bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Transcatheter Aortic Valve Implantation in Dialysis Patients
Authors: Rau Simon , Wessely Matthias , Lange Philipp , Kupatt Christian , Steinbeck Gerhard , Fischereder Michael , Schönermarck Ulf
Published: February 2012

Background/Aims: Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) has emerged as a new therapeutic option for high-risk patients. However, dialysis patients were excluded from all previous studies. The aim of this study is to compare the outcomes of TAVI for dialysis patients with those for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) stages 3 and 4 and to compare TAVI with open surgery in dialysis patients. Methods: Part I: comparison of 10 patients on chronic hemodialysis with 116 patients with non-dialysis-dependent CKD undergoing TAVI. Part II: comparison of transcatheter (n = 15) with open surgical (n = 24) aortic valve replacement in dialysis patients. Results: Part I: dialysis patients were significantly younger (72.3 vs. 82.0 years; p < 0.01). Hospital stay was significantly longer in dialysis patients (21.8 vs. 12.1 days; p = 0.01). Overall 30-day mortality was 3.17%, with no deaths among dialysis patients. Six-month survival rates were similar (log-rank p = 0.935). Part II: patient age was comparable (66.5 vs. 69.5 years; p = 0.42). Patients in the surgical group tended to stay longer in hospital than TAVI patients (29.5 vs. 22.5 days; p = 0.35). Conclusion: TAVI is a safe procedure in patients on chronic hemodialysis. Until new data become available, we find no compelling reason to refuse these patients TAVI.
Homocysteine Upregulates Soluble Epoxide Hydrolase in Vascular Endothelium In Vitro and In Vivo
Authors: Zhang Donghong , Xie Xina , Chen Yequn , Hammock Bruce D. , Kong Wei , Zhu Yi
Published: February 2012

Rationale:

Hyperhomocysteinemia is a risk factor of atherogenesis. Soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) is a major enzyme that hydrolyzes epoxyeicosatrienoic acids and attenuates their cardiovascular protective effects. Whether homocysteine (Hcy) regulates sEH and the underlying mechanism remains elusive.

Objective:

To elucidate the mechanism by which Hcy regulates sEH expression and endothelial activation in vitro and in vivo.

Methods and Results:

Hcy treatment in cultured human endothelial cells dose-dependently and time-dependently upregulated sEH mRNA and protein. Hcy increased the expression of adhesion molecules, which was markedly reversed by inhibiting sEH activity. Hcy-induced sEH upregulation is associated with activation of activating transcription factor-6 (ATF6). Bioinformatics analysis revealed a putative ATF6-binding motif in the promoter region of the sEH gene, which was found at a methylation site. Site-directed mutagenesis and chromatin immunoprecipitation assays demonstrated that Hcy treatment or ATF6 overexpression promoted ATF6 binding to the promoter of sEH and increased its activity. Results of methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction revealed that the ATF6 binding site on the sEH promoter was partially methylated and was demethylated with Hcy. SiRNA knockdown of ATF6α or SP1 blocked and ATF6 overexpression and DNA methyltransferase inhibitor mimicked the effect of homocysteine on sEH upregulation. In vivo, immunofluorescence assay revealed elevated expression of sEH and adhesion molecules in the aortic intima of mice with mild hyperhomocysteinemia, which was attenuated by sEH deletion or inhibition.

Conclusion:

ATF6 activation and DNA demethylation may coordinately contribute to Hcy-induced sEH expression and endothelial activation. Inhibition of sEH may be a therapeutic approach for treating Hcy-induced cardiovascular diseases.
A Hormone-Based Controller for Evaluation-Minimal Evolution in Decentrally Controlled Systems
Authors: Hamann Heiko , Schmickl Thomas , Crailsheim Karl
Published: February 2012

One of the main challenges in automatic controller synthesis is to develop methods that can successfully be applied for complex tasks. The difficulty is increased even more in the case of settings with multiple interacting agents. We apply the artificial homeostatic hormone system (AHHS) approach, which is inspired by the signaling network of unicellular organisms, to control a system of several independently acting agents decentrally. The approach is designed for evaluation-minimal, artificial evolution in order to be applicable to complex modular robotics scenarios. The performance of AHHS controllers is compared with neuroevolution of augmenting topologies (NEAT) in the coupled inverted pendulums benchmark. AHHS controllers are found to be better for multimodular settings. We analyze the evolved controllers with regard to the usage of sensory inputs and the emerging oscillations, and we give a nonlinear dynamics interpretation. The generalization of evolved controllers to initial conditions far from the original conditions is investigated and found to be good. Similarly, the performance of controllers scales well even with module numbers different from the original domain the controller was evolved for. Two reference implementations of a similar controller approach are reported and shown to have shortcomings. We discuss the related work and conclude by summarizing the main contributions of our work.
High-throughput SNP genotyping in Cucurbita pepo for map construction and quantitative trait loci mapping
Authors: Esteras Cristina , Gómez Pedro , Monforte Antonio J , Blanca José , Vicente-Dólera Nelly , Roig Cristina , Nuez Fernando , Picó Belén
Published: February 2012

Background

Cucurbita pepois a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, the second- most important horticultural family in terms of economic importance after Solanaceae. The "summer squash" types, including Zucchini and Scallop, rank among the highest-valued vegetables worldwide. There are few genomic tools available for this species.

