bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Does proximity to freshwater refuge affect the size structure of an estuarine predator (Carcharhinus leucas) in the north-western Gulf of Mexico?
Authors: Matich Philip , Nowicki Robert J. , Davis Jonathan , Mohan John A. , Plumlee Jeffrey D. , Strickland Bradley A. , TinHan Thomas C. , Wells R. J. David , Fisher Mark
Published: May 2020

The life histories of estuarine species are often adapted to the environmental variability they experience. However, estuaries are increasingly vulnerable to natural and anthropogenic changes, necessitating an understanding of how shifting conditions affect the survival, behaviour and population structure of estuarine-dependent animals. In this study we used data from fisheries-independent surveys collected across six estuaries with variable salinity regimes in Texas, USA, from 1975 to 2016 to investigate the role sources of freshwater inflow play in shaping juvenile bull shark Carcharhinus leucas size structure. High frequencies of co-occurrence with similarly sized conspecifics (59% of capture events) suggest bull sharks segregated within Texan estuaries based on body size. Bull shark sizes increased with distance to the nearest source of freshwater inflow, although effect sizes were small and access to freshwater habitats may be more important in shaping size-dependent distribution patterns. River mouths were disproportionately used by smaller juveniles (<90-cm total length, TL) and avoided by larger juveniles (>135cm TL). However, the use of river mouths decreased in estuaries characterised by limited freshwater inflow and greater variability in salinities at river mouths, highlighting geographic differences in the functions these habitats provide as potential environmental and predator refugia. Young-of-the-year (i.e. age-0) sharks also increased their use of river mouths throughout the 40-year study period, revealing the growing importance of river mouths as potential nursery habitats.
Molecular evidence reveals introduced populations of Eiseniella tetraedra (Savigny, 1826) (Annelida, Lumbricidae) with European origins from protected freshwater ecosystems of the southern Alborz Mountains
Authors: Javidkar M. , Abdoli A. , Ahmadzadeh F. , Nahavandi Z. , Yari M.
Published: May 2020

The presence of exotic earthworms has recently become a major concern and drawn significant attention to their potential effects on ecosystems and native invertebrate fauna. Although the occurrence of invasive annelids has been well recorded, their settlement in Iran is poorly documented. To investigate the biodiversity of aquatic Oligochaeta and to assess the presence of possible exotic species, DNA barcoding using the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 (COI) gene was conducted in two major protected rivers (Jajroud, Karaj) of the southern Alborz Mountains. As a result, new lineages of Tubifex, Haplotaxis and Lumbriculus were identified from Iran. Moreover, a semiaquatic lumbricid species, Eiseniella tetraedra, was unexpectedly found to be the most abundant species. The analyses showed the presence of six divergent lineages of E. tetraedra occurring in individual rivers. The presence of identical haplotypes shared between European, North American, Australian and Iranian localities, the sympatric accumulation of several distinct intraspecific lineages in the same rivers and the lack of a phylogeographic pattern reinforce the hypothesis of a possible inadvertent anthropogenic introduction. The relative abundance of lineages indicates a significant decline in the abundance of native oligochaetes, which may be linked to the preponderance of recently introduced European populations of E. tetraedra, probably mediated through human activities.
Knockdown of interferon-induced transmembrane protein 1 inhibited proliferation, induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis, and suppressed MAPK signaling pathway in pancreatic cancer cells
Authors: Zhang Lei , Wang Zhenyong , Kong Deshuai , Zhao Xiulei , Chen Xiongfei , Chai Wei
Published: May 2020

Pancreatic cancer (PC), highly malignant, is one of the most lethal cancers. Interferon-induced transmembrane protein 1 (IFITM1) has recently been regarded as a new molecular marker in human cancers. However, the role of IFITM1 in PC remains unclear. In this study, a short hairpin RNA (shRNA) was constructed to assess the effect of IFITM1 on PANC-1 and ASPC-1 cells. The level of IFITM1 was downregulated in cells transfected with shRNA targeting IFITM1 (sh-IFITM1). Silencing of IFITM1 significantly decreased cell viability, downregulated the level of Ki-67, arrested cell at G1/S phase, reduced the number of cells in S phase, and decreased cyclinD1, cyclinE, CDK2, and CDK4 levels. Moreover, Hoechst staining and Western blotting analysis showed that cell apoptosis was induced by IFITM1. IFITM1 knockdown suppressed the MAPK signaling pathway by downregulation of p-ERK, p-P38, and p-JNK levels. These findings suggested that IFITM1 could be considered a potential therapeutic target for PC.
Incorporating carbon sink of harvested wood products into ecological footprint accounting: model and case study
Authors: Gao Wei , Cheng Guowei , Liu Chang’e
Published: May 2020

