bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Critical role of miR-9 in myelopoiesis and EVI1-induced leukemogenesis
Authors: Senyuk Vitalyi , Zhang Yunyuan , Liu Yang , Ming Ming , Premanand Kavitha , Zhou Lan , Chen Ping , Chen Jianjun , Rowley Janet D. , Nucifora Giuseppina , Qian Zhijian
Published: March 2013

MicroRNA-9 (miR-9) is emerging as a critical regulator of organ development and neurogenesis. It is also deregulated in several types of solid tumors; however, its role in hematopoiesis and leukemogenesis is not yet known. Here we show that miR-9 is detected in hematopoietic stem cells and hematopoietic progenitor cells, and that its expression increases during hematopoietic differentiation. Ectopic expression of miR-9 strongly accelerates terminal myelopoiesis and promotes apoptosis in vitro and in vivo. Conversely, in hematopoietic progenitor cells, the inhibition of miR-9 with a miRNA sponge blocks myelopoiesis. Ecotropic viral integration site 1 (EVI1), required for normal embryogenesis, is considered an oncogene because its inappropriate up-regulation induces malignant transformation in solid and hematopoietic cancers. Here we show that EVI1 binds to the promoter of miR-9-3, leading to DNA hypermethylation of the promoter and repression of miR-9. Moreover, miR-9 expression reverses a myeloid differentiation block that is induced by EVI1. Our findings indicate that EVI1, when inappropriately expressed, delays or blocks myeloid differentiation at least in part by DNA hypermethylation and down-regulation of miR-9. It was reported that Forkhead box class O genes (
FoxO
s) inhibit myeloid differentiation and prevent differentiation of leukemia-initiating cells. Here we identify both
FoxO1
and
FoxO3
as direct targets of miR-9 in hematopoietic cells and find that up-regulation of
FoxO3
inhibits miR-9–induced myelopoiesis. These results reveal a unique role of miR-9 in myelopoiesis and in the pathogenesis of EVI1-induced myeloid neoplasms and provide insights into the epigenetic regulation of miR9 in tumorigenesis.
Phosphodiesterase-8A binds to and regulates Raf-1 kinase
Authors: Brown Kim M. , Day Jon P. , Huston Elaine , Zimmermann Bastian , Hampel Kornelia , Christian Frank , Romano David , Terhzaz Selim , Lee Louisa C. Y. , Willis Miranda J. , Morton David B. , Beavo Joseph A. , Shimizu-Albergine Masami , Davies Shireen A. , Kolch Walter , Houslay Miles D. , Baillie George S.
Published: March 2013

Significance

The ERK pathway is a ubiquitous mechanism for transducing a variety of extracellular signals into intracellular events. It also is misregulated in a number of different disease states including several cancers. The ERK pathway crosstalks with other signaling cascades, including the cAMP system. In this paper, we show that a key component of the ERK pathway, Raf-1 kinase, can associate with a specific cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase, phosphodiesterase 8A (PDE8A), to modulate the activity of the kinase. We report that the interaction between Raf-1 and PDE8A underpins functional consequences of ERK signaling in several different model systems.
Uncoupling RARA transcriptional activation and degradation clarifies the bases for APL response to therapies
Authors: Ablain Julien , Leiva Magdalena , Peres Laurent , Fonsart Julien , Anthony Elodie , de Thé Hugues
Published: March 2013

In PML/RARA-driven acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL), retinoic acid (RA) induces leukemia cell differentiation and transiently clears the disease. Molecularly, RA activates PML/RARA-dependent transcription and also initiates its proteasome-mediated degradation. In contrast, arsenic, the other potent anti-APL therapy, only induces PML/RARA degradation by specifically targeting its PML moiety. The respective contributions of RA-triggered transcriptional activation and proteolysis to clinical response remain disputed. Here, we identify synthetic retinoids that potently activate RARA- or PML/RARA-dependent transcription, but fail to down-regulate RARA or PML/RARA protein levels. Similar to RA, these uncoupled retinoids elicit terminal differentiation, but unexpectedly fail to impair leukemia-initiating activity of PML/RARA-transformed cells ex vivo or in vivo. Accordingly, the survival benefit conferred by uncoupled retinoids in APL mice is dramatically lower than the one provided by RA. Differentiated APL blasts sorted from uncoupled retinoid–treated mice retain PML/RARA expression and reinitiate APL in secondary transplants. Thus, differentiation is insufficient for APL eradication, whereas PML/RARA loss is essential. These observations unify the modes of action of RA and arsenic and shed light on the potency of their combination in mice or patients.
The Simmune Modeler visual interface for creating signaling networks based on bi-molecular interactions
Authors: Zhang Fengkai , Angermann Bastian R. , Meier-Schellersheim Martin
Published: March 2013

Motivation: Biochemical modeling efforts now frequently take advantage of the possibility to automatically create reaction networks based on the specification of pairwise molecular interactions. Even though a variety of tools exist to visualize the resulting networks, defining the rules for the molecular interactions typically requires writing scripts, which impacts the non-specialist accessibility of those approaches. We introduce the Simmune Modeler that allows users to specify molecular complexes and their interactions as well as the reaction-induced modifications of the molecules through a flexible visual interface. It can take into account the positions of the components of trans-membrane complexes relative to the embedding membranes as well as symmetry aspects affecting the reactions of multimeric molecular structures. Models created with this tool can be simulated using the Simmune Simulator or be exported as SBML code or as files describing the reaction networks as systems of ODEs for import into Matlab.