The firstCucurbitatranscriptome, along with a large collection of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP), was recently generated using massive sequencing. A set of 384 SNP was selected to generate an Illumina GoldenGate assay in order to construct the first SNP-based genetic map ofCucurbitaand map quantitative traitloci(QTL).

Results

We herein present the construction of the first SNP-based genetic map ofCucurbita pepousing a population derived from the cross of two varieties with contrasting phenotypes, representing the main cultivar groups of the species' two subspecies: Zucchini (subsp.pepo) × Scallop (subsp.ovifera). The mapping population was genotyped with 384 SNP, a set of selected EST-SNP identifiedin silicoafter massive sequencing of the transcriptomes of both parents, using the Illumina GoldenGate platform. The global success rate of the assay was higher than 85%. In total, 304 SNP were mapped, along with 11 SSR from a previous map, giving a map density of 5.56 cM/marker. This map was used to infer syntenic relationships betweenC. pepoand cucumber and to successfully map QTL that control plant, flowering and fruit traits that are of benefit to squash breeding. The QTL effects were validated in backcross populations.

Conclusion

Our results show that massive sequencing in different genotypes is an excellent tool for SNP discovery, and that the Illumina GoldenGate platform can be successfully applied to constructing genetic maps and performing QTL analysis inCucurbita. This is the first SNP-based genetic map in theCucurbitagenus and is an invaluable new tool for biological research, especially considering that most of these markers are located in the coding regions of genes involved in different physiological processes. The platform will also be useful for future mapping and diversity studies, and will be essential in order to accelerate the process of breeding new and better-adapted squash varieties.
Prevalence and correlates for school truancy among pupils in grades 7-10: results from the 2004 Zambia Global School-based Health Survey
Authors: Muula Adamson S , Rudatsikira Emmanuel , Babaniyi Olusegun , Songolo Peter , Siziya Seter
Published: February 2012

Background

There are limited data on the prevalence and associated factors of truancy in southern Africa. Yet truancy should attract the attention of public health professionals, educators and policy makers as it may be associated with adolescent problem behaviours. The objectives of the study were to estimate the prevalence and determine correlates of school truancy among pupils in Zambia.

Findings

We used data collected in 2004 in the Zambia Global School-based Health Survey. Logistic regression analysis was conducted to identify factors associated with truancy. A total of 2257 pupils participated in the survey of whom 53.9% were male. Overall 58.8% of the participants (58.1% of males and 58.4% of females) reported being truant in the past 30 days. Factors associated with truancy were having been bullied (AOR = 1.34, 95% CI [1.32, 1.36]), current alcohol use (AOR = 2.19, 95% CI [2.16, 2.23]), perception that other students were kind and helpful (AOR = 1.12, 95% CI [1.10, 1.14]), being male and being from the lowest school grade. Pupils whose parents or guardians checked their homework (AOR = 0.91 95% CI, [0.89, 0.92]) and those who reported parental supervision (AOR = 0.94, 95% CI [0.92-0.95]) were less likely to report being truant.

Conclusions

We found a high prevalence of truancy among pupils in grades 7-10 in Zambia. Interventions aimed to reduce truancy should be designed and implemented with due consideration of the associated factors.
Representations of Deaf Characters in Children's Picture Books
Authors: Golos Debbie B. , Moses Annie M.
Published: February 2012

Picture books can influence how children perceive people of different backgrounds, including people with disabilities whose cultures differ from their own. Researchers have examined the portrayal of multicultural characters with disabilities in children's literature. However, few have specifically considered the portrayal of deaf characters, despite increased inclusion of deaf characters in children's literature over the past two decades. The present study analyzed the portrayal of deaf characters in picture books for children ages 4-8 years. A content analysis of 20 children's picture books was conducted in which the books were analyzed for messages linked to pathological and cultural categories. Results indicated that these books did not portray Deaf characters from a cultural perspective but, rather, highlighted aspects of deafness as a medical condition, one that requires fixing and that perpetuates stereotypes of deafness as a disability.
The Effects of Captions on Deaf Students' Content Comprehension, Cognitive Load, and Motivation in
Online Learning
Authors: Yoon Joong-O , Kim Minjeong
Published: February 2012

The authors examined the effects of captions on deaf students' content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation in online learning. The participants in the study were 62 deaf adult students who had limited reading comprehension skills and used sign language as a first language. Participants were randomly assigned to either the control group or the experimental group. The independent variable was the presence of captions, and the dependent variables were content comprehension, cognitive load, and motivation. The study applied a posttest-only control group design. The results of the experiment indicated a significant difference ( t = -2.16, p < .05) in content comprehension but no statistically significant difference in cognitive load and motivation between the two groups. These results led to suggestions for improvements in learning materials for deaf individuals.
Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students and Accountability Reform: Issues for the Future
Authors: Cawthon Stephanie W.
Published: February 2012

