bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
From Parnassus to Bayreuth: Staging a Music which is Not One
Authors: Hickmott Sarah
Published: May 2021

The final chapter brings together all three thinkers and demonstrates the way in which they all – albeit in different ways – inherit and deploy aspects of a Romantic and idealist conception of music. It considers their writings on Wagner in order to ascertain more clearly how their different positions play out over a shared question: to what extent is Wagner’s music fascist or anti-Semitic? Rather than seek to solve this problem, the chapter argues that their positions on this question relate to their a priori understanding of the relationship between music and philosophy, their broader political-philosophical commitments, and their characterization of what is ‘essentially’ musical. The chapter also draws on Irigaray’s work in order to show how both Nancy and Lacoue-Labarthe reinstate a gendered foundationalism (specifically the musical maternal-feminine which logically and chronologically precedes the symbolic, language, and culture) that is so at odds with their broader projects; by contrast, though Badiou never identifies music ‘itself’ with the feminine, the way in which he constructs ‘truth’ nonetheless rehabilitates a certain feminine exceptionalism alongside a pervasive misogyny in his work. The concluding analytic argues for multiply intersecting planes of mediation and a non-reductive approach to both music and gender that refuses to attribute a single essence to either.
Scots in Spain: Continuity, Change and Politics
Authors: Raeburn Fraser
Published: May 2021

This chapter follows the Scottish volunteers to Spain itself, asking how far it is possible to establish a distinctively Scottish experience of serving in the Spanish Civil War in the absence of a particular Scottish unit in the International Brigades. Despite the lack of a formal collective identity, it is shown that the social and political networks that underpinned recruitment continued to matter in Spain, serving important functions in shaping volunteers’ experiences of everyday life, service and even battle. In particular, such informal connections could be vital in order to successfully understand and navigate the highly-politicised atmosphere of the International Brigades, and to mitigate the consequences of personal failings.
Epilogue: Beyond
Authors: Raeburn Fraser
Published: May 2021

Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.
‘Here all is strange’: Beckett beyond the Normal
Authors: Kennedy Seán
Published: May 2021

This chapter introduces Beckett beyond the Normal. It argues that Beckett’s writing before World War Two was influenced by his experience of mental illness and psychoanalytic therapy. He was invalidated by illness, alienated from Ireland’s normalising society, and turned to writing to express his struggles in artistic form. After the war, he saw how Hitler’s Nazis and the Stalinist purges had changed everything, and began to search for a new form of art that could accommodate the mess.
Beckett, Evangelicalism and the Biopolitics of Famine
Authors: Kennedy Seán
Published: May 2021

This chapter responds to James McNaughton’s reading of Endgame and Watt in light of the food politics of Hitler and Stalin. It recovers the significance to both works of the biopolitics of English relief efforts during the Irish Famine. It suggests that Beckett’s interest in Ireland’s limit event was shaped by his sense of complicity in British colonial atrocity by way of his family’s evangelical heritage.
The Two Faces of Debt
Authors: Nygård Stefan
Published: May 2021

This introductory chapter surveys the notoriously ambivalent concept of debt. It connects different approaches to debt in social theory and anthropology to the book’s focus on how past debts are mobilised in political debates in the present, and how the ‘North’ has been portrayed as indebted to the ‘South’ for its development, and vice versa. Both questions are framed by the way in which understandings of debt tend to gravitate towards reciprocity or domination. In view of its fundamental ambiguity, debt thus underpins both social cohesion and fragmentation. While it has the capacity to sustain social relations by joining together the two parties of a debt relation, it also contains the risk of deteriorating into domination and bargaining. A tension between debt as the glue of social bonds and debt as hierarchy consequently runs through the social history of the concept. Applied to regional and global North-South relations, discussions on debt have often centred on the question of retribution, involving difficult disputes over possible ways of settling debts in the present for injustices incurred in the past.
The Soul of Europe: Two Different Ways of Thinking Germany’s Debt to Greek Culture
Authors: Forti Simona
Published: May 2021

This chapter compares two opposing ways of conceiving the idea of the “Soul of Europe”. Both of them trace the origin of the idea to Greek philosophy and especially Plato. On the one hand, it is the Platonism adopted by the so-called 'Nazi philosophical anthropology' that interprets the Germany of the Third Reich, its Idea of Rassenseel, as the moment in which not only the debt of German culture to Greek culture is paid but in which Germany will finally be able to demonstrate that it is the only true heir of ancient Greece and that for this reason it must conquer the whole of Europe. On the other hand, as an example of an opposite vision, it is the work of Jan Patocka who is convinced that German philosophy can 'today' represent the soul of Europe, but for whom both the notion of soul and that of Europe are constitutively open and infinite, connected to the concept of a debt that can never be settled.
Introduction: Taxi Driver Forward
Authors: Brems Brian , Moore Michelle E.
Published: May 2021

