bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Determining equilibrium constants for dimerization reactions from molecular dynamics simulations
Authors: De Jong Djurre H. , Schäfer Lars V. , De Vries Alex H. , Marrink Siewert J. , Berendsen Herman J. C. , Grubmüller Helmut
Published: April 2011

With today's available computer power, free energy calculations from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations “via counting” become feasible for an increasing number of reactions. An example is the dimerization reaction of transmembrane alpha‐helices. If an extended simulation of the two helices covers sufficiently many dimerization and dissociation events, their binding free energy is readily derived from the fraction of time during which the two helices are observed in dimeric form. Exactly how the correct value for the free energy is to be calculated, however, is unclear, and indeed several different and contradictory approaches have been used. In particular, results obtained via Boltzmann statistics differ from those determined via the law of mass action. Here, we develop a theory that resolves this discrepancy. We show that for simulation systems containing two molecules, the dimerization free energy is given by a formula of the form ΔG ∝ ln(P1/P0). Our theory is also applicable to high concentrations that typically have to be used in molecular dynamics simulations to keep the simulation system small, where the textbook dilute approximations fail. It also covers simulations with an arbitrary number of monomers and dimers and provides rigorous error estimates. Comparison with test simulations of a simple Lennard Jones system with various particle numbers as well as with reference free energy values obtained from radial distribution functions show full agreement for both binding free energies and dimerization statistics. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2011
Evolution of lone pair of excess electrons inside molecular cages with the deformation of the cage in e2@C60F60systems
Authors: Wang Yin‐Feng , Chen Wei , Yu Guang‐Tao , Li Zhi‐Ru , Wu Di , Sun Chia‐Chung
Published: April 2011

For unusual e2@C60F60(Ih,D6h, andD5d) cage structures with two excess electrons, it is reported that not only the lone pair in singlet state but also two single excess electrons in triplet state can be encapsulated inside the C60F60cages to form single molecular solvated dielectrons. The interesting relationship between the shape of the cage and the spin state of the system has revealed that ground states are singlet state for spherical shaped e2@C60F60(Ih) and triplet states for short capsular shaped e2@C60F60(D6h) and long capsular shaped e2@C60F60(D5d), which shows a spin evolution from the singlet to triplet state with the deformation of the cage from spherical to capsular shape. For these excess electron systems, the three ground state structures have large vertical electron detachment energies (VDEs (I) of 1.720–2.283 eV and VDEs (II) of 3.959–5.288 eV), which shows their stabilities and suggests that the large C60F60cage is the efficient container of excess electrons. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comput Chem, 2011
Anatomical variations of the carotid‐vertebral arteries: “Double‐vessel” sign on Doppler ultrasonography
Authors: Kantarci Fatih , Ozbayrak Mustafa , Gulsen Fatih , Besirli Kazim , Mihmanli Ismail
Published: April 2011

We describe the “double‐vessel” sign and its relevance for the diagnosis of carotid and vertebral arterial anatomical variations in a series of four patients with stroke. In these four patients, two arteries could be seen at the expected location of the common carotid artery (CCA), leading to the diagnosis of anatomical variations including separate origin of internal and external carotid artery from the aortic arch on the left side and from the brachiocephalic trunk and the subclavian artery on the right side, early bifurcation of the CCA on both sides, and an aberrant course of the vertebral artery on the left side. The presence of two arteries at the expected location of the CCA should raise the suspicion of carotid or vertebral arterial variations. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound, 2011
Treatment with rhBMP12 or rhBMP13 increase the rate and the quality of rat Achilles tendon repair
Authors: Jelinsky Scott A. , Li Li , Ellis Debra , Archambault Joanne , Li Jian , St. Andre Michael , Morris Carl , Seeherman Howard
Published: April 2011

Tendon injuries that result in partial or complete tears often come from chronic, repetitive use, or from sudden trauma. In some cases, torn tendons can be repaired, but such repairs often fail to completely restore tendon function. We used global gene expression profiling and histological examination to study tendon repair to elucidate key molecular processes that regulate the rate and quality of tissue restoration. Using a rat Achilles tendon transection model, tissue was collected at 3, 7, 10, and 15 days postinjury. The pattern of gene expression in the repairing tissue paralleled the healing phases of inflammation, matrix formation, and matrix reorganization. Newly formed repaired tissue is characterized by cells expressing many genes associated with tendon formation, thereby potentially distinguishing this repair tissue from other types of repair or scar tissue. Addition of recombinant human bone morphogenic protein (rhBMP)12 or rhBMP13, also known as growth and differentiation factors (GDFs) 6 and 7, 1 day after injury yielded increases in tissue volume, rate of cellular infiltration, and in changes in levels of key mRNAs involved in tendon repair. Altogether, our results indicate that rhBMP12 or rhBMP13 enhance the rate of tendon repair. A better understanding of the key molecular regulators of tendon repair could lead to the development of new therapies for tendon injuries and the identification of diagnostic markers that indicate the status of tendon repair after injury. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29: 1604–1612, 2011
Ultrasound assessment of the motion patterns of human flexor digitorum superficialis and profundus tendons with speckle tracking
Authors: Yoshii Yuichi , Henderson Jacqueline , Villarraga Hector R. , Zhao Chunfeng , An Kai‐Nan , Amadio Peter C.
Published: April 2011