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) has had a monumental impact over the past decade on how educational reform is viewed in the United States. As a result of how the law is structured, schools for students who are deaf or hard of hearing have been the focus of attention for educational reform under NCLB. While there have been some shifts in policy, reauthorization of NCLB will need to respond to some of the larger calls for changes to the law. The author discusses some key issues related to assessment and accountability that are central to how the reauthorization of NCLB affects the education of deaf and hard of hearing students.
Family Supports and Resources for Parents of Children Who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
Authors: Jackson Carla Wood
Published: February 2012

The Study examined family supports after identification of children's hearing loss. On a questionnaire, 456 respondents rated the importance of different aspects of family support, the quality of supports they experienced, and their preferences about informational resources. They verified the importance of informational resources, social-emotional support, and educational advocacy. Families expressed a preference for discussion with other parents of children with hearing loss over discussion with parents of children without hearing loss. The quality of support was rated higher by parents of children with cochlear implants than by parents of children with hearing aids. Top-ranked sources of support included individual professionals and service providers, other parents of children with hearing loss, family support organizations, and grandparents and extended-family members. Open-ended written responses indicated that parents desired additional opportunities to connect with mentors, role models, and other parents.
Leo Steinberg in Memoria Mea —Fragments
Authors: Spitz Ellen Handler
Published: February 2012

With immense gratitude and a measure of unembarrassed sadness, I dedicate this, my final Apropos the Arts column, to Dr. Peter Rudnytsky, who is now stepping down after having served American Imago as its editor for a decade. As maestro, he has conducted its medley of authors with brio. He has combined the precision of a Leinsdorf (chastening and exhorting us) with the adventurousness of a Boulez (spurring us to heights of intellectual and aesthetic daring). Privileged to perform as a member of his ensemble, I have benefited from his accuracy, his sureness of phrase, and his abiding rigor. I have reveled in his appreciation of dissonance. Perhaps, above all, it has been a pleasure for me as well as a challenge to join him in his courageous prizing of intensely personal as well as discreetly public voices. What follows here is written in one of those personal voices, coaxed forth by Dr. Rudnytsky. Participating in the psychoanalytically inflected polyphony that he has made a hallmark of this hallowed journal, I offer this essay as a tribute to him as well as a deeply felt homage to its chosen subject, my cherished mentor, the distinguished art historian Dr. Leo Steinberg, who passed away on March 13 th of this year, at the age of ninety.
Imprisoned Minds
Authors: Casement Patrick J.
Published: February 2012

So that we can really engage with the otherness encountered in each of our patients we need to maintain an open mind. But how do we achieve this when our minds tend to be filled (in our training and subsequent reading) with what we are expecting to find? The author tries to engage with this paradox, emphasizing the need to restore a position of noncertainty in our thinking in order to counteract the imprisonment of too much sureness in our clinical work. Over against that he also considers some of those times when we need to be more sure than tentative.
Winnicott's " Anni Horribiles ": The Biographical Roots of "Hate in the Counter-Transference"
Authors: Kahr Brett
Published: February 2012

Donald Winnicott's 1949 paper "Hate in the Counter-transference" has come to occupy an important place in the psychoanalytic literature, both as a feisty critique of mid-twentieth-century biological psychiatry and as a brave statement about the burdens of working psychotherapeutically with very ill patients. Hitherto, scholars have devoted little attention to this classic work, and have not explored the biographical and cultural contexts in which Winnicott developed this crucial clinical concept. In this reexamination of "Hate in the Counter-transference," the author provides new archival material, including unpublished correspondence as well as data from interviews with Winnicott's former patients, colleagues, and family members, that sheds light on Winnicott's life and work during the 1930s and 1940s. The author hopes that by situating Winnicott's pathbreaking essay in a historical framework, contemporary readers will develop a fuller appreciation of Winnicott's contribution.
Solitude in Buddhism and in Psychoanalysis: The Case of the Great Tibetan Yogi Milarepa
Authors: Paul Robert A.
Published: February 2012

A consideration of the life of the medieval Tibetan yogi, poet, and saint Milarepa leads to a psychoanalytic understanding of the Buddhist prescription to abandon all attachments in order to achieve genuine happiness. The vicissitudes of attachment, loss, mourning, rage, absolution, and guilt are explored to show how the achievement of the Buddhist ideal of sainthood is won through a fierce inner struggle that leaves someone such as Milarepa, a victim of traumatic childhood loss, best suited for a hermit's life.
The Path of Phocion: Disgrace and Disavowal at the Philip Johnson Glass House
Authors: Tutter Adele
Published: February 2012

Philip Johnson graced his iconic Glass House with a single seicento painting, Landscape with the Burial of Phocion by Nicolas Poussin, an intrinsic signifier of the building that frames it. Analyzed within its physical, cultural, and political context, Burial of Phocion condenses displaced, interlacing representations of disavowed aspects of Johnson's identity, including forbidden strivings for greatness and power, the haunting legacy of the lesser artist, and the humiliation of exile. It is argued that Phocion's path from disgrace to posthumous dignity is a narrative lens through which Johnson attempted to reframe and disavow his political past.
Marketing Thanatos: Damien Hirst's Heart of Darkness
Authors: Silverman Debora
Published: February 2012