Ecological footprint (EF) accounting system is widely used in assessing environmental sustainability at various spatial scales. To improve the EF performance, a new EF calculation framework was established in this study, in which HWP is considered as carbon sinks and the model was then applied to the Yangtze River basin of China. Results showed that (1) carbon sink in the basin is about 2.99 Tg per year and it varies substantially across subbasins, which has a nonlinear relationship with net primary productivity; (2) available biocapacity calculated in the whole basin increases from 0.5068 to 0.5759 national ha (nha) per capita when incorporating the carbon sinks. In a few subbasins, the added biocapacity is even larger than the biocapacity estimated from the conventional approach; (3) the EF of the basin is 5.598 nha per capita and it is much larger than its biological carrying capacity (BC), indicating that ecological deficit is ubiquitous across the basin. If carbon sinks are considered, the ecological deficit would decrease by 3.2–14.3% for different regions in the basin. It is necessary to incorporate HWP and other potential terrestrial carbon sinks in the EF accounting, and more efforts are needed in improving carbon sink accuracy.
Reintroducing Kin Selection to the Human Behavioral Sciences
Authors: Rubin Hannah
Published: May 2020

Humans are often altruistic in a variety of contexts, even toward strangers they may never meet again. What explains this behavior? Many argue that kin selection cannot explain it but group selection can. Contra this common line of reasoning, I provide two ways that kin selection might help explain the evolution of broad-scope human altruism: in gene-culture coevolution and in a ‘cultural’ version of kin selection.
Cognitive Models Are Distinguished by Content, Not Format
Authors: Butlin Patrick
Published: May 2020

Cognitive scientists often describe the mind as constructing and using models of aspects of the environment, but it is not obvious what makes something a model as opposed to a mere representation. The leading proposal among philosophers is that models are structural representations and are therefore distinguished by their format. However, an alternative conception is suggested by recent work in artificial intelligence, on which models are distinguished by their content. This article outlines the two conceptions and argues for the content conception, against the standard philosophical view.
Succinct dynamic de Bruijn graphs
Authors: Alipanahi Bahar , Kuhnle Alan , Puglisi Simon J , Salmela Leena , Boucher Christina
Published: May 2020

Motivation

The de Bruijn graph is one of the fundamental data structures for analysis of high throughput sequencing data. In order to be applicable to population-scale studies, it is essential to build and store the graph in a space- and time-efficient manner. In addition, due to the ever-changing nature of population studies, it has become essential to update the graph after construction, e.g. add and remove nodes and edges. Although there has been substantial effort on making the construction and storage of the graph efficient, there is a limited amount of work in building the graph in an efficient and mutable manner. Hence, most space efficient data structures require complete reconstruction of the graph in order to add or remove edges or nodes.

Results

In this article, we present DynamicBOSS, a succinct representation of the de Bruijn graph that allows for an unlimited number of additions and deletions of nodes and edges. We compare our method with other competing methods and demonstrate that DynamicBOSS is the only method that supports both addition and deletion and is applicable to very large samples (e.g. greater than 15 billion k-mers). Competing dynamic methods, e.g. FDBG cannot be constructed on large scale datasets, or cannot support both addition and deletion, e.g. BiFrost.

Availability and implementation

DynamicBOSS is publicly available at https://github.com/baharpan/dynboss.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Morrison and the Transnation: Toni Morrison, God Help the Child and Zadie Smith, Swing Time
Authors: Baillie Justine
Published: May 2020

I read Toni Morrison’s God Help the Child (2015) and Zadie Smith’s Swing Time (2016) as interjections into discourses of the “postracial” and “post-black.” I further consider those conceptualizations of the transnation which have their beginnings in patterns of migration that were, post-Cold War, no longer solely the consequence of colonialism, empire, or slavery; and I examine the process of “othering” that Morrison outlines in The Origin of Others (2017) as a productive context for reading both novels. Both God Help the Child and Swing Time reveal women working, within the cosmetic and entertainment industries respectively, to enable the corporate world, while reflecting on their childhoods and racial heritage; their protagonists thus embody contemporary negotiations of identity, gender, and race as configured under globalization.
Weak Relationships Between Swimming Morphology and Water Depth in Wrasses and Parrotfish Belie Multiple Selective Demands on Form–Function Evolution
Authors: Camarillo Henry , Muñoz Martha M
Published: May 2020

Synopsis

Mechanical tradeoffs in performance are predicted to sculpt macroevolutionary patterns of morphological diversity across environmental gradients. Water depth shapes the amount of wave energy organisms’ experience, which should result in evolutionary tradeoffs between speed and maneuverability in fish swimming morphology. Here, we tested whether morphological evolution would reflect functional tradeoffs in swimming performance in 131 species of wrasses and parrotfish (Family: Labridae) across a water depth gradient. We found that maximum water depth predicts variation in pectoral fin aspect ratio (AR) in wrasses, but not in parrotfish. Shallow-water wrasses exhibit wing-like pectoral fins that help with “flapping,” which allows more efficient swimming at faster speeds. Deeper water species, in contrast, exhibit more paddle-like pectoral fins associated with enhanced maneuverability at slower speeds. Functional morphology responds to a number of different, potentially contrasting selective pressures. Furthermore, many-to-one mapping may release some traits from selection on performance at the expense of others. As such, deciphering the signatures of mechanical tradeoffs on phenotypic evolution will require integrating multiple aspects of ecological and morphological variation. As the field of evolutionary biomechanics moves into the era of big data, we will be uniquely poised to disentangle the intrinsic and extrinsic predictors of functional diversity.
Food Matters: Trafficked Transnational Migrants’ Experiences and the Matrix of Food (In)Security
Authors: Fukushima Annie Isabel
Published: May 2020