Provides an overview of Paul Schrader’s career, important biographical information, and a contextual reading of thematic and stylistic preoccupations of Schrader’s films. Establishes the framework for the subsequent essays through an examination of Schrader’s contributions to cinema as both a critic and a filmmaker. Begins with Taxi Driver and uses that film as a jumping off point for the remainder of his work, seeing each of the subsequent films as part of that film’s legacy. Taxi Driver is an important through line for many of the essays included in the collection, but not the focus of any individual essay. Use Taxi Driver and its many influences, including those from Schrader’s biography and his intellectual background as a critic, to craft a lens through which his other films can be viewed.
Paul Schrader’s Experiment in Italian Neo-decadence: The Comfort of Strangers and the Sadean System
Authors: Dassanowsky Robert
Published: May 2021

The Comfort of Strangers (GB/Italy1990), directed by Paul Schrader and written by Harold Pinter (from the short novel by Ian McEwan), who had supplied the 1960s with its premier parable on power and sexuality in The Servant, was no success with audiences or critics, the latter nearly completely missing the obvious redux on a sexualized and cannibalistic fascism that arrived in the 1970s with Visconti, Cavani, Bertolucci, Fassbinder, and Pasolini. This chapter argues that like The Damned (1969) and Death in Venice (1971), as well as their heirs from Fassbinder's German Woman trilogy to Szabo's Mephisto (1981), Schrader’s The Comfort of
Strangers locates a sociopolitical tension between high and low art.
“Just Being Transparent Baby”: Surveillance Culture, Digitization, and Self-regulation in Paul Schrader’s The Canyons
Authors: Slaymaker James
Published: May 2021

Paul Schrader’s micro-budget 2013 feature The Canyons was almost unanimously disparaged upon release, with critics pointing to its emotional detachment, flat digital aesthetic and lack of realistic characterization as its major flaws. This chapter rails against these criticisms and explores the complex aesthetic, socio-political, and moral purpose of Schrader’s film. The chapter argues that a theoretical approach to The Canyons as an expression of the post-humanist condition fostered by the influx of surveillance cameras and social media into the fabric of everyday life allows us to perceive of his work as a cultural tool that forces us to reflect upon our relationship with media images. A reading of the feature through the theoretical framework of Foucault's visual economy of self-regulation fills a gap within Schrader scholarship by arguing for an interpretative paradigm which investigates the symbiotic relation between alienation, narcissism and the mediatised nature of contemporary social experience at the centre of The Canyons, thus offering a substantial insight on the fragmentation and disintegration of affect and personhood within a digitized culture.
Foundations, 1872–1918
Authors: McLeod Wilson
Published: May 2021

This chapter discusses the first wave of Gaelic revival activity in Scotland from the late 18th century onwards, with a focus on the period from 1872 to 1918. It considers the development of different Gaelic organisations and their varying perspectives on the role of Gaelic and the appropriate strategies for development. Most important of these was An Comunn Gaidhealach, which became the main Gaelic organisation until the 1980s. The most important field of controversy concerned the role of Gaelic in the state education system, which was established in 1872. Over time, the education authorities made limited concessions that gave Gaelic a greater role, most notably the clause in the Education (Scotland) Act 1918 requiring education authorities in Gaelic-speaking areas to make provision for the language in the curriculum. The chapter also considers the role of Gaelic in public administration and the churches, and issues concerning the development of linguistic resources for the language.
Transition, 1919–44
Authors: McLeod Wilson
Published: May 2021

This chapter considers the position of Gaelic in the challenging decades following the First World War, when there was heavy emigration from Scotland and prolonged economic decline. Economic issues dominated public discussions concerning the situation of the Highlands, and Gaelic played only a limited role in the main cultural and political debates of interwar Scotland. The main policy challenge of this era involved the implementation of the Gaelic clause in Education (Scotland) Act 1918. This brought a somewhat increased role for Gaelic in the education system, but much less than campaigners had hoped. Gaelic radio broadcasting began in 1923, and media provision has been an important area of policy concern ever since.
Homes for Displaced Figures: Pedro Costa’s Colossal Youth
Authors: Lash Dominic
Published: May 2021

This chapter consists of a close reading of Pedro Costa's 2006 film Colossal Youth. It demonstrates the many distinctions that it puts in play, arguing that one of the film's achievements is that it does not break down distinctions so much as displace or disorientate them, managing thereby to simultaneously orientate and disorientate the viewer. How it does so is traced by means of the networks of significance which the film puts into play (which are also set out in an appendix that breaks down the film and identifies the structure of motifs that runs through it) and a range of different kinds of figuration, involving figures as persons, as metaphors, and as the kind of shapings that were explored in chapter five. It concludes by proposing that the film demonstrates how the notion of "home" can disturb or confuse the distinction between the literal and the figurative, and shows that a home is something that – just as was argued with regard to a film's coherence in chapter four – needs to be achieved.
Conclusion: Method-Free Orientation
Authors: Lash Dominic
Published: May 2021