This article explores themes and techniques of violence in the arts of Damien Hirst and interprets them as expressive forms of cultural pathology. While Hirst has produced his "shockaholic" art for more than two decades, his new prominence and power have flourished in the distinctive context of the past seven years. The article examines Hirst's 2007 creation of a diamond encrusted platinum cast of a human skull (Fig. 1L, 1R), suggesting affinities with Mr. Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and with the ivory sculptures of 1890s Art Nouveau in Belgium. The impact of Hirst's art and merchandising empire on younger designers since 2007 is identified, lifting to view the emergence of a new consumer style of skins, skulls, and conspicuous destruction. The article ends with reflections on the triumph of the diamond skull in a period of war and violence at a distance, and the ubiquity of thanatal art in an era of laissez-faire extremism.
Irreducible cuspidal representations with prescribed local behavior
Authors: Gross Benedict H.
Published: February 2012

Let $G$ be a simple algebraic group defined over the global field $k$. In this paper, we use the simple
trace formula to determine the sum of the multiplicities of the irreducible representations in the cuspidal
spectrum of $G$, with specified local behavior at a finite set of places of $k$ and unramified elsewhere.
This sum is expressed as the product of the values of modified Artin $L$-functions at negative integers.
Existence of dicritical divisors
Authors: Abhyankar Shreeram S. , Heinzer William J.
Published: February 2012

We prove an existence theorem for dicritical divisors.
Polarized minimal families of rational curves and higher Fano manifolds
Authors: Araujo Carolina , Castravet Ana-Maria
Published: February 2012

In this paper we investigate Fano manifolds $X$ whose Chern characters ${\rm
ch}_k(X)$ satisfy some positivity conditions. Our approach is via the study
of {\it polarized minimal families of rational curves} $(H_x,L_x)$ through a
general point $x\in X$. First we translate positivity properties of the
Chern characters of $X$ into properties of the pair $(H_x,L_x)$. This allows
us to classify polarized minimal families of rational curves associated to
Fano manifolds $X$ satisfying ${\rm ch}_2(X) \geq 0$ and ${\rm ch}_3(X) \geq
0$. This classification enables us to find new examples of higher Fano
manifolds. We also provide sufficient conditions for these manifolds to be
covered by subvarieties isomorphic to ${\Bbb P}^2$ and ${\Bbb P}^3$.
Moons, Smoke, and Mirrors in Apuleius' Portrayal of Isis
Authors: Libby Brigitte B.
Published: February 2012

This article supports a satirical reading of Book 11 of the Golden Ass by showing a previously unrecognized way in which Apuleius undermines Isis and her priests. An analysis of moon and mirror imagery in Apuleius' novel as well as his philosophical and rhetorical works will show how he exploits an inherent difficulty in Isis' lunar symbol and the mirrors used to represent it. The moon-goddess Isis will turn out to be an opportunistic fraud who, like a mirror, reflects light without producing her own.
The Representation and Misrepresentation of Virgilian Poetry in Propertius 2.34
Authors: O'Rourke Donncha
Published: February 2012

Scholarly comment on Propertius 2.34 stretches back to antiquity, but there is more to learn from its salient intertext, the growing corpus of Virgilian epos, about the elegy's difficult text and interpretation, and inversely about contemporary knowledge and opinion of that intertext. Propertius synopsises each of Virgil's works, including the inchoate Aeneid , accurately in terms of form but tendentiously in terms of content. Propertius' "optimistic" readings suggest that, with the "anxiety of influence," he recognised in Virgil the elegiac sensibility his synopsis emulously erases. Structural (including "stichometric") allusions militate against Ribbeck's transposition of lines 77-80 and recommend Barth's division at line 25 (without at the same time severing thematic continuities that also make a unitary reading of the elegy meaningful).
Music and Masculinities in Late Ming China
Authors: Lam Joseph S. C.
Published: February 2012

This examination of music and masculinities in late Ming China (1572–1644), a turbulent time in Chinese history, consists of two parts. The first part introduces late Ming China, its masculine ideals and practices, and proposes a heuristic framework for analyzing available data; the second part employs the framework to analyze a selection of representative late Ming texts and visuals that illustrate music and masculinity negotiations of the time.
The Construction of Āmānnisā Khan as a Uyghur Musical Culture Hero
Authors: Anderson Elise
Published: February 2012

This paper explores the construction of Āmānnisā Khan (1526–1560) as a Uyghur culture hero through the creation and repetition of a narrative linking her to the Uyghur Twelve Muqams. The paper shows intertextual linkages between various forms in which Āmānnisā Khan is represented, including written histories, a stage play, a tomb, a film, a novel, and portraiture. The analysis reveals that it is the frequent recontextualization and repetition of “Āmānnisā Khan as collector and organizer,” which was first inserted into her life story in the 1980s, that has been the most significant element in developing her culture hero image.
Negombo Fishermen's Tamil: A Case of Indo-Aryan Contact-Induced Change in a Dravidian Dialect
Authors: Bonta Steven
Published: February 2012

