bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
High-risk work, cultural conflicts and labor mobility: The experiences of foreign workers in the shipyard industry on the Korean East Coast
Authors: Choi Youngjin
Published: March 2014

One of the most influential theories of embedded workplace is Stephen Frenkel’s macro-, meso- and micro-linkages. Indeed, the current neoliberal economic hegemony in Korea engenders an environment in which foreign workers have the right, albeit a restricted right, to move from one job to another. However, it is far more complicated on the micro-level than he argued, if we take into consideration the nature of foreign workers, with combined workplace and living space. Using a theory that considers structural factors such as industry-specific features, that is, high-risk work, ethnic hierarchy, fixed low pay, and so on, this study illustrates that the way that foreign workers are managed in the workplace and the living space and the way that the different ethnic groups of foreign workers interact among each other have a significant bearing on the mobility of foreign workers in the Korean shipyard industry. In order for foreign workers to remain with companies, policies are required to assess living and working conditions, to enhance the management paradigm and to recognize and resolve conflicts among the workers. Consideration must be given to the fact that foreign workers are more likely to be assigned to high-risk work than Korean workers without appropriate incentives. Discrimination against foreign workers by Korean workers and cultural conflicts among the various ethnic groups of foreign workers must also be significantly addressed and dealt with.
Transcriptomic analysis of differentially expressed genes in the Ras1CA-overexpressed and wildtype posterior silk glands
Authors: Ma Li , Ma Qian , Li Xuan , Cheng Leilei , Li Kai , Li Sheng
Published: March 2014

Background

Using the piggyBac-mediated GAL4/UAS transgenic system established in the silkworm, Bombyx mori, we have previously reported that overexpression of the Ras1
CA oncogene specifically in the posterior silk gland (PSG) improved cell growth, fibroin synthesis, and thus silk yield. However, the detailed molecular mechanism remains to be fully elucidated. To achieve this goal, Illumina sequencing was used in the present study to compare the transcriptomes of the Ras1
CA-overexpressed and wildtype PSGs.

Results

The transcriptomic sequencing results in 56 million reads following filtering steps. Most of the reads (~70%) are successfully mapped to the Bombyx genome. The mapped reads are situated within at least 9,133 predicted genes, covering 62.46% genes of the Bombyx genome. GO annotation shows that 2512 of the 2,636 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) are mostly distributed in metabolic process, cell and cell part, and binding, and KEGG annotation shows that 1,941 DEGs are mapped into 277 pathways. Importantly, Ras1
CA overexpression in the PSG upregulated many DEGs distributed in “pathways in cancer”, “insulin signaling pathway”, and “MAPK signaling pathway” as well as “purine metabolism” and “pyrimidine metabolism”. Transcriptional regulation of these DEGs was verified by quantitative real-time PCR. Moreover, injection of small-molecule chemical inhibitors of the Ras1 downstream effectors into the Ras1
CA-overexpressed silkworms revealed that both Raf-MAPK and PI3K-TORC1 pathways are required for the Ras1-induced DEG expression.

Conclusion

The transcriptomic analysis illustrates that, apart from phosphorylational regulation, Ras1 activates its downstream Raf-MAPK and PI3K-TORC1 pathways at the transcriptional level. Meanwhile, Ras1 increases DNA content and induces endoreplication, at least in part, by upregulating genes in “nucleotide metabolism” and “cell cycle”. This study provides further insights into the molecular mechanism of how Ras1

CA
overexpression in the PSG improves silk yield.
Effect of melilotus extract on lung injury by upregulating the expression of cannabinoid CB2 receptors in septic rats
Authors: Liu Ming-wei , Su Mei-xian , Wang Yun-hui , Wei Wei , Qin Lan-fang , Liu Xu , Tian Mao-li , Qian Chuan-yun
Published: March 2014

Background

M. Suaveolens Ledeb has long been used in China to treat inflammatory infectious diseases. Melilotus is extracted from Melilotus Suaveolens Ledeb and its therapeutic potential is associated with its anti-inflammatory activity. However, the precise mechanisms underlying its effects are unknown. This study was conducted to evaluate the protective effects of melilotus extract in a rat cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)-induced animal model of acute lung injury (ALI).

Methods

A sepsis model was induced by CLP-like lung inflammation. Two hours prior to CLP administration, the treatment group was administered melilotus extract via oral injection. RT-PCR and Western blotting were used to test the expression of cannabinoid receptor (CB)2, NF-κβ and IκB from single peripheral blood mononuclear cells and lung tissues respectively. Enzyme linked immune sorbent assay was used to detect serum levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, and IL-12. The numbers of neutrophils, lymphocytes, macrophages and total cells in the bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid were counted. For histologic analysis, hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stains were evaluated.

Results

After inducing ALI by CLP for 24 hours, melilotus extract up-regulated peripheral blood mononuclear cell CB2 expression, blocked the activity of NF-κβ65, and the number of neutrophils, lymphocytes and total cells were significantly lower in the melilotus extract group than the control group. In addition, TNF-α and IL-6 levels were significantly decreased in the melilotus extract group. Histological results demonstrated the attenuation effect of melilotus extract on CLP-induced lung inflammation. CB2 was negatively correlated to NF-κβ mRNA and proteins, respectively (r = -0.377, P < 0.05; r = -0.441, P < 0.05).

