total and inappropriate prescribing of fluoroquinolones in outpatient settings in a large county hospital and health system.

Methods

In an effort to decrease inappropriate outpatient fluoroquinolone usage, a multimodal antimicrobial stewardship initiative was implemented in November 2016. Education regarding the risks, benefits, and appropriate uses of fluoroquinolones was provided to providers in different outpatient settings, Food and Drug Administration warnings were added to all oral fluoroquinolone orders, an outpatient order set for cystitis treatment was created, and fluoroquinolone susceptibilities were suppressed when appropriate. Charts from October 2016, 2017, and 2018 were retrospectively reviewed if the patient encounter occurred in primary care clinics, emergency departments, or urgent care centers within Parkland Health & Hospital System and a fluoroquinolone was prescribed. Inappropriate use was defined as a fluoroquinolone prescription for cystitis, bronchitis, or sinusitis in a patient without a history of Pseudomonas aeruginosa or multidrug-resistant organisms and without drug allergies that precluded use of other oral antibiotics.

Results

Total fluoroquinolone prescriptions per 1000 patient visits decreased significantly by 39% (P < .01), and inappropriate fluoroquinolone use decreased from 53% to 34% (P < .01). More than 90% of inappropriate fluoroquinolone prescriptions were given for cystitis, while bronchitis and sinusitis accounted for only 4.4% and 1.6% of inappropriate indications, respectively.

Conclusion

A multimodal stewardship initiative appears to effectively reduce both total and inappropriate outpatient fluoroquinolone prescriptions.
Impact of Mandatory Infectious Diseases Consultation and Real-time Antimicrobial Stewardship Pharmacist Intervention on Staphylococcus aureus Bacteremia Bundle Adherence
Authors: Arensman Kellie , Dela-Pena Jennifer , Miller Jessica L , LaChance Erik , Beganovic Maya , Anderson Morgan , Rivelli Anne , Wieczorkiewicz Sarah M
Published: May 2020

Background

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of infectious diseases consultation (IDC) and a real-time antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) review on the management of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB).

Methods

This retrospective study included adult inpatients with SAB from January 2016 to December 2018 at 7 hospitals. Outcomes were compared between 3 time periods: before mandatory IDC and AMS review (period 1), after mandatory IDC and before AMS review (period 2), and after mandatory IDC and AMS review (period 3). The primary outcome was bundle adherence, defined as appropriate intravenous antimicrobial therapy, appropriate duration of therapy, appropriate surveillance cultures, echocardiography, and removal of indwelling intravenous catheters, if applicable. Secondary end points included individual bundle components, source control, length of stay (LOS), 30-day bacteremia-related readmission, and in-hospital all-cause mortality.

Results

A total of 579 patients met inclusion criteria for analysis. Complete bundle adherence was 65% in period 1 (n = 241/371), 54% in period 2 (n = 47/87), and 76% in period 3 (n = 92/121). Relative to period 3, bundle adherence was significantly lower in period 1 (odds ratio [OR], 0.58; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.37–0.93; P = .02) and period 2 (OR, 0.37; 95% CI, 0.20–0.67; P = .0009). No difference in bundle adherence was noted between periods 1 and 2. Significant differences were seen in obtaining echocardiography (91% vs 83% vs 100%; P < .001), source control (34% vs 45% vs 45%; P = .04), and hospital LOS (10.5 vs 8.9 vs 12.0 days; P = .01). No differences were noted for readmission or mortality.

Conclusions

The addition of AMS pharmacist review to mandatory IDC was associated with significantly improved quality care bundle adherence.
Disseminated Nocardia beijingensis Masquerading as Pulmonary Tuberculosis in a Patient With Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
Authors: Bertrán-López Jovanna , Abbott Andrew , Archibald Lennox K , Benninger Lauryn , Lascano Jorge , Kalyatanda Gautam
Published: May 2020

Case of disseminated Nocardia beijingensis, initially diagnosed and treated by health department as tuberculosis, presented with worsening symptoms and new lesions. Adjustment to antinocardial treatment resulted in significant clinical and radiographic improvement. Maintain a high index of suspicion for Nocardia in patients diagnosed with tuberculosis with worsening lesions despite therapy.
Introduction
Authors: Bracic Ana
Published: May 2020