Negombo Fishermen's Tamil, a dialect of Tamil from coastal Sri Lanka spoken by bilingual Catholic fishermen, exhibits many features of contact-induced change. Based on data collected in the Negombo area during 2000 and 2001, I conclude that Negombo Fishermen's Tamil has undergone significant amounts of borrowing and grammatical realignment under the influence of Colloquial Sinhala, an unusual instance of South Asian contact-induced change in the direction from Dravidian to Indo-Aryan. This has likely been conditioned by the Catholic religion of the Negombo Fishermen's Tamil-speaking community within a predominantly Buddhist and Hindu society.
Derogatory Forms of Personal Names in Omani Arabic
Authors: Aghbari Khalsa Al
Published: February 2012

This article examines the derogatory variants of personal names in Omani Arabic that adult women use to express exasperation towards their interlocutors in intimate social settings. These variants closely resemble the original names phonetically, but are considered gravely insulting as derogatory or taboo. The article describes the sociocultural functions of such derogatory names, the differences they reveal in the usage of terms of address between the two genders, and their distinctive role in the norms of speaking and socializing among women in Oman.
Portrait of the Linguist as a Young Man: Linguistic Fieldwork on Nguna (Vanuatu) in 1966
Authors: Schütz Albert J.
Published: February 2012

This account of linguistic fieldwork on Nguna in Vanuatu sketches the origin of the project, the preparation for the stay, and the adjustments necessary for a young (at the time) American linguist to survive on a small island with 789 Ngunese, a New Zealand missionary couple, and an Australian storekeeper in 1966. Although the methods of collecting language data then were not so different from current ones, in order to highlight the technological differences between the past and the present, I have described how I recorded, stored, and manipulated the data. Then, with the wisdom of hindsight, I discuss what I now perceive as successes and failures. Finally, I discuss how the data collected and analyzed in the 1960s might meet some current standards of language documentation and conservation.
The Structure and Function of Yoruba Facial Scarification
Authors: Orie Ọlanikẹ Ọla
Published: February 2012

Among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria, one commonly encounters people with different patterns of facial stripes produced by scarification. It has long been observed that such stripes are labels of clan identification among the Yoruba. This article considers facial stripes from a structural viewpoint, and shows that the attested patterns are rooted in Yoruba number symbolism.
Where 'Out to Sea' Equals 'Towards the Fire': The Macrocosm-Microcosm Relationship in Languages of the North Pacific Rim
Authors: Fortescue Michael
Published: February 2012

An unusual conflation in the meaning of directional terms whereby 'out to sea (or the open water)' is equated with 'towards the fireplace' (and the converse, 'to shore' with 'away from the fireplace') has been observed in a number of languages of the Northwest Coast of America and of the Russian Far East. The origin and motivation for this correlation has remained a mystery, being much more specific than the overlap between terms referring to the macrocosm (the geographical surroundings) and to the microcosm (the house) that is typical of Arctic and Subarctic languages. This article presents an explanation for the phenomenon, which appears—surprisingly—to have its roots deep within Siberia.
The Semiotics of Relevance: Campaigning for the Bible in Greater Manchester
Authors: Engelke Matthew
Published: February 2012

This is an article about an advertising campaign that ran in the Greater Manchester area, north of England, in May and June 2007, sponsored by the Bible Society of England and Wales, and aimed at stressing the relevance of the Bible to the general public for understanding today's world. One of the Society's assumptions was that the best way to do this was by appearing not-Christian: drawing on semiotic and aesthetic registers that drew from what were understood to be "Cultural" rather than "Church"-based repertoires. The specificities of the case study are explored in some depth, but related also to the wider literatures on Christian approaches to language and secularization theory.
Towards an Ideology of Gesture: Gesture, Body Movement, and Language Ideology Among Q'eqchi'-Maya Catholics
Authors: Hoenes del Pinal Eric
Published: February 2012

While much attention has been paid to how linguistic practices and language ideologies shape local forms of Christianity, relatively little attention has been paid to the role that non-verbal communicative codes and people's ideas about them play in these same processes. This paper analyzes the gestural and bodily practices of Q'eqchi'-Maya Catholics belonging to two denominations (Mainstream and Charismatic Catholicism) to argue that non-linguistic practices play a significant role in constructing and performing moral and religious identities. I argue that because local discourses about what constitutes appropriate bodily behavior in religious rituals invoke some of the same kinds of value judgments and are predicated on the same semiotic processes as metalinguistic discourses, a fuller understanding of how language ideologies underpin Christian subjectivities needs to take into account how a wide range of communicative practices relate to each other.
Un-Friend My Heart: Facebook, Promiscuity, and Heartbreak in a Neoliberal Age
Authors: Gershon Ilana
Published: February 2012