This article traces a particular object, food, in the context of the human rights violation of human trafficking of transnational migrant labourers, to answer: how does food come to matter for transnational migrants who labour in the United States and experience abuse in the form of human trafficking? To answer the research question, this article employs a qualitative method—thematic analysis of human trafficking court complaints in the legal system (N=133). Through scavenging legal complaints made by transnational migrant labourers in the United States between 2000 and 2017, the author provides a novel framework: a matrix of food (in)security. A matrix of food (in)security is a framework describes how food is socially, politically, and legally articulated in transnational migration: food as a weapon of abuse, food (in)security, and workers in a food chain.
Studying Type II supernovae as cosmological standard candles using the Dark Energy Survey
Authors: de Jaeger T , Galbany L , González-Gaitán S , Kessler R , Filippenko A V , Förster F , Hamuy M , Brown P J , Davis T M , Gutiérrez C P , Inserra C , Lewis G F , Möller A , Scolnic D , Smith M , Brout D , Carollo D , Foley R J , Glazebrook K , Hinton S R , Macaulay E , Nichol B , Sako M , Sommer N E , Tucker B E , Abbott T M C , Aguena M , Allam S , Annis J , Avila S , Bertin E , Bhargava S , Brooks D , Burke D L , Carnero Rosell A , Carrasco Kind M , Carretero J , Costanzi M , Crocce M , da Costa L N , De Vicente J , Desai S , Diehl H T , Doel P , Drlica-Wagner A , Eifler T F , Estrada J , Everett S , Flaugher B , Fosalba P , Frieman J , García-Bellido J , Gaztanaga E , Gruen D , Gruendl R A , Gschwend J , Gutierrez G , Hartley W G , Hollowood D L , Honscheid K , James D J , Kuehn K , Kuropatkin N , Li T S , Lima M , Maia M A G , Menanteau F , Miquel R , Palmese A , Paz-Chinchón F , Plazas A A , Romer A K , Roodman A , Sanchez E , Scarpine V , Schubnell M , Serrano S , Sevilla-Noarbe I , Soares-Santos M , Suchyta E , Swanson M E C , Tarle G , Thomas D , Tucker D L , Varga T N , Walker A R , Weller J , Wilkinson R ,   (DES Collaboration)
Published: May 2020

Despite vast improvements in the measurement of the cosmological parameters, the nature of dark energy and an accurate value of the Hubble constant (H0) in the Hubble–Lemaître law remain unknown. To break the current impasse, it is necessary to develop as many independent techniques as possible, such as the use of Type II supernovae (SNe II). The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the utility of SNe II for deriving accurate extragalactic distances, which will be an asset for the next generation of telescopes where more-distant SNe II will be discovered. More specifically, we present a sample from the Dark Energy Survey Supernova Program (DES-SN) consisting of 15 SNe II with photometric and spectroscopic information spanning a redshift range up to 0.35. Combining our DES SNe with publicly available samples, and using the standard candle method (SCM), we construct the largest available Hubble diagram with SNe II in the Hubble flow (70 SNe II) and find an observed dispersion of 0.27 mag. We demonstrate that adding a colour term to the SN II standardization does not reduce the scatter in the Hubble diagram. Although SNe II are viable as distance indicators, this work points out important issues for improving their utility as independent extragalactic beacons: find new correlations, define a more standard subclass of SNe II, construct new SN II templates, and dedicate more observing time to high-redshift SNe II. Finally, for the first time, we perform simulations to estimate the redshift-dependent distance-modulus bias due to selection effects.
AstroCatR: a mechanism and tool for efficient time series reconstruction of large-scale astronomical catalogues
Authors: Yu Ce , Li Kun , Tang Shanjiang , Sun Chao , Ma Bin , Zhao Qing
Published: May 2020

Time series data of celestial objects are commonly used to study valuable and unexpected objects such as extrasolar planets and supernova in time domain astronomy. Due to the rapid growth of data volume, traditional manual methods are becoming extremely hard and infeasible for continuously analysing accumulated observation data. To meet such demands, we designed and implemented a special tool named AstroCatR that can efficiently and flexibly reconstruct time series data from large-scale astronomical catalogues. AstroCatR can load original catalogue data from Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) files or data bases, match each item to determine which object it belongs to, and finally produce time series data sets. To support the high-performance parallel processing of large-scale data sets, AstroCatR uses the extract-transform-load (ETL) pre-processing module to create sky zone files and balance the workload. The matching module uses the overlapped indexing method and an in-memory reference table to improve accuracy and performance. The output of AstroCatR can be stored in CSV files or be transformed other into formats as needed. Simultaneously, the module-based software architecture ensures the flexibility and scalability of AstroCatR. We evaluated AstroCatR with actual observation data from The three Antarctic Survey Telescopes (AST3). The experiments demonstrate that AstroCatR can efficiently and flexibly reconstruct all time series data by setting relevant parameters and configuration files. Furthermore, the tool is approximately 3× faster than methods using relational data base management systems at matching massive catalogues.
Smoke and Scan: A Content Analysis of QR Code-Directed Websites Found on Cigarette Packs in China
Authors: Trimble Deana G , Welding Kevin , Smith Katherine Clegg , Cohen Joanna E
Published: May 2020

Introduction

Quick Response codes, or “QR” codes, are used widely in China—for mobile payment, marketing, public transportation, and various other applications. In this study, we examined the content of websites linked from QR codes on cigarette packs collected in China.