The purposes of our study were to correlate ultrasonographically measured and joint angle estimated excursions of the flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS) and flexor digitorum profundus (FDP) tendons of the hand and to estimate the relative motion of FDS and FDP while gripping cylinders of standard diameter in normal human subjects. Thirty wrists from 15 human subjects were imaged with an ultrasound scanner. Speckle tracking was used to measure the excursion of the FDS and FDP tendons. The tendon excursions necessary to grip three differently sized acrylic tubes were measured and correlated with the corresponding finger joint angles. The FDP/FDS excursion ratio was calculated. The Pearson's correlation coefficient between the FDS excursion and MP + PIP joint angle was 0.61. The Pearson's correlation coefficient between the FDP + FDS excursion and the DIP + PIP + MP joint angle was 0.67. The FDP/FDS excursion ratio was smaller for larger excursions (gripping a smaller diameter tube) and larger for small excursions (gripping a larger diameter tube, P < 0.01). These data suggest that speckle tracking may be a useful method to discriminate the relative motion of flexor tendons, which in turn may be relevant in evaluating tendon function, for example after tendon injury. © 2011 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Orthop Res 29: 1465–1469, 2011
Biodegradable Poly(ethylene carbonate) Nanoparticles as a Promising Drug Delivery System with “Stealth” Potential
Authors: Bege Nadja , Renette Thomas , Jansch Mirko , Reul Regina , Merkel Olivia , Petersen Holger , Curdy Catherine , Müller Rainer H. , Kissel Thomas
Published: April 2011

The goal of this study was to investigate the suitability of poly(ethylene carbonate) (PEC) nanoparticles as a novel drug delivery system, fulfilling the requirements for a long circulation time. Particles were obtained with a narrow size distribution and nearly neutral zeta potential. Adsorption studies with human plasma proteins revealed that PEC nanoparticles bind much less proteins in comparison to polystyrene (PS) nanoparticles. Cell experiments with fluorescently labeled PEC showed no uptake of the nanoparticles by macrophages. These novel PEC nanospheres with their unique surface properties are a promising candidate for long circulating drug delivery systems in vivo.

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Stimuli Responsive Size Control of Hyperbranched Polymers
Authors: Böhm Indra , Ritter Helmut
Published: April 2011

The synthesis of stimuli–responsive hyperbranched polymers is reported. Through polymer‐analogous amidation of polyethylenimine (PEI) with 5‐hexynoic acid and 10‐undecynoic acid two polymers were obtained, with different spacer lengths between the hyperbranched PEI‐ and the triple bond. In a further step, these triple bonds were clicked with mono‐(6‐azido‐6‐desoxy)‐β‐cyclodextrin (CD‐N3). The resulting polymers PEI‐(CH2)3‐CD and PEI‐(CH2)8‐CD show stimuli–responsive contractions and expansions, which was observed by use of dynamic light scattering (DLS). These size effects depend on the formation of inter‐ and intramolecular aggregates due to the different spacer length between the triazol and the CD. Furthermore, the size of the polymer with the longer spacer (PEI‐(CH2)8‐CD) could be influenced with adamantyl carboxylate through host–guest‐complexation resulting in a reassemble of the aggregates. Moreover, the pH dependent size control was studied by adding sodium hydroxide. The deprotonation of the ammonium groups from the PEI scaffold leads to a further decrease in the hydrodynamic diameters of PEI‐(CH2)3‐CD and PEI‐(CH2)8‐CD. Thus, the different polymer systems exhibit a wide range (4–170 nm) of mean size. Furthermore, successful complexation experiments of the obtained polymer with phenolphthalein were carried out.

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Progression of striatal and extrastriatal degeneration in multiple system atrophy: A longitudinal diffusion‐weighted MR study
Authors: Pellecchia Maria Teresa , Barone Paolo , Vicidomini Caterina , Mollica Carmine , Salvatore Elena , Ianniciello Marta , Liuzzi Raffaele , Longo Katia , Picillo Marina , De Michele Giuseppe , Filla Alessandro , Brunetti Arturo , Salvatore Marco , Pappatà Sabina
Published: April 2011