Availability: The Simmune Modeler and the associated simulators as well as extensive additional documentation and tutorials are freely available for Linux, Mac and Windows: http://go.usa.gov/QeH (Note shortened case-sensitive URL!).

Contact:  zhangfen@niaid.nih.gov or mms@niaid.nih.gov

Supplementary information:  Supplementary Data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Adding serial N‐terminal pro brain natriuretic peptide measurements to optimal clinical management in outpatients with systolic heart failure: a multicentre randomized clinical trial (NorthStar monitoring study)
Authors: Schou Morten , Gustafsson Finn , Videbaek Lars , Andersen Helge , Toft Jens , Nyvad Ole , Ryde Henrik , Fog Lars , Jensen Jens C.H. , Nielsen Olav W. , Lind‐Rasmussen Soren , Abdulla Jawdat , Hildebrandt Per R. ,   on behalf of the NorthStar Investigators,   All members of the Danish Heart Failure Clinics Network
Published: March 2013

Aims

This study was designed to evaluate a new NT‐proBNP monitoring concept in outpatients with systolic heart failure (HF).

Methods and results

This was a multicentre, prospective randomized open‐label blinded endpoint study. A total of 407 systolic HF patients were allocated to either clinical management (n = 208) or clinical management + NT‐proBNP monitoring (n = 199) and followed for 2.5 years. If NT‐proBNP increased >30%, a clinical checklist was completed and treatment initiated. The patients were matched at randomization and were 73 years old, 25% were females, 85% were NYHA class I–II, LVEF was 30%, and NT‐proBNP 1955 pg/mL. NT‐proBNP monitoring did not improve outcome, the hazard ratio for the primary composite endpoint (death or a cardiovascular admission) being 0.96 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.71–1.29, P = 0.766]. NT‐proBNP monitoring did not induce a significant change in the pharmacological strategy (P > 0.05 for all comparisons). In patients in whom NT‐proBNP increased >30% (25% of the patients) during follow‐up, a higher frequency of admission (69% vs. 47%, P = 0.002), a higher number of admission days (14 vs. 5 days, P = 0.003) and number of admissions (2 vs. 1, P = 0.009), and a lower quality of life (P = 0.032) and a poorer functional class (37% vs. 18% in NYHA class III–IV, P < 0.001) were observed.

Conclusions

Adding serial measurements of NT‐proBNP to optimal clinical management was not associated with a change in pharmacological strategy and did not improve outcome. However, survivors in whom NT‐proBNP increased >30% showed a poorer functional class, clinical outcome, and quality of life.

Trial registration

www.centerwatch: 173491 (NorthStar).
Valerius Flaccus
Authors: Stover Tim
Published: March 2013

Gaius Valerius Flaccus Setinus Balbus, usually known simply as Valerius Flaccus, is the author of the Argonautica, an unfinished epic poem in eight books composed during the Flavian era (69–96 ce). This poem recounts the famous mythical voyage of Jason and the Argonauts, who sail from Greece to Colchis to retrieve the Golden Fleece. The narrative is full of adventure, as the heroes put in at many strange places on their journey eastward. Upon arrival in Colchis, Jason meets Medea, a Colchian princess and sorceress who falls madly in love with him and helps him secure the fleece. Although the poem is unfinished, it seems that only a few hundred lines at the end of Book 8 and some relatively minor revisions were never completed, presumably because of the author’s untimely death. Direct references to him in Antiquity are virtually nonexistent, but Valerius’s poem influenced his contemporaries, the epic poets Statius and Silius Italicus. Although his work has attracted intermittent attention over the years, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have seen interest in Valerius’s Argonautica increase dramatically.
Greek and Roman Political Philosophy
Authors: Atkins Jed W.
Published: March 2013