Aims and Methods

In February 2017, 738 unique cigarette packs were collected from five Chinese cities (Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Kunming, and Chengdu) using a systematic protocol. Cigarette packs were coded for presence of QR codes on packaging. Packs containing QR codes were then scanned using the WeChat app. Websites sourced from QR codes were coded for required verification, website type, age- and health-related statements, engagement strategies, and marketing appeals.

Results

From the sample of 738 unique packs, 109 packs (14.8%) had a QR code on the packaging. The QR codes were linked to 24 unique websites of which 23 could be analyzed. All 23 unique websites were either brand-specific or social media websites; none focused on health or quit information. Of the 23 websites, only three (13.0%) websites had age-restricted site access and just six (26.1%) had any mention of health-related risks associated with product usage. Engagement strategies and/or marketing appeals were found on 20 (87.0%) websites.

Conclusions

The Chinese tobacco industry uses QR codes on cigarette packaging to link to web-based marketing content including social media recruitment, contests and giveaways, and product advertisement. It is important to understand where packs send consumers online and what messages they receive, and to consider QR codes on packaging when drafting policy.

Implications

Scanning QR codes in China is a commonplace activity. The authors are aware of no published studies on the role QR codes play on the marketing of cigarette packs, in China or elsewhere. This study demonstrates QR codes on cigarette packs can expose users and nonusers to cigarette marketing on interactive websites and protobacco social media pages, mostly without restrictive access or health warnings. This is an area that health authorities can consider regulating, given that this is a channel through which the tobacco industry can communicate with current and potential consumers.
燕麦β-葡聚糖产品与心脏相关健康声称的全球概况
Authors: Mathews Rebecca , Kamil Alison , Chu YiFang
Published: May 2020

冠心病是全球死亡的首要原因。作为均衡膳食的一部分，食用全 谷物和谷物纤维可以降低罹患冠心病的风险。食品包装上的健康声称 可以有效地帮助消费者选择健康的饮食。1997 年，美国食品和药品管 理局首次批准了一项健康声称，燕麦、燕麦麸和全燕麦粉来源的b-葡 聚糖可溶性纤维可以降低罹患冠心病的风险。目前，只有少数国家批 准了类似的声称。自1997 年以来，针对燕麦b-葡聚糖与冠心病关系的 证据被大量证实并发表。为了帮助其他国家使用该声称，本文综述了 支持该声称的全部数据(包括美国食品和药品管理局用来证实该声称 的证据和自1997 年以来发表的49 项临床试验的结果)，也讨论了基于 科学证据的健康声称需要考虑的很多复杂因素，包括加工过程对b-葡 聚糖降低胆固醇功效的影响。
Roma
Authors: Bracic Ana
Published: May 2020

Chapter 3 introduces the case of the Roma. Roma are Europe’s largest ethnic minority (10–12 million) and are derogatively called “Gypsies.” Chapter 3 discusses Roma diversity, touching on language and dialect, customs, and traditional occupations. It also offers a few examples of how varying social, economic, and political circumstances might have differently affected Roma communities throughout Central and Eastern Europe. The Chapter then introduces Roma in Slovenia, and concludes with an illustration of a Roma exclusion cycle through the lens of a murder-suicide that happened in 2011, in Novo mesto, the first of the two field sites where the data for the empirical portion of the book were collected.
Contact
Authors: Bracic Ana
Published: May 2020

Chapter 5, the second empirical chapter, explores the non-Roma parts of the exclusion cycle. It introduces the second Slovenian research site, Murska Sobota, which closely matches the first site, Novo mesto, in all relevant characteristics but one: the Roma-led NGO in Murska Sobota focuses on promoting intergroup contact, while its counterpart in Novo mesto provides goods and services to local Roma. In contrast to non-Roma from Novo mesto, non-Roma from Murska Sobota do not discriminate against the Roma. This is particularly true of non-Roma who are familiar with the contact-promoting Roma NGO or attend its events. Further, although non-Roma from both towns express anti- Roma sentiment and commit attribution errors, non-Roma from Novo mesto do so to a greater extent. In that town, non-Roma who express anti-Roma sentiment are more likely to discriminate against the Roma in the videogame. Overall, these results suggest that NGO-promoted intergroup contact can help reduce discrimination.
Pal Joey
Authors: Lindberg Julianne
Published: May 2020