Chapter 1 introduces the book. It discusses the importance of social exclusion and justifies the book’s focus on the role that individual behaviors play in perpetuating it. The Chapter presents the theory of the exclusion cycle and introduces the case of Roma (derogatively “Gypsies”) and non-Roma in Slovenia, which the book uses to illustrate the cyclical theory. The Chapter then briefly discusses why NGO promotion of intergroup contact might help break the cycle, and presents the key empirical contributions of the book. The Chapter also discusses the scope of the argument, comments on how common exclusion cycles might be and when they might develop, and concludes with a short description of the remaining chapters.
Introduction
Authors: Lindberg Julianne
Published: May 2020

The introductory chapter establishes the significance of Pal Joey in its own time by delving into the more controversial aspects of the show and its reception. The unconventional qualities of Pal Joey begin with its setting (a “cheap” nightclub in the South Side of Chicago), its cynicism, and its sexually frank characters. Its brazen depiction of flawed people—desperately grasping for a more secure class position, for fame, for sex, or for love—divided critics; on one hand, Pal Joey was praised for its depiction of seemingly real-to-life people. On the other hand, critics questioned the merits of giving these characters time on stage. This chapter ends with a consideration of Pal Joey’s unsettled canonic status and its role in reinforcing aesthetic values that hardened in the mid-twentieth century, and still inform the reception of musical theater.
Rodgers and Hart’s Boldest Venture
Authors: Lindberg Julianne
Published: May 2020

One of the crowning jewels in Rodgers and Hart’s post-Hollywood partnership, Pal Joey was purportedly their favorite show together. By the time of Pal Joey, Rodgers and Hart had written over thirty musicals together and had standardized their working process. This chapter traces the progress from bold idea to finished score, with attention paid to revisions, additions, and other subsequent changes as the score moved from sketch, to previews, to the Broadway premiere. This chapter also looks closely at the collaborative process, giving due credit to the other members of the show’s creative team, including John O’Hara, producer/director George Abbott, and choreographer Robert Alton.
I Could Write a Book (Musical)
Authors: Lindberg Julianne
Published: May 2020

This chapter analyses Pal Joey’s book numbers. This type of integrated song was not new to Broadway, or to the shows of Rodgers and Hart. The degree to which these songs lend sympathy to hard-to-like characters, however—characters who might otherwise be dismissed as mere cutouts of pulp-fiction villains—is remarkable. These songs helped balance O’Hara’s hard-boiled book, giving the audience the opportunity to identify with a group of character types they would otherwise be wary of associating with. The unconventional nature of many of the book songs, however, which critique, mock, and upend traditional musical comedy tropes, made way for a new critical discourse concerning musical theater.
The Women of Pal Joey
Authors: Lindberg Julianne
Published: May 2020

Pal Joey features four female character archetypes: the shrewd, wealthy woman of taste; the sleazy nightclub chorine; the innocent ingénue; and the hard-boiled reporter. All four of these types had appeared on Broadway (and in film) before. In Pal Joey two of them—the ingénue, Linda, and the nightclub singer, Gladys—are parodies. Linda serves as a foil to the typical ingénue trope, and doesn’t develop as a character. Gladys is a stereotype, albeit a funny one, of the tough-talking nightclub chanteuse. Vera is, truly, the only female character in Pal Joey to be afforded a complex inner life. The character Melba, however, offers the audience shrewd commentary on the conventions that Pal Joey sends up. This chapter looks specifically at the character Vera, played by Vivienne Segal, and the song “Zip,” sung by the character Melba and performed by Jean Casto and Elaine Stritch.
Joey Dances
Authors: Lindberg Julianne
Published: May 2020

In musical theater criticism, dance is too often considered secondary to the total effect of a show. In Pal Joey, dance did much more than tell a story—it viscerally engaged the audience; dynamized the space of the stage, the theater, and the diegetic world of the musical; and, quite literally, stopped the show. Without choreographer Robert Alton and the original Joey, Gene Kelly, Pal Joey might well have been unpalatable to audiences. Dance saved the show from the danger of being too “straight” in regard to book, and too unpleasant in regard to character and situation. But because of the lack of dance criticism during the period, many critics, and subsequently historians, have focused almost solely on the music and the book to explain its success and influence. This chapter will attempt to give dance its due in regard to the legacy of Pal Joey.
Introduction
Authors: Howell Charlotte E.
Published: May 2020