In interviews with Indiana University college students, undergraduates insisted that Facebook could be a threat to their romantic relationships. Some students choose to deactivate their Facebook accounts to preserve their relationships. No other new media was described as harmful. This article explores why Facebook was singled out. I argue that Facebook encourages (but does not require) users to introduce a neoliberal logic to all their intimate relationships, which these particular users believe turns them into selves they do not want to be.
Re/membering the Nation: Gaps and Reckoning within Biographical Accounts of Salvadoran Émigrés
Authors: Coutin Susan Bibler
Published: February 2012

In the aftermath of the 1980–1992 Salvadoran civil war, biography and history have become linked, as the Salvadoran state reclaims its dispersed citizenry, and as Salvadorans who emigrated as young children reclaim their own pasts. Such reclaimings compel biographies as part of state neoliberal financial strategies that encourage remitting, but also as collective history projects that challenge injustice. Juxtaposing state narratives, in which war and violence are often elided, with immigrant youths’ accounts, which seek accountability, reveals how biographies narrate yet disrupt neoliberal notions of the self.
On Devils and the Dissolution of Sociality: Andean Catholics Voicing Ambivalence in Neoliberal Bolivia
Authors: Van Vleet Krista E.
Published: February 2012

In the Andean highlands of Bolivia, people sometimes express their ambivalence over the religious conversion of family and community members through stories about evangelical Protestants who have been possessed by Santuku or the devil. The article analyzes these narratives as part of a larger genre of devil stories and as a window onto the multiple ways Andean Catholics link migration, religious conversion, and death in the context of broader neoliberal transformations. From the perspective of those “left behind”—Catholic family and community members—conversion empties the future. Nevertheless, the necessary labor of dissolving or reconfiguring social relationships is undertaken by both Catholics and evangelical Protestants and sheds light on the production of sociality in 21st century Bolivia.
Death by Elegy: Ovid's Cephalus and Procris
Authors: Hejduk Julia D.
Published: February 2012

summary: This paper examines how Ovid manipulates the elegiac trio of love, art, and disease/wounding/medicine. In particular, it argues that the stories told by, to, and about Cephalus and Procris in the Ars Amatoria and Metamorphoses reify the clichés of elegy, showing art—like love—to be both deadly and salvific. These themes parallel the affairs of Apollo and the poet's own narrative autobiography.
Touching Listening: The Aural Imaginary in the World Music Culture Industry
Authors: Kheshti Roshanak
Published: February 2012

Focusing on Kinship Records and the two years of ethnographic fieldwork I performed there, this essay develops the theory of the “aural imaginary” in an effort to deconstruct the centrality of racialized gender to the formation of the American world music culture industry. In doing so, I illuminate an aural imaginary particular to the production of a market for world music in the United States, suggesting ways to understand how this market is being consolidated, and considering some of the implications of its existence and functioning. While many studies of “world music” have focused on the construction of difference through the packaging of exoticized others for Western listeners, this essay explores “world music” as a construction of U.S. listening practices and sonic fantasy.
The “War on Noise”: Sound and Space in La Guardia’s New York
Authors: Radovac Lilian
Published: February 2012

This essay documents New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia’s “war on noise,” which he declared in 1935 and waged throughout his three terms in office. For La Guardia, noise was a symptom and even a cause of urban disorder, which flourished during the Great Depression and required a new set of strategies to bring under control. These included New York’s first comprehensive noise ordinance, increased policing and surveillance, and, ultimately, the reconfiguration of urban space by city officials and urban planners as a way to contain the threat of social and political upheaval. The war on noise changed not only how citizens sounded in the context of cities but also how they lived in them on the level of spatial practice, and as such it provided a blueprint for later quality of life campaigns spearheaded by Mayors Rudolf Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg.
“An Indian in a White Man’s Camp”: Johnny Cash’s Indian Country Music
Authors: Tahmahkera Dustin
Published: February 2012

Through critical analysis of Johnny Cash’s songs, performances, and writings, I attempt to tune in his understanding of indigeneity, Indian-Settler relations, and his own real and imagined Native relations. Situated within historical and contemporary cultural and sonic contexts, Cash’s Indian Country soundscape is saturated with real and imagined sounds of Indian and Settler from the physical and musical geographies of Indian Country. Indian Country music, a fluid and collective identifier for Country songs penned and performed by Natives and non-Natives, includes representations of Native Peoples, indigenous homelands, and Native-Settler relations. As I argue, Cash embodies his soundscape’s tensions by singing and sounding ambivalently about Indian-Settler relations in accordance with his Indian relations and claims. In conjunction with his corresponding claims and eventual denial as “Indian,” I follow Cash’s soundscape through a map of his songs’ Indian-Settler dualisms, namely interconflictual duel-ities over contested landscapes in his early songs (1957–1965) and interdependent dualities in subsequent compositions (1968–1975).
Marian Anderson and “Sonic Blackness” in American Opera
Authors: Eidsheim Nina Sun
Published: February 2012

