bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
(Un)Doing Fieldwork: Sharing Songs, Sharing Lives
Authors: Kisliuk Michelle
Published: November 2023

In the ethnography of musical performance we are particularly challenged, as writers, to present or re-present the experiential since performance is experience. The project of aligning form and content-writing and experience-is one way in which a focus on field research is reshaping ethnography. One might argue that all ethnography be considered ethnography of performance, since culture itself is at some level inevitably enacted. But the relative specificity of music, while always embedded in and enabled by other performance modes, can provide a heightened example of performance processes. A focus on the ethnography of musical performance-overdue in the ethnographic arena—can suggest incisive ways of researching, writing about, and understanding cultural processes.
Black Hunger Food and the Politics of US Identity
Authors: Witt Doris
Published: November 2023

The creation of the Aunt Jemima trademark from an 1889 vaudeville performance of a play called “The Emigrant” helped codify a pervasive connection between African American women and food. In Black Hunger, Doris Witt demonstrates how this connection has operated as a central structuring dynamic of twentieth-century US psychic, cultural, sociopolitical, and economic life. Taking as her focus the tumultuous era of the late 1960s and early 1970s, when soul food emerged as a pivotal emblem of white radical chic and black bourgeois authenticity, Witt explores how this interracial celebration of previously stigmatized foods such as chitterlings and watermelon was linked to the contemporaneous vilification of black women as slave mothers. By positioning African American women at the nexus of debates over domestic servants, black culinary history, and white female body politics, Black Hunger demonstrates why the ongoing narrative of white fascination with blackness demands increased attention to the internal dynamics of sexuality, gender, class, and religion in African American culture. Witt draws on recent work in social history and cultural studies to argue for food as an interpretive paradigm which can challenge the privileging of music in scholarship on African American culture, destabilize constrictive disciplinary boundaries in the academy, and enhance our understanding of how individual and collective identities are established.
Introduction: Musical Children
Authors: Campbell Patricia Shehan
Published: November 2023

I hadn’t expected Nathan’s comment, and it stopped me cold. It was freely volunteered as I walked through the gate to the schoolyard at Vista Elementary School, and I found myself in conversation with him. What songs? Where had they come from? How did they sound, and what were the words? What did they mean to him? Was music so integrated within the life of this child that he could be asleep with, and awakening to, these songs? I was from that moment on intrigued with the notion of children like Nathan in every schoolyard with songs in their heads, in possession of music and ideas about music that I had naively assumed could only happen through formal training-in school, in private lessons, under the direction of experts. Were these the songs of the musically gifted? Or do all children carry within them musical gifts-songs, musical "urges," and thoughts about music-at the edge of their consciousness?
In Defense of Sentimentality
Authors: Solomon Robert C
Published: November 2023

“What is Wrong with Sentimentality?” That question already indicates a great deal about a century-old prejudice that has been devastating to ethics and literature alike. According to that prejudice, it goes without saying that there is something wrong with sentimentality, even if it is difficult to “put one ‘s finger on it.” To be called “sentimental” is to be ridiculed, or simply to be dismissed. Sentimentality is a weakness, a personality flaw. It suggests hypocrisy, or, at any rate, an exaggerated, distorted sensibility. Or, perhaps it is the fact that sentimental people are so ... so embarrassing. (How awkward it is talking or sitting next to someone weeping or gushing, when one is oneself dry-eyed and somber.) Or perhaps it is the well-confirmed fact that sentimentalists have such poor taste. Sentimental literature is, above all, literature that is tasteless, cheap, superficial and manipulative-in other words, verbal kitsch. Such mawkish literature jerks tears from otherwise sensible readers, and sentimentalists are those who actually enjoy that humiliating experience. Perhaps that is why Oscar Wilde thought that sentimentalists were really cynics. (“Sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism.”) Or, perhaps what bothers us is what once bothered Michael Tanner, that sentimental people indulge themselves in their feelings instead of doing what should be done (1976, 1). It is often said that the problem is that sentimentality and sentimental literature alike give us a false view of the world, distort our thinking, and substitute a “saccharine” portrait of the world in place of what we all know to be the horrible realities.
Trans-Acting Factors
Authors: Semenza Gregg L
Published: November 2023

Transcription factors are trans-acting proteins that affect the rate of transcription by specific interactions with DNA and/or other proteins (see Chapter 1). Transcriptional activators and repressors have positive and negative effects, respectively, on the rate of transcription. Transcriptional regulators may affect the rate of transcription initiation and/or mRNA elongation. In addition to DNA-binding activators and repressors, a variety of coactivators, corepressors, and other cofactors have been identified that do not bind to DNA directly but instead interact with the DNA-binding proteins and mediate their effects on transcription. Some of these co-factors have enzymatic activities that allow them to modify other cofactors, Pol II, or histones. Each of the transcription factor classes listed in Table 3.1 will be described in this chapter, followed by a discussion of pathways that transduce signals (e.g., cytokines, growth fac tors, and small molecules) at the cell surface to transcription factors that alter gene expression in the nucleus.
HMG Domain Proteins
Authors: Semenza Gregg L
Published: November 2023