The introduction presents the broader context of both religion on television and the particular approach that this volume takes to its study: a production studies approach based in theories of television studies. Throughout, it establishes the significance of studying the discourses—utterances, practices, and ideologies—that shape how Christianity is represented on television and the production culture that creates that representation. The introduction also lays out the four-part structure of the book that details the four different approaches to positioning Christianity’s use in serial dramas over a twenty-year span: establishing white Christianity’s middlebrow associations, distancing through place and race, displacement through genre, and ultimately acknowledging and using as edgy content.
Southern Realism
Authors: Howell Charlotte E.
Published: May 2020

Friday Night Lights (NBC, 2006–2011) and Rectify (SundanceTV, 2013–2016) exemplified containing Christianity’s middlebrow appeal through displacement onto the cultural specificity of a realistically portrayed American South within a quality television drama. These two shows represent Christianity as both the dominant faith of their characters and as a characteristic part of Southern culture. Creatives used the milieu of an “authentic” American South to shift religion away from themselves and their quality-audience expectations, maintaining acceptability within the dominant non-Christian culture of television production. This displacement safely contained religion within the creatives’ production culture, allowing them to acknowledge Christianity’s religious content, but only within the peculiar particularity of the American South.
An Ethic of Responsibility
Authors: Norris Kristopher
Published: May 2020

This chapter begins the constructive turn in the book and outlines the contours and substance of an ethic of responsibility. The chapter begins by noting the impotence of efforts at “racial reconciliation” and offers the idea of “original sin” as a more accurate lens for addressing whiteness. The failure of white churches and theologians to reckon with the power of whiteness suggests the need for a new approach: an ethic of responsibility built upon the shared commitments of Cone and Hauerwas, and their mutual appeal to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as the criticisms and corrections that black liberation theology directs at white theology. As a process of formation, an ethic of responsibility promotes radical, communal action to confront through material practices the wicked problem of whiteness, while also recognizing the lingering challenges of whiteness within a broken and wounded body of Christ.
Remembrance, Repentance, Reparation
Authors: Norris Kristopher
Published: May 2020

This final chapter fleshes out an ethic of responsibility in practical terms through three church practices: remembrance, repentance, and reparation. It calls the white church to, first, remember and memorialize its role in the invention of white supremacy. Next, white churches must engage in acts of public repentance of their continued complicity and silence in the face of racism. Finally, white Christianity must confront the racial damage it has inflicted through concrete actions of reparation—politically, financially, and spiritually. The chapter offers empirical examples of churches engaging each these practices as well as notes the difficult work that lies ahead in the struggle against white supremacy.
Not the Arab Spring
Authors: McCarren Felicia
Published: May 2020

The reprise of La Source at the Paris Opera Ballet, following the adoption of legislation banning the veil in public spaces, has the potential to speak of gender and climate justice, but misses the contemporary cosmopolitics of the Arab spring.
The Blind Storyteller
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

Do newborns think? Do they know that 3 is greater than 2? Do they prefer right to wrong? What about emotions? Do newborns recognize happiness or anger? If they do, then how are our inborn thoughts and feelings encoded in our bodies? Could they persist after we die? Going all the way back to ancient Greece, human nature and the mind–body link are the topics of age-old scholarly debates. But laypeople also have strong opinions about such matters. Most people believe, for example, that newborn babies don’t know the difference between right and wrong—such knowledge, they insist, can only be learned. For emotions, they presume the opposite—that our capacity to feel fear, for example, is both inborn and embodied. These beliefs are stories we tell ourselves about what we know and who we are. They reflect and influence our understanding of ourselves and others, and they guide every aspect of our lives. In a twist that could have come out of a Greek tragedy, Berent proposes that our errors are our fate. These mistakes emanate from the very principles that make our minds tick: Our blindness to human nature is rooted in human nature itself. An intellectual journey that draws on philosophy, anthropology, linguistics, cognitive science, and Berent’s own cutting-edge research, The Blind Storyteller grapples with a host of provocative questions, from why we are so infatuated with our brains to what happens when we die. The end result is a startling new perspective on our humanity.
Know Thyself
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

Remy, the Harvard Humanities cat, spends his days amidst Harvard’s academic towers, blissfully oblivious to his intellectual surroundings. It is obvious to us that Remy suffers certain cognitive limitations of which he is entirely unaware. After all, we are humans, whereas Remy was born a cat. That a pet might experience a certain level of cognitive blindness is an idea we accept with equanimity. But we are far less comfortable with the thought that we might suffer from similar cognitive limitations ourselves. Logic, however, compels us to entertain this as a distinct possibility. Having recognized that biology can innately limit other species’ cognitions and that we too are biological kinds, blindness could very well obscure human minds. Fear of blindness goes throughout our intellectual history all the way to the ancient Greeks. In this book, we see that, just as the Greek feared, we are oblivion to our own human nature, and our blindness is in our fate. It emanates from human nature itself.
Object and Number
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

