bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Looking beyond ‘Turner’: William B. Patrick’s ‘The Slave Ship’
Authors: Plasa Carl
Published: May 2024

While Dabydeen’s ‘Turner’ is rightly established as a major achievement in the field of postcolonial Caribbean literature, the critical privileging of the text as the horizon for The Slave Ship’s poetic legacy is not without its drawbacks. The most serious of these is that it has resulted in a certain blindness towards another long and complex ekphrastic poem on Turner’s masterpiece that emanates from an American rather than a Caribbean literary context and that was published in the same year as Dabydeen’s—William B. Patrick’s ‘The Slave Ship.’ It is not this chapter’s purpose to speculate on why ‘Turner,’ written by a black Caribbean author, has enjoyed such critical prestige while ‘The Slave Ship,’ written by an author who is a white American, has been rendered critically invisible, nor is the concern to adjudicate between the aesthetic merits of the two poems which appear to have been composed entirely independently of one another. The aim, rather, is to bring the transatlantic encounter between Patrick’s text and Turner’s painting into critical view for the first time, thus extending and enriching the current understanding of contemporary ekphrastic poetry that addresses the subjects of the Middle Passage and the Zong atrocity in particular.
Icon -versations: F. Douglas Brown, Jacob Lawrence and Frederick Douglass
Authors: Plasa Carl
Published: May 2024

Like its predecessor, this chapter is exclusively devoted to African American ekphrasis and American slavery, taking F. Douglas Brown’s Icon (2018) as its field of inquiry. This small-press collection is notable for the culturally diverse mix of poetic genres it deploys (Kundiman, Golden Shovel, erasure, ghazal and of course ekphrasis, inter alia); its use of the Japanese presentational mode of PechaKucha; and its eclectic play of allusion, which runs a dizzying gamut from the Annunciation pictures of the Italian Renaissance to comic-book superheroes and from popular African American dance-styles to the film musicals of the 1950s. In thematic terms, Icon is partly concerned with contemporary African American experience, encompassing topics as heterogeneous as the transgenerational dynamics of Brown’s own family relationships and the violent deaths of African Americans either in or as a consequence of police custody. Its overriding orientation, however, is not towards images produced from a white American perspective (as featured in Chapter Five) but the work of the African American painter Jacob Lawrence and specifically, his Frederick Douglass series of 1938-9, created when Lawrence was between twenty-one and twenty-two years of age and it is this conversation between Brown and Lawrence that is at the chapter’s heart.
‘Gender Trouble’ and the Crises of Masculinities in the Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan 1
Authors: Dönmez-Colin Gönül
Published: May 2024

Borrowing from Judith Butler for the title and relying on feminist film theory and theories of masculinity in crisis, this chapter examines the representations of women in Ceylan’s films in a transition period in modern Turkish society where dominant narratives are collapsing. Reflecting on the representations of women and the crises of male subjectivities in Ceylan's films leads to comparisons with Abbas Kiarostami from Iran, Hong Sang-soo from South Korea, among others, in terms of machismo, self-reflexivity and self-parody and the ‘double bind’ of reflexive texts that as Chakravarty (2003) underscores, while trying to celebrate the female figure, exploit it within the terms of the classical grammar of film narrative.
‘Breaking the Mould’ of Scottish Politics: 1979–1988
Authors: Torrance David
Published: May 2024

For much of the 1980s, Scottish Liberal fortunes became embroiled with those of the Social Democratic Party, which split from Labour in 1981. Together the two parties forged an Alliance with the goal of ‘breaking the mould’ of British politics. Despite early by-election and polling success, this proved a false dawn, although it allowed Scottish Liberals to extend their electoral reach. Internal debate turned to challenging Mrs Thatcher, achieving devolution for Scotland and reorganising British Liberalism along federal lines. In 1988, Scottish Liberals and the SDP in Scotland merged to form the Scottish Liberal Democrats.
Introduction
Authors: Sørensen Lars-Martin , Tybjerg Casper
Published: May 2024

The chapter first introduces the research project and the digitisation drive from which the book springs. The second section provides a brief sketch of the course of Danish-German history in the early 19th and 20th centuries, leading up to the entanglements of the silent film era. The third section surveys the existing film historical literature, followed by an overview of the most important archives, sources and collections underlying the research. Finally, the individual chapters are briefly introduced.
Organism-Oriented Ontology
Authors: Žukauskaite Audrone
Published: May 2024