Diffusion‐weighted imaging has been largely used to detect and quantify early degenerative changes in patients with multiple system atrophy, but progression of neurodegeneration has been poorly investigated. We performed a serial diffusion‐weighted imaging study in a population of multiple system atrophy patients and analyzed the evolution of diffusion properties in striatal and extrastriatal brain regions. Diffusion‐weighted imaging was obtained in 11 multiple system atrophy patients at baseline and after a follow‐up of 11.7 ± 1.2 months, and Trace (D) changes in different brain regions were correlated with disease duration and severity. A significant increase in Trace (D) was observed at follow‐up in the putamen (P < .001), pons (P = .003), cerebellar white matter (P = .03), thalamus (P = .013), and frontal white matter (P = .021). Both Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale Part II and Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III scores significantly increased at follow‐up (P = .003), but percent changes of Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part III and Unified Multiple System Atrophy Rating Scale Part II did not correlate with percent changes of Trace (D) values in any brain region. This longitudinal study provides new insights into the progression of neurodegeneration in different brain regions in multiple system atrophy. Our results confirm that abnormal diffusivity in the putamen is sensitive to change over time in multiple system atrophy patients and show for the first time a progression of Trace (D) alterations in specific extrastriatal regions. Diffusivity changes in these regions may be useful for monitoring disease progression even after a short follow‐up period. © 2011 Movement Disorder Society
Generalized GRAPPA operators for wider spiral bands: Rapid self‐calibrated parallel reconstruction for variable density spiral MRI
Authors: Lin Wei , Börnert Peter , Huang Feng , Duensing George R. , Reykowski Arne
Published: April 2011

A rapid and self‐calibrated parallel imaging reconstruction method is proposed for undersampled variable density spiral datasets. A set of generalized GRAPPA for wider readout line operators are used to expand each acquired spiral line into a wider spiral band, therefore fulfilling Nyquist sampling criterion throughout the k‐space. The calibration of generalized GRAPPA for wider readout line operators is performed using the fully sampled central k‐space region. The resulting generalized GRAPPA for wider readout line operator weights are adaptively regularized to minimize the error in the newly‐generated data at different k‐space locations. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the technique can be used either to achieve a significant acceleration and/or to reduce off‐resonance artifacts due to a shorten readout duration. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Iterative motion compensated reconstruction for parallel imaging using an orbital navigator
Authors: Nielsen Tim , Börnert Peter
Published: April 2011

A new navigator‐guided motion‐compensated MR image reconstruction for segmented Cartesian imaging using multiple reception coils is presented. In‐plane patient motion, comprising translation and rotation, is quantified for each scan segment by an orbital navigator. A robust and accurate approach to extract the motion parameters from the orbital navigator data is presented. The navigator information is used in an efficient iterative image reconstruction algorithm to avoid motion‐induced image artifacts. Experiments in phantoms and volunteers using segmented turbo spin echo imaging as an example were performed to show the basic feasibility of this new motion compensation approach. The method can also be applied to other segmented acquisitions such as magnetization‐prepared gradient echo imaging or EPI. Magn Reson Med, 2011. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Application of the partial element equivalent circuit method to tower surge response calculations
Authors: Yutthagowith Peerawut , Ametani Akihiro , Nagaoka Naoto , Baba Yoshihiro
Published: April 2011

This article presents calculations of tower surge responses and insulator voltages of an actual transmission tower including ground wires and phase wires. The partial element equivalent circuit (PEEC) method is applied as a simulation tool. Surge responses of the tower and insulator voltages calculated by the PEEC method are compared with electro magnetic transients program (EMTP) simulated results and experimental results collected from the literatures. The results calculated by the PEEC method agree well with the experimetal results, not only amplitudes but also waveshapes. © 2011 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Tracking stem cells using magnetic nanoparticles
Authors: Cromer Berman Stacey M. , Walczak Piotr , Bulte Jeff W.M.
Published: April 2011

Stem cell therapies offer great promise for many diseases, especially those without current effective treatments. It is believed that noninvasive imaging techniques, which offer the ability to track the status of cells after transplantation, will expedite progress in this field and help to achieve maximized therapeutic effect. Today's biomedical imaging technology allows for real‐time, noninvasive monitoring of grafted stem cells including their biodistribution, migration, survival, and differentiation, with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of nanoparticle‐labeled cells being one of the most commonly used techniques. Among the advantages of MR cell tracking are its high spatial resolution, no exposure to ionizing radiation, and clinical applicability. In order to track cells by MRI, the cells need to be labeled with magnetic nanoparticles, for which many types exist. There are several cellular labeling techniques available, including simple incubation, use of transfection agents, magnetoelectroporation, and magnetosonoporation. In this overview article, we will review the use of different magnetic nanoparticles and discuss how these particles can be used to track the distribution of transplanted cells in different organ systems. Caveats and limitations inherent to the tracking of nanoparticle‐labeled stem cells are also discussed.WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol2011 3 343–355 DOI: 10.1002/wnan.140

This article is categorized under:

Nanotechnology Approaches to Biology > Cells at the Nanoscale

Diagnostic Tools > In Vivo Nanodiagnostics and Imaging
Environmental regulation of the neural epigenome
Authors: Caldji Christian , Hellstrom Ian C. , Zhang Tie-Yuan , Diorio Josie , Meaney Michael J.
Published: April 2011