To put our antinativist intuitions in perspective, the next three chapters examine in greater detail whether some aspects of knowledge are in fact innate. Chapter 3 reviews infants’ early understanding of the physical world. For example, can a newborn tell that his mother is a single object, not a collection of parts? We will see that people’s notion of an object is complex—we assume that objects are cohesive (moving objects don’t spontaneously disintegrate in mid-air), that they move only by contact, and once contacted, they move continuously (rather than come “on” and “off,” or venture off a different path). Moreover, our intuitive notion of an “object” is demonstrably far richer than what our senses suggest. Remarkably, newborn infants know the same and so do several other species. Infants (and nonhuman animals) also have an implicit notion of number. When presented with small sets of objects (up to about four), young infants can implicitly track their precise number, and they can even add and subtract. Another numeric system allows humans and nonhumans alike to recognize the numericities of large sets by comparing their ratios (e.g., 6 vs. 12 objects). The early emergence of these capacities and their parallels in nonhuman species suggests that they are likely grounded in ancient evolutionarily principles that are innate.
The Social World
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

This chapter provides a very brief overview of the social capacities of young infants. Specifically, we the author ask whether infants instinctively know that (human) agents are distinct from objects. new see that newborn infants spontaneously imitate agents; they follow their gaze, and they selectively respond to human faces, but not objects. A few months later, infants also seem to know that (unlike objects), the behavior of agents is driven by their beliefs and goals, and they spontaneously prefer “good” agents (those that help others) to “bad” ones (those that hinder others from attaining their goals). These results suggest that young infants possess intuitive knowledge of psychology, distinct from their naïve physics.
The Tempest Is Brewing
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

Why are people biased against innate knowledge? We first review several previous proposals; each of these theories has merits, but they cannot explain the results from the previous chapter. We thus outline a novel theory that links our antinativist intuitions to two principles of core knowledge—Dualism and Essentialism. This chapter considers each of these principles and reviews some of the evidence in their support. Of particular interest is whether these principles could be innate in humans. Here, the jury is still out, but there is some evident to suggest that they could well be universal and inborn. We will next see how Dualism and Essentialism collide to form a perfect epistemic storm. If, per Dualism, knowledge is immaterial, whereas if per Essentialism, innate biological traits must be material, it follows that knowledge cannot be innate.
It’s in My Bones
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

When I point to an object, you and I can agree on what it is (a red, round cup). How does our brain (matter) represent such notions? And how do we (distinct material bodies) apparently converge so we can talk about the same things? Cognitive scientists and philosophers have long assumed that people share abstract concepts (e.g., a cup); to explain how such abstract concepts can give rise to thinking, they further proposed the computational theory of mind. But theories of “embodied cognition” assert that cognition is all “in people’s bones.” What we know as a cup is not an abstract notion but rather the bodily experiences of our sensory and motor interactions with a cup—its shiny color, how it feels in our hands, the smoothness of its surface, its weight, and shape. I suggest that “Embodiment” is alluring because it promises to resolve the mysteries of Dualism (how can material bodies encode the immaterial notion of a cup?) and the origins of ideas (how do we all converge on an understanding that allows us to talk about the same things?). The solution is strikingly simple—just remove the “mind” from the equation. If there is no (immaterial) knowledge, then we no longer need to worry about how knowledge arises from the body and how knowledge can be learned. As discussed in the previous chapter, people erroneously believe that “if it’s in my body” then “it’s inborn.” Dualism and essentialism thus explain some of the lure of embodied cognition.
Insane About the Brain
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

As the discoveries from neuroscience pour in, the newspaper headlines capture our imagination. They announce that “Musicians’ Brains Really Work Differently” and promise to tell us “How Learning a New Language Actually Rewires the Brain.” What is this hype all about? Do you really need a brain scan to tell that a musician’s brain is different than a nonmusician’s? Cann’t you hear the difference right from the first sound? And don’t we all know that learning a language happens “up north”? It is not the science or technology that attracts our attention, nor is it their aesthetics. Images of genes, proteins, and viruses have no less scientific significance and visual appeal, but they don’t mesmerize us in the same way. Yet we incorrectly believe that evidence from neuroscience is stronger than the results from cognitive experiments. In fact, people fall for “brain stories” even when these accounts are clearly fallacious. Why do we blindly follow the brain? This chapter traces the allure of neuroscience to Dualism. The Dualist view condemns us to an eternal state of wonder because we fail to grasp how “thinking” (e.g., of a cup) can command changes in our material body (e.g., I move my hand to grab it)—how the immaterial mind can effect change in matter. Brain scans alleviate the dissonance by presenting us with tangible proof that thinking is material. The mind–body dissonance that plagues our reasoning about our healthy selves also derails our reasoning about a number of psychiatric conditions, discussed in the next chapters.
The Framework of Rhetoric
Authors: Bonds Mark Evan
Published: May 2020