The book's conclusion argues that, with regard to the aesthetic judgement of films, the best orientational method is the absence of method. This does not mean that aesthetic criticism should aim to be entirely unmethodological, but rather that any general method for mastering disorientation will itself be vulnerable to disorientation, and that the critic must be alert to this possibility and hence flexible in method, responsive to the demands films make of us rather than forcing them to fit our predetermined categories. The arguments put forward in the book are briefly summarized, and – after returning once more to John Ford's The Searchers – it is concluded that in many cases disorientation and confusion are not defects to be remedied, but rather crucial to both how and what films mean.
‘We are both father and mother together in this generation’: Physical and Intellectual Creations in ‘Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children’ and King Lear
Authors: Platt Peter G.
Published: May 2021

This chapter examines the connection between physical and intellectual creations in “Of the Affection of Fathers to Their Children” (2.8) and King Lear. It argues that Montaigne is at once more optimistic and more pessimistic about the love between parents and children than Shakespeare in Lear: he both argues for the natural bond between parents and their offspring and anatomizes the treacheries and missed opportunities for achieving this bond that happen in the real world, beyond ideals. Further, the even greater connection between essay and play is the shared fascination with non-bodily creations. For Montaigne, “Of the Affection” ultimately argues that “what we engender by the mind, the fruits of our courage, sufficiency, or spirit, are brought forth by a far more noble part than the corporeal and more our own.” For Shakespeare, King Lear provides a sustained meditation not only on filial impiety but on the mind’s engenderings: those of “fools and madmen” (3.4.75), “noble philosopher[s]” (3.4.160), and the theater itself.
Shakespeare before the Essays
Authors: Platt Peter G.
Published: May 2021

The Epilogue explores what Shakespeare did with the topics of the mutability of the self; the multiplicity of truth claims and skepticism in a variety of forms; and a fascination with cultural others before he encountered Florio’s translation of Montaigne. It reminds us that Montaigne gave Shakespeare the tools both to delve into these ideas more deeply and to make them more prominent in his plays.
Mohammed Çelebi
Authors: McInally Tom
Published: May 2021

This chapter describes the life Strachan led for two years with the Bedouin in the Great Syrian Desert. The Anazzah controlled the Ottoman half of the desert and had become wealthy taxing the caravans of Silk Road traders. Strachan’s favoured treatment made this period almost idyllic for him. He mastered Arabic such that he was considered a ’true Bedouin’ and had sufficient income to indulge in the purchase of manuscripts in Arabic and Farsi. Emir Feyyād’s wish that he convert to Islam gave him access to Muslim scholars who helped him understand their religion and culture. The emir believed that he had converted, and when Strachan took the Muslim name ‘Mohammed Çelebi’, he gave him his widowed sister-in-law in marriage. This made him a member of the ruling family and conferred considerable status within the tribe but placed him in danger.
The English East India Company
Authors: McInally Tom
Published: May 2021

Using company records and Della Valle’s journals, this chapter explains Strachan’s introduction to members of the East India Company in Isfahan. The struggles of the fledgling organisation to establish itself in Iran and India in the face of opposition from Portuguese and other western traders and its shortage of gold and silver are outlined and set against the background of Shah Abbas I’s reign and trade along the Silk Road.
Strachan’s early involvement with the Levant Company in Aleppo and Baghdad did not overcome the suspicions that the English merchants in Isfahan held about Strachan because of his religion, nationality, friendship with the Carmelite friars in the city and, above all, his association with the Spanish ambassador, Don Garcías de Silva y Figueroa. Nevertheless, they employed him as physician and interpreter.
Among Friends
Authors: McInally Tom
Published: May 2021

After leaving the East India Company’s employment for the second time, Strachan was dependent on the goodwill of the Carmelite friars; staying with them in their convent in Isfahan. Drawing on the Order’s archives, the circumstances under which Strachan entrusted his library to them for safe return to Europe are described. The extent of Strachan’s friendship with Pietro Della Valle is explored showing that after his return to Europe, the Roman traveller believed his friend had travelled to India and died there.
A number of recently discovered manuscripts which belonged to Strachan are quoted which suggest that the Scotsman had become a member of the scholarly debating circle centred on the Iranian court headed by Shah Abbas’ son-in-law, the mathematician and philosopher, Mīr Dāmād. The importance of such an association helps explain Strachan’s decision to remain in the East.
Early Defectors, 1924–1930
Authors: Riehle Kevin
Published: May 2021

This chapter identifies sixteen intelligence and state security officers who defected from the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1930. Their revelations show that Soviet intelligence targets focused initially internally, but gradually turned outward as the Soviet government sought to identify external support to internal threats. Most of the defectors in the first group began their careers as enthusiastic Bolshevik adherents, while others cooperated out a sense of personal survival. Regardless of their backgrounds, each of the officers in this group lost their faith in the system, and even more so, lost their faith in the people around them. Several individuals in this group complained about the low moral standard of the early Bolsheviks, their lust for blood, and their intolerance for anyone not fully in agreement with them. This chapter further explains the longest period in Soviet history without any intelligence officer defectors: 1931 to 1936, caused by new Soviet government measures to stem the flow of Soviet officials who were choosing to leave the system in the 1920s.
Early Cold War Defectors, 1947–1951
Authors: Riehle Kevin
Published: May 2021