Conclusion

The results of this study indicated melilotus extract significantly reduced CLP-induced lung inflammation by up-regulating CB2 expression. The remarkable protective effects of melilotus extract suggest its therapeutic potential in CLP induced-acute lung injury treatment.
Computer game-based upper extremity training in the home environment in stroke persons: a single subject design
Authors: Slijper Angelique , Svensson Karin E , Backlund Per , Engström Henrik , Sunnerhagen Katharina Stibrant
Published: March 2014

Background

The objective of the present study was to assess whether computer game-based training in the home setting in the late phase after stroke could improve upper extremity motor function.

Methods

Twelve subjects with prior stroke were recruited; 11 completed the study.

Design

The study had a single subject design; there was a baseline test (A1), a during intervention test (B) once a week, a post-test (A2) measured directly after the treatment phase, plus a follow-up (C) 16–18 weeks after the treatment phase. Information on motor function (Fugl-Meyer), grip force (GrippitR) and arm function in activity (ARAT, ABILHAND) was gathered at A1, A2 and C. During B, only Fugl-Meyer and ARAT were measured. The intervention comprised five weeks of game-based computer training in the home environment. All games were designed to be controlled by either the affected arm alone or by both arms. Conventional formulae were used to calculate the mean, median and standard deviations. Wilcoxon’s signed rank test was used for tests of dependent samples. Continuous data were analyzed by methods for repeated measures and ordinal data were analyzed by methods for ordered multinomial data using cumulative logistic models. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results

Six females and five males, participated in the study with an average age of 58 years (range 26–66). FMA-UE A-D (motor function), ARAT, the maximal grip force and the mean grip force on the affected side show significant improvements at post-test and follow-up compared to baseline. No significant correlation was found between the amount of game time and changes in the outcomes investigated in this study.

Conclusion

The results indicate that computer game-based training could be a promising approach to improve upper extremity function in the late phase after stroke, since in this study, changes were achieved in motor function and activity capacity.
Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) rainfall curves, for data series and climate projection in African cities
Authors: De Paola Francesco , Giugni Maurizio , Topa Maria Elena , Bucchignani Edoardo
Published: March 2014

Changes in the hydrologic cycle due to increase in greenhouse gases cause variations in intensity, duration, and frequency of precipitation events. Quantifying the potential effects of climate change and adapting to them is one way to reduce urban vulnerability. Since rainfall characteristics are often used to design water structures, reviewing and updating rainfall characteristics (i.e., Intensity–Duration–Frequency (IDF) curves) for future climate scenarios is necessary (Reg Environ Change 13(1 Supplement):25-33, 2013).

The present study regards the evaluation of the IDF curves for three case studies: Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), Dar Es Salaam (Tanzania) and Douala (Cameroon). Starting from daily rainfall observed data, to define the IDF curves and the extreme values in a smaller time window (10′, 30′, 1 h, 3 h, 6 h, 12 h), disaggregation techniques of the collected data have been used, in order to generate a synthetic sequence of rainfall, with statistical properties similar to the recorded data. Then, the rainfall pattern of the three test cities was analyzed and IDF curves were evaluated.

In order to estimate the contingent influence of climate change on the IDF curves, the described procedure was applied to the climate (rainfall) simulations over the time period 2010–2050, provided by CMCC (Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici). The evaluation of the IDF curves allowed to frame the rainfall evolution of the three case studies, considering initially only historical data, then taking into account the climate projections, in order to verify the changes in rainfall patterns. The same set of data and projections was also used for evaluating the Probable Maximum Precipitation (PMP).
Angiotensin receptor type 1 and endothelin receptor type A on immune cells mediate migration and the expression of IL-8 and CCL18 when stimulated by autoantibodies from systemic sclerosis patients
Authors: Günther Jeannine , Kill Angela , Becker Mike Oliver , Heidecke Harald , Rademacher Judith , Siegert Elise , Radić Mislav , Burmester Gerd-Rüdiger , Dragun Duska , Riemekasten Gabriela
Published: March 2014

Introduction

Agonistic autoantibodies (Aabs) against the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT1R) and the endothelin receptor type A (ETAR) have been identified in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc). In our present study, we examined the expression of the AT1R and the ETAR in human immune cells and the pathological effects mediated through these receptors by their corresponding Aabs.

Methods

Protein expression of AT1R and ETAR on peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from healthy individuals and SSc patients was analyzed using flow cytometry, and mRNA expression of both receptors in PBMCs from healthy donors was examined by real-time PCR. In addition, PBMCs from healthy donors were stimulated in vitro with affinity-purified immunoglobulin G (IgG) fractions from SSc patients positive for AT1R and ETAR Aabs, as well as with IgG from healthy donors serving as controls. Alterations in cell surface marker expression, cytokine secretion and chemotactic motility were analyzed using flow cytometry, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays and chemotaxis assays, respectively. The results were correlated with the characteristics and clinical findings of the IgG donors.