In this bibliography “Greek and Roman political philosophy” is taken to mean philosophical reflection on politics in the Greco-Roman world from the 5th century bce to the 5th century ce. More particularly, ancient political philosophy involves reflection on the establishment of political institutions and laws; the nature of political rule; central social and political concepts such as liberty, justice, and equality; the rights and duties of citizenship and its relationship to a flourishing human life; civic education; and the different possible forms of constitutions or regimes. Scholars frequently distinguish political philosophy from political thought. Political thought encompasses any thinking about politics at all and may be expressed through a wide range of media and literary forms, from epistles to comedy to inscriptions. Political philosophy represents thinking about politics that is more specifically theoretical and systematic in nature. Thus, political philosophy may be seen as a subset of political thought. Because this bibliography is concerned with the narrower of the two categories, it focuses primarily on philosophers and theoretical discourse. This focus also informs the general organization of this entry, which adopts a chronological, author-by-author approach rather than the thematic approach sometimes utilized by historians of political thought. This bibliography covers Early Greek, Athenian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Early Christian political philosophy, extending from the Presocratics to St. Augustine.
Council on Social Work Education
Authors: Watkins Julia
Published: March 2013

The nonprofit Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), founded in 1952 and located in Alexandria, Virginia, is recognized by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation as the sole accrediting agency for social work education in the United States. CSWE seeks to foster the high quality of social work education through preparation of competent professionals in social work, national leadership, and a forum for collective action. It sets and maintains policy and program standards, accredits bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in social work, promotes research and faculty development, and advocates for social work education. CSWE represents more than 3,000 individual members, as well as graduate and undergraduate programs of professional social work education. CSWE has hosted the Annual Program Meeting (APM) for social work educators, practitioners, and students since 1954. APM offers a venue for continuing education, presentation of research, networking, and discussion of current issues for social workers and allied disciplines. CSWE also sponsors CSWE Press, a niche publisher concerned with the philosophy, theory, and practice of teaching; the process and evaluation of learning; and the organization and structure of social work education.
Behavioral Social Work Practice
Authors: Thyer Bruce A.
Published: March 2013

The practice of social work is often seen as centered around various theories of the etiology of psychosocial problems, various theories related to the proposed mechanisms of action of psychosocial interventions, various models of practice, and perhaps more overarching practice perspectives. Behavioral social work provides the practitioner of social work with an integrated set of theories and models and represents the original person-in-environment perspective that has been deemed central to the discipline. The central organizing principle is learning theory, specifically types of learning that have been labeled as respondent (simple behaviors elicited by preceding stimuli), operant (more complex behavior evoked by past consequences that followed behavior that have produced rewarding or aversive events), and observational (acquiring behavior by imitating others). This comprehensive perspective not only includes ways to inform practice but also provides a well-developed methodology useful in the evaluation of the outcomes of social work practice, called single-system research designs (SSRDs), and an integrated philosophy of science known as behaviorism. Learning-theory principles can also be used to account for much of normative and dysfunctional human development across the life span, including those repertoires commonly labeled as one’s “personality.” One can practice behavioral social work in terms of intervention without evaluating practice using SSRDs or without subscribing to the philosophical principles of behaviorism. Those who embrace all three aspects of this approach used to be called radical behaviorists, with “radical” used in the sense of “complete.” However, the term “behavior analyst” is more widely used in the early 21st century. Most social workers who use the methods of behavioral social work are not radical behaviorists but, rather, employ such methods in the context of practice eclecticism.
Avalokiteśvara
Authors: Yü Chün-fang
Published: March 2013

One major difference between Mahayana Buddhism and early or Mainstream Buddhism is the worship of many buddhas and bodhisattvas (beings of enlightenment). Of the many bodhisattvas, Avalokiteśvara is identified specifically as the embodiment of compassion, and as such has been worshipped throughout Buddhist Asia. However, depending on the cultural traditions into which Buddhism was introduced, the bodhisattva came to assume different roles, inspire different cultic practices, and create distinctive traditions. He is known by different names: Guanyin or Guanshiyin (Perceiver of the Sounds of the World) in Chinese, Kannon or Kanzeon in Japanese, Kwanse’um in Korean, and Quanam in Vietnamese. In Tibet he is known as Chenresi (spyan-ras-gzigs, “One Who Sees with Eyes”). The bodhisattva also served as a legitimizing symbol for the royalty as a result of the cult of divine kings in South and Southeast Asia. For instance, in Cambodia and Java, he is known as Lokeśvara (Lord of the World); in Burma, Lokanātha (Protector of the World); and in Sri Lanka, Nātha Dēviyō. Avalokiteśvara is also the only bodhisattva who underwent a sexual transformation in China.
Bodhidharma
Authors: Broughton Jeffrey L.
Published: March 2013