The fourth group includes the first Soviet intelligence and state security officers that the Western Allies accepted, albeit cautiously, after the wartime policy of alliance with the Soviet Union began to change. These defectors revealed that Soviet intelligence and state security services’ priorities were focused on Nazi hunting and counterintelligence, which in the Soviet services’ definition included preventing Soviet citizens returning from POW and refugee camps from becoming conduits for foreign infiltration. This group includes twenty-two officers, of which the names are unknown for ten and details are scanty for most. The lack of publicly available information reflects the tentative Western handling of Soviet defectors in the early post-war period. Germany and Austria, where the Western Allies’ occupation zones bordered directly on Soviet occupation zones, were the most prominent locations for defections. Most were handled quietly, and some were settled in out of the way places like South America and told to restart their life there.
Post-Stalin Purge Defectors, 1953–1954
Authors: Riehle Kevin
Published: May 2021

The flow of defectors waned in the early 1950s as the Soviet Union began again to enforce 1930s rules against defection. However, the death of Stalin in 1953, and equally importantly, the arrest and execution of Soviet state security director Lavrentiy Beriya later that year, prompted a brief new wave of defections—ten officers in a thirteen-month period. They defected for similar reasons as their predecessors in the Yezhovshchina period—out of fear that they were in danger from a purge. With Beriya’s downfall came the inevitable purge that followed the arrest of a state security leader during the Stalin era. Any officer who had connected his or her career with Beriya’s was at risk of going down with him. These officers revealed a growing perception of threat from the United States as the leader of the Western alliance, and targeting of U.S. and NATO information dominated their collection requirements.
Conclusion
Authors: Riehle Kevin
Published: May 2021

Several lessons emerge from these defectors’ revelations. First, the motivations of defectors changed based on the circumstances around them, which reflected Soviet policy changes. Those policy changes, such as purges and increased domestic repression, were often at the foundation of defector’s motivations. Second, vetting standards for Soviet personnel assigned to sensitive national security positions fluctuated, depending on the stability in the Soviet government and the level of urgency for hiring new personnel. When the Soviet Union was stable, it had the luxury of enforcing strict standards. When the Soviet Union needed a lot of people fast—such as during purges or wartime—it did not vet them as thoroughly. Finally, the Soviet perception of threat evolved, beginning with Great Britain as the primary threat in the early Soviet era, and joined by Germany after 1933, although Stalin never abandoned hope for an accommodation with Hitler. However, even before Germany was defeated in 1945, Soviet intelligence began targeting its wartime allies. By the late 1940s, when the United States assumed the role of the leader of the democratic world, the label “main enemy” was coined and applied to the United States, which stuck for the rest of the Soviet era.
Posthumanism and Gender, or the Fall Back into Nature
Authors: Fraunhofer Hedwig
Published: May 2021

Engaging with the scientific theories and popular concerns of the late nineteenth century, Strindberg’s naturalist plays enact the anxiety related to the renegotiation of the status of the human following the publication of Darwin’s work. The loss of human exceptionalism in the natural sciences intersects with the socio-political crisis of symbolic male authority in democratic modernity. An emerging posthumanism and the crisis of gender, i.e. ontological and socio-political questions, converge. Strindberg’s work problematizes the modern biopolitical, immunitarian lines of separation in terms of sexual difference, along a threatened binary gender distribution. While Strindberg’s work is part of the naturalist “dramatic” theatrical tradition -- a representationalist tradition centrally based on human dialogue and therefore generally considered “anthropocentric,” this chapter argues that Strindberg’s naturalist work, thematically if not yet formally, marks the intra-action of gender with a beginning posthumanism.
Where Does the Body End? Artaud’s Materialsymbolic Theatre
Authors: Fraunhofer Hedwig
Published: May 2021

This chapter offers a descriptive reading of Artaud’s most famous play, The Cenci (1935), that respects the materiality and temporality of Artaud’s text, while also including a discussion of the play’s sparse production history. Breaking down immunitarian walls between self and other, Artaud’s theatre of cruelty provides a performative assemblage of human and nonhuman actors or actants, (human) spectators, non-verbal theatrical tools, and forces and energies that transverses the binary distinction between materiality and mind, aesthetic perception and meaning. Together with Brechtian theatre and the theatre of the absurd, Artaud’s use of space and the mythical and ritual dimension of his theatrical vision constitute the end of “fourth-wall realism,” prefiguring the postdramatic, “dialogue-less” theatre of the 1960s to 90s. Inspiring Deleuze’s view of art, Artaud’s theatre brings us to the limits of what our embodied selves can endure and to the limits of representation, opening the horizon of death. In this sense, as the experience of limits, theatre is again what theatre scholar Una Chaudhuri calls “boundary work”.
The Khuṭba Scene in Arab Religious Films and TV Dramas
Authors: Skovgaard-Petersen Jakob
Published: May 2021