Results

Both AT1R and ETAR were expressed on PBMCs in humans. Protein expression of both receptors was decreased in SSc patients compared with that of healthy donors and declined during the course of disease. IgG fractions of SSc patients positive for AT1R and ETAR Aabs induced T-cell migration in an Aab level–dependent manner. Moreover, IgG of SSc patients stimulated PBMCs to produce more interleukin 8 (IL-8) and chemokine (C-C motif) ligand 18 (CCL18) than did the IgG of healthy donors. All effects were significantly reduced by selective AT1R and ETAR antagonists. Statistical analysis revealed an association of SSc-IgG induced high IL-8 concentrations with an early disease stage and of high CCL18 concentrations with lung fibrosis onset and vascular complications in the respective IgG donors.

Conclusion

In our present study, we could demonstrate the expression of both AT1R and ETAR on human peripheral T cells, B cells and monocytes. The decreased receptor expression in SSc patients, the inflammatory and profibrotic effects upon Aab stimulation of PBMCs in vitro and the associations with clinical findings suggest a role for Aab-induced activation of immune cells mediated by the AT1R and the ETAR in the pathogenesis or even the onset of the disease.
Inhibitor of DNA binding 1 as a secreted angiogenic transcription factor in rheumatoid arthritis
Authors: Isozaki Takeo , Amin M Asif , Arbab Ali S , Koch Alisa E , Ha Christine M , Edhayan Gautam , Haines G Kenneth , Ruth Jeffrey H
Published: March 2014

Introduction

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is characterized by enhanced blood vessel development in joint synovium. This involves the recruitment of endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), allowing for de novo vessel formation and pro-inflammatory cell infiltration. Inhibitor of DNA Binding 1 (Id1) is a transcription factor characteristic of EPCs that influences cell maturation.

Method

Enzyme-linked immunosorbant assay (ELISA) and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) were used to examine Id1 levels in synovial fluid (SF) and endothelial cells (ECs), respectively. Immunohistology was used to determine the expression of Id1 in synovial tissue (ST). Human dermal microvascular EC (HMVEC) migration and tube forming assays were used to determine if recombinant human Id1 (rhuId1) and/or RA SF immunodepleted Id1 showed angiogenic activity. We also utilized the RA ST severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mouse chimera to examine if Id1 recruits EPCs to RA synovium.

Results

ST samples immunostained for Id1 showed heightened expression in RA compared to osteoarthritis (OA) and normal (NL) ST. By immunofluorescence staining, we found significantly more Id1 in RA compared to OA and NL vasculature, showing that Id1 expressing cells, and therefore EPCs, are most active in vascular remodeling in the RA synovium. We also detected significantly more Id1 in RA compared to OA and other arthritis SFs by ELISA, which correlates highly with Chemokine (C-X-C motif) ligand 16 (CXCL16) levels. In vitro chemotaxis assays showed that Id1 is highly chemotactic for HMVECs and can be attenuated by inhibition of Nuclear Factor κB and phosphoinositide 3-kinase. Using in vitro Matrigel assays, we found that HMVECs form tubes in response to rhuId1 and that Id1 immunodepleted from RA SF profoundly decreases tube formation in Matrigel in vitro. PCR showed that Id1 mRNA could be up-regulated in EPCs compared to HMVECs in response to CXCL16. Finally, using the K/BxN serum induced arthritis model, we found that EC CXCR6 correlated with Id1 expression by immunohistochemistry.

Conclusions

We conclude that Id1 correlates highly with CXCL16 expression, EPC recruitment, and blood vessel formation in the RA joint, and that Id1 is potently angiogenic and can be up-regulated in EPCs by CXCL16.
The ethical dimension in published animal research in critical care: the dark side of our moon
Authors: Huet Olivier , de Haan Judy B
Published: March 2014

The replacement, refinement, and reduction (3Rs) guidelines are the cornerstone of animal welfare practice for medical research. Nowadays, no animal research can be performed without being approved by an animal ethics committee. Therefore, we should expect that any published article would respect and promote the highest standard of animal welfare. However, in the previous issue of Critical Care, Bara and Joffe reported an unexpected finding: animal welfare is extremely poorly reported in critical care research publications involving animal models. This may have a significant negative impact on the reliability of the results and on future funding for our research. The ability of septic shock animal models to translate into clinical studies has been a challenge. Therefore, every means to improve the quality of these models should be pursued. Animal welfare issues should be seen as an additional benefit to achieve this goal. It is therefore critical to draw conclusions from this study to improve the standard of animal welfare in critical care research. This has already been achieved in other fields of research, and we should follow their example.
NGA-West2 Site Database
Authors: Seyhan Emel , Stewart Jonathan P. , Ancheta Timothy D. , Darragh Robert B. , Graves Robert W.
Published: March 2014

The NGA-West2 site database (SDB) contains information on site condition and instrument housing for 4,147 strong-motion stations with recordings in the project flatfile. The stations are from active tectonic regions, mainly in California, Japan, Taiwan, China, and the Mediterranean area. The principal site parameter is the time-averaged shear wave velocity in the upper 30 m ( V S30), which we characterize using measurements where available (2,013 stations) and proxy-based relationships otherwise. We also provide basin depths from published models for 2,761 sites mostly in California and Japan. We improved the documentation and consistency of site descriptors used as proxies for V S30 estimation (surface geology, ground slope, and geotechnical or geomorphic categories) and analyzed proxy performance relative to V S30 values from measurements. We present protocols for V S30 estimation from proxies that emphasize methods minimizing bias and dispersion relative to data. For each site, we provide the preferred V S30 and its dispersion.
Scale Dependence and Ranking Intervals in Additive Value Models Under Incomplete Preference Information
Authors: Punkka Antti , Salo Ahti
Published: March 2014