As described in Chapter 3, transcriptional regulators containing an HMG-type DNA-binding domain appear to function as architectural factors whose primary function is to bend DNA. The HMG domain is an 80-amino-acid motif that was first identified in the High Mobility group nuclear proteins HMGl and HMG2 and the RNA Pol I transcription factor UBF (Jantzen et al., 1990), which bind to DNA in a non-sequence specific manner. The HMG domain has subsequently been shown to de fine a large superfamily of DNA-binding proteins containing over 100 members from eukaryotic species that include yeast, plants, and animals spanning one billion years of evolutionary time (Grosschedl et al., 1994; Laudet et al., 1993). Phylogenetic analysis identified two large subfami lies consisting of sequence-specific DNA binding proteins containing a single HMG domain and non-sequence-specific DNA-binding proteins containing multiple HMG domains (Laudet et al., 1993). All of the se quence-specific HMG-domain proteins that have been analyzed bind to DNA in the minor groove and recognize the consensus sequence 5’-(A/ T)(A/T)CAA(A/T)G-3’ (reviewed by Pevny and Lovell-Badge, 1997). In this chapter, SRY and SOX9, two HMG domain-containing proteins that bind to DNA in a sequence-specific manner and are essential for normal testicular determination and differentiation, will be described.
Other Transcription Factor Families
Authors: Semenza Gregg L
Published: November 2023

In addition to the zinc finger, PAX, bHLH, homeodomain, HMG, and POU proteins described in the preceding seven chapters, other transcription factor families have been identified that utilize unique DNA-binding domains. Members of such families that have been implicated in genetic disorders, including the TBX and RFX family members, are described in this chapter. Finally, HNF-lcx and HNF-4 are the homeodomain and nu clear receptor proteins, respectively. Because these two transcription factors interact genetically, both in normal development and in the pathogenesis of diabetes, they will be described together in this chapter.
Introduction To The First Edition
Authors: Darwin Charles
Published: November 2023

Many works have been written on expression, but a greater number on physiognomy – that is, on the recognition of a character through the study of the permanent form of the features. With this latter subject I am not here concerned. The older treatises, which I have consulted, have been of little or no service to me. The famous Conferences of the painter Le Brun, published in 1667, is the best known ancient work, and contains some good remarks. Another somewhat old essay, namely, the Discours, delivered 1774–82, by the well-known Dutch anatomist Camper, can hardly be considered as having made any marked advance in the subject. The following works, on the contrary, deserve the fullest consideration.
Special Expressions of Man: Suffering and Weeping
Authors: Darwin Charles
Published: November 2023

In this and the following chapters the expressions exhibited by man under various states of the mind will be described and explained, as far as lies in my power. My observations will be arranged according to the order which I have found the most convenient; and this will generally lead to opposite emotions and sensations succeeding each other.
Research Model and Methodology
Authors: Fredriksen-Goldsen Karen I , Scharlach Andrew E
Published: November 2023

As we have seen, work and family have been viewed from a variety of perspectives that highlight differing aspects of the interaction of employment and family caregiving. The various conceptual frameworks discussed in the last chapter highlight the interplay between such factors as the structural characteristics of people’s lives, stressors and demands, and mediators and resources, and their impact on the interrelationship of family care and work. To date, the vast majority of research on these conceptual models has been descriptive rather than evaluative. Existing research, moreover, has been limited by a number of methodological constraints, including the application of the models to only one type of care, the use of multiple definitions of family care, and the use of unrepresentative samples. Of the few existing studies that have examined the entire range of family caregiving experiences, most have attained relatively low response rates.
Employees with Adultcare Responsibilities
Authors: Fredriksen-Goldsen Karen I , Scharlach Andrew E
Published: November 2023

Chapter 3 described the problems experienced by individuals who, in addition to their work responsibilities, provide assistance to a disabled adult family member or friend. We indicated that adult care is a growing phenomenon, fueled by dramatic increases in the number of older persons in the population coupled with renewed reliance on families as primary providers of care for chronically ill family members. Currently, as many as one in four workers are providing some kind of assistance to a disabled family member, and it is estimated that this number will grow to one in three by the middle of the next century.
A Family-Care Model
Authors: Fredriksen-Goldsen Karen I , Scharlach Andrew E
Published: November 2023