An imam delivering a khutba is a standard scene in Arab films and tv-serials. It can, however, convey different intended meanings, depending not only on the words pronounced, but also on the camera’s focus: do we see the preacher’s face and state of mind, or the impact he makes on his listener? And how about the distance and hierarchy between them? Analyzing these scenes, this chapter points to a development whereby the top-down sermon has gradually become unpopular and today is mainly used to depict extremist preachers addressing their loyalist followers. More positive depictions of preachers have often moved to more level-field discussion circles where they take the concerns of their listeners to heart.
Going Online: Saudi Female Intellectual Preachers in the New Media
Authors: Makboul Laila
Published: May 2021

This chapter examines the phenomenon of female intellectual preachers (dāʿiyāt muthaqqafāt) in Saudi Arabia, their engagement in the new media and by extension their participation in the public sphere. Having their public participation conditioned on preserving strict physical gender segregation, this chapter argues that the new media have facilitated the engagement and presence of the dāʿiyāt muthaqqafāt in the wider public on an unprecedented level. However, new challenges in terms of transgressions of constructed gender norms and exposure to increased public criticism and political vulnerability have also followed their presence in the new media. Consequently, this chapter contends that although the new media has been utilized to permeate the public sphere and, in many ways, has revolutionized their public participation, it has also altered the engagement of dāʿiyāt muthaqqafāt in profound ways and ultimately exposed them to greater social and political vulnerability.
Brief Reminders: Muslim Preachers, Mediation and Time
Authors: Stjernholm Simon
Published: May 2021

This chapter explores a willingness on behalf of certain Muslim preachers to move beyond traditional preaching styles and create material that fits well within current social media practices. Focusing on the media productions of two Muslim preachers in Sweden, the chapter analyses how they experiment with oratory genres and modes. Using self-imposed brevity and multimodal communication in a type of media production defined here as a ‘reminder’, these preachers try to exhort their audiences to consider matters felt to be of pressing religious nature. The examples illustrate attempts to expand the reach of Islamic religious discourses beyond mosque environments and into the everyday life of an audience, with the potential of achieving a different kind of rhetorical work than a regular lecture or sermon.
Sensation, Relation and Neoconcrete Poetics
Authors: Kosick Rebecca
Published: May 2021

Chapter 2 discusses the 1960s interdisciplinary movement known as neoconcretism. It argues for a relational poetics in which language is plastic and what’s plastic is language. Analysing examples of poetry and art that either calls itself poetry or makes use of the book form – including poet Ferreira Gullar’s ‘Buried Poem’ (an underground poem-room that invites the ‘reader’ to enter), artist Lygia Pape’s Book of Creation (a language without words which the ‘reader’ can order) and artist Hélio Oiticica’s Secret Poetics (a lyric that stills the sensible for the ‘reader’ to perceive) – this chapter shows that language powerfully shapes the history of what neoconcrete artist Lygia Clark calls the ‘relational object’. Not just a score which would guide, from the outside, the co-creation of an object, language, in a relational poetics, joins the creator and participant in becoming the object created. This conclusion also points towards one way in which avant-garde experimentation (often accused of being apolitical) can engage the political sphere – by creating the opportunity for an engagé poetics that takes shape inside sensory engagement itself.
Listening Through Language: Jean-Luc Nancy and Pierre Schaeffer
Authors: Reyner Igor R.
Published: May 2021

This article addresses the role of auditory-related verbs in the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and Pierre Schaeffer in order to shed light on a broader tendency in French thought. Through a comparative reading of the ways in which Nancy, in Listening, and Schaeffer, in Treatise on Musical Objects, mobilize verbs such as écouter and entendre, I connect the issue of language to debates about descriptive and prescriptive approaches towards listening. Drawing on the Dictionary of Untranslatables, I argue that Nancy's and Schaeffer's engagements with listening can be mapped onto historical modes of framing politics and ethics, which are also characterized by descriptive and prescriptive approaches. By showing how theories of listening connect to political and ethical debates, this study discusses the ideological instrumentalization of listening as opposed to more descriptive and exploratory forms of engagement in the auditory and the faculty of the ear.
The Logician of Madness: Fanon's Lacan
Authors: Richards Sinan
Published: May 2021

In recent years, commentators have begun to re-examine the proximity of Frantz Fanon's and Jacques Lacan's work — a proximity which has traditionally been underappreciated. This article adds to these voices, demonstrating the reciprocal intellectual relationship between these two figures. It develops five interrelated arguments to chart this proximity. First, it emphasizes Lacan's and Fanon's connections through their ontological perspectives on madness. Second, it arbitrates the two theorists’ criticisms of the limits of Western psychoanalysis. Third, it shows the importance placed by both on social structures in determining mental illnesses. Next, it demonstrates the centrality of their common understanding of psychosis. Finally, it argues that Lacan's argument in The Sinthome concerning the colonizer's power is inherited from Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks — itself influenced by Lacan's early theory of language. The article does not attempt to cast Fanon as an apprentice Lacanian but rather to argue that reciprocity helped shape both oeuvres.
Genesis of the Archetype of the Trickster in Russian Literature
Authors:   Saratov State L.V. Sobinov Conservatory, Shlykova Svetlana P.
Published: May 2021