Composers’ lives inevitably shape what and how they write. And just as inevitably, our knowledge of those lives shapes how we hear what they have written. Prior to 1830, however, musical expression was understood not as the projection of an inner self, but rather as an objective construct. For composers, this meant creating works that would move listeners in desired ways. For listeners, this meant evaluating works on the basis of their effect, not on what a given composer might be trying to “say.” With the important exception of the fantasia—recognized already in the mid-eighteenth century as a unique and highly circumscribed genre—listeners did not begin to hear expression as a revelation of the compositional self in any significant way until the second quarter of the nineteenth century.
Toward the Perception of Subjective Expression
Authors: Bonds Mark Evan
Published: May 2020

The idea of artistic expression as an outward manifestation of the self arose in literature and philosophy at least two generations before it came to be applied to music. Lyric poetry in particular provided a conceptual model for perceiving art as a form of autobiography; Goethe and Wordsworth encouraged such a reading of their works. In the meantime, philosophers were questioning the very nature of the self, and particularly the unconscious, which is to say, the primordial self. They began to recognize that while the unconscious might defy observation, its products could provide indirect evidence of its workings, and they regarded artworks as a synthesis of conscious and unconscious thought and as such capable of offering at least an occluded window onto the nature of the true inner self.
Hearing Composers in Their Works
Authors: Bonds Mark Evan
Published: May 2020

Because of its inherently abstract nature, untethered to the demands of language or representation, instrumental music was the art form that more than any other was deemed capable of revealing glimpses of a creator’s “true” self. Fantasy, humor, and irony were the three qualities perceived as most readily capable of revealing that self. These happen to have been the three qualities heard more often in the music of Beethoven than of any other composer of his time: contemporaries frequently found his music obscure. In retrospect, we can see that Beethoven was moving further and further from the long-standing framework of rhetoric toward a framework of hermeneutics, which challenged audiences to understand what they were hearing by listening from the perspective of the composer.
After Beethoven
Authors: Bonds Mark Evan
Published: May 2020

Beethoven’s style, composers and critics agreed, could not be imitated. But his subjectivity—or, more precisely, his perceived attitude of subjectivity—could be emulated quite readily, and it became the new norm soon after his death. Critics, moreover, heard compositional subjectivity not only in new music but also in selected works of the pre-Beethovenian past. In the meantime, the increasingly public nature of musical life created a growing demand for journals, miniature scores, and composer biographies that could help listeners comprehend an instrumental repertoire that was becoming stylistically ever more diverse and technically difficult. Composer biographies, a rarity before 1800, had become commonplace by mid-century. Concert-hall audiences now assumed that the instrumental music they were hearing came from deep within the soul of the composer.
The Return of Objectivity
Authors: Bonds Mark Evan
Published: May 2020

The New Objectivity of the 1920s heralded a return to the concept of expression as a construct, and objectivity would became a cornerstone of the high-modernist aesthetic that dominated throughout the middle decades of the century. The idea of music as a revelation of the compositional self was nevertheless too deeply ingrained in musical culture to disappear altogether, and a belief in the aesthetics of subjectivity has continued to manifest itself in a variety of ways down to the present. Concert-hall audiences have nevertheless continued to listen within a hermeneutic framework, that is, from the perspective of the composer, and they accept responsibility for understanding the work at hand. In the realm of popular music, by contrast, the framework of rhetoric persists. We thus find ourselves today in an era of dual expressive paradigms and dual frameworks of production and reception.
Dhammaloka before Dhammaloka
Authors: Turner Alicia
Published: May 2020