In the preceding chapters we examined the characteristics and experiences of employees providing child care (Chapter 6) and adult care (Chapter 7). In this chapter, we will explore the relationship between family care and work across all types of care, utilizing the integrative family care model described in Chapter 5. We will examine the impact of demands, resources, and personal characteristics on those providing family care, whether for children or adults. Such an analysis will allow us to identify those factors that are predictive of role strain and family and work accommodations for working caregivers in general, regardless of the specific type of care they provide. In this chapter we also will examine variations among caregivers that reflect the type of care they provide: care only for children, care for ill and disabled adults, and multi-generational caregiving responsibilities (care for both children and adults). We will compare these three groups of caregivers with regard to strain, family and work accommodations, resources, demands, and social and demographic characteristics. In addition, we will explore the utilization rates and perceived helpfulness of a variety of work-place programs and benefits among employees with these differing types of care responsibilities.
Research Directions
Authors: Fredriksen-Goldsen Karen I , Scharlach Andrew E
Published: November 2023

Existing research models, including the resource and demand model utilized in this book, have provided useful information on how work and family responsibilities affect individuals and their work places. However, as noted in Chapter 8, these models typically do not explain the majority of variance in outcomes, such as role strain and work and family accommodations. Our findings suggest that there may well be other relevant factors or perspectives that have not received sufficient attention in existing theoretical and empirical models. Of particular interest are personal, interpersonal, and community resources that may help employees to manage more effectively the demands of their work and family situations.
Race and the Writing of History
Authors: Keita Maghan
Published: November 2023

This study examines the role of race in the construction of history and the validation of knowledge. Using Martin Bernal’s Black Athena and its critiques as an entrée into the historical inquiries of African American intellectuals and many of their African counterparts, Keita engages the contested legacy of writing history in America. Ranging from 1700 BCE to the late twentieth century, he offers a new perspective on the challenge of building new historiographies and epistemologies.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
Authors: Keita Maghan
Published: November 2023

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was contextually bound to proceed like those before him. He recognized that “the greatest historian of the race appeared when George Washington Williams issued his two volume History of the Negro Race in America.”1 He also recognized that as a result of the works of scholars such as Williams and Joseph T.
Frank M. Snowden, Jr.
Authors: Keita Maghan
Published: November 2023

For many of us, the works of Frank M. Snowden, Jr., are like a Trojan Horse. This is particularly true for those who do not take his work seriously, those who wish to discount his efforts, and those who view his work superficially as a gloss for their own arguments. Yet even a careful, diligent, and nuanced reading of Snowden may be at odds with Snowden. Critical reading is done at peril and in light of the various interpretations that Snowden as text might elicit.
Reprise: Conclusion by Way of Continuity
Authors: Keita Maghan
Published: November 2023

This chapter opens with a particular indebtedness to the work of Valentine Y. Mudimbe. Valentine Y. Mudimbe is a very learned man. He is a philosopher. His arguments, in part, mirror Daudi’s notions on discourse and power. He knows Philostratus and Hecataeus as well as he knows Sartre and Foucault. Mudimbe received the 1989 Herskowits Award for his scholarship. Yet remarkably, or maybe not so, he is seemingly unknown among the critics of Afrocentrism. Is Mudimbe an Afrocentric? Is Mudimbe Afrocentric? The far more important question, however, may be, does Afrocentrism become more “know able”-more intelligible-through Mudimbe.
Muscles and the Peripheral Nervous System
Authors: Chase Ronald
Published: November 2023

The renowned slow behavior of gastropods can be attributed to the lack of a hard skeleton, which limits the amount of amplification and antagonism that can be achieved from muscular actions. One of the few examples of direct muscular antagonism in gastropods occurs in the buccal mass where retractors and protractors operate to move the structure back and forth during feeding movements. However, to some extent hydrostatic pressure created by a partially open blood circulatory system compensates for the absence of a bony skeleton by creating what can be called a hydrostatic skeleton.
The Longevity of Adventists as Compared with Others
Authors: Fraser Gary E
Published: November 2023

For many of us, life expectancy is among the most important expressions of personal health. However, most would agree that this needs to be accompanied by a good quality of life, except perhaps for a short period before death. Vegetarians live longer than others, as we will see, and probably also have a better quality of life.

The definitive proof of improved quality of life must await future research, but an educated guess is possible. Some of the causes of mortality that are more frequent in nonvegetarians are the same disorders that result in prolonged periods of morbidity before death. Indeed, we have found that vegetarian Adventists use fewer medications and are less likely than nonvegetarians to have had an overnight hospital stay, surgery, or an X-ray during the previous year (Knutsen, 1994). Further evidence of an improved quality of life comes from a recent longitudinal analysis of 1741 aging non-Adventist university alumni, which concluded that “not only do persons with better health habits survive longer, but in such persons, disability is postponed and compressed into fewer years at the end of life” (Vita et al., 1998).
Coronary Heart Disease Mortality among British, German, and Indian Vegetarians
Authors: Fraser Gary E
Published: November 2023

Researchers have reported the results of three prospective studies and one retrospective study of non-Adventist vegetarians’ dietary habits and the risk of CHD. The studies are smaller than the California Adventist studies, and the prospective studies included only cases of CHD that resulted in death. Nevertheless, they add substantially to the total amount of information that is available.