The article is devoted to demonstrating the genesis of the archetype of the trickster in Russian literature. The antihero, the sources of whose anti-behavior are traced in harlequinade and skmorokh buffoonery, is examined on the material of folklore and literary works from the 18th to the early 20th century. Anti-behavior in Russian culture symbolizes a rebellion unrefl exed in the folk environment against the norms of behavior and orderliness of life imposed by those in power. The archetype of the trickster, which has longtime traditions in world culture, was personifi ed in Russia as the skomorokh, then the jester Farnos, who in many ways adopted the skomorokh traditions. Among the populace Petrukha Fornos became one of the favorite comic jester heroes, having acquired special popularity as the result of crude color woodcuts from the 18th century. In the 19th century the image of Farnos was transformed into Petrushka, a puppet character of the theatricalized genre. With his assistance the simplistic satirical subjects lay at the foundation of the so-called Petrushka theater which, despite the unaltered plot, bore an improvisational-play character, pertaining to a number of “baculine” comedies, in the 19th century the image of Petrushka was so popular, that it surpassed the oral folk tradition and found its place in literary compositions. In the early 20th century the image of Petrushka the trickster became the source for numerous interpretations in modernist literature.
The South of the Russian Far East as a Unique Ethnic Region: Concerning the Issue of Interaction of Musical Cultures
Authors:   Khabarovsk State Institute of Culture, Mezentseva Svetlana V.
Published: May 2021

The article examines the southern part of the Russian Far East, which has a great potential from the perspective of the interaction of musical cultures and the formation of a unique ethno-cultural zone. On the basis of contemporary research works the circle of possible ethnic contacts in the region on the contemporary stage is delineated. In the ethnic characterization of the Russian Far East certain modifi cations towards the direction of expansion of the ethnic makeup and change of the region’s social characterization. The adjacency with the two provinces of North-Eastern China — Heilongjiang and Jilin bordering Russia on the north and east — are noted as a territorial premise for close mutual cooperation. The persistent interest in having foreign students receive an academic musical education of a Western European type in the region’s artistic educational institutions. Accentuation is made of the great potential for the interaction between musical cultures connected with the use of contemporary computer music technologies. The author of the article highlights the fastest developing trends in the interaction between the musical cultures of the peoples of the Far East of Russia and China on the basis of the use of computer music technologies: compositional activities, performance and education. Observation is made of the decline of the population of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East and the change of the region’s ethnic make-up as the result of the processes of migration, as well as the increase in the number of foreign students from China in the educational space and the concert and competition venues of the region.
An Empirical Study on Enhancing Product Quality and Customer Satisfaction Using Quality Assurance Approach in an Indian Manufacturing Industry
Authors: Mittal Ankesh , Gupta Pardeep
Published: May 2021

The aim of this paper is to investigate the utilization of quality assurance approach in improving the product quality and customer satisfaction while implementing total quality management (TQM) initiatives in leading tractors manufacturing industry situated in Mohali, Punjab, India and highlight the improvements that have taken place as a result of these initiatives. ABC Ltd. (name changed) started implementing TQM as a business management approach in 2007 and its implementation helped the organization to excel in quality, cost and delivery to gain flexibility, provide quality products of wide range and gain operational excellence. Initially, the focus of the industry was on traditional approach that is inspection and control but after TQM it got shifted to prevention of defects and quality assurance. Improvement in field quality, supplier quality and manufacturing quality were mainly focused under quality assurance approach in order to improve product quality and customer satisfaction. Implementation of TQM initiatives helped the industry to double the revenue, triple the profit in just three years and as a result the company got Deming Prize in 2012. The customer satisfaction index improved from 76 to 106, sales volume increased from 27000 to 67000 tractors and market share enhanced from 9.1 to 12.6 percent after TQM deployment within a period of five years. The empirical study presented in this paper is a novel study on augmenting the product quality and customer satisfaction may give insight to the TQM practitioners in promoting similar approaches in their organizations for enhancing customer satisfaction and product quality.
The Formal, Financial and Fraught Route to Global Digital Identity Governance
Authors: Campbell-Verduyn Malcolm , Hütten Moritz
Published: May 2021

How can we understand the progressive, piecemeal emergence of global digital identity governance? Examining the activities of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) - an intergovernmental organization at the center of global anti-money laundering and counter-the-financing of terrorism governance-this paper advances a two-fold argument. First, the FATF shapes how, where and who is involved in developing key standards of acceptability underpinning digital identity governance in blockchain activities. While not itselfdirectlyinvolved in the actual coding of blockchain protocols, the FATF influences the location and type of centralized modes of control over digital identity governance. Drawing on the notion of protocological control from media studies, we illustrate how centralized control emerging in global digital identity governance emanates from the global governanceoffinancial flows long considered by international organizations like the FATF. Second, we suggest that governancebyblockchains persistently shapes the ability of the FATF to stem illicit international financial flows. In highlighting both the influence of FATF on blockchain governance and blockchain governance on the FATF, we draw together two strands of literature that have been considered separately in an analysis of the formal, financial and fraught route to global digital identity governance.
cAMP Bursts Control T Cell Directionality by Actomyosin Cytoskeleton Remodeling
Authors: Simao Morgane , Régnier Fabienne , Taheraly Sarah , Fraisse Achille , Tacine Rachida , Fraudeau Marie , Benabid Adam , Feuillet Vincent , Lambert Mireille , Delon Jérôme , Randriamampita Clotilde
Published: May 2021