This chapter discusses the evidence for the early life of the Irishman who was ordained as the Buddhist monk Dhammaloka in Rangoon in 1900, exploring the contradictory accounts he later gave and his multiple aliases. Probably born Laurence Carroll in Dublin in 1856, he worked his way across the Irish Sea and the Atlantic, then crossed the United States as a hobo (migrant worker) before working his way across the Pacific. However, this account leaves over two decades unaccounted for, raising more questions than it answers. The chapter discusses possible explanations and explores the various radical contexts where he might have acquired his undoubted political skills. It notes finally the number of ethnic boundaries he crossed, and concludes that he had probably abandoned exclusive ethnic affiliations long before his ordination as a Buddhist monk.
A Controversial Tour of Ceylon
Authors: Turner Alicia
Published: May 2020

In late 1909, the Sinhalese Buddhist activist Anagarika Dharmapala hosted the Irish Buddhist monk U Dhammaloka on a controversial tour of Ceylon (Sri Lanka). This tour is well-documented from many different perspectives: Dharmapala’s private diaries, his newspaper Sinhala Bauddhaya, the hostile colonial and missionary press, and transcriptions of Dhammaloka’s preaching. This chapter shows backstage tension between Dhammaloka and his hosts as they followed a punishing schedule of events drawing large audiences across Ceylon; conflict with Christians who wrote against the tour, attempted to disrupt it, and sought government intervention; and the actions of police and government. Dhammaloka’s abrupt departure from Ceylon appears as the culmination of these conflicts. The chapter offers a detailed insight into the day-to-day workings of contentious religious politics during the Buddhist revival.
Perils of Plenty
Authors: Markowitz Jonathan N.
Published: May 2020

Why do some states project military force to seek control of resources, while others do not? Conventional wisdom asserts that resource-scarce states have the strongest interest in securing control over resources. Counterintuitively, this book finds that, under certain conditions, the opposite is true. Perils of Plenty argues that what states make influences what they want to take. Specifically, the more economically dependent states are on extracting income from resource rents, the stronger their preferences to secure control over resources will be. This theory is tested with a set of case studies analyzing states’ reactions to the 2007 exogenous climate shock that exposed energy resources in the Arctic. This book finds that some states, such as Russia and Norway, responded to the shock by dramatically increasing their Arctic military presence, while others, such as the United States, Canada, and Denmark, did not. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, countries with plentiful natural resources, such as Norway and Russia, were more—not less—willing to back their claims by projecting military force. This book finds that plenty can actually lead to peril when states with plentiful resources become economically dependent on those resources and thus have stronger incentives to secure their control. These findings have implications for understanding both the political effects of climate change in the Arctic and the prospects for resource competition in other regions, such as the Middle East and the South China Sea
Research Design—The Arctic as a Natural Laboratory
Authors: Markowitz Jonathan N.
Published: May 2020

Chapter 3 lays out the research design and explains why an unprecedented drop-off in polar ice in 2007 makes the Arctic an ideal natural laboratory to test Rent-Addiction Theory against competing explanations. All five of the Arctic littoral states experienced this exogenous shock at the same time and have potential offshore resources at stake. Observing how strongly each state responded to the shock by investing in projecting power to back its resource claims allows one to infer the underlying preferences and interests of these states. Comparing states’ behavior directly before and after the shock controls for slower-moving and potentially confounding factors, such as nationalism, status-seeking, and relative power. This chapter also describes how key variables of interest such as economic structure, domestic political institutions, and exclusionary foreign policy are operationalized.
A Tale of Two Nordic Powers
Authors: Markowitz Jonathan N.
Published: May 2020

Chapter 8 explores Denmark and Norway’s divergent responses to the revelation of Arctic resources in 2007. This chapter employs a natural experiment that exploits the discovery of North Sea oil in the 1960s. The two Nordic nations are extremely similar, but Norway discovered oil, while Denmark did not. Norway embarked on a resource-driven development path, while Denmark, with no oil reserves to exploit, invested heavily in its citizens’ productivity and human capital. As a result, Norway’s economic structure became land-oriented and Denmark’s production-oriented. This provides an opportunity to observe the effect that variation in each state’s economic structure had on its preference for territory and willingness to compete over its control. The findings reveal that Norway’s economic dependence on income from natural resources drove Oslo to invest much more than Copenhagen in projecting power to secure Arctic claims. This finding strongly confirms Rent-Addiction Theory’s predictions.
Contesting Conformity
Authors: Ikuta Jennie C.
Published: May 2020