Countless paintings by East Asian artists have attempted to catch the essence of the enigmatic Buddhist master Bodhidharma, the “founder” of Chan. He is said to be the twenty-eighth patriarch in the mind-to-mind transmission of the torch of enlightenment down from Śākyamuni Buddha and the six buddhas preceding him. Chan texts show two transliterations for “Bodhidharma” (Putidamo 菩提達摩/菩提達磨) as well as the variant Putidamoduoluo (菩提達摩多羅). “Putidamoduoluo” has been variously reconstructed in Sanskrit as Bodhidharmatrāta, Bodhidharmatara, etc. We have many detailed biographical notices for this Chan patriarch, a fair number of texts claiming to present his teachings, and a wealth of Bodhidharma images executed over the centuries throughout East Asia. Modern scholarship on Bodhidharma can be classified into the following approaches: (1) construction of a historical biography (texts for such a biography range from the 6th to the 13th centuries), (2) search for and exposition of an “authentic” text of Bodhidharma teachings, (3) “structuralist” analysis of the Bodhidharma hagiography, and (4) art-historical/iconographical treatment of Bodhidharma images, principally paintings. This article deals with each of these four approaches in turn.
Āryadeva
Authors: Lang Karen C.
Published: March 2013

Āryadeva (3rd century), a disciple of Nāgārjuna, is a central figure in the development of early Indian Madhyamaka philosophy. Āryadeva’s Hundred Verses Treatise (Bai lun) was one of the three basic texts of the Chinese Madhyamaka school founded by the central Asian monk Kumārajīva (b. 344–d. 413), which accordingly was called the Sanlun (Jpn. Sanron), or “three-treatise” school. According to the biography that Kumārajīva translated into Chinese, Āryadeva was born into a South Indian Brahmin family, became Nāgārjuna’s disciple, was renowned for his skill in debate, and was murdered by a student of a defeated teacher. Candrakīrti (b. c. 570–d. 650), in his commentary on Āryadeva’s major work, the Four Hundred Verses (Catuḥśataka), reports that Āryadeva was born on the island of Sinhala (Sri Lanka) as a king’s son, renounced his royal status, became a monk, and traveled to South India, where he studied with Nāgārjuna. Some scholars suggest that Āryadeva is the elder deva mentioned in the Mahāvaṃsa and Dīpavaṃsa chronicles of early Sri Lankan religious history. Āryadeva did not write commentaries on Nāgārjuna’s works but, rather, wrote autonomous treatises that defended Madhyamaka beliefs against its Buddhist and non-Buddhist critics. He devotes the first eight chapters to explaining ethical behavior and such practices as generosity, which form the basis for the bodhisattva’s accumulation of merit (puṇya). The latter eight chapters refute wrong views about the independent existence of external phenomena and the self, defending the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness and the dependently arisen nature of all things. The Catuḥśataka presents the path to the attainment of buddhahood as structured around these two requisites of merit and knowledge (jñāna). As an introduction to the practices of a bodhisattva, the Catuḥśataka prepares the ground for Śāntideva’s later (c. 8th-century) and more extensive treatment in Introduction to the Practices of a Bodhisattva (Bodhicaryāvatāra). Apart from some fragments of the Catuḥśataka, none of the works the Chinese and Tibetan canons attributed to Āryadeva survive in Sanskrit.
History of Buddhisms in China
Authors: Welter Albert
Published: March 2013

Buddhism is a major religion in China, and its influence extends beyond China to other regions of East Asia, particularly Korea and Japan, and other areas in Asia and throughout the world affected by the Chinese diaspora. The history of Chinese Buddhism covers roughly two thousand years, from its entrance into China through India and central Asia in the 1st century ce, down to the present. Not only was the advance of Buddhism momentous for China and its East Asian neighbors; it also invites interest from historians of religion and culture. Buddhism in China is one of the few instances in the premodern era in which two advanced, highly literate, and sophisticated cultures encountered each other, resulting in a hybrid mix that transformed both Buddhist teaching and Chinese culture. Buddhism is historically the most successful of the “foreign” religions in China, and its status has long been the subject of debate. Throughout this history, Buddhism has enjoyed eras of growth and prosperity punctuated by periods of persecution, decline, and neglect. In spite of questions regarding Buddhism’s place in China’s cultural identity, the religion has manifested an enduring resilience and has continued to thrive. Fluctuating borders impacting China’s territorial expanse have also affected the ethnic makeup of the Chinese nation and the types of Buddhism practiced in China. This raises the question of what constitutes “Chinese” Buddhism. China’s current borders (for which there is premodern precedent as well) include Tibetan and Mongolian regions, as well as territories occupied by Theravada-practicing ethnic groups in China’s southeast. In this case, an argument could be made that Chinese Buddhism includes representation from each of Buddhism’s major “vehicles” (or yanas): Theravada, Mahayana, and Tantrayana. For the purposes of this review, however, Chinese Buddhism is restricted primarily to its traditional definition as regarding those developments pertaining to Chinese-language sources, practices, and so forth, of Han Chinese ethnicity. Until recently, research into Chinese Buddhism was largely confined to developments leading up to a hypothetical “golden age” in the Tang dynasty (618–906), and this remains the area of greatest research strength. In addition to post-Tang and modern developments, more recent scholarship has expanded into areas beyond doctrine and intellectual history to include popular and folk Buddhist practices as emerging areas of investigation. Because of the temporal expanse and wide range of phenomena that this bibliography on Chinese Buddhism covers, both the scope of topics and numbers of citations have been limited. The vast corpus of secondary literature in Japanese, Chinese, and Korean languages has also been largely omitted. It should also be noted that no attention has been given here to doctrinal schools and developments, which will be covered in a separate bibliographic article on Chinese Buddhist doctrines and practices.
History of Aesthetics
Authors: Lamarque Peter
Published: March 2013