Marian Anderson’s 1955 Metropolitan Opera debut promised to be a pivotal moment that would create a level playing field for African American singers in U.S. opera. But an examination of Anderson’s career, as well as those of later African American opera stars, reveals that their operatic engagements were often limited to marginalized characters. In attempt to understand this situation, this essay looks to the history of African Americans singing classical music from the mid-nineteenth through early twentieth centuries. Early classical singers’ careers and reception, even certain operatic repertoire, suggest that African American classical voices are heard through a complex filter constituted by perceptions of slaves’ voices, burlesque opera and minstrel shows, resulting in claims that blackness produces peculiar vocal timbres. This article, a case study of listening as a cultural-historical process, posits that perceptual sediments deposited during the abolitionist era continued to shape reception of African American operatic voices throughout later centuries.
Sounds of Surveillance: U.S. Spanish-Language Radio Patrols La Migra
Authors: Casillas Dolores Inés
Published: February 2012

Trade magazines credit radio’s unprecedented growth since the 1980s to booming Latino population numbers. I argue, however, that the immigration climate with its recurring public campaigns to legitimate racial profiling has transformed the character of Spanish-language broadcasts and with it, underscored the significance of sound-based media for Latino immigrant communities. The “catch 22” predicament of needing legal advice to secure documentation without being visually recognized privileges the medium of sound. In this essay, I point to Q&A shows with guest immigration attorneys as well as “la migra alerts” where listeners call radio stations to inform the public of Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) sightings as two instances in which immigrant communities use radio broadcasts to patrol the legislative developments and physical movements of ICE officials.
Soul Vibrations: Black Music and Black Freedom in Sound and Space
Authors: Wald Gayle
Published: February 2012

This essay examines two live performance events—the opera singer Marian Anderson’s historic 1939 concert on the National Mall, and “Soul at the Center,” a little-remembered but significant 1972 festival at New York’s Lincoln Center—to examine how sound works as a cultural practice of resignifying the meaning and feeling of racially exclusive spaces. Drawing on the sonic philosophies of musicians Sun Ra and Rahsaan Roland Kirk (in their concern with musical “vibrations”) and John Cage (in his experiments in with the sonic environment of the anechoic chamber), it argues that these sites are sonically saturated, and that the history of twentieth- century black musical performance in culturally and nationally significant places/spaces constitutes the use of sound to “make room” for black presence.
The Speculative Freedom of Colonial Liberia
Authors: Kazanjian David
Published: February 2012

This essay examines letters written by U.S. black settler-colonists in Liberia to their families, friends, and former masters in the United States during Liberia's colonial and early national periods, 1820–1855. It argues that the letters stage speculative, epistolary encounters with freedom that evade strictly historicist interpretive methods. Consequently, the essay proffers a reading practice that attends to the letters' speculative reflections on the meaning of freedom in nineteenth-century Liberia. It shows how the black settler-colonists represent freedom not simply as an event or an accomplishment (of a return to Africa, or of manumission, independence, or national citizenship) but as an ongoing, equivocal, ungiven possibility that also repeatedly returns, recursively, to the legacy of slavery in the United States.
Thunder in the East: China, Exiled Crusaders, and the Unevenness of Black Internationalism
Authors: Frazier Robeson Taj P.
Published: February 2012

This essay considers the international activism of Robert and Mabel Williams, African American militants, and how they used political exile, travel, and media to build a cultural bridge to China. Throughout the 1960s, the Williamses distinguished African Americans and Chinese as constitutive members of an imaginary global community that was challenging white supremacy and Western imperialism. I concisely frame and contextualize the Williamses' relationship and collaborations with the People's Republic of China, paying close attention to the benefits and limitations of this venture. Their cultural traffic and confluence works as an important lens through which to understand and unpack how China's projects of socialism, anticolonialism, and support for black liberation affected the internationalist politics of one radical couple. This history demonstrates successful moments of interchange and interconnection, as well as the various disconnects, omissions, and miscommunications within black liberation movements' efforts to build transnational and international connections.
Xenophon’s Anabasis : Reading the End with Zeus the Merciful
Authors: Bradley Patrick
Published: February 2012

This paper analyzes Xenophon’s use of Zeus Meilichios in the Anabasis in his dual roles of wealth bringer and purifier of spilled kindred blood to train the reader to find closure in a text lacking any explicit conclusion. A survey of archaeological and literary evidence for Zeus the Merciful and a close reading of the end of the Anabasis , in particular the scene with the seer Eucleides (7.8.1–6), suggests how this cult figure serves as a symbol of mediation guiding readers to read for themselves and beyond the text the “proper” closure of Xenophon’s wanderer’s tale: homecoming and reconciliation with Athens. As we see Xenophon finding the gods not only “good to think with” but also “good to write with,” we broaden our appreciation of his literary and religious sensibilities.
Martial’s Natural History: The Xenia and Apophoreta and Pliny’s Encyclopedia
Authors: Blake Sarah
Published: February 2012