A multiattribute additive value function that has been built from a complete specification of the decision maker's (DM's) preferences gives scale-independent decision recommendations, which do not depend on how the value function is normalized. In this paper, we show that if the preference specification is incomplete, many widely employed decision rules for comparing alternatives give scale-dependent decision recommendations in which the relative ranking of alternatives depends not only on the DM's preferences but also on the normalization of the value function. But because normalization does not involve preference statements, the recommendations should be scale independent so that they do not depend on the chosen normalization. To provide such recommendations, we propose ranking intervals, which show how a given alternative compares with all other alternatives for all value functions that are consistent with the stated preference information. These intervals can be computed from mixed integer linear optimization problems that are constrained by inequalities implied by the DM's preference statements. We illustrate the use of ranking intervals by analyzing university rankings and discuss their uses in project portfolio selection.
“We Ought to Obey God Rather Than Men”: Obedience and the Development of Spiritually Inspired Independence in the Elsie Dinsmore Series
Authors: Mehl Rebekka A.
Published: March 2014

The Elsie Dinsmore series was a popular series for girls during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Although this series has rarely been recognized for its progressive ideology, a critical examination of the books reveals that Martha Finley created a character, Elsie, whose independence as a woman is deeply rooted in her conservative religious beliefs. This is contradictory to some modern assumptions about the relationship between religion and progressive ideology, but Elsie and her family depict a strong sense of female empowerment through religious faith.
Made in New Zealand: Place and Enchantment in Margaret Mahy’s Picture Books
Authors: Bradford Clare
Published: March 2014

Margaret Mahy published over a hundred picture books from A Lion in the Meadow in 1969 to a cluster of posthumous texts. This article considers the extent to which Mahy’s picture books can be said to have been “made in New Zealand,” given that most have been illustrated by artists from other countries, particularly Britain. Mahy’s picture book narratives are, I argue, informed by values, assumptions and orientations toward the natural world which subtly but unmistakably locate protagonists in New Zealand, even when the books’ illustrations reflect British, American or Canadian geographic and cultural settings. In this sense Mahy’s picture books are transnational products, traversing national and cultural boundaries.
Mature Poets Steal: Children’s Literature and the Unpublishability of Fanfiction
Authors: Tosenberger Catherine
Published: March 2014

Many fan scholars have argued for a literary approach to fanfiction as an ideal venue for illuminating reader-response theory. I extend this argument to consideration of texts for young people, as this genre is wedded to a construction of audience that is alienated from the means of production. I focus upon Harry Potter fanfiction; the popularity of both the books made fan practices more visible than ever before. I argue that great fanfiction is often unpublishable, since it draws its aesthetic power from both its freedom from the constraints of the publishing industry and its embeddedness within a community of readers and writers: fanfiction, unlike published literature for young people, relies upon a presumption of readers’ knowledge, rather than their ignorance.
Re-Viewing Margaret Mahy: Landscapes of Language and Imagination
Authors: Wilkie-Stibbs Christine
Published: March 2014

The paper focuses on a range of Mahy’s young adult writing including her “triptych”: The Haunting (1982), The Changeover (1985), The Tricksters (1986), and her recent epic fantasy, The Magician of Hoad (2009) (published in the UK as Heriot [2009]). The theoretical framework uses aspects of geocriticism and spatiality to support the paper’s analytical focus on Mahy’s distinctive generic contribution to New Zealand young adult literature. In particular it explores Mahy’s use of “real-and-imagined” landscapes brought together here in Soja’s idea of “Thirdspace,” and Upstone’s “Post-space,” and argues that Mahy’s fictional spaces are deterritorialized in order to reteterritorialize and revision new forms of “reality.”
Pure Passion: The Twilight Saga, “Abstinence Porn,” and Adolescent Women’s Fan Fiction
Authors: Day Sara K.
Published: March 2014

Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga has inspired much discussion regarding the apparent contradiction between the novels’ abstinence-only messages and their erotic tone. This article explores how many adolescent women navigate this contradiction by crafting “smutty” fan fiction stories that offer graphic depictions of sex that are absent from the novels. Examining stories about the central couple, Edward and Bella, as well as both heterosexual and queer non-canon pairings, I argue that many adolescent women readers use their fan fiction to resist and reimagine the novels’ abstinence-only messages while exploring their own sexual questions and desires.
“Knitted Up Again”: Remembering Margaret Mahy
Authors: Smith Anna
Published: March 2014

This article takes the ironic reading of writers offered by Roland Barthes in “The Writer on Holiday” and argues that while Margaret Mahy fulfils some of the former’s claims vis à vis hagiography, in other respects her demotic voice and attention to the nuances of a lively, local landscape were made potent through a relentless creative process. In examining the risks inherent in that process I read Mahy’s poetry and several of her lesser known stories alongside writers with a similar respect for creativity. The article concludes with the assessment that Mahy was able to re-cast her experiences in the light of traditional literary tropes, thus making both terms fresh and surprising.
“What did she see?”: The White Gaze and Postmodern Triple Consciousness in Walter Dean Myers’s Monster
Authors: Engles Tim , Kory Fern
Published: March 2014