The first use of the term aesthetics in something like its modern sense is commonly attributed to Alexander Baumgarten in 1735, although earlier studies in the 18th century by writers such as the third Earl of Shaftesbury (Anthony Ashley Cooper), Joseph Addison, Jean-Baptiste Du Bos, and Francis Hutcheson mark the first systematic inquiries into aesthetics in its familiar sense as a distinct branch of philosophy. Undoubtedly the 18th century saw the flourishing of inquiries into beauty, taste, the sublime, and genius, but few would be content to start a history of aesthetics in that century. For many centuries earlier, going back to ancient Greece, there had been philosophical reflection, even if only in a piecemeal fashion, on poetry, painting, music, and the beautiful, and these reflections had an enormous influence on later philosophizing. What is noticeable, though, is that prior to the 18th century it is not always clear where the boundary lies between aesthetics, as such, conceived as a distinctively philosophical inquiry into judgments of taste and the foundations of the arts and more general theorizing about art, including, for example, treatises on the arts often aimed at practitioners themselves. This bibliography operates under a number of constraints: it is, inevitably, highly selective; it focuses primarily, although not exclusively, on Western aesthetics; it draws quite a narrow boundary around what reasonably counts as aesthetics (or the philosophy of art); the entries are in English, some because the originals were in that language, the rest being in modern translations; the editions of the selected primary texts have been chosen for their accessibility and availability; and special emphasis has been given to works from the 18th century.
Paul Feyerabend
Authors: Preston John
Published: March 2013

Paul Feyerabend (b. 1924–d. 1994), whose productive career lasted forty-five years, wrote on a plethora of philosophical issues, although much of his work concerned the nature and role of science. He was no narrowly trained or narrowly focused academic, though. His time as a student was divided among the studies of singing, stage management, theater, Italian, harmony, piano, physics, mathematics, astronomy, history, and sociology. He became a student of philosophy only after having earned his doctorate in the subject. His career as a philosopher was an accident, and he did not always see himself as a philosopher. Indeed, Feyerabend seemed to hold the interest and opinion of those who were not professional philosophers in higher regard than those of his academic peers. Nevertheless, he forged for himself a reputation as an important philosopher of science, being very knowledgeable about a range of sciences and very keen to deflate what he saw as pompous, overinflated, or ill-informed estimations of the epistemic and social virtues of the sciences, whether expressed by professional philosophers or by others.
Analytic Philosophy of Music
Authors: Davies Stephen
Published: March 2013

Analytic philosophy, with its emphasis on clear, topic-based argument, is usually dated to the early 20th century and is contrasted with Continental philosophy, which is more often concerned with overarching systems and theories. Analytic philosophers did not turn their attention to music until the last decades of the 20th century. Of course, they were influenced by and commented on earlier, philosophically motivated discussions of music, starting with the Greeks and much later including relevant work by musicologists, composers, critics, and psychologists as well as philosophers. Three topics became prominent: the expression of emotion in music, the nature of musical works, and what is involved in understanding and appreciating music. Philosophers asked if music expresses emotion, and if they answered yes, as most did, they asked how this is possible and whether the attribution could be literal. Is music expressive by virtue of some connection with the world of human feeling or in its own, perhaps indescribable fashion? Why is the listener moved by the music’s expressiveness if no one undergoes the emotions it expresses? In the case of works, the interest was in their connection to notational specifications and performances. If they are abstract, does this mean they are discovered rather than created? Philosophers considered what makes a performance a performance of a given work, whether faithfulness to the work is important and what it entails, and in what respects the performer is free to interpret the work. In addition, they debated the prerequisites for musical understanding: for example, is knowledge of musical technicalities helpful or even necessary, and should the listener track the music’s large-scale structure? And why do we value music so highly given that it does not provide useful information? As these topics imply, the primary focus at first fell on notated classical Western music composed for multiple, live performances by instrumentalists, and the main perspective was that of the listener. When the scope of interest was broadened, different issues emerged. Jazz, for example, raised questions about the nature of improvisation and about how the appreciation of music not intended for replay might differ from that appropriate for notated works. Rock, with its reliance on electronic mediation and recordings, provoked new debate about the nature of recorded works and about the relevant differences between recordings of works intended for live performance and recordings of works that essentially involve electronic manipulations and the kind of editing that cannot be achieved in real time. The range of philosophical topics invited by consideration of music and its role in human life continues to expand, though this article concentrates on those matters that have received most attention.
Vikings
Authors: Wicker Nancy L.
Published: March 2013