Parental effects are a major source of phenotypic plasticity. Moreover, there is evidence from studies with a wide range of species that the relevant parental signals are influenced by the quality of the parental environment. The link between the quality of the environment and the nature of the parental signal is consistent with the idea that parental effects, whether direct or indirect, might serve to influence the phenotype of the offspring in a manner that is consistent with the prevailing environmental demands. In this review we explore recent studies from the field of ‘environmental epigenetics’ that suggest that (1) DNA methylation states are far more variable than once thought and that, at least within specific regions of the genome, there is evidence for both demethylation and remethylation in post‐mitotic cells and (2) that such remodeling of DNA methylation can occur in response to environmentally‐driven, intracellular signaling pathways. Thus, studies of variation in mother–offspring interactions in rodents suggest that parental signals operate during pre‐ and/or post‐natal life to influence the DNA methylation state at specific regions of the genome leading to sustained changes in gene expression and function. We suggest that DNA methylation is a candidate mechanism for parental effects on phenotypic variation.
Adjusting diet with sapropterin in phenylketonuria: what factors should be considered?
Authors: MacDonald Anita , Ahring Kirsten , Dokoupil Katharina , Gokmen-Ozel Hulya , Lammardo Anna Maria , Motzfeldt Kristina , Robert Martine , César Rocha Júlio , van Rijn Margreet , Bélanger-Quintana Amaya
Published: April 2011

The usual treatment for phenylketonuria (PKU) is a phenylalanine-restricted diet. Following this diet is challenging, and long-term adherence (and hence metabolic control) is commonly poor. Patients with PKU (usually, but not exclusively, with a relatively mild form of the disorder) who are responsive to treatment with pharmacological doses of tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) have either lower concentrations of blood phenylalanine or improved dietary phenylalanine tolerance. The availability of a registered formulation of BH4(sapropterin dihydrochloride, Kuvan®) has raised many practical issues and new questions in the dietary management of these patients. Initially, patients and carers must understand clearly the likely benefits (and limitations) of sapropterin therapy. A minority of patients who respond to sapropterin are able to discontinue the phenylalanine-restricted diet completely, while others are able to relax the diet to some extent. Care is required when altering the phenylalanine-restricted diet, as this may have unintended nutritional consequences and must be undertaken with caution. New clinical protocols are required for managing any dietary change while maintaining control of blood phenylalanine, ensuring adequate nutrition and preventing nutritional deficiencies, overweight or obesity. An accurate initial evaluation of pre-sapropterin phenylalanine tolerance is essential, and the desired outcome from treatment with sapropterin (e.g. reduction in blood phenylalanine or relaxation in diet) must also be understood by the patient and carers from the outset. Continuing education and support will be required thereafter, with further adjustment of diet and sapropterin dosage as a young patient grows.
Antiserotonergic antipsychotics are associated with obsessive–compulsive symptoms in schizophrenia
Authors: Schirmbeck F. , Esslinger C. , Rausch F. , Englisch S. , Meyer-Lindenberg A. , Zink M.
Published: April 2011

Background

Epidemiological investigations show that up to 30% of schizophrenic patients suffer from obsessive–compulsive symptoms (OCS) associated with negative impact on the general prognosis. It has been proposed that antiserotonergic second-generation antipsychotics (SGAs) might induce OCS, but investigations of large samples integrating psychopathology, neuropsychology and psychopharmacology are missing.

Method

We stratified 70 patients with schizophrenia according to their mode of antipsychotic treatment: clozapine and olanzapine (group I) compared with aripiprazole and amisulpride (group II). The groups were matched according to age, sex, educational levels and severity of the psychotic disorder (Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale). As the primary endpoint, we evaluated OCS severity (Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale).

Results

OCS were significantly more prevalent and severe in group I, in which OCS severity correlated with dosage of clozapine and duration of treatment. Pronounced cognitive deficits in group I were found in visuospatial perception and visual memory (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised block design, Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test), impulse inhibition (go/no-go test), higher perseveration scores (Wisconsin Card Sorting Test) and reduced set-shift abilities (Trail Making Test Part B, Set-shift Task). These cognitive domains correlated with OCS severity.

Conclusions

OCS in schizophrenia are associated with antiserotonergic SGA treatment, but longitudinal studies have to prove causality. Before starting treatment with antiserotonergic SGAs, specific neurocognitive domains should be evaluated, as visuospatial learning and impulse inhibition performance might allow early detection of OCS secondary to antipsychotic treatment in schizophrenia.
Cerebellar white-matter changes in cannabis users with and without schizophrenia
Authors: Solowij N. , Yücel M. , Respondek C. , Whittle S. , Lindsay E. , Pantelis C. , Lubman D. I.
Published: April 2011

Background

The cerebellum is rich in cannabinoid receptors and implicated in the neuropathology of schizophrenia. Long-term cannabis use is associated with functional and structural brain changes similar to those evident in schizophrenia, yet its impact on cerebellar structure has not been determined. We examined cerebellar grey and white matter in cannabis users with and without schizophrenia.

Method

Seventeen patients with schizophrenia and 31 healthy controls were recruited; 48% of the healthy group and 47% of the patients were long-term heavy cannabis users (mean 19.7 and 17.9 years near daily use respectively). Cerebellar measures were extracted from structural 3-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans using semi-automated methods, and examined using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and correlational analyses.