In the post-modern novel Monster , Walter Dean Myers depicts the travails of a young black protagonist within the criminal justice system and the psychic effects of a hegemonic white gaze on this representative figure. As protagonist and narrator, Steve Harmon illustrates, in his journal and in the film script he composes, multiple forms of Du Boisian self-awareness as he attempts to manipulate the empowered wielders of the white gaze. Myers thus reverses the racial lens, exemplifying the potential of young adult fiction to engage readers in productive scrutiny of the effects of de facto white supremacy.
Margaret Mahy: Embodying Feminism
Authors: Trites Roberta Seelinger
Published: March 2014

Throughout her career, Margaret Mahy both reflected and contributed to evolving feminist concerns about embodiment, particularly in the ways she employed fantasy to explore the relationship between the body and consciousness. Moreover, Mahy’s political and philosophical attitudes underscore her ideas about gender, particularly in her fantasy novels with female protagonists, because that genre allows authors to experiment with how consciousness is embodied. Three novels demonstrate Mahy’s increasingly complex understanding of the relationship of thought to feminist concepts of the body: The Changeover (1984), Dangerous Spaces (1991), and Kaitangata Twitch (2005).
My Monster Myself: Recuperating the Maternal in Early Children’s Horror by Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Authors: Heinecken Dawn
Published: March 2014

This essay examines Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s Newbery Honor Book The Witches of Worm and the initial trilogy of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s The Witch’s Sister saga to uncover how they explore cultural fears related to the changing maternal roles of women in the 1970s via the trope of the “gothic” child. While images of possessed or evil children in other works of the same period signal the failure and abject status of mothers, these novels use the trope to reflect on mother-daughter relations and female development in ways that challenge processes of maternal abjection and destabilize normative images of motherhood.
Dedications and Status: Catullus 1 and Horace Epodes 1
Authors: McMaster Aven
Published: March 2014

Catullus’ first poem foregrounds gift-giving as a poetic problem not only for his own work but also for subsequent lyric collections. Reading Catullus 1 as participating in the larger context of elite gift-exchange and obligation casts light on Catullus’ choice of dedicatee and the reading of the second-to-last line. This focus on the problems of gift-giving contextualizes Horace’s use of Catullus’ poetry, notably in Epodes 1. Horace’s deployment of the nexus of relations between poet, patron, and readers to mitigate the problem of status builds on Catullus’ inversion of conventional Roman ideals of liberalitas .
The Viri Sacris Faciundis and the Consulship
Authors: Satterfield Susan
Published: March 2014

This paper examines the changes to the viri sacris faciundis in 368/7 b.c.e . when the tribunes Lucius Sextius Sextinus Lateranus and Gaius Licinius Stolo passed a plebiscite to increase the membership of the priesthood from two to ten and to reserve half of these spots for plebeians. It argues that this reform was closely connected to the tribunes’ attempt to open the newly restored consulship to the plebeians, which was achieved in the following year. Divination (in the form of expiation) was a privilege of power, and expiation was a particular duty of the consuls.
The Catabasis of Mattie Ross in the Coens’ True Grit
Authors: Fletcher Judith
Published: March 2014

This paper argues that the Coen Brothers’ 2010 version of True Grit makes innovations to the original novel by Charles Portis that evoke the Greek myth of the descent to the underworld, or catabasis . Mattie Ross, a fourteen-year-old girl on mission to find her father’s murderer, embarks on a quest that ends with her falling into a snake pit after she kills the culprit. The experience can be likened to a heroic quest, especially in the context of coming-of-age myth and ritual. I submit that this mytheme is combined with echoes of the abduction of Persephone by Hades, a very particular version of the catabatic mythology that is frequently associated with girls’ puberty and marriage.
Teaching Latin in New York City’s Public Schools: A Panel Discussion Sponsored by the New York Classical Club, May 4, 2012
Authors: McGowan Matthew
Published: March 2014

The four contributions below and this introductory framing piece present the findings from a recent panel on the resurgence of interest in teaching Latin as a curricular requirement at the core of a liberal arts education in several newly founded public schools in New York City. Four relatively new schools are represented here—in the order in which they appeared on the panel—by a combination of teachers and administrators: Williamsburg Charter High School (Ron Janoff), South Bronx Classical Charter School (Lester Long), The Brooklyn Latin School (Jason Griffiths), and Maspeth High School (Kathleen Durkin). Each contributor provides some background on his/her school and then attempts to shed light on the teaching of Latin there. In each case, the authors offer an overview of the curriculum and method of instruction, a survey of student results, some reflection on the struggles encountered, and new ideas for moving forward.
Battlefield Supplication in the Iliad
Authors: Kelly Gordon P.
Published: March 2014