The History of a Heel chronicles the genesis, influence, and significance of Rodgers and Hart’s classic musical comedy Pal Joey (1940). When Pal Joey opened at the Barrymore on Christmas day, 1940, it flew in the face of musical comedy convention. The characters and situation were depraved. The setting was caustically realistic. Its female lead was frankly sexual and yet not purely comic. A narratively-driven dream ballet closed the first act, begging audiences to take seriously the inner life and desires of a confirmed heel. Although the show appears on many top-ten lists surveying the so-called “Golden Age,” it is a controversial classic; its legacy is tied both to the fashionable scandal that it provoked, and, retrospectively, to the uncommon attention it paid to characterization and narrative cohesion. Through an archive-driven investigation of the show and its music, History of a Heel offers insight into the historical moment during which Joey was born, and to the process of genre classification, canon formation, and the ensuing critical debates related to musical and theatrical maturity. More broadly, I argue that the critique and commentary on class and gender conventions in Pal Joey reveals a uniquely American concern over status, class mobility, and progressive gender roles in the pre-war era.
Scores of Movement
Authors: Hedberg Olenina Ana
Published: May 2020

Chapter 3 examines the approaches to film actor training developed by the Soviet avant-garde filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 1920s. Inspired by the radical innovations of contemporary theater, Kuleshov’s perspective on film acting relied on Ivan Pavlov’s and Vladimir Bekhterev’s reflexology, as well as psychotechnics and Taylorist labor efficiency training. Based on archival materials, this chapter establishes Kuleshov’s connection to the Central Institute of Labor (Tsentral’nyi Institut Truda) in Moscow, which promoted a utopian program of ingraining effective working skills in the nervous systems of factory workers by optimizing their trajectories of movement. Kuleshov embraced the concepts and techniques popularized by this Institute. He theorized his actors’ ideal performance in terms of energy expenditure and maximal use of the audiences’ attention span. My analysis of Kuleshov’s program for actors’ bodily discipline scrutinizes the training apparatuses he relied on in the hopes of achieving geometrically precise, rhythmical gestures, which he believed could form a legible “ornament” in rapid montage.
The Pulse of Film
Authors: Hedberg Olenina Ana
Published: May 2020

Chapter 5 considers psychophysiological efforts to assess the emotional responses of filmgoers by photographing their facial reactions and registering changes in their vital signs. These studies were done in the USSR for the purpose of raising the effectiveness of film propaganda among proletarian, rural, and juvenile audiences, and in the United States, for identifying crowd-pleasing narrative formulae. The chapter juxtaposes spectator tests conducted by the inventor of the polygraph lie detector, William Moulton Marston, for Universal Studios in Hollywood with analogous initiatives launched by various agencies under the jurisdiction of the Narkompros (a Soviet ministry for education and propaganda). I further trace the roots of these empirical methods to late 19th-century trends in physiological psychology, when chronophotography served alongside the kymograph for obtaining indexical records of corporeal processes that were thought to reflect the workings of the psyche. Offering a critical reading of this legacy, the chapter shows how these spectator studies replicated the universalist fallacies of biologically oriented psychology, in addition to strengthening a patronizing attitude toward the subjects of research: women, children, and illiterate peasants.
Divine Programming
Authors: Howell Charlotte E.
Published: May 2020

Divine Programming chronicles how the Hollywood television industry negotiated Christianity’s middle-American associations as attention to elite audiences increased from 1996 to 2016. From Touched by an Angel and 7th Heaven to Preacher and Daredevil, this book explores how Christianity has been used and discussed within the cultures of Hollywood television production. During this twenty-year span, Christian representation on television dramas evolved to exemplify the cultural divide between white middle America and concentrated urban elites. To balance a diminishing and fractured audience, upscale secular audience niches have become increasingly significant to the development and positioning of serial dramatic television since the 1990s, displacing the power that the mass, middlebrow, and assumed Christian audience previously held. As the importance of that middle-American audience waned during this period, creatives paradoxically used white Christianity’s stories and tropes with greater frequency and different strategies. Once white Christianity had become associated with middlebrow tastes, its representation, to appeal to elite audiences, had to be othered, shifted into the unreality of fantastic genres, and eventually—tentatively—acknowledged and used when the potential reward outweighed the legacy sense of risk. This process was dynamic and required constant, difficult negotiation between using Christianity as part of a show’s plot and attempting to avoid its religious, cultural, and class-based associations.
Streaming Religion
Authors: Howell Charlotte E.
Published: May 2020

Netflix’s Daredevil (2015–2018) and Amazon’s Hand of God (2015–2017) illustrate how changing industry context, cultural conditions, audience engagement, and continued fragmenting into niche taste cultures coalesce to lead to greater diversity and increasing—if slowly—acknowledgment of religion’s use in prime-time dramas. These streaming dramas represent religion-as-religion within industrial practices that position even traditional religion as part of their edgy and quality claims. The assumed audience for these shows is still perceived as nonreligious, but after a dozen years of containing Christianity, these shows illustrate that edgy and upscale appeal is no longer imagined as wholly oppositional to white Christian representation.
Conclusion
Authors: Howell Charlotte E.
Published: May 2020