Martial’s two most perplexing collections of epigrams, the Xenia and the Apophoreta , are read in the context of a contemporary Flavian text: Pliny the Elder’s Natural History . Both texts begin with instructions encouraging the reader to create his or her own desired text by selecting what to read and what to ignore. Despite obvious differences in scale and genre, the two works are shown to have thematic and structural similarities. Martial’s epigrams, however, distort the seriousness of Pliny’s encyclopedia through humor, creating an alternate, irreverent Encyclopedia Domestica that challenges the authority and imperialist knowledge projected within Pliny’s text.
Fables and Frames: The Poetics and Politics of Animal Fables in Hesiod, Archilochus, and the Aesopica
Authors: Steiner Deborah
Published: February 2012

This article explores four animal fables in the Greek sources:
Hesiod’s ainos at Works and Days 202–12, two fables of Archilochus (frags. 172–81 W and 185–87 W), and the eagle and dung beetle story attributed to Aesop (Perry 3), and demonstrates continuities between the stories’ concerns and framing narratives. I argue that these fables serve as point-scoring devices deployed by performers within agonistic situations; they promote their teller’s claim to victory in ongoing competitions involving issues of opposing poetics and genres and form part of a bid for the civic authority achievable by displaying verbal artistry and sophia over a performative rival.
Longevity and the Loathly Ladies in Three Medieval Romances
Authors: Feinstein Sandy
Published: February 2012

The Arthurian loathly lady offers insight into varying effects of female longevity, including marriage between old women and young men. The power of old women is assumed, resisted, and used to interrogate dynastic issues in these three romances. Differing attitudes to unusually powerful female characters reflect distinct cultural concerns and values.
Malory’s Marginalia Reconsidered
Authors: Wade James
Published: February 2012

This essay argues that the marginalia of the Winchester manuscript were not originally composed by Malory himself, as P.J.C. Field has suggested, but by the two scribes who produced the book.
Insights from the Cocoa Regions in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana: Rethinking the Migration–Conflict Nexus
Authors: Mitchell Matthew I.
Published: February 2012

Although many scholars have noted the salience of mobility throughout the African continent, there has been little systematic investigation into the link between migration and conflict. Most scholarship has tended to see migration as primarily a by-product of conflict and not as a security issue in its own right. In analyzing and contrasting the different migration–conflict trajectories across two similar case studies—Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana—this article attempts to develop an empirically informed theoretical framework for understanding the nexus between migration and conflict in Africa and to shed light on key intervening variables linking migration processes with violent outcomes.
The History and Legacy of the Asaba, Nigeria, Massacres
Authors: Bird S. Elizabeth , Ottanelli Fraser
Published: February 2012

In early October 1967, four months into the Nigerian Civil War, federal troops massacred hundreds in Asaba, a town in southeast Nigeria on the west bank of the Niger. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of Igbo-dominated Biafra. Through the reconstruction of this event, the article fills a significant gap in the historical record and contributes to the discussion on the impact of traumatic memory at the local and national levels. It also suggests that the Asaba massacres speak to larger issues of potential reconciliation that extend beyond Asaba and Nigeria.
The Radical Press and Security Agencies in Nigeria: Beyond Hegemonic Polarities
Authors: Adebanwi Wale
Published: February 2012

The dominant trend in the literature on civil society in Africa, particularly in the context of undemocratic regimes, assumes that civil society activists (including progressive, radical, or guerrilla journalists) are committed only to counteracting the preeminence of a repressive state. Within such a paradigm, evidence of collaborations between agents of the state and elements within civil society—particularly in the interest of advancing political liberation, democracy, justice, and equity—tend to be understated, if not erased altogether. Based on ethnographic details of secret collaborations between the Nigerian security agencies and radical journalists in the fight against military fascism, this article argues that the commonly assumed division between the state and the media is in fact breached regularly in practice. Such evidence should draw scholarly attention to a largely neglected area of research on state–media relations in Africa: the penetration of the apparatuses of power and repression by their targets and victims.
Autochtonie, Libéralisation Politique, et Construction d'une Sphère Publique Locale au Cameroun
Authors: Mouiche Ibrahim
Published: February 2012

This study focuses on the hegemonic struggles between two ethnic communities, the Mbo and the Bamiléké, in Santchou, West Cameroon. At issue is the sharing of political roles in this locality, which point to issues of political representation. In this district, these roles (mayor, representative, etc.) were under the single party rule of the ethnic minority Mbo, who are a majority in this area but a minority in the rest of the district, where the Bamileke are the majority. In this monolithic context, where all protests were banned, the Bamileke had given up and accepted this arrangement. With the advent of the multiparty system and democracy, in which mayors are now elected and no longer simply nominated, uncertainty has been hovering over this political stronghold of the Mbo. Nevertheless, the Mbo have been able to hold onto the post of mayor and acquire other political posts as well. However, unlike during the single party era, the situation created by the political liberalization has offered to the Bamileke a public space where they can discuss the allocation of local political positions, and manifest their disagreement with the hegemonic trend. In the footsteps of Habermas and many other authors such as Cottereau, this study underlines the need to talk about public spaces in a plural form, instead of a single public space, in order to put in context the internal dynamics of popular cultures engendering subcultural public spheres or places of emerging democracy.