These studies bring a greater diversity of experience to bear on the research questions, in part because they were done in other countries: the United Kingdom, Germany, and India. Also, while Adventists are vegetarians for reasons of health and, in some cases, for “moral purity,” the non-Adventist vegetarians are much more likely to be motivated by concerns about animal rights or the environment. This is not to deny that many non-Adventists expect some health benefits or that many Adventists feel satisfied that their choices spare animal lives and reduce the exploitation of scarce environmental resources (Gussow, 1994; Lewis, 1994). Another difference is that although most of the non-Adventist subjects are lacto ovo vegetarians, as were the Adventists, there is a higher percentage of vegans among the non-Adventist vegetarians.
Violence Against Women
Authors: Alpert Elaine J
Published: November 2023

Violence, an enormous problem in U.S. society, affects men and women very differently. Overall, women are less likely than men to become victims of violent crime, but they are ten times more likely than men to be assaulted, raped, robbed, or murdered by a current or former intimate partner. Nearly 95% of all assaults against men are perpetrated by strangers (50%) or acquaintances (44%); only 5% of known assailants of males are current or former intimate partners (2%), or other relatives (3%). In contrast, women are nearly equally likely to report being assaulted by strangers (31%); acquaintances (35%); and either intimate partners (28%) or other relatives (5%).
New World Economies
Authors: Egnal Marc
Published: November 2023

New World Economies closely examines the economic development of the Thirteen Colonies and early French Canada, looking at the impact of changing prices, capital flows, and shifts in demand. It is a companion to Egnal’s earlier book, Divergent Paths, which emphasizes the influence of culture and institutions on growth. It contains seventeen tables and more than one hundred graphs, many of which are based on original data, presenting these new statistics in a series of appendices. Egnal’s central argument is that the pace of economic development in the colonies reflected the rate of growth in the parent country. The book’s theoretical foundation builds upon, but moves beyond, the traditional “staple thesis.” Thoroughly documented and rich in quantitative data, the study traces the trajectory of economic growth by region and establishes a clear connection between colonial and European rates of growth.
What Do Women Want? Women’s Perceptions of Sexual Attractiveness
Authors: Townsend John Marshall
Published: November 2023

In Chapter 2 We Examined women’s desire for emotional investment. Here we will focus on women’s desire for material investment. The two types of investment are distinct but related. The signs of emotional investment indicate to a woman a man’s willingness to invest. When a man looks affectionately into his partner’s eyes and says “I love you,” he shows, if he is not faking, a genuine concern for her and her welfare. These signs are extremely important to women, as we have seen. But a genuine concern and willingness to invest are relatively meaningless if the man has nothing but time and energy to offer. He must also have the ability to invest sufficiently. Men who are sensitive, caring, and affectionate but who, in the eyes of their female partners, cannot provide an adequate material investment are likely to be discarded. The signs of emotional investment are important to women, but not sufficient.
What Men and Women Want in Marriage
Authors: Townsend John Marshall
Published: November 2023

The concept of romantic love did not appear in Europe until the time of the thirteenth century troubadours, and these experts ruled at first that it was impossible to married people. Even as late as the eighteenth century it played a very small part in European marriage. All societies recognize that there are occasional violent emotional attachments between persons of opposite sex, but our present American culture is practically the only one which has attempted to capitalize these and make them the basis for marriage. Most groups regard them as unfortunate and point out the victims of such attachments as horrible examples.
Who Does the Diapers and the Dishes? The Domestic Division of Labor
Authors: Townsend John Marshall
Published: November 2023

Economic anthropologist marvin harris explains the women’s movement of the 1960s and 70s in terms of the gradual erosion of the family as an economic unit. With the rise of industrial cities, children became economic liabilities rather than assets because they were no longer needed for domestic labor, as they had been in rural settings. In urban societies, children may not be present or willing to care for parents in old age, and developing technology required more education for adult work, so the cost of children, both real and as investments for the future, increased. Progress in medicine led to reduced child mortality, so couples could have fewer children and be relatively sure that they would survive.
What Is a Young Architect to Do, and How Is He to Get On?: 1824—1850
Authors: Kowsky Francis R
Published: November 2023