The Viking Age spans the period from approximately 750 to 1100 ce in the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The name “Viking” is used to refer to the inhabitants of Scandinavia and its colonies during the early medieval period, even though the name originally most likely referred only to sea-pirates from Scandinavia. Much of the research on the Vikings has focused on three great narratives of the Viking Age: expansion through raids, trade, and settlement; the beginnings of political unification of the three Scandinavian nations; and the Christianization of these kingdoms. The Viking incursions into the British Isles began late in the 8th century, and in the 9th century, Vikings pushed farther west to the North Atlantic and North America, south along the coast of the European continent, and east to Russia and the East and beyond, even into Central Asia. By the 12th century, Scandinavia is Christianized and the Viking Age is over. This list of works focuses on Material Culture and the Historical Sources—Western Europe of the Viking Age rather than the medieval literature (12th and 13th centuries) of Scandinavia and Iceland, except for brief mention of Eddic literature that may contain information from earlier times and has been influential for the study of the Vikings.
Masculinity
Authors: Milligan Gerry
Published: March 2013

The question of masculinity lies at the heart of masterpieces of Renaissance art, philosophy, and literature. Proscriptive and prescriptive literature formed a discourse of ideal fathers, priests, courtiers, and warriors, and these ideals were then reified in fictional texts as well as in pigment and marble. Such textual and artistic ideals of masculinity were by nature not obtainable by real men, a matter that was the cause of a gender anxiety that has received much scholarly attention. Furthermore, masculinity in the Renaissance was frequently discussed in contrast to its negative effect, effeminacy. For example, the development of the civilized man, tempering emotion and demonstrating politeness, was also at risk of being condemned as effeminate. In this case, men would have been slandered for their concern with decorum rather than action. In other instances, the censure of effeminacy was used in contexts quite far from our own modern understandings of the term. For example, the term was often directed toward men who exhibited extraordinary heterosexual desire. Thus, to study masculinity in the Renaissance is to consider historical context as well as rhetorical modes. It is a field that comprises the investigation of the characteristics of manhood as well as the language that condemned effeminacy. There is a general consensus that Renaissance masculinity studies owe their beginnings to feminist scholarship of the past several decades. It is also notable that Renaissance scholars working on masculinity often do not exhibit much affinity with the larger academic field of so-called Masculinity Studies, possibly because of the latter’s propensity to consider only modern questions. Because Renaissance investigations of masculinity typically address the same topics that one would expect in any critical analysis of the period (war, honor, economics, love, sexuality, religion, etc.), it is necessary to determine a working definition of what is included in this bibliography. In sum, this bibliography seeks to indicate publications that address any discourse that arises when one considers “men” in the Renaissance and that engage such discourses with particular questions regarding gender formation. Primary works have not been listed, except when part of anthologized readers. However, those seeking a reader for primary sources might note that the secondary literature does point to an unwritten canon in literary, visual, and material cultures.
Agrippa von Nettesheim
Authors: Nauert Charles G.
Published: March 2013

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (b. 14 September 1486 in Cologne—d. 1535 in Grenoble) was famous (or infamous) as the author of works on magic and the occult sciences not only in his own time but also centuries later. He was known for his declamation De incertitudine (see Individual Works) that denounced all human learning (including his own), probably the most frequently reprinted and translated of his publications, and also for a short treatise De nobilitate (see Collected Works) on the superiority of women, which succeeding generations discounted as a witty paradox but which modern feminist scholarship has taken very seriously. The major intellectual problem that his work has posed for modern intellectual historians is the apparent contradiction between his work on occult philosophy and his book denying the value of all fields of learning, including his own treatise on magic. Educated first at the University of Cologne (licentiate in arts, 1502), he traveled widely in France, Spain, England, and especially Italy, where he probably received degrees in both law and medicine (two professions that he practiced in later years), although no record of an Italian doctorate has been discovered. His work is especially important because of his lifelong study of ancient Platonic, modern Neoplatonic, Cabalistic, and Hermetic writings, an interest that began in his early years, matured during his years in Italy, and remained active throughout his life. Helpful modern scholarship on Agrippa is available in a variety of Western languages. In one form or another, the great majority of Agrippa’s numerous works are available in most academic research libraries. Some are available in English translation. Translations of De incertitudine were printed in several vernaculars (English in 1569, London: Henry Wykes and a modern reprint in 1974, Northridge: California State University). Less widely circulated was De occulta philosophia (see Individual Works) (first English edition in 1651, London: R.W. for Gregory Moule). Despite the existence of a few modern translations and more numerous older translations of questionable reliability, no reader should be deceived; serious study of Agrippa requires a reading knowledge of Latin, the language in which he wrote all of his works.
Dialogue
Authors: Marsh David
Published: March 2013