“Be yourself!” “Don’t just follow the crowd!” Such injunctions valorizing nonconformity pervade contemporary American culture. We praise individuals such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs who chart their own course in life and do something new. Yet surprisingly, recent research in social psychology has shown that in practice, Americans are averse to nonconformity. This disjunction between our public rhetoric and practice raises questions: Why is nonconformity valuable? Is it always valuable, or does it pose dangers as well as promise benefits for democratic societies? What is the relationship between nonconformity as an individual ideal and democracy as a form of collective self-rule? Contesting Conformity brings a fresh interpretive lens to the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill, and Friedrich Nietzsche to investigate nonconformity and its relationship to modern democracy. Drawing new insight from their work, the book argues that nonconformity is an intractable issue for democracy. While nonconformity is often important for cultivating a most just polity, it can also undermine democracy. Insofar as democracy depends on the ability of each citizen to critically reflect and dissent from an unjust public opinion when necessary, Tocqueville and Mill enable us to appreciate nonconformity as an ethical and political ideal for democratic citizens. However, nonconformity can also undermine democracy, as Nietzsche helps us see, insofar as unconstrained expressions of nonconformity may stand in tension with the equality constitutive of democracy. Contesting Conformity demonstrates that while nonconformity can enhance democracy, it is not necessarily democratic.
Nonconformity in American Public Life
Authors: Ikuta Jennie C.
Published: May 2020

Chapter 1 lays out the concern of the book. It observes that American public culture valorizes nonconformity and identifies its valorization in domains such as education, business, and politics. In addition to an ethical ideal that constitutes the life well-lived, nonconformity is framed as a political ideal crucial to democracy. However, the rhetoric of nonconformity has also been put to use in troubling ways. Figures on the right have employed the rhetoric of nonconformity to express hostility to democratic ideals such as racial and gender equality. The substantive openness of nonconformity as a concept explains how it has been mobilized for different ends, including some at cross-purposes with one another and with democracy. What does it mean to be a nonconformist? Is nonconformity an absolute ideal, or should it be limited by substantive commitments? Answering these questions requires turning to the writings of Tocqueville, Mill, and Nietzsche.
Countering Conformity through Intellectual Freedom in Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
Authors: Ikuta Jennie C.
Published: May 2020

Chapter 2 examines nonconformity of opinion in Democracy in America, investigating what Tocqueville can teach us about the nature of intellectual freedom in a world increasingly dominated by public opinion and what can be done to foster such freedom. It argues that while Tocqueville sees why conformity—in terms of intellectual servitude—is easy under democratic conditions, it can and should be resisted for the sake of a healthier democracy. It shows that Tocquevillian intellectual freedom consists in the freedom to dissent, which is fostered through private and public expressions of social support for individuals who dissent from public opinion. It also examines Tocquevillian public opinion in two domains: race and religion.
From Rags to Drag
Authors: Jendza Craig
Published: May 2020

This chapter proposes that for some twenty years, Aristophanes and Euripides were engaging in a cross-generic dialogue about the appropriate use and effectiveness of dramatic costuming, which concerned the costume choices of dressing a royal in rags and dressing a male character in women’s clothes. It argues that Aristophanes’s Acharnians caricatured Euripides’s tendency to stage heroes in rags and that some years later, Euripides’s Helen reacted by depicting Menelaus as Aristophanes’s caricature of a Euripidean hero in rags. The chapter then suggests that the following year, Aristophanes’s Women at the Thesmophoria mocked Euripides by dressing him, his Kinsman, and his fellow tragedian Agathon in women’s clothes and that Euripides’s Bacchae responded by making Pentheus participate in the same kind of cross-dressing scene that Aristophanes used in Women at the Thesmophoria. The chapter analyzes these reappropriations as a type of literary rivalry aimed at achieving poetic supremacy.
The Aftermath of Paracomedy
Authors: Jendza Craig
Published: May 2020

This chapter explores three cases where authors engage with paracomedy after the fifth century bce. It proposes that the anonymous fourth-century bce tragedy Rhesus employs paracomedy and that it does so either because the author was indiscriminately copying from fifth-century drama or because he wanted to imitate Euripides’s penchant for paracomedy. It investigates the highly fragmentary evidence for Rhinthon’s third-century bce hilarotragedies, normally thought to be theatrical farces, and posits that Rhinthon was utilizing a more explicit type of paracomedy than in the fifth century. It also provides an explanation for the surprising assertion from the second-century CE scholar Pollux that Euripides and Sophocles frequently employed a comic parabasis. The chapter argues that these cases of reception highlight paracomedy’s importance in antiquity and indicate that paracomedy was a noted hallmark of Euripidean stagecraft that had an indelible effect on the genre of tragedy.
Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind
Authors: McCauley Robert N. , Graham George
Published: May 2020