Calvert Vaux made the decision to leave his native England and to emigrate to the United States the day that he met Andrew Jackson Downing, a man whom many in America regarded as the supreme authority on matters of cultivated living. The encounter took place in London late in the summer of 1850, near the end of the European tour that Downing had been making since July of that year. “I was in a settled position and surrounded by friends,” said Vaux, “but I liked him so much, his foresight and observation were so apparent in the conversations we had and above all his style was so calculated to win confidence, that without a fear I relinquished all and accompanied him.”1 After supplying references to Downing, Vaux made arrangements for his departure. In the meantime, Downing took off on a hasty trip to Paris. Perhaps he went armed with advice from Vaux on what to see. Five years before, the young architect’s keen interest in the nascent urban park movement had led him to travel to the Continent to see royal parks and public gardens there. 2 In early September, after Downing had returned to England, he andVaux sailed together from Liverpool to NewYork. Within three we, ks of having met Downing,Vaux was hard at work with him in Newburgh at the office that Downing had created in his home, the Tudor villa that many knew as Highland Garden. Initially,Vaux, who was one of a number of professionally trained English architects to emigrate to the United States before the Civil War, had agreed to accept the post of assistant; by the end of the year Downing had made him his partner.3 This whirlwind sequence of events bears out a friend’s appraisal of Downing as a man who possessed “an almost intuitive perception of character” and in whom were combined the qualities of “keen perception, great energy, decision, and boldness:”
History of Statistical Methods in Public Health
Authors: Stroup Donna F , Berkelman Ruth L
Published: November 2023

While clinical medicine has the individual as its focus, public health is fundamentally concerned with preventing disease, disability, and premature death in the population or community. Because of this focus on populations rather than individuals, statistics and other numerical methods that deal with aggregates of measurements provide the scientific basis for basic public health tasks: identifying public health problems, establishing objectives for health promotion and disease and injury prevention, setting priorities for the allocation of health care resources, and determining the impact of specific interventions. Statistics, the science of finding underlying patterns by analyzing variability and errors in observed data (Rose, 1985; Murray, 1993), is essential to understanding problems of disease in human populations because of widespread variation in social systems and biology (Sladen and Bang, 1969).
Localized Scleroderma Limited, Localized, Diffuse, Generalized, Systemic, and Not-So-Systemic: What’s In a Name?
Authors: Mayes Maureen D
Published: November 2023

It is easy to confuse localized and limited scleroderma— and sometimes even doctors get confused by these terms, since they certainly sound similar. But they refer to very different forms of the disease. I would much prefer that the entire terminology be changed for greater clarification, but I dont make the rules. This chapter will deal with localized scleroderma, and chapters 3 and 4 will discuss the systemic form.
Systemic Scleroderma— Limited
Authors: Mayes Maureen D
Published: November 2023

We left our patient with limited scleroderma in chapter 3 at the point of being diagnosed. Let us pick up the story there and continue with the scenario. As you recall, she developed Raynaud’s phenomenon (color changes of the fingers on cold exposure) in 1999, puffy fingers and chronic heartburn in 2001, and a fingertip sore in 2003. The sore prompted the visit to her doctor, who ordered lots of tests (what doctors do best) and referred her to a specialist. To make the story shorter, she is sent to a rheumatologist, without first seeing a hand specialist or a vascular specialist. By now the blood test results are known: the blood counts are normal, the kidney function tests are normal, the urine analysis is normal, the liver works just fine, the thyroid is normal, the cholesterol may be up a little, but in general the patient is fine on paper.
Genetic Features of Scleroderma Did You Get it from Your Parents? Can You Give it to Your Kids?
Authors: Mayes Maureen D
Published: November 2023

Patients frequently ask whether they can give this disease to their children. My answer to this question has changed over the past few years. For the most part, scleroderma does not run in families. But for 1.6 percent of cases, there is another first-degree family member (parent, brother or sister, or child) with the disease. The flip-side of this, of course, is that 98.4 percent of individuals do not have a family history for the disease. With the human genome project and recent advances in the field of genetics, this has become an area of intense research. So far, this research has resulted in more questions than answers. It is likely that there is a genetic susceptibility to scleroderma that involves several different genes. However, just having the “right” (or “wrong”) set of genes is not enough. There has to be something else that happens, in order for disease to occur.
Reflexives as Grammatical Signs of the Divided Self
Authors: Haiman John
Published: November 2023

At least since the appearance of Paul Postal’s article (1971) on reflexivization and the method of “universal grammar,” modem grammarians have treated the reflexive as a universal structure or, if not a universal structure, at least a universal concept. That is, there exists in every language something like a set of pronouns whose function is to indicate that the entity they refer to (typically some object) is the same as the entity (typically a subject) referred to by another expression. The structure is motivated by the fact that people do various things not only to others but also to themselves.
Nonlinguistic Ritualization
Authors: Haiman John
Published: November 2023

Ritualization subsumes a number of distinct processes. In the following discussion, I will highlight three: habituation, automatization, and codification. The last of these, which itself subsumes several possibly unrelated processes (certainly processes that deserve more detailed examination than I can give them here), is treated as a unitary fact for one principal reason: all of the changes listed under this heading occur in human beings as a result of experience, while analogs among other animals seem to occur only through genetic evolution.
Reification and Innateness
Authors: Haiman John
Published: November 2023