By dramatically representing its cultural context, the dialogue has provided a timely and lively portrait of philosophical debate from Antiquity to the present. Its rebirth in the Renaissance is central to the revival of classical culture and of the rise of modern thought.
Trade Networks
Authors: Bruscoli Francesco Guidi
Published: March 2013

The discovery of America and, more broadly, the European expansion to other continents are the major events characterizing the trade networks of the Renaissance. Several scholars have discussed the impact of these factors on European development as well as on the world’s steps toward capitalism and globalization. Circa the mid-17th century (the chronological limit of this bibliography), however, inter-European trade still made up the majority of overall trade. By and large, trade was not badly affected by the otherwise disastrous consequences of the Black Death of the mid-14th century. The demands of those who survived, constantly fueled by a wider range of products available on the market, along with a much-improved transport system, led to an increase in the volume of trade. International merchants were able to set up extensive commercial networks or broaden existing ones, which extended into a number of prominent towns. Beginning in the 16th century, following the exploration of the African coast by the Portuguese, their arrival in India, and, in particular, the discovery of America, trade expanded globally. Commercial empires sprang up—first in the countries of the Iberian Peninsula, then in the northwestern European countries (notably England and Holland and, to a lesser extent, France). In the seventeenth century, merchants from these areas began to strengthen their influence in the Mediterranean, thus reversing what formerly had been the scenario in the late Middle Ages, when southern European and German merchants dominated in the North Sea.
Mission
Authors: Clossey Luke
Published: March 2013

The Christian mission in the Renaissance period (1350–1650) witnessed the completion of the nominal Christianization of Europe and the beginning of the evangelization of the world, a process rooted in a medieval mentality but evolving to complement the new European exploration and globalization. In fact, it is only in this period that “mission” pushed past “evangelization” and “propagation” to be the term of choice to refer to attempts to convert others to Christianity, or to a particular kind of Christianity. In these centuries the Latin, Catholic Church dominated, for reasons of both theology and geography. Much of the earliest written histories of the less literate converts is missionary history. Even where Christianity did not dominate a society, the missionaries’ tendency to write copiously and in European languages has made them attractive informants for scholars interested in the broader histories of those regions. The scholarly literature is therefore vast, and this article only scratches the surface. Except for some primary-source anthologies and iconic works of scholarship, it focuses on recent and English-language publications whose bibliographies can direct the reader further. Mission history, like this bibliography, is primarily organized by geography. Students of a regional mission only exceptionally read farther afield—for good reason, given the extent of the scholarship. Despite this diversity, we can look back over the past half century to see a rough evolution of the historiography: what we might call a “classical” approach, relying almost entirely on missionary sources, adopted a missionary perspective; the fruit, in some cases, was the stereotype of enlightened missionaries saving savage aboriginals. A revisionist impulse, exploiting new archaeological and anthropological evidence, and drawing new inferences from the old sources, re-created the indigenous perspective; in instances where remaining evidentiary gaps were bridged with speculation or polemic, we are sometimes left with a new, reversed stereotype, of savage missionaries ruining enlightened aboriginals. Transcending both the classical narrative and its corrective, a new trend is giving us more human histories driven by individuals’ very individual stories—and these men and women, European and indigenous, missionary and convert, are enlightened and savage and everything in between, often in unpredictable ways. The revisionist outlook endures, however, to the extent that now some scholars consider inherently flawed any book focused on missionaries.
Rāma Jāmadagnya/Paraśurāma
Authors: Collins Brian
Published: March 2013