In the Iliad , defeated foes plead for mercy on six occasions. Since these appeals are all unsuccessful, many modern scholars believe this lack of quarter indicates that the protracted Trojan War grew more brutal over time. Nowhere, however, does the text suggest a preexisting custom of mercy that has lapsed, or that the refusal to spare a surrendering enemy was ever considered unethical. Rather, the scenes of battlefield supplication have a literary function and serve to characterize the supplicated warriors, since the decision to grant or refuse mercy was at the whim of the victor.
Selves in Conflict: Gill vs. Sorabji on the Conception of Selfhood in Antiquity: A Reconciliatory Review
Authors: Verheij M. J. O.
Published: March 2014

This article provides a critical overview of the current scholarly debate regarding ancient notions of selfhood and personal identity. It does so by focusing on the ideas of two of the most prominent contributors to this debate, Christopher Gill and Richard Sorabji. The views of these two scholars appear to be in direct opposition: while Gill claims that there is a fundamental difference between ancient and modern conceptions of personality (he identifies these as “objective-participant” and “subjective-individualist”), Sorabji, on the other hand, stresses continuity and identifies a number of central recurring elements of selfhood. Through an analysis of several relevant examples from ancient literature and philosophy (Cicero on the theory of personae , Epictetus’ concept of prohaeresis , the motives of Medea in Euripides’ play), it is argued that the two positions are not as contradictory as they may at first appear. Instead, the readings point toward a synthesis in which central elements of both perspectives are combined.
Gulliver and the Houyhnhnm Good Life
Authors: Mackie Erin
Published: March 2014

This essay analyzes Gulliver's relationship to the Houyhnhnms in Book 4 of Gulliver's Travels in light of Lauren Berlant's challenge “to reimagine state/society relations” so that “consumer forms of collectivity [are] not the main way” we “secure or fantasize securing everyday happiness.” Vital to that process, Berlant writes, is the imperative for readers to critically examine their own investments in the fantasies attached to the socio-political and economic conditions they protest.
Rousseau and Reformulating Celebrity
Authors: Arnold Whitney
Published: March 2014

This essay examines Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s changing efforts to grapple with his unprecedented celebrity through each of his major autobiographical texts (the Confessions, the Dialogues, and the Rêveries du promeneur solitaire). It argues that Rousseau advocates a new, if ultimately untenable, model of celebrity that emphasizes the authenticity of the author’s embodied person. With this new model, Rousseau suggests that his person must be read along with his texts. Highlighting the author’s fraught attempts to manage his celebrity through his autobiographical texts, the essay explores the inherent slippages between Rousseau’s embodied person, textual representation, and celebrity persona.
Navigating Crisis in Sheridan’s The Rivals
Authors: O’Quinn Daniel
Published: March 2014

This essay begins with the observation that crisis is an important concept for Lauren Berlant not only because she deploys it to displace trauma theory’s monopoly on the analysis of severe social transformation, but also because her primary historical archive responds to contemporary examples of social insecurity that resonate with the cascade of adjustments that beset Britain in 1770s. I argue that the emergence of laughing comedy in the 1770s, particularly in the work of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, is one such instance where paradoxically audiences were called on to feel and assess the historical impasse besetting all aspects of the British polity during the American crisis.
Organic Tensions: Putting the Tracings Back on the Map in Boswell’s Life of Samuel Johnson
Authors: Norman Nathaniel
Published: March 2014

This article argues that James Boswell’s attempt to stabilize a biographical representation of Samuel Johnson in the Life of Johnson was frustrated by Johnson’s resistance to the project, which Boswell wrote into the Life. Using the theoretical approaches of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the article examines how Boswell uses the conventions of eighteenth-century letter writing, paratextual arrangement, and intrusive commentary to confine and fix Johnson’s life in the biography. The rhizomatic intensity of Johnson’s life cannot be fully contained, and it destabilizes its own biographical representation with laughter: Bowell’s representation of Johnson is depicted laughing at the biographer and the biographer’s project, ultimately undermining the biographical stability Boswell seeks to impose.
Nostalgia and The Good Life
Authors: Silva Cristobal
Published: March 2014

An examination of Lauren Berlant’s thinking about the good life in the context of eighteenth-century writings on nostalgia, a disease that was understood in geographic (spatial) rather than temporal terms. This essay seeks to understand how fantasies of the good life change as we consider of the shifting relation between labor, space, and time.
Maids, Mistresses, and “Monstrous Doubles”: Gender-Class Kyriarchy in The Female Quixote and Female Quixotism
Authors: Hanlon Aaron R.
Published: March 2014

Charlotte Lennox’s The Female Quixote (1752) and Tabitha Gilman Tenney’s Female Quixotism (1801) are both notable for the ways in which the quixotic imagination enables Arabella and Dorcasina to wield unlikely agency within patriarchal households. Lost amid the many critical conversations about the empowerment of female quixotes with respect to their surrounding male characters, however, is the curious power dynamic between socioeconomically privileged quixotes and their female domestic servants. Through a comparative and transatlantic analysis of mimetic violence between female quixotes and their maids, this essay argues for greater consideration of socioeconomic power differentials as an additional sphere of ethical concern in these novels.
What’s Old Is New Again: William Blackstone’s Theory of Happiness Comes to America
Authors: Temple Kathryn
Published: March 2014