Discussing different aspects of the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, Raymond Ruyer, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, and including some contemporary thinkers, such as Catherine Malabou, Bernard Stiegler, Bruno Latour, and Donna J. Haraway, the book argues that all these threads can be seen as precursors to organism-oriented ontology.
Rather than concentrating on individuals and identities, contemporary philosophy is increasingly interested in processes, multiplicities and potential for change, that is, in those features that define living beings. The book argues that the capacity of living beings for self-organisation, creativity and contingency can act as an antidote to biopolitical power and control in the times of the Anthropocene.
By conceptualising symbionts and holobionts, hybrids and chimeras as ontological conditions, we resist the biopolitical demand to differentiate, classify and decide which forms of life are worth living. In this respect, organism-oriented ontology is mutually inclusive, sharing ontological value with the cognisers of other species, those that are living and those that have become extinct. It gives ontological weight to all conditions of human life, including trauma, disability, illness, decomposition and death. It also includes technologies, which are understood not as something external and hostile, but as extended projections of our internal organs and organisms.
Small Axe is a Start: An interview with Bernard Coard
Authors: Austin Thomas
Published: May 2024

This chapter is based on an interview with renowned Grenadian activist, politician and author Bernard Coard. The discussion revisits his seminal 1971 work on institutional racism in British education, How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub Normal in the British School System. Coard talks about his response to the dramatisation of the scandal he uncovered in the Small Axe episode Education, his involvement in the spinoff documentary Subnormal, and his critique of the current state of UK education
Democratic Dilemmas of Europe’s Political Order
Authors: Bremberg Niklas , Norman Ludvig
Published: May 2024

This chapter introduces the themes and contributions of the book. First and foremost, it situates the book in relation to the long-standing discussions on how democracy might be transposed to a European political order with the EU at its centre. The chapter argues that acknowledging the multi-dimensional character of democracy signifies an important shift in analytical perspective from discussions on democracy as a unified concept, where the main dilemma has been identified as one between democracy realized at the national level or at the supranational level. The chapter discusses the merits of choosing a disaggregated view on European democracy, as it makes it possible to identify and consider different dimensions of democratic politics and the tensions and trade-offs that the application of these aspects to the European political order currently entails.
Multilingualism and Translation: W. F. Hermans’ Nooit meer slapen
Authors: Attridge Derek
Published: May 2024

The singularity of literary works that use more than one language resides in part in their treatment of this multiplicity of tongues, and it is the responsibility of the reader and the translator to do justice to the work’s multilingualism. As an example of such a work, this chapter discusses W. F. Hermans’ novel Nooit meer slapen, focusing on passages of the novel in which languages other than Dutch are used – in many of which the question of language is an issue. One of the themes of the novel is the relation between ‘minor’ and ‘major’ languages and cultures, an issue which is also at stake in the process of translation from Dutch into English.
Luis Buñuel’s Nomadic Vision: Departures from an Originary World
Authors: Escobar Cristóbal
Published: May 2024

Chapter 2 returns to a film and filmmaker Deleuze had studied in Cinema 1 in order to demonstrate that another reading, one in line with the theory of intensities, is possible and largely congruent with Deleuze’s own writings. By reconsidering Deleuze’s naturalist reading of the early Buñuel, this chapter challenges his notion of the ‘impulse-image’ and argues that the originary impulses of Buñuel’s characters are not constitutive of a closed tightening cycle between sur-real source and real milieu, as argued by Deleuze, but rather can be attributed to the immanent circumstances in which his characters are immersed. Naturalism, in this sense, is not read as another liminal case of Deleuze’s classical sensory-motor cohesion. On the contrary, it resonates as a modern heterogeneous system of relations in which the impulse, proper to the disproportionate bodies of Buñuel’s early characters, expresses the poetic excess of what Pasolini calls a ‘free-indirect-discourse’ in cinema.
Empathy Machines
Authors: Jones Nick
Published: May 2024