The shifts in representation and understanding of white Christianity on prime-time television from 1996 to 2016 can serve as an illustration of one domain that stoked the cultural resentment among many white, middle-class, Christian Americans who held relatively unchallenged cultural and television dominance until the 2000s. Christian representation largely stopped focusing on being faithful in prime-time dramas, and instead, religion became a narrative tool with little connection to lived religion. At the end of this period, this trend began to shift somewhat back toward situating Christianity as a lived—albeit edgy and flawed—religion and faith culture in television dramas because of the exponential growth of television content. The duality between middlebrow Christian associations and the drive for upscale appeal that has been negotiated over the twenty-year period of this book has continued and heightened in its polarization in such a way that Peak TV may herald increased divergence instead of continued negotiation.
Witnessing Whiteness
Authors: Norris Kristopher
Published: May 2020

Witnessing Whiteness analyzes the current racial climate of American Christianity and argues for a new ethics of responsibility to confront white supremacy. Examining the current manifestations of racism in American churches, exploring the theological roots of white supremacy, and reflecting on the ways whiteness impacts even well-meaning, progressive white theologians, this book diagnoses the ways that all of white theology and white Christian practice are implicated in white supremacy. By identifying the roots of white supremacy within the church’s theology and practice, the book argues that the Christian church has a particular—and particularly acute—responsibility to address it. Witnessing Whiteness uncovers this responsibility ethic at the convergence of two prominent streams in theological ethics: traditionalist (white) witness theology and black liberation theology. Then, employing their shared resources and attending to the criticisms liberation theology directs at traditionalism, it proposes concrete practices to challenge the white church’s and white theology’s complicity in white supremacy.
Introduction
Authors: Norris Kristopher
Published: May 2020

The Introduction locates the narrative roots of white supremacy and white theology and briefly states their implications for the contemporary church and world. It outlines the methods this book will use to analyze white postliberal theology and black liberation theology in order to find the tools for an ethic of responsibility to confront white supremacy. Addressing key terms and concepts like colorblindness and whiteness, it introduces the argument that all of white theology and white Christian practice are implicated in white supremacy. After summarizing the argument that follows in the book, this introduction concludes with an outline of each of the six chapters.
Witnessing White Theology
Authors: Norris Kristopher
Published: May 2020

Chapter 3 analyzes the ways that white theology neglects race and white supremacy as topics of ethical engagement. The chapter presents the influential postliberal, witness theology of Stanley Hauerwas as an example of a theology that fuels colorblindness through its avoidance of race. This chapter argues that Hauerwas and many white theologians are indebted to the concept of tradition and a limited account of narrative that have been influenced by whiteness. This theological model hinders the ability of white theologians to see the effects of whiteness in their work. This chapter then identifies resources within Hauerwas’s work that are useful in confronting whiteness, even if Hauerwas has not deployed them to this end.
One Dead at the Paris Opera Ballet
Authors: McCarren Felicia
Published: May 2020

At its debut in 1866, La Source already had it all: dagger-wielding Muslims dominating veiled women, a magic flower in a green ecology, and a full-blown environmental crisis at the end. When the Paris Opera ballet restaged this Orientalist and colonial drama in 2011, and again in 2014, the contemporary context of homegrown jihad, climate politics, and a law banning the dissimulation of the face in public spaces, kept it relevant. At four historic performances, over 150 years, this book explores the resonance of La Source’s double narrative in its contemporary contexts: the biopolitics of bodily hybridity and regeneration and the cosmopolitics of the exploitation of human and natural resources.
Veil, Flower, and Dagger
Authors: McCarren Felicia
Published: May 2020

In May 2018, a Chechen-born Frenchman killed one and injured several people in a knife attack near the Opera. A scene anticipated in the ballet La Source? In four historic performances, over 150 years, this book explores the sacrifice of an embodied Nature to the ballet’s contemporary cosmopolitics. The original ballet, via its natural history, reflected on the history of difference within France as well as the question of “force” or regeneration of the “race.” By 1875, La Source revealed the colonial stakes of national technologies, ethnic tensions and competition for resources, racialized and gendered differences, and cultural confrontation. In its 21st century revival, playing alongside the Arab spring and movements for gender and climate justice, the ballet stages the displacement of a narrative about the environment onto Muslim conflict. Rather than a platform to reconsider the caricatures of Muslims running through French cultural production, or the lack of minority representation, the ballet serves as an example of the state of emergency declared to protect planet climate negotiations but cast in the rhetoric of a war against Islamic terrorism. In 2011 and 2014, the ballet’s intrigues of environmental crisis and Muslim violence could not have been more current, but they were represented by the Opera under a banner of “re-enchantment” that disavowed the ballet’s historic centrality and continuing interest.
La Source after Suez, 1875
Authors: McCarren Felicia
Published: May 2020

Programmed for the Palais Garnier gala opening in 1875, the ballet reflects not a timeless Orient but timely cultural and colonial politics: with the white-gowned Empress Eugenie herself performing at the opening of the Suez in 1869, the revival of La Source represents the same French genius in water management also at work in the construction of the Palais Garnier.
Resources
Authors: McCarren Felicia
Published: May 2020