Results

Cerebellar white-matter volume was reduced in cannabis users with and without schizophrenia compared to healthy non-users, by 29.7% and 23.9% respectively, and by 17.7% in patients without cannabis use. Healthy cannabis users did not differ in white-matter volume from either of the schizophrenia groups. There were no group differences in cerebellar grey matter or total volumes. Total cerebellar volume decreased as a function of duration of cannabis use in the healthy users. Psychotic symptoms and illness duration correlated with cerebellar measures differentially between patients with and without cannabis use.

Conclusions

Long-term heavy cannabis use in healthy individuals is associated with smaller cerebellar white-matter volume similar to that observed in schizophrenia. Reduced volumes were even more pronounced in patients with schizophrenia who use cannabis. Cannabis use may alter the course of brain maturational processes associated with schizophrenia.
No Room of One's Own: Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low, Berthe Morisot, andThe Awakening
Authors: Ringelberg Kirstin
Published: April 2011

Several art historians have discerned a gendered division of subject matter between male and female artists of the late 19th century. Griselda Pollock's landmark text, “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity,” serves as both the first and fullest discussion of this issue from a feminist perspective. Pollock argues that women Impressionists should not be viewed as outside the development and rhetoric of modernity because of their failure to depict its most representative sites (cafés, bars, and other public spaces where bourgeois women dared not enter); rather, we should note their restricted, chiefly domestic realm as another space of modernity that these women were particularly adept at analyzing. According to Robert Herbert, works by women Impressionists are “easily distinguished” from those of their male counterparts, who tend to highlight the figures over their surroundings and fail to note the expressive capabilities of household furnishings. There is much to recommend the approaches of both Pollock and Herbert; in particular, they have given critical and aesthetic value to the paintings of women Impressionists in their analyses. But, paradoxically, their analyses also have the effect of reinforcing the same gendered distinctions of paintings once used to devalue those works by women.
The Unpublished Diaries of Charles Kikuchi: “Black and Yellow” through the Eyes of a ProgressiveNiseiIntellectual
Authors: Briones Matthew M.
Published: April 2011

In the winter of 1942, only a year removed from the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and nearly seven months into his internment at the Gila River Relocation Project in Arizona, a young Japanese American named Charles Kikuchi recounts an afternoon's passing conversation in his diary. “I was walking over by the Butte this afternoon and I stopped to talk about the camp with a Negro workman who was digging postholes for the fence which is going around the place,” writes Kikuchi. The young African American asks the youngNisei(that is, second-generation Japanese American) about the loyalty of other Japanese Americans and is disappointed to discoverNiseiallegiance to the United States. The workman responds, “Boy, you are making a mistake. Why should you be loyal to a country that don't want you? … This is a white man's country and all the colored peoples of this world has got to change this so that I can get a good job just like a white man and I don't have to dig post holes to lock you Japanese up who are born in California. You help this country out and they will turn around and give you a kick in the pants afterwards.”
The Unusual Case of Leslie Lapidus: The Purposes of the Remarkably Long Joke in William Styron's Sophie's Choice
Authors: Katz Frank
Published: April 2011

In Discussing the humor of William Styron's humor-filled novel Sophie's Choice, I am particularly interested in focusing upon the nature of the joke that fills a huge portion of the novel, the Leslie Lapidus affair. Rarely (if ever) in the history of the written word, I'd be willing to venture, has a joke of the outrageous length of this one been set down. The Leslie Lapidus affair, from start to finish, actually takes up about a full fifth of a long novel. The reader first hears of Leslie as a “hot dish” promised to Stingo, the main character and the narrator, on page 82 of the 1992 Vintage edition, but the punch line doesn't come until page 193, followed by a few pages of denouement. What a buildup! That's a startlingly long joke. The over-length of the Leslie Lapidus affair, as well as its late-in-the-novel resurrection in the briefer “coda” that is the Mary Alice Grimball encounter, should be enough to make the reader take pause. What in the world is a joke of this size doing in a novel about the Holocaust? How does it relate to the major ideas of the novel? At 100+ pages, it's practically a major theme of its own.
Some Radical Concepts of Sex and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century America
Authors: Stern Madeleine B.
Published: April 2011

Much of the excitement of nineteenth-century America probably arose from the fact that for nearly every ill some reform was hopefully put forth. Slavery was countered by abolition; alcoholism by temperance; tight lacing by the bloomer dress; indigestion by graham bread. In that spawning ground of panaceas, “every possible form of intellectual and physical dyspepsia brought forth its gospel. Bran had its prophets. Everybody had a mission.” Sex too had its prophets, who not only fulminated against rigid marriage laws and consequent injustices to women, but advocated reforms based upon highly individualized principles.
Ellen Glasgow and History: The Battle-Ground
Authors: Holman C. Hugh
Published: April 2011