Paraśurāma (“Rāma with the Axe”) is the sixth incarnation or avatāra of Viṣṇuṣṇ according to the classical Hindu tradition and his story is one of the major secondary narratives of the Mahābhārata epic, where he first appears under the name Rāma Jāmadagnya. He is the the son of the forest-dwelling sage Jamadagni, a member of the ancient and powerful Brāhmaṇa clan called the Bhṛgus or Bhārgavas, by the princess Reṇukā of the royal Kṣatriya class. As such, he embodies both the spiritual power of the Brāhmaṇa and the military might of the Kṣatriya. Kṣatriya Paraśurāma is known for two deeds above all others in the epics and later purāṇasāṇ: his matricide and his twenty-one-fold extermination of the Kṣatriyas. In the matricide episode Paraśurāma decapitates his mother at the command of his father after she is caught looking at a handsome Gandharva prince bathing in the river. But later, Jamadagni regrets his rash words and decides to resurrect her and erase Paraśurāma’s memory of the deed. Paraśurāma’s extermination of the Kṣatriyas iss occasioned by the haughty Kṣatriya prince Kārtavīrya Arjuna’s theft of his family’s cow (or calf). After Paraśurāma slays the cattle thief, Kārtavīrya’s sons avenge his death by killing Paraśurāma’s father Jamadagni. In retaliation, Paraśurāma initiates a war with the entire Kṣatriyaa class and exterminates twenty-one generations of them, filling five lakes with their blood and making a great sacrifice of the earth he has conquered before being sent into exile by the divine sages. Despite being closely associated with Śiva, at some point after the composition of the Mahābhārata, he became elevated to one of the ten major incarnations or avatāras of Viṣṇu, probably under the auspices of the Vaiṣṇava Pāñcarātrin sect. Although he is not a popular figure of devotion like the other human avatāras Kṛṣṇa and Rāma Dāśaratha, scholars have long seen Paraśurāma’s story as crucial to understanding the Mahābhārata epic, in terms of both its composition and the religio-social worldviews it expresses. In parts of southern and western India, Paraśurāma is remembered as a patriarchal founder of various coastal regions, having reclaimed land from the sea by throwing his axe to drive back the water. In other regional traditions, he figures in the mythology of the widespread South Indian cult devoted to his mother Reṇukā, the cult of Dattātreya in the Deccan Plateau, and the caste origin myths of both Brāhmaṇa and non-Brāhmaṇa groups.
Empire and State Formation
Authors: Desbarats Catherine
Published: March 2013

Historical writing on empire and state formation is undergoing a kind of global renaissance for a host of complex reasons, including the rapid political reconfigurations accompanying the end of the Soviet Union, the persistence of empires, and the dawning realization that the homogeneous nation-state is not, and has probably never been, the “natural” form of political organization. Though never fully eclipsed as objects of historical enquiry, empires and states came to be seen for a time by many social historians as quintessentially elitist, Eurocentric, patriarchal preoccupations. In the end, however, what several generations of scholars have revealed, through their studies of peasantries, women, and indigenous or enslaved peoples, not to mention of landscapes and the environment, was not that empires and states were somehow irrelevant, but rather that the dominant narratives about them—those firmly rooted in textbooks and public discourse, and persisting even in academic works, had long been profoundly elitist, patriarchal, and Eurocentric. Historical discourse about high politics and government, moreover, had contributed significantly to the ideological, cultural work of state formation itself: settler societies produced Whiggish stories about the progress from “colony to nation,” and North Atlantic European countries produced histories centered on the “rise of democratic nation-states” that either celebrated the civilizing, democratizing effects of empire or ignored imperial pasts altogether. Both sets of national histories naturalized European expansion, emphasized formal institutional structures of government at the expense of less obvious sources of power, and tended to treat European state formation as somehow both prior to, and impervious to, processes of imperial and colonial state formation. Anthropologists, sociologists, and literary and critical theorists of various stripes have helped reinvigorate the study of empires and states. Through their attention to indigenous agency—namely, to the practices of power, including discursive ones—they have refined the concepts of empire and state formation as well as hinted at new ways in which we might interpret the records produced by such polities, paving the way for decolonized histories of both. Though much of this literature deals with settings in the 19th and 20th centuries, historians of the early modern Atlantic world are increasingly drawing inspiration from it. By conjoining regions typically studied apart (West Africa, Europe, the Americas), they have helped identify features of empire and state formation invisible within national frameworks. Above all, perhaps, they have reminded us that empire and state formation has important spatial dimensions, involving not just land but also oceans and waterways. Conversely, the histories of empires and states, which encompass Asian and Pacific theaters, challenge Atlantic historians to think carefully about the boundaries they impose on their inquiries.
Slavery in British America
Authors: Burnard Trevor
Published: March 2013

Slavery was the most important institution in colonial British America. Every area of colonial British America before the American Revolution allowed slavery, and in southern and island plantations it was essential to all areas of life. Although all areas of colonial British America allowed African chattel slavery from the mid-17th century onward and although slavery among Native Americans was well established before European arrival and continued and expanded after Europeans arrived, slavery was a dominant institution in only a few colonies. In these colonies––ranging from Maryland in the north to Demerara in South America––slavery was not only the principal source of wealth, but also it shaped every aspect of slavery. Britain relied on slavery and slave-produced products for whatever wealth it got from British America and was heavily involved in slavery as the leading trafficker of slaves across the Atlantic from the mid-17th century until the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. British ships carried millions of slaves to the Americas, where they changed the demographic makeup of European-controlled settlements markedly. Slavery was also a highly significant social institution. It led to the growth of a planter class––the most important and long-lasting elite in British American and American history. It also was important in developing pernicious ideas of race that were used by planters to justify their dominion over enslaved people. And, most importantly, it brought Africans to America. They brought with them their African culture, which was transformed by exposure to other cultural practices and became a distinctive part of the British American experience. Finally, slavery was an institution that relied at bottom on coercion and violence. The application of such coercion met with considerable resistance from those to whom violence was done.