The “autonomization” of any human creation, or its reification, is described by Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann as “the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were ... facts of nature” (1966:89). But what about the facts of nature themselves? Biologically innate features are often as arbitrary, but no more arbitrary, than cultural institutions. Proponents of the “radical autonomy” of syntax emphasize the sheer dysfunctionality of linguistic rules in order to validate their claims that language is not a functionally motivated structure. Koster (1987), one of the most eloquent of these proponents, compares syntactic structures with pat-terns on the wings of a butterfly-beautiful but functionally neutral. (Even the friendliest of critics would have to say that this may have been an unfortunate choice of biological analogies: one of the standard examples of functional motivation for extremely rapid evolutionary change is of changes in the wing coloring of moths [cf. Smith 1966:137).) I have argued so far that dysfunctionality, far from pointing unambiguously at innateness, can have cultural as well as natural causes. Dysfunction is rife in culture, and it occurs in culture through emancipation. I now would like to go one logical step further and suggest that dysfunction has a similar origin even in nature.
The Grammatical Agreement Deficit in Specific Language Impairment: Evidence from Therapy Experiments
Authors: Clahsen Harald , Hansen Detlef
Published: November 2023

Some children demonstrate great difficulty in the acquisition of grammar. These children are labelled ‘‘specifically-language impaired’’ (SLI) if they show delays and/or disorders in the normal acquisition of grammar despite any clear non-linguistic deficit - that is, these children have normal non-verbal IQs, no hearing deficits and no obvious emotional or behavioural disturbances. SU children cannot be considered to be ‘‘mentally retarded,’’ since SU children do not show a discrepancy between chronological age and mental age on non-verbal intelligence. SU children can also be distinguished from autistic children, because the SUs do not show a lack of responsiveness to humans and other characteristics of autistic children. Thus, there seems to exist a group of children who demonstrate difficulty acquiring grammar but for whom no clear non-linguistic cause can be found.
Specific Language Impairment, Cognition and the Biological Basis of Language
Authors: Johnston Judith R
Published: November 2023

The title of this chapter reminds me of the ‘‘great Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything’’ in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Adams 1979). Like Adams, I intend to talk about particular events, big questions and other matters pulled along in the course of argument. The purpose of this symposium is to sample diverse bodies of research that have bearing on our understanding of the biological bases for human language. For some years, I have been studying children who have difficulty learning their first language, in spite of apparently normal sensory and motor mechanisms, normal social relationships and normal non-verbal intelligence. These children are often described as having a specific language impairment (SLI), and they provide researchers with a unique opportunity to observe the developmental dissociation of language and other aspects of knowledge and behaviour. Such dissociations are never easy to interpret (Shallice 1991), but in con junction with other data, they can contribute to our models of the mind.
Pavilion in the Rain
Authors: Lees Gene
Published: November 2023

On warm summer nights, in that epoch between the wars and before air conditioning, the doors and wide wooden shutters would be open, and the music would drift out of the pavilion over the converging crowds of excited young people, through the parking lot glistening with cars, through the trees, and over the lake-or the river, or the sea. Sometimes Japanese lanterns hung in the trees, like moons caught in the branches, and sometimes little boys too hung there, observing the general excitement and sharing the sense of an event. And the visit of one of the big bands was indeed an event.
The Paradox
Authors: Sinatra Frank
Published: November 2023

Another comedian, Shecky Greene, has for years done the following routine: “You can say what you want about Sinatra, but the man once saved my life. That’s right, he did. I was standing out in front of Caesar’s Palace one night and three big tough guys began to kick the hell out of me. They were giving me a terrible beating, but finally Frank came up and said, ‘Okay, that’s enough.’”
Sweetest Voice in the World
Authors: Fitzgerald Ella
Published: November 2023

A little girl stood transfixed, eyes wide, in a California supermarket, listening as a woman wearing thick glasses leaned toward her and sang in a voice of incomparable sweetness, “Do you know the Muffin Man?” Whether the girl’s mother recognized the singer is impossible to say; the child certainly didn’t. The girl was listening to the voice of Ella Fitzgerald, famous around the world. I remember getting off an airplane in the small Chilean coastal town of Arica in 1962 and hearing that voice coming from a sound system somewhere.
The Grand Siègle Absorbs The Tragédie En Musique
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