Rather than a platform to reconsider the caricatures of Muslims running through French cultural production, or the lack of minority representation, the ballet serves as an example of the state of emergency declared to protect planet climate negotiations but cast in the rhetoric of a war against Islamic terrorism.
A Perfect Storm
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

Having named the storm makers (the twin principles of Dualism and Essentialism) and described their distractive potential, Chapter 8 moves to track the two forces in action in a laboratory setting. The first set of experiments tests the effects of Dualism, showing that people do, in fact, believe that traits that are considered “ideas” must be immaterial. The second examines whether participants believe that immaterial traits cannot be innate, as would be required by Essentialism. Next, we chase the storm itself. As a proof of our forecasting skills, we demonstrate that it is possible to change the storm’s course (people’s intuitions about nativism) by tweaking its ingredients. The antinativist bias can be heightened in a laboratory setting by increasing the perceived distance between mind and body (as in Dualism), and it can be lessened by suggesting that innate biological traits have a material basis in the human body (as in Essentialism). Together, these experiments demonstrate that antinativism is an inevitable byproduct of the clash between these two principles of core knowledge. Having exposed our blindness to what we know, the second part of the book proceeds to explore the implications of this thesis to who we think we are. We consider a vast number of social and personal matters, including our thoughts and feelings, our reasoning about the brain in health and disease, what happens when we die, and our free will.
Our Big Hearts
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

Can you tell what a stranger feels just by looking at their face? Could you distinguish fear from anger even in a person from an entirely unfamiliar culture (without having the opportunity to learn about it from experience)? Laypeople assume they can, because they believe that emotions are inborn, and they are universally imprinted on the body, both externally, on the face, and internally (I sense anxiety in the rumbling of my gut). In fact, people believe that emotions are innate precisely because they believe that emotions are “in the body.” So strong is their conviction that they will insist on their belief even when told that the emotions in question are in fact acquired. Our tendency to view “warm” feelings as embodied and innate is the exact mirror image of our tendency to view “cold” concepts as ephemeral and disembodied. A review of the scientific literature reveals that similar presumptions also plague the debate on universal emotions in affective science. Chapter 10 shows how Essentialism (a principle invoked to explain our aversion to innate ideas) also promotes the promiscuous presumption of innate emotions by laypeople and scientists alike.
Land of the Free
Authors: Berent Iris
Published: May 2020

Having seen how Dualism and Essentialism toy with our understanding of our beginning and end, health and disease, Chapter 15 turns to examine how these colored lenses distort our view of our free will and the self. Whether free will truly exists is not a matter I will decide here, but whether we think it does is entirely within this chapter’s purview. When I believe I have freely chosen to lift my finger, I essentially believe in three things: first, that I can tell whether I did it; second, that I can tell whether I consciously willed the act; and third, that there is a single, unitary, willing ”me.” All three beliefs are demonstrably wrong. Dualism and Essentialism are again to blame.
The Radio Right
Authors: Matzko Paul
Published: May 2020

By the early 1960s, and for the first time in history, most Americans across the nation could tune their radio to a station that aired conservative programming from dawn to dusk. People listened to these shows in remarkable numbers; for example, the broadcaster with the largest listening audience, Carl McIntire, had a weekly audience of twenty million, or one in nine American households. For the sake of comparison, that is a higher percentage of the country than would listen to conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh forty years later. As this Radio Right phenomenon grew, President John F. Kennedy responded with the most successful government censorship campaign of the last half century. Taking the advice of union leader Walter Reuther, the Kennedy administration used the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission to pressure stations into dropping conservative programs. This book reveals the growing power of the Radio Right through the eyes of its opponents using confidential reports, internal correspondence, and Oval Office tape recordings. With the help of other liberal organizations, including the Democratic National Committee and the National Council of Churches, the censorship campaign muted the Radio Right. But by the late 1970s, technological innovations and regulatory changes fueled a resurgence in conservative broadcasting. A new generation of conservative broadcasters, from Pat Robertson to Ronald Reagan, harnessed the power of conservative mass media and transformed the political landscape of America.
Introduction
Authors: Matzko Paul
Published: May 2020

The advent of mass right-wing radio in the early 1960s fueled the rise of modern conservatism and provoked the most successful government censorship campaign in America of the past half century. That episode should encourage a reevaluation of John F. Kennedy’s presidency; even more significantly, the story of the Radio Right should transform the scholarly debate over the origins of the New Right. Instead of trying to explain the uptick in activism by looking to sudden changes in the demand for conservative ideas, this work emphasizes shifts in the supply of those ideas. Furthermore, in contradiction to self-serving mythologizing by conservative institutions and intellectuals, it centers the role played by radicals and grassroots activists in conservative movement formation.
Seven Days in May
Authors: Matzko Paul
Published: May 2020