That Ellen Glasgow was the grande dame of One West Main Street, Richmond, Virginia, is a fact known to everyone. That as a novelist she was from the beginning a part of the modern southern literary tradition and that she was shaped by the same fundamental impulses which went to make the “Southern Renascence” has been less widely understood. This fact has resulted in part from the circumstance that much of her work was written early in this century and that before the spectacular upheaval in southern writing which marked the 1930s, she had established a secure position, which she did not elect to desert when the winds of a newer modernism began to blow.
Toward a Linguistic Approach to the Study of Jazz: The Southwestern Tradition as a Case in Point
Authors: Leonard Neil
Published: April 2011

One of the continuing ironies of American Studies is that jazz, among America's most important contributions to the arts, has received little scholarly attention. The new music required recognition from Europe before we could stop looking at it with disdain or condescension and it continues to arouse frowns from many who still regard it as a form of cheap popular music or simply another form of folk music, interesting for sociological purposes but of little lasting aesthetic significance. For these and other reasons jazz scholarship has developed slowly in the United States. But despite the complex problems raised in placing and illuminating a new art form, we have come a long way from the evangelical journalism of early writing on jazz and now have a number of sensitive and intelligent critics of considerable attainment, accomplished jazz-oriented musicologists, sociologists, and historians who have contributed greatly to our understanding of jazz musicians and the forces that have shaped their careers.
From Imagination to Reality: Thomas Moran and the Yellowstone
Authors: Bartlett Richard A.
Published: April 2011

In the two decades from 1860 to 1880 the eastern image of the American West changed drastically. Prior to 1860 that image had been based primarily upon the accounts of a few travelers and explorers. It was an image of generalities, distortions, and vague impressions in which imagination was a significant element. But with the coming of photography, the transcontinental railroad, and the surge of humanity that spilled westward following the Civil War, the image acquired a refinement in detail. Much of the West should have become commonplace.
Strategies of Humor: The Case of Benjamin Franklin
Authors: Brodwin Stanley
Published: April 2011

In one of those brief but illuminating apocryphal tales with which all history abounds, we are told that Benjamin Franklin was prevented by the Founding Fathers from authoring theDeclaration of Independencebecause they feared he would insert a joke. They knew their man; indeed, John Adams, who may have known the most, wrote that Franklin “had a satire that was good-natured or caustic, Horace or Juvenal, Swift or Rabelais, at his pleasure.” Both the story and the description point to a central paradox in Franklin's character—his capacity for irreverent reverence—a psychological and artistic reflex that appears throughout a career that consistently merged with a society undergoing rapid social, economic, and political changes. Even given his far-ranging genius, it is remarkable how Franklin's humorous and satiric energy permeates his writings and erupts at critical social and political moments into a variety of discrete forms, which nevertheless remain part of an organic comic vision. Far more than an occasional jokester orad hocsatirist, Franklin embraced the comic as a habitual mode of expression so integrated with his deistic beliefs and reliance upon reason and the “natural order” of things that it may be said to function as a form of epistemology, a dialectical way of not only exposing theerrataof human behavior in the traditional manner of humor and satire, but also of gaining control, insight, and understanding into the nature of humanity. Thus, he could write to Madame Brillon:

Reflect how many of our duties [Providence] has ordained naturally to be pleasures; and that it has the goodness besides, to give the name of sin to several of them; so that we might enjoy them more.
The Macedonia Cooperative Community (1937–58) and the Quest for a Communal Center
Authors: Orser W. Edward
Published: April 2011

Disappointed by the demise of the Macedonia Cooperative Community, in which he had become a member, Staughton Lynd wrote in 1958: “Let us hope that some contemporary group will demonstrate by a living example that disintegration and authoritarianism are not our only alternatives.” Indeed, these have been the twin perils in the experience of many American intentional communities throughout the years, particularly those that have sought a high degree of integration as an antidote to what their members perceive to be the inequality and competitiveness of conventional society. Because such ideals cut across the cultural grain, the casualty rate is high. But the primary ingredient in the survival of some may be the very factor responsible for the mortality of others: the almost inevitable quest for a common center, characterized by insistence upon deeper levels of commitment, an increasing degree of homogeneity, and a greater sense of common purpose. Recent works by sociologists like Rosabeth Moss Kanter and historians like Laurence Vesey support this conclusion, as does the judgment of many earlier observers. The quest for such a communal center lay at the heart of the Macedonian experience.
The Cycle of Clandestinity
Authors: Cawelti John
Published: April 2011

We live in a time and a culture that have become deeply obsessed with clandestinity and conspiracy. The extent to which “the torment of secrecy”—as Edward Shils called it—has pervaded our national life was recently dramatized by the revelations of the Watergate investigations; but this was, of course, only the climax of a series of developments in American culture, which had their roots in the aftermath of World War II. That conflict thrust America into a new global position where our power over other countries and our potential vulnerability to their economic and military strengths and weaknesses came to seem more important than ever. Intensified by the fear of atomic weapons and the cold war, both our political leaders and the man on the street became deeply concerned about the threat of secret conspiracies at home and abroad. While such obsessions have often appeared in the aftermath of wars—both the Civil War and World War I left a deep legacy of suspicion and suspension of due process in the attempt to counter secret conspiracies—it was only after World War II that Americans institutionalized clandestinity on a large and permanent scale. Our generation has harvested the first fruits of that major cultural change.
Politics and the Literary Imagination in America: From Adams to Mailer
Authors: Strout Cushing
Published: April 2011