The seventeenth century is known in France as the Great Century, le Grand Siecle, not only because of the splendor brought to it by the Sun King, Louis XIV, whose absolutist rule and dazzling court became a model for all the rest of Europe, but also and especially because of the great poets who thrived under his patronage. Moliere (with whom Lully, before he turned to opera, collaborated on several comedies-ballets), Corneille, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine scheme of his opera, for which I was unstinting with my advice. We were busy with this miserable task, whose outcome was by no means certain, when all of a sudden a happy incident relieved us of our quandary. The incident was this: M. Quinault having come in tears before the King and having pointed out to him what a humiliation he would suffer if he were no longer to work for His Majesty’s entertainment, the King, touched with compassion, declared frankly to the ladies I mentioned earlier that he could not make up his mind to let him suffer. Sic nos servavit Apollo [thus did Apollo save us]. And so we, Racine and I, returned to our former occupation, and no further mention was made of our opera, whose only remains were a few verses of M. Racine, which were not found among his papers after his death, and which he most likely suppressed from nicety of conscience, since they dealt with love. As for me, since there was not a trace of flirtatiousness in the scene I had composed, not only did I think it improper to suppress it, but I herewith present it to the public, persuaded it will please the readers, who perhaps will not regret seeing how I went about sweetening the gall and vehemence of my satirical poetry in order to take a plunge into the saccharine style. This they will be able to judge from the fragment I present to them here, and I present it to them the more confidently in that, since it is very short, should it not amuse them, it will not allow them enough time to get bored.
From Rousseau’s Confessions
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78), a seminal figure in the history of European thought, occupies a comparable position in the history of music, especially of opera. Himself a musician, though by no means a skilled one, he earned his living as a music copyist, disdaining to subject his books to the requirements of commercial publishing. He is remembered in music history for the articles he contributed to the great Encyclopedie, later revised and expanded into his Dictionnaire de musique (1768), for his fiery participation in the War of the court, if in my agitation I should let slip one of my usual faux pas? That danger alarmed me, frightened me, made me shudder so much that I decided not to expose myself to it at any cost. I would lose, it was true, the pension that was somehow being offered me; but I would also be exempting myself from the obligation it would impose on me. Farewell truth, liberty, courage. How would I dare thenceforth speak of independence and disinterestedness? Once I received that pension I should be obliged to either flatter or be silent: and who could assure me that it would be paid out? How many steps would need to be taken, how many people solicited! It would cost me more trouble and much more unpleasantness to keep the pension than to do without it. I thought that, in renouncing it, I was following a line of conduct far more consonant with my principles and sacrificing appearance to reality. I told Grimm of my resolve and he did not object. To the others I pleaded reasons of health; and I left the same morning.
Operatic Reform In Vienna: Gluckand Calzabigi
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Reform was very much in the air during the eighteenth century: the spirit of the Enlightenment sought to correct abuses in all the institutions of society, including the arts. Opera came in for its share of the reforming spirit. Contemporary chroniclers declared that the abuses of seventeenth-century Italian opera had been corrected by two reformers, first by the Imperial court poet Apostolo Zeno, then by his successor Pietro Metastasio: they had purged the operatic libretto of its trivialities and made it “regular,” worthy even of comparison with the masterpieces of French tragedy. Modern historians take a more nuanced view of this development, being less inclined to credit the creation of opera seria to any one or two persons, however eminent. But there is no doubt that Metastasio’s dramas, especially, were universally admired not only as librettos but as literature. It was not long, however, before critical voices were raised again, clamoring for reform: they complained of the rigidity of the new operatic conventions, which, among other things, tended to indulge a new breed of superstar singers by focusing all the musical expression in da capo arias. Italian critics like Francesco Algarotti (Saggio sopra /’opera in musica, 1755) turned to French opera, as others had done before: with its ballets, choruses, mythological plots, expressive recitatives, and relatively modest arias, it presented a living contrast to opera seria that could well serve as a model for its reform. In Vienna, where Metastasio still officiated as court poet though virtually retired from the operatic stage, there arose in the 1760s what was destined to become the best-known attempt at operatic reform. French influence was very strong there at the time, and the court theater had for some years been presenting French operas comiques and ballets under the supervision of its Francophile directeur des spectacles, Count Giacomo Durazzo (1717-94).
The First Performance Of IL Barbiere Di Siviglia
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

In 1823 there appeared in Bologna a pamphlet entitled (we translate) Notes Concerning Maestro Rossini by a Lady, Formerly a Singer, in Response to What Was Written about Him in the Summer of 1822 by the English Journalist in Paris and That Same Year Reported in a Milan Gazette. The author was Geltrude Righetti-Giorgi (1793-1862), who had created the role of Rosina at the famously disastrous first performance of II barbiere di Siviglia (Rome, 20 February 1816); as we shall see, the prior existence of another Barbiere, by Paisiello, was only one of the reasons for the failure. The “English Journalist” in Righetti-Giorgi’s title takes a little explaining. The great French novelist Stendhal (pseudonym of Henri Beyle, 1783-1842) was a devotee of Italian opera, having lived in Italy for many years. On his return to France, he undertook to write what was to be the first full-length study of Rossini’s life and music; published in 1824, his Vie de Rossini was an instant success. The composer was just thirty-two at the time; he had settled in Paris and was about to enter on the final stage of his career, which would culminate with Guillaume Tell five years later. Stendhal’s biography, then, was timely; it was also highly entertaining. Unfortunately it is quite inaccurate and thus unsuitable for representation among these documents. Prior to that, however, in January 1 822, Stendhal had contributed an anonymous article on Rossini to The Paris Monthly Review, an English-language periodical.
Parisian Grand Opera: Auber’s La Muette De Portici As Seen Bywagner
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