President Kennedy’s concerns over the Radio Right grew throughout his term in office. At the time, the administration worried about the prospect of a right-wing military coup led by someone like recently cashiered Army General Edwin Walker, especially after he headlined a campaign-style national tour called Operation Midnight Ride with conservative broadcaster Billy James Hargis. The final straw was the wave of conservative attacks on the president’s proposed Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the Soviet Union in the summer of 1963. Kennedy responded to the rise of the Radio Right by commissioning a strategy document from labor union leaders Walter and Victor Reuther. This “Reuther Memorandum,” as it became known, called for targeting conservative broadcasters with extra regulatory scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Communications Commission.
Just Because You’re Paranoid Doesn’t Mean They Aren’t After You
Authors: Matzko Paul
Published: May 2020

Under orders from President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) tightened the regulatory screws on conservative broadcasters. The IRS launched the “Ideological Organizations Project” to challenge the tax-exempt status of conservative broadcasters and to stem the flow of donations. The FCC strengthened its “Fairness Doctrine” rules, which required radio stations to ensure politically balanced discussion of public policy and to give free response time to victims of personal attacks made on the air. The United Auto Workers financed the creation of an opposition research clearing house, Group Research Inc., that compiled dossiers of damaging information on conservative broadcasters and politicians. The White House also organized a front organization, the Citizens Committee for a Nuclear Test Ban, to gain free, pro-administration airtime from radio stations that aired conservative critiques of the proposed treaty.
“The Red Lion Roars Again”
Authors: Matzko Paul
Published: May 2020

After the assassination of John F. Kennedy, leadership of the counter–Radio Right censorship campaign passed to the Democratic National Committee (DNC). DNC Chairman John Bailey recruited operative Wayne Phillips to take charge of a team that would intimidate conservative broadcasters who either supported Barry Goldwater or attacked Lyndon Johnson during the 1964 election. By Phillips’s own estimations, the project was a remarkable success, garnering hundreds of hours of free airtime via Fairness Doctrine complaints. They were aided by a new front organization—secretly created by the DNC—called the National Council for Civic Responsibility. As a bonus, the campaign also generated a court challenge from journalist Fred Cook against conservative radio station owner John Norris. The resulting court case, Red Lion Broadcasting Co., Inc. v. FCC, went all the way to the US Supreme Court, which ultimately upheld the Fairness Doctrine.
The Radio Right in Decline
Authors: Matzko Paul
Published: May 2020

As the National Council of Churches’ Fairness Doctrine campaign accelerated, US Senate Democrats on the Commerce Committee announced an investigation into the Radio Right. That one-two punch convinced hundreds of radio station owners to drop conservative programs altogether. The cost of paying for free response time combined with the risk of losing their station license was too much. Carl McIntire appealed for help to Richard Nixon, but the administration was much more interested in the ways it could use the Fairness Doctrine to intimidate the major television networks into giving the president and the war in Vietnam more favorable coverage. With no help forthcoming and the loss of station WXUR in 1974, Carl McIntire’s program declined precipitously, although not without one last protest action from McIntire involving a World War II surplus minesweeper blasting a pirate radio signal off the shore of Cape May, New Jersey, in defiance of Federal Communications Commission rules.
Why Do We Think about War?
Authors: Juergensmeyer Mark
Published: May 2020

This introduction probes the question of why it is so easy to think of the idea of war in times of extreme social conflict. It begins with the example of the Philippine government’s siege of the city of Marawi to rid it of ISIS fighters in 2017. As a result local Muslims began to think in terms of war. Every religious tradition is full of images of warfare. Why do these images come so easily to the imagination, and what does religion have to do with it?
War as an Alternative Reality
Authors: Juergensmeyer Mark
Published: May 2020

Chapter 2 explores the possibility that the idea of war is an imagined alternative reality. First, a former militant in the Sikh separatist movement explains how the idea of warfare permeated the worldview of the youth in the Punjabi village where he was raised. Second, concepts of war from the political scientist Kenneth Waltz and the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr are presented, as well as the insights of the eighteenth-century German soldier Carl von Clausewitz, who theorized that all war stems from the notion of absolute war, the all-or-nothing conception of reality in which there are only winners and losers. This worldview can be exhilarating since it offers the possibility of destroying forever the enemies—the sources of discord—that confound ordinary life. Hence enemies have to be invented, if they didn’t exist before, for the idea of war to be imaginable.
The Marriage of War and Religion
Authors: Juergensmeyer Mark
Published: May 2020

Since war and religion are both alternative realities, this chapter explores the relationship between the two. The chapter begins with an account of identical twin German brothers who both joined ISIS and were soon killed in suicide attacks. Were they motivated by religion or the lure of war? This chapter considers three options. One is that war encompasses religion by imagining that God is on the side of the militants engaged in it. A second is that religion encompasses war, usually in a metaphoric way through religious mythology and images. (One possibility that is dismissed is that religion automatically leads to war, since there is no evidence that that is the case). The third possibility—perhaps most likely in the case of the German twins—is that religion and war are combined in “cosmic war.” Religious militant movements such as the Islamic State combine an apocalyptic notion of religion with militant engagement; in ISIS war is religion and religion is war.