Surprisingly, two of the most influential theorists of American literature have been a French sociologist and a transplanted English poet: Alexis de Tocqueville and W. H. Auden. In teaching American literature and intellectual history, especially in respect to the political novel, I have found myself engaged in a critical dialogue with their closely associated views. Permit me to explain by beginning with a small piece of autobiography.
Sex as Symbol in Victorian America
Authors: Smith-Rosenberg Carroll
Published: April 2011

Victorian America was a society of infinite sexual complexity. It simultaneously spawned both the loose and vigorous sexuality of the frontier and the repression of Edith Wharton's New York. It elaborated a subtle and delicate world of same-sex love among women and men. It both condemned and was fascinated by male homosexuality, while refusing to define lesbianism as deviant. It supported a multitude of communal and religious attacks on the patriarchal family, from the sexual austerity of the Shakers, through the sexual pleasures of Fanny Wright's Nashoba and Oneida's communal family, to the polygamy of the Mormons. Thousands of Americans attended Victoria Woodhull's free-love rallies and sustained without much psychic disarray the shock of the Beecher-Tildon scandal. Pornography, venereal disease rates, prostitution, and widespread abortion point to a society actively engaged in the pursuit of real and fantasized sexual pleasures, both within and outside conjugal confines.
TV Heroes and the Denial of Death
Authors: Rollin Roger B.
Published: April 2011

The Car and the TV set are icons of the polytheistic secular religion of Americans. The proof is in our behavior patterns: To be deprived of our car or our television set constitutes a near crisis in our daily life, not only in the radical restructuring of our time and our movements, but also in the marked psychological effects of such restructuring—feelings of loss, helplessness, in some cases even depression. (For purposes of comparison, consider the emotional effects of a temporary deprivation of railroad trains, for example, or live theater.)
Between Two Worlds: American Social Thought After the Civil War
Authors: Welter Rush
Published: April 2011

In recent years American scholars have made significant progress in rethinking the history of the United States after the Civil War. Although much of their effort has come to a focus on Reconstruction, new questions and new techniques of historical analysis have combined to revitalize examination of the era as a whole. Yet-certain specialized studies notwithstanding – relatively little has been done to reconceive the intellectual history of the period. In part, this situation probably reflects the disappointing character of most of postbellum thought, which boasts few such luminaries as the era of the American Revolution or that of the so-called American Renaissance. In part, it may also reflect the fact that study of the period revived at a time when intellectual history no longer seemed to represent the cutting edge of historical inquiry. In any case, the opinions and beliefs of late Victorian America have remained a stepchild of historical research while their adopted family has flourished.
The Emergence of the Mass Society: The Standardization of American Culture, 1830–1920
Authors: Jowett Garth S.
Published: April 2011

One of the great intellectual debates in the nineteenth century in the United States concerned the American preoccupation with European culture and, perhaps more important, the continued use of European critical standards to judge the quality of indigenous American culture. There is a great deal of truth in Walt Whitman's lament above, for a truly American high culture had yet to emerge, and American popular culture was still very much in its formative stages and under the influence of European trends (witness the enormous popularity of Charles Dickens and Sir Walter Scott). Only in the realm of folk culture had a rich, and by now Americanized, tradition emerged in the period before the Civil War. This is an interesting point, for after nearly two hundred years in the New World, American folk culture (especially folk humor) was now quite independent, whereas American high culture was still beholden to Europe for its inspiration and ideals. This clearly demonstrates that folk culture emerges from an affinity with everyday cultural expression and is closely identified with its creators, whereas high culture is based on a rigid set of (sometimes arbitrary) standards, which can be imposed from outside, with little regard for community cultural needs. Thus, the existing folklore was the result of the unique American experience, and while elements of the older European folk cultures were still visible, these had undergone the transformations caused by a new environment and were now fully integrated into the “frontier” culture of the new land.
Schooling and Age Grading in American Society Since 1800: The Fragmenting of Experience
Authors: Cohen Ronald D.
Published: April 2011

In different ways, James Agee and Lacy Wright questioned the importance and influence of public schooling. Learning continues beyond, and perhaps despite, formal school attendance. This seems like common sense. Schools can also be harmful and destructive to children and society. This, too, seems clear. The trend in recent decades, however, has been to extend the years of formal schooling, putting more and more emphasis on degrees and credentials as passports to the future. What this will mean to our children and grandchildren is hard to say. But how we got to this point is rather clear. Simply, schools have been the most visible manifestation of the continued development of age grading in American society since Independence, and age grading has been a vital component of what we broadly term “modernization.”
An American Grail: An Iconographic Study of Thomas Cole's Titan's Goblet
Authors: Weinberg Helen A.
Published: April 2011