This essay considers Lauren Berlant's call to “reimagine state/society relations . . . in which consumer forms of collectivity were not the main way people secure or fantasize securing everyday happiness” in light of William Blackstone’s early poetry and his important Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765). The encounter with justice was, for Blackstone, a central emotional and aesthetic experience, available to anyone, associated not with vengeance or self-satisfaction, but with a pure form of happiness. The essay traces this relation between happiness and justice, especially as the Commentaries are invoked in Harper Lee's novel, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Civil Society and Its Discontents: The Good Life
Authors: Chico Tita
Published: March 2014

This “Critical Conversation” takes up the question of the good life in the long eighteenth century. Defined by Lauren Berlant as the imaginary individuation of economic success as the height of social good, which functions as a powerfully compensatory image for all it excludes and is sustained by the nexus of capitalism, state power, and individual sacrifice, the good life has important antecedents in eighteenth-century culture. These essays focus on the good life’s discontents, incoherence, failures, and misfires, as well as its potential amelioration.
Sharp Minds / Twisted Bodies: Intellect, Disability, and Female Education in Frances Burney’s Camilla
Authors: Farr Jason S.
Published: March 2014

This essay examines Frances Burney’s novel Camilla (1796) in terms of its portrayal of the relationship between ‘deformity’ (physical disability) and female education. It argues that in Camilla, Burney applies the ‘monster’-as-genius trope (typically a male phenomenon in the eighteenth century) to Eugenia Tyrold, whose bodily abnormalities enable her to develop into a Classical scholar. Eugenia’s ‘masculine’ education, in turn, allows her to pen a critique of patriarchy and the male gaze. By exploring Eugenia’s character alongside other prominent eighteenth-century historical and literary figures, such as Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, William Hay, Aesop, and Mrs. Smith from Jane Austen’s Persuasion, this essay posits that Camilla contributes to a Georgian-era discourse of disability in which bodily impairments facilitate intellectual development.
The Happy Man and the Cultural Fable of the Good Life
Authors: Brown Laura
Published: March 2014

The Good Life, a cultural fable prominent in the imaginative artifacts of the post-war period, is fundamentally linked to material culture as an imaginative reflection upon or negotiation with contemporary historical forces. The material phenomenon condensed this fantasy of happiness is the economic expansion of the immediately postwar period. The Good Life registers and shapes the experience of prosperity, comfort, and individual material gratification. The formulation of this paradigm of bourgeois social success could be said to originate in the English eighteenth century, through the projection of certain assertions, models, images, and claims on the imagination from the past into the future. We can support an understanding and critique of The Good Life as it appears today, through an attention to the early phases of its development in the eighteenth-century poetic trope of the Happy Man. The fantasy of the Happy Man provides a first-stage version of the cultural fable of The Good Life, and this early mode of modern happiness-invention can help us understand the nature of its imaginative power, and can support our critique of the ideology behind this cultural fable going forward to our own present and future. This essay suggests that this very local but influential eighteenth-century figure structures an ongoing imaginative experience that tends to coalesce around ideologies of bourgeois prosperity, then and now.
Lying with Godwin and Kant: Truth and Duty in St. Leon
Authors: Melville Peter
Published: March 2014

This essay explores a curious philosophical parallel between William Godwin’s novel, St. Leon (1799), and Immanuel Kant’s brief essay “On a Supposed Right to Lie From Altruistic Motives” (1797). Drawing on the psychoanalytic philosophy of Alenka Zupančič, the essay argues that St. Leon is finally a philosophical fable on a person’s duty to speak the truth and, as such, exemplifies Godwin’s characteristic faith in honesty and sincerity as key components of political justice.
Olivier Cadiot’s Robinson, or A Portrait of the Artist as “ Auto-usine ”
Authors: Lynch Eric
Published: March 2014

Hardly a concretized character, Olivier Cadiot’s reoccurring narrator, Robinson, functions as an engine for linguistic performativity. Following from the Deleuzian concept of the conceptual persona, Robinson acts alongside the movement of thought that creates the literary work itself. Via Robinson, Cadiot blends poetry and prose, digression and autofiction, as well as text and image. This article examines the two independent, opposing versions of Robinson featured in Le Colonel des Zouaves and Un mage en été in order to analyze the full range of the narrator’s capacities.
Storytelling/storyfailing? avatars du personnage dans le récit de fiction contemporain
Authors: Blanckeman Bruno
Published: March 2014

L’article s’intéresse aux personnages des romans français actuels et étudie deux types de scénographies particulières. L’une, satellitaire, saisit en surplomb des personnages animés; l’autre, sismographique, sonde les composantes de leur identité subjective. Dans les différents romans référés sont posées les conditions d’un humanisme défait de toute arrogance d’espèce, de toute prétention à un universalisme dont l’homme constituerait le centre et la fin. Leurs auteurs semblent multiplier les tentatives de penser le monde en termes d’ histoire connectée tant à l’échelle des civilisations – loin du seul tropisme occidental – que de la planète – penser l’humain en symbiose avec les autres formes du vivant.
Quand les objets parlent à la place du personnage : étude de Wigrum de Daniel Canty et de Très-grande surface d’André Benchetrit
Authors: Mercier Andrée
Published: March 2014