T lymphocyte migration is an essential step to mounting an efficient immune response. The rapid and random motility of these cells which favors their sentinel role is conditioned by chemokines as well as by the physical environment. Morphological changes, underlaid by dynamic actin cytoskeleton remodeling, are observed throughout migration but especially when the cell modifies its trajectory. However, the signaling cascade regulating the directional changes remains largely unknown. Using dynamic cell imaging, we investigated in this paper the signaling pathways involved in T cell directionality. We monitored cyclic adenosine 3′-5′ monosphosphate (cAMP) variation concomitantly with actomyosin distribution upon T lymphocyte migration and highlighted the fact that spontaneous bursts in cAMP starting from the leading edge, are sufficient to promote actomyosin redistribution triggering trajectory modification. Although cAMP is commonly considered as an immunosuppressive factor, our results suggest that, when transient, it rather favors the exploratory behavior of T cells.
Diabetes, Oxidative Stress, and DNA Damage Modulate Cranial Neural Crest Cell Development and the Phenotype Variability of Craniofacial Disorders
Authors: Fitriasari Sharien , Trainor Paul A.
Published: May 2021

Craniofacial malformations are among the most common birth defects in humans and they often have significant detrimental functional, aesthetic, and social consequences. To date, more than 700 distinct craniofacial disorders have been described. However, the genetic, environmental, and developmental origins of most of these conditions remain to be determined. This gap in our knowledge is hampered in part by the tremendous phenotypic diversity evident in craniofacial syndromes but is also due to our limited understanding of the signals and mechanisms governing normal craniofacial development and variation. The principles of Mendelian inheritance have uncovered the etiology of relatively few complex craniofacial traits and consequently, the variability of craniofacial syndromes and phenotypes both within families and between families is often attributed to variable gene expression and incomplete penetrance. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that phenotypic variation is often the result of combinatorial genetic and non-genetic factors. Major non-genetic factors include environmental effectors such as pregestational maternal diabetes, which is well-known to increase the risk of craniofacial birth defects. The hyperglycemia characteristic of diabetes causes oxidative stress which in turn can result in genotoxic stress, DNA damage, metabolic alterations, and subsequently perturbed embryogenesis. In this review we explore the importance of gene-environment associations involving diabetes, oxidative stress, and DNA damage during cranial neural crest cell development, which may underpin the phenotypic variability observed in specific craniofacial syndromes.
Integrating Spatial Transcriptomics and Single-Cell RNA-seq Reveals the Gene Expression Profling of the Human Embryonic Liver
Authors: Hou Xianliang , Yang Yane , Li Ping , Zeng Zhipeng , Hu Wenlong , Zhe Ruilian , Liu Xinqiong , Tang Donge , Ou Minglin , Dai Yong
Published: May 2021

The liver is one of vital organs of the human body, and it plays an important role in the metabolism and detoxification. Moreover, fetal liver is one of the hematopoietic places during ontogeny. Understanding how this complex organ develops during embryogenesis will yield insights into how functional liver replacement tissue can be engineered and how liver regeneration can be promoted. Here, we combine the advantages of single-cell RNA sequencing and Spatial Transcriptomics (ST) technology for unbiased analysis of fetal livers over developmental time from 8 post-conception weeks (PCW) and 17 PCW in humans. We systematically identified nine cell types, and defined the developmental pathways of the major cell types. The results showed that human fetal livers experienced blood rapid growth and immigration during the period studied in our experiments, and identified the differentially expressed genes, and metabolic changes in the developmental process of erythroid cells. In addition, we focus on the expression of liver disease related genes, and found that 17 genes published and linked to liver disease mainly expressed in megakaryocyte and endothelial, hardly expressed in any other cell types. Together, our findings provide a comprehensive and clear understanding of the differentiation processes of all main cell types in the human fetal livers, which may provide reference data and information for liver disease treatment and liver regeneration.
TGFβ1 in Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Is Associated With Progression and Radiosensitivity in Small-Cell Lung Cancer
Authors: Zhang Jiaqi , Qi Jing , Wei Hui , Lei Yuanyuan , Yu Hao , Liu Ningbo , Zhao Lujun , Wang Ping
Published: May 2021

Objective

Small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) is aggressive, with early metastasis. Cytokines secreted by cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) within various tumors influences these features, but the function in particular of TGFβ1 (transforming growth factor beta 1) is controversial and unknown in SCLC. This study explored the influence of TGFβ1 in CAFs on the development, immune microenvironment, and radiotherapy sensitivity of SCLC.