The presence of the large, the massive, the majestic, the panoramic in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century American painting can be well documented. Aesthetic theories of the sublime, scenes of Niagara Falls and mountains, large canvases, vast views—all of these attest to the longing of the small American nation on a sprawling continent to project its vision of a great destiny, the possible future, the promised future, in its art. An early work in oil on canvas (1833) encompassing the large in a small (193⅜ by 16⅛ inches) canvas is The Titan's Goblet by Thomas Cole, who is called the father of American landscape painting and who, in fact, in his transitional role between Washington Allston and Frederic Church, transferred a symbolic way of seeing, especially in terms of American nationhood, to the enterprise of American landscape painting. The Titan's Goblet, “one of Cole's smallest and most finished works,” according to an early biographer, is a mysterious and fantastic painting that begs for interpretation: It seems peculiarly central to the process of making the American landscape function in a metaphorical way. Clearly symbolic itself, the goblet in the painting may be more than that and can be seen as emblematic of what it represents; that is, it can be seen as a singular object that stands for something else by suggesting the other thing's nature or history.
Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph
Authors: Carey James W.
Published: April 2011

In one of the most famous paragraphs of our most famous autobiography, Henry Adams located the precise moment when “eighteenth century troglodytic Boston” joined industrial America: “the opening of the Boston and Albany Railroad; the appearance of the first Cunard Steamers in the bay; and the telegraphic messages which carried from Baltimore to Washington the news that Henry Clay and James K. Polk were nominated for the presidency. This was May, 1844.”
Civility and Rudeness: Urban Etiquette and the Bourgeois Social Order in Nineteenth-Century America
Authors: Kasson John F.
Published: April 2011

This essay represents an effort to understand how members of the middle class adjusted to the emergent urban-industrial order in the nineteenth century. In particular, I wish to inquire into what changes in social behavior, in emotional regulation, ultimately in identity this order entailed. I shall pursue these issues through the study of what may at first appear an unlikely source: the multitude of American etiquette manuals published between 1830 and 1910. Such materials can substantially enlarge our understanding of how behavior and identity were shaped and the cultural and social orders adjusted and maintained, as middle-class Americans encountered the momentous changes of a new urban-industrial society. This essay will concentrate on urban experience because here the problems of adjustment were most intense; but I would argue that as the process of capitalist development and modernization advanced, the styles of life and modes of consciousness first developed in cities came to a large extent to dominate the nation as a whole.
The Dream of the Wise Child: Freud's ‘Family Romance’ Revisited in Contemporary Narratives of Horror
Authors: Douglas Ann
Published: April 2011

On the Phil Donahue show in early December 1981, Janet Dailey, the most successful romance writer in America today, explained, in answer to a question, why actual parents are usually absent in romance fiction. The form is short, it places a premium on excitement – and parents are not “interesting.” For a moment, Ms. Dailey almost lost her largely middle-aged audience. No one present thought to remind Janet Dailey that a contemporary genre of popular “thrillers” (which, by definition, aim to excite the reader) centers on parenthood. “Thriller” authors include Ira Levin, Peter Blatty, Stephen King, Lawrence Sanders, Mary Higgins Clark, Lawrence Block, V. C. Andrews, John Saul, and hundreds of lesser-known and -talented figures. It is logical, in fact, that no one mentioned in Dailey's presence what I call “family horror.” Romances and family thrillers are widely dissimilar, yet closely connected; the proverbial opposite sides of the same coin.
Prologue to a Study of Myth and Genre in American Movies
Authors: Slotkin Richard
Published: April 2011

Myth and Genre are essential terms in the vocabulary of cultural historians. They refer us to the apparent continuities we perceive in the development of culture and of the various arts, professions, disciplines, and institutions that give culture its form. Myth has to do with the continuity of meanings: the transmission from generation to generation of a characteristic system of beliefs and values, embodied in a continuously evolving language of symbols, fables, images, and fictions. Genre has to do with the continuity of forms: the persistence from generation to generation of particular ways of telling stories, making symbols, structuring systems of representation. Each concept offers a special insight into the workings of cultural systems. Myth directs our attention toward the ways in which our material and social history shape our culture, and is in turn shaped by it. It highlights the aspects of our ceremonies and fictions that represent and preserve bits of history, deploying them as metaphors to interpret the present for us, enabling culture to serve as a kind of collective memory. It emphasizes the connection between cultural productions and ideology (in the broadest sense of that term), and it emphasizes the ways in which the historical development of our fictions reflects and justifies the social order as it changes over time. It suggests that the logic of ideology, in dialectic with the recalcitrant materials of the real world, is the informing logic of cultural history.
Whale Lore and Popular Print in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America: Sketches Toward a Profile
Authors: Browne Ray B.
Published: April 2011

Newspapers and magazines—the popular print—of any time and place not only provide rich lodes from which profiles of what people read and talk about can be sketched; they also demonstrate how these media must be canvassed and appreciated if one would fully understand the culture, and literature, of the time.