French opera blossomed into an all-encompassing spectacle when it combined the grandeur of traditional heroic opera with the more human concerns of opera comique. The grand gestures and poise of classicism were fused with the adventuresomeness and suspense of rescue opera. Local color and folk heroes now occupied the stage amid splendid scenes of nature and faithful reconstructions of historical settings. Choruses sprang into action; and the orchestra, always one of the glories of French opera, reached new heights of virtuosity and tonal brilliance. This was “grand opera,” and La Muette de Portici (1828) by Daniel-Frani;ois-Esprit Auber (1782-1871) is generally credited with initiating the new trend, closely followed by Rossini’s Guillaume Tell (1829). A huge work in five acts, La Muette was an instant and lasting success both in Paris and throughout Europe. Semihistorical (it deals fancifully with the Neapolitan uprising led by Masaniel lo in 1647), it has a title role that is danced, not sung: for Masaniello’s sister (a fictional character, like most of the others) is a mute. In other ways too, La Muette represents a new approach to the operatic conventions; perhaps, then, it is not too surprising to discover that one of its most ardent admirers was Richard Wagner.
Wagner’s Theory Of Drama
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

It was in the period following his participation in the Dresden uprising (May 1849) and subsequent flight to Switzerland that Wagner wrote his first books of operatic theory: Art and Revolution (1849), The Art Work of the Future (1850), and Opera and Drama (1852). His composing was at a standstill; his latest opera, Lohengrin, completed in 1848, was performed in his absence in 1850. But already in Dresden he had begun work on what was to become the major undertaking of his life, the vast Ring of the Nibelung cycle; so far he had only written the text of the last of the four dramas, Cotterdammerung (initially Siegfrieds Tod, later much revised), and twenty-six years were to pass before he would complete the whole cycle. But this, and the other three great works that lay ahead-Tristan und Isolde (1859), Die Meistersinger (1867), Parsifal (1882)-were no longer to be cast in the mold of traditional opera.
Verismo
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Verismo was the Italian version of realism, the literary movement espoused by such novelists as the brothers Goncourt and Emile Zola in France. 1870 had marked the end of an era for both countries: the Italians, having gained Rome as their capital, were now faced with the prosaic task of running a new nation beset with internal problems; and the French were painfully engaged in a similar endeavor after their disastrous defeat by the Prussians. In Italy as in France, the age of romantic dreaming and heroics was over.
Four Men At Work On La Bohème
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

Just as there are four principals-Rodolfo, Marcello, Schaunard, Colline-in Puccini’s La boheme, so there were four principals in its creation: the professional librettist Luigi illica (1857-1919), the playwright and man of letters Giuseppe Giacosa (1847-1906), the publisher Giulio Ricardi (1840-1912), so prominent in the genesis of Verdi’s Ote//o (see p. 230f above), and of course the composer himself, Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). Ricardi served as a sort of court of appeals during the sometimes heated squabbles concerning the ultimate shape this opera, based on Henry Murger’s Scenes de la vie de boheme (1851), was to assume. lllica undertook the drafting of the scenario, with important interventions by Puccini. Giacosa took care of the versification and the smaller details, putting on the final touches, though in one of the letters below he is heard complaining that none of his touches ever seemed to be final. Between the first mention of the opera in 1893 (in connection with a dispute that arose between Puccini and Leoncavallo, who was also at work on the same subject) and its first performance under Toscanini in Turin on 1 February 1896, the correspondence between the two librettists, the publisher, and the composer flowed thick and fast.
Strauss And Hofmannsthal Work On Der Rosenkavalier
Authors: Weiss Piero
Published: November 2023

To appreciate the full import of the following selections from the correspondence of Richard Strauss (1864-1949) with the Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929), one ought to be familiar with Der Rosenkavalier, more specifically with Act II, which is here seen in the making. While space does not permit a detailed synopsis of the opera, the following may do for an understanding of these letters. The comedy is set in mid-eighteenth-century Vienna. Sophie, the young daughter of the newly rich Faninal, has been promised in marriage to Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, an older nobleman whom she has never seen. The official marriage proposal is conveyed to her by the young Count Octavian Rofrano (nicknamed Quinquin) in a glittering ceremony in which he presents her with a silver rose. Ochs arrives soon afterwards and shows himself to be a vulgar brute. Sophie is horrified. She and Octavian fall in love. Octavian fights a duel with the Baron, wounding him slightly in the arm. The Baron makes a scene, but his cheerfulness is restored by a note inviting him to an amorous rendezvous with a chambermaid (actually Octavian in disguise); the note is brought by Valzacchi and Annina, two Italians who live by their wits.