Les romans Wigrum de Daniel Canty et Très grande surface d’André Benchetrit accordent aux objets une place inhabituellement importante, au point où ces derniers semblent se substituer aux personnages et parler à leur place. Les deux romans permettent donc d’explorer les modulations du personnage contemporain sous l’angle du rapport sujet-objet. Alors que dans Très grande surface le personnage se construit par la dissolution de la relation de désir qui relie le sujet et l’objet, dans Wigrum c’est l’exacerbation de leur attraction qui préside plutôt à sa construction. Les deux romans partagent ainsi un parti-pris pour l’objet qu’ils cherchent à soustraire à une logique d’instrumentalisation par un sujet, parti-pris qui ne laisse pas le personnage intact.
« Je suis devenu d’une méticulosité aberrante » : distorsions perceptives et discordances cognitives du personnage dans Infiniment petit de Patrick Chatelier et Compression de Nicolas Bouyssi
Authors: Voyer Marie-Hélène
Published: March 2014

Si tout un pan de la production littéraire française actuelle est peuplé d’individus dotés d’une identité approximative, à l’opposé, se dressent toutefois des héros qui, par leur singularité, s’imposent avec force dans la littérature contemporaine. Dans le cadre de cette étude, nous nous intéresserons à deux romans français contemporains que nous considérons emblématiques de cette figure du ‘personnage discordant’. Par l’analyse des romans Infiniment petit de Patrick Chatelier et Compression de Nicolas Bouyssi, nous montrerons comment la surdétermination des défauts de cognition et de perception agit comme le moteur de l’intrigue et s’inscrit au cœur de la poétique narrative et descriptive des romans étudiés.
Trois instances et un roman : La Théorie de l’information d’Aurélien Bellanger
Authors: Raymond Dominique
Published: March 2014

Le roman est généralement conçu comme une machine à raconter l’histoire d’un personnage autour duquel gravitent les éléments de la diégèse. La Théorie de l'information d'Aurélien Bellanger s'éloigne de cette définition en proposant une trame textuelle hybride, mi-fictive mi-référentielle, où évolue Pascal Ertanger – personnage déconnecté, dont le destin est intimement lié à l’histoire des nouvelles technologies. Cet article examine le triumvirat Ertanger/narrateur/machine, plus précisément les configurations textuelle et diégétique de ces trois instances, de même que les liens qui se tissent entre elles, afin de montrer comment le statut solaire d'Ertanger en vient à ne plus s'imposer à l'esprit.
« Et moi, moi aujourd’hui » : disparition et dérive identitaires du personnage dans V. O. d’Eva Almassy
Authors: Caute Adeline
Published: March 2014

Depuis la fin du naturalisme, le roman traverse ce qu’Alain Cresciucci analyse comme une crise identitaire du personnage. Le héros balzacien, modèle canonique du genre, a cessé d’exister et a cédé la place à des personnages évanescents, complexes, parfois sans substance, supplantés par des motifs abstraits et des objets inertes. Cette tension entre disparition totale et une forme de dérive identitaire du personnage est illustrée à la perfection dans le premier roman d’Eva Almassy, V.O. Le présent article s'intéresse à la fluidité des personnages et à la construction de leur identité analysées à la lumière de la question du langage.
Le nom propre en perte de sens : anonymisation du sujet chez Bruce Bégout
Authors: Brousseau Simon
Published: March 2014

Le ParK de Bruce Bégout est une fiction dystopique où la logique du divertissement est poussée à ses limites, si bien que les personnages qui s'y trouvent sont réduits à diverses fonctions. Ils ne sont des personnages que par défaut, des personnages sans individualité propre. Dépourvus de volition, ils exécutent un script où le libre arbitre est réduit à sa plus simple expression: le choix d'un divertissement. Cet article interroge comment Le ParK , en grossissant les traits de ce que serait une société de contrôle, renverse le rapport romanesque entre les lieux et les personnages, l'action et la description, et, ultimement, entre l'affirmation individuelle et la sujétion.
Nobody’s Novel
Authors: Motte Warren
Published: March 2014

In the novel, fictional characters may be thought of as the richest of signifiers. Traditionally, it is the character who mediates fictional worlds for our benefit, who calls out to us, engages our attention, and encourages us to inhabit those worlds, either briefly or in a more enduring manner. Yet character has become a very embattled and precarious topos in contemporary fiction. Marie Cosnay's writing offers representations of humans that are especially thin, most particularly in Villa Chagrin (2006), which puts conventional notions of character on trial in strategic fashions.
Ici de Nathalie Sarraute : une dynamique scopique
Authors: Anguita Lina Avendaño
Published: March 2014

Désincarné, le sujet de conscience devient l’espace de résonance, l’oreille attentive, le regard séduit et perméable qui se laisse traverser par des mots qui tentent de trouver leur place, de combler un vide, un manque ou un silence. Les mots d’ Ici , livrés à leur énergie originelle, figurent ainsi des agents qui suggèrent des scènes, suscitent des images, déclenchent des actions ou des sonorités inopinées. Mais, si regarder, ou prospecter ce mouvement, c’est déjà se laisser envahir, disparaître sous l’effet incantatoire des mots, le sujet de conscience, support de cette dynamique scopique, ne disparaît toutefois pas pour effacé qu’il soit.