This book endorses an ecumenical naturalism toward all cognition, which will illuminate the long-recognized and striking similarities between features of mental disorders and features of religions. The authors emphasize underlying cognitive continuities between familiar features of religiosity, of mental disorders, and of everyday thinking and action. They contend that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of maturationally natural cognitive systems, which address fundamental problems of human survival, encompassing such capacities as hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. The associated skills are not taught and appear independent of general intelligence. Religions’ representations cue such systems’ operations. The authors hypothesize that in doing so they sometimes elicit responses that mimic features of cognition and conduct associated with mental disorders. Both in schizophrenia and in religions some people hear alien voices. The inability of depressed participants to communicate with or sense their religions’ powerful, caring gods can exacerbate their depression. Often religions can domesticate the concerns and compulsions of people with OCD. Religions’ rituals and pronouncements about moral thought-action fusion can temporarily evoke similar obsessions and compulsions in the general population. A chapter is devoted to each of these and to the exception that proves the rule. The authors argue that if autistic spectrum disorder involves theory-of mind-deficits, then people with ASD will lack intuitive insight and find inferences with many religious representations challenging. Ecumenical naturalism’s approach to mental abnormalities and religiosity promises both explanatory and therapeutic understanding.
Of Debatable Benefit
Authors: French Nathan S.
Published: May 2020

Though an individual may possess the correct intention for martyrdom-seeking, Jihadi-Salafi jurists argue that such intentionality does not secure the permissibility of a martyrdom-seeking operation. The operation as a legitimate tactic of war and struggle in God’s cause must also be debated. Beginning with a discussion of the permissibility of immersing oneself into a superior enemy force, and a question of the permissibility of striking human shields, this chapter argues that Jihadi-Salafi jurisprudence on the subject of martyrdom operations reveals a rearrangement of the objectives of the law. Such a rearrangement, the chapter concludes, suggests that for Jihadi-Salafis, it is to the public benefit of the umma to put the preservation of religion ahead of life, reason, lineage, or property. Such a move demands a comparison with Western utilitarian approaches, such as that of Jeremy Bentham.
Conclusion
Authors: French Nathan S.
Published: May 2020

Many researchers argue that contemporary Jihadi-Salafi movements will fall apart under the weight of their own extremism. This concluding chapter argues that such pronouncements may be premature. The Jihadi-Salafi narratives of suffering and oppression—their theodicy—suggest that nation-states will never fully address the needs of Muslims and may even sustain the circumstances of their disenfranchisement. To demonstrate this, the chapter explores the structure of the state developed by ISIS’s caliphal project, paying particular attention to the structure of its program of youth education. If states fail to account for these “cubs of the caliphate,” there is a possibility of another generation of youth finding appeal in the theodicy and self-renunciative asceticism of Jihadi-Salafism.
“The Citizens Did It”
Authors: Flesher Fominaya Cristina
Published: May 2020

Chapter 7, “ ‘The Citizen’s Did It’:15MpaRato, Autonomous Hacker Ethics in Action” moves from the “analog” mobilizations of the preferentes pensioners discussed in the previous chapter to the technopolitics of 15MpaRato, which bases its political praxis on a hacker ethic that seeks to harness the power of the digital commons to bring down the bankers responsible for the fraud behind the preferentes scandal and the massive public bailout of these same banks. It shows how their technopolitical praxis is used to contest and transform hegemonic narratives about the crisis, austerity, and Spanish democracy, and above all to show people that ordinary citizens can reclaim public institutions for the common good.
A Semiotic Exploration of the World of Charismatic Christianity
Authors: Abreu Savio
Published: May 2020

In order to make sense of the worldview and ethos of the Charismatics, this chapter studies the symbolic world of the Charismatics—with their concepts of sacred and profane—and the structuring Charismatic habitus. It tries to make sense of the various religious symbols and their supporting discourses, which have shaped and legitimized the world view and ethos of the Charismatics. For this purpose, it draws from the work of Geertz on religion as a cultural system of symbols that shapes and constitutes reality, seen in the light of Asad’s criticisms concerning the role of power. Drawing from Bourdieu’s idea of habitus, it also analyses the underlying Charismatic habitus that guides individual believers to understand and respond to the social reality around them. Additionally, various conceptions of the sacred and profane are explored, drawing from the works of Durkheim, Eliade, and others.