Methods

SCLC specimens were collected from 90 patients who had received no treatment before surgery. Tumor and tumor stroma were subjected to multiplex immunohistochemistry to quantitate TGFβ1 and other immune factors in CAFs. Cell proliferation and flow cytometry apoptosis assays were used to investigate associations between TGFβ1 and proliferation and radiotherapy sensitivity. The immune factors in tumors were detected by immunohistochemistry in vitro and in vivo (mice).

Results

TGFβ1 levels on CAFs lower or higher than the median were found, respectively, in 52.2 and 47.8% of patients; overall survival of patients with TGFβ1-high levels (53.9 mo) was significantly longer than that of the TGFβ1-low group (26.9 mo; P = 0.037). The univariate and multivariate analyses indicated that a TGFβ1-high level was an independent predictor of increased survival time. TGFβ1-high levels in CAFs were associated with inhibition of growth, proliferation, antitumor immunity, and enhanced radiotherapeutic sensitivity and tumor immunity of tumor. TGFβ1-low levels promoted tumor cell growth and radiotherapy sensitivity in vivo and in vitro.

Conclusion

High levels of TGFβ1 in CAFs were associated with longer overall survival in patients with SCLC and enhanced radiotherapy sensitivity.
Knockdown of Splicing Complex Protein PCBP2 Reduces Extravillous Trophoblast Differentiation Through Transcript Switching
Authors: Georgiadou Danai , Boussata Souad , Keijser Remco , Janssen Dianta A. M. , Afink Gijs B. , van Dijk Marie
Published: May 2021

Mutations in the LINC-HELLP non-coding RNA (HELLPAR) have been associated with familial forms of the pregnancy-specific HELLP syndrome. These mutations negatively affect extravillous trophoblast (EVT) differentiation from a proliferative to an invasive state and disturb the binding of RNA splicing complex proteins PCBP1, PCBP2, and YBX1 to LINC-HELLP. In this study, by using both in vitro and ex vivo experiments, we investigate if these proteins are involved in the regulation of EVT invasion during placentation. Additionally, we study if this regulation is due to alternative mRNA splicing. HTR-8/SVneo extravillous trophoblasts and human first trimester placental explants were used to investigate the effect of siRNA-mediated downregulation of PCBP1, PCBP2, and YBX1 genes on the differentiation of EVTs. Transwell invasion assays and proliferation assays indicated that upon knockdown of PCBP2 and, to a lesser extent, YBX1 and PCBP1, EVTs fail to differentiate toward an invasive phenotype. The same pattern was observed in placental explants where PCBP2 knockdown led to approximately 80% reduction in the number of explants showing any EVT outgrowth. Of the ones that still did show EVT outgrowth, the percentage of proliferating EVTs was significantly higher compared to explants transfected with non-targeting control siRNAs. To further investigate this effect of PCBP2 silencing on EVTs, we performed whole transcriptome sequencing (RNA-seq) on HTR-8/SVneo cells after PCBP2 knockdown. PCBP2 knockdown was found to have minimal effect on mRNA expression levels. In contrast, PCBP2 silencing led to a switch in splicing for a large number of genes with predominant functions in cellular assembly and organization, cellular function and maintenance, and cellular growth and proliferation and the cell cycle. EVTs, upon differentiation, alter their function to be able to invade the decidua of the mother by changing their cellular assembly and their proliferative activity by exiting the cell cycle. PCBP2 appears to be a paramount regulator of these differentiation mechanisms, where its disturbed binding to LINC-HELLP could contribute to dysfunctional placental development as seen in the HELLP syndrome.
Melatonin Regulates the Neurotransmitter Secretion Disorder Induced by Caffeine Through the Microbiota-Gut-Brain Axis in Zebrafish (Danio rerio)
Authors: Zhang Zeng , Peng Qiannan , Huo Dongxue , Jiang Shuaiming , Ma Chenchen , Chang Haibo , Chen Kaining , Li Congfa , Pan Yonggui , Zhang Jiachao
Published: May 2021

Melatonin has been widely used as a “probiotic agent” capable of producing strong neurotransmitter secretion regulatory effects, and the microbiota-gut-brain axis-related studies have also highlighted the role of the gut microbiota in neuromodulation. In the present study, a zebrafish neural hyperactivity model was established using caffeine induction to explore the regulatory effects of melatonin and probiotic on neurotransmitter secretion disorder in zebrafish. Disorders of brain neurotransmitter secretion (dopamine, γ-aminobutyric acid, and 5-hydroxytryptamine) caused by caffeine were improved after interference treatment with melatonin or probiotic. Shotgun metagenomic sequencing demonstrated that the melatonin-treated zebrafish gradually restored their normal intestinal microbiota and metabolic pathways. Germ-free (GF) zebrafish were used to verify the essential role of intestinal microbes in the regulation of neurotransmitter secretion. The results of the neurotransmitter and short-chain fatty acid determination revealed that the effect on the zebrafish in the GF group could not achieve that on the zebrafish in the melatonin group after adding the same dose of melatonin. The present research revealed the potential mode of action of melatonin through the microbiota-gut-brain axis to regulate the disruption of neurotransmitter secretion, supporting the future development of psychotropic drugs targeting the intestinal microbiota.