This chapter explores an interface which is rarely acknowledged to be an interface at all: virtual reality (VR). VR is often thought to provide an experience which goes beyond the screens of cinema, television, and the desktop computer. If the graphic user interface (GUI) is a space to browse media and accomplish tasks, VR is a place for total immersion: the spectator/user is perceptually transported into another realm, where they seem to have interactive agency with space itself. But rather than leaving the GUI behind, this chapter argues that VR just wraps us even more tightly within its representational coordinates. To reveal this connection, the chapter positions the content of VR as a ‘gameworld interface’ – a manifestation of system information with which we can interact, even if only through head movements. Through close attention to ‘immersive journalism’ (experiences in which the user is framed as a witness to some urgent political issue, like Clouds Over Sidra (2015), which is set in a refugee camp), the chapter connects scholarly critiques of VR with this book’s focus on GUI aesthetics in order to dismantle some of the hype concerning the medium’s ethical potential.
Scripture or the Unconditional Character of Justice
Authors: Herrero Montserrat
Published: May 2024

The chapter reinscribes the scriptural turn present in the poststructuralist debate in its theological place, the consideration of some scriptures as sacred. In this reinscription, the transit of conditioned to unconditioned justice is at stake. Sacred Scriptures display a complex arrangement of intertextuality and interpretative processes rendering them not only hermeneutic artifacts but also generators of events. Because power is compromised in the interpretative journey of Scriptures, we can speak of their theopolitical character. In fact, the interpretation of Sacred Scriptures can be understood throughout history as an exercise of the will to power aimed at attaining political power.
Toward a Movement-Oriented Poetics
Authors: Potter Kevin
Published: May 2024

This Introduction brings Poetics of the Migrant into contact with the broader political stakes of discussing poetics in relation to migration. Using examples from nationalist and neo-fascist discourse, this section suggests how poetics has always functioned epistemically and affectively to shape the visibility and thinkability of social relations. Kinopoetics, as it is enacted in migrant literature – the concept invented and defended throughout Poetics of the Migrant. – functions as a counterdiscourse to produce a new system of meaning based on movement. Migrant literature enacts its own movement, and in turn makes migrancy and social motion visible and thinkable as social forces. Migrant literature as such maintains a certain singularity – a capacity to focalize migrant figures themselves, demonstrating their active capacity to re-shape social power and re-arrange our way of understanding migration and movement.
Foundations of Veterinary Education in Scotland (1696–1817)
Authors: Macdonald Alastair A. , Warwick Colin M.
Published: May 2024

This chapter draws specific attention to the French veterinary contributions made by Sir William Hope, the comparative anatomical contributions of Alexander Monro and his son and grandson, the new School of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, the farriery skills of James Clark and his family, Farriery comments of James Jeffray, the agricultural contributions made by Sir John Sinclair, the veterinary proposals of the Frenchman John Feron, the farriery survey of Jeremiah Kirby, the regulatory proposals of Edward Harrison, the promotional support of the Highland Society of Scotland and the drive of John Barclay. Progressively the need for veterinary education in Scotland was being recognised and discussed. Edinburgh Council was supportive of the concept. The academic foundations of veterinary training were being laid and accepted.
John Gamgee’s Edinburgh New Veterinary College (1857–65)
Authors: Macdonald Alastair A. , Warwick Colin M.
Published: May 2024

John Gamgee created and staffed a veterinary college in Edinburgh. Students were taught subjects such as Anatomy and Chemistry in separate classes by different lecturers. They were examined by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons. John’s father, Joseph, assisted at a horse infirmary. Subscribers there paid for annual or life veterinary services. John and his father established the monthly periodical Edinburgh Veterinary Review and Annals of Comparative Pathology. Cramped initial accommodation forced a move to the West End of Edinburgh. However, financial problems led to the sale of the veterinary College and its move to London. The arrival of Rinderpest, the cattle plague, created an all-consuming diversion of John’s attention and that College also failed financially.
The Centre for Tropical Veterinary Medicine (1970–2005)
Authors: Macdonald Alastair A. , Warwick Colin M.
Published: May 2024

In 1930 the university Diploma in Tropical Veterinary Medicine was instituted as a postgraduate course for Colonial Veterinary Officers. It was not taught during the war but resuscitated in 1954. In 1962 a Tropical Unit was formed in the Department of Animal Health, funded by the Ministry of Overseas Development. Students came from 44 countries. In 1970 the CTVM was officially opened. Additional tropical courses were developed but cuts in Government spending created problems. Tuition fees had to cover costs. In the 1980s students came from 74 countries. In the 1990s research on protozoology, helminthology, microbiology and animal husbandry were largely based in the tropics. Publications and short courses were developed. Students (1,158) from 109 countries graduated from the CTVM before it ceased to function by 2005.
Introduction
Authors: Sexton Jamie
Published: May 2024

In this introduction to the book, key aims are outlined and the increased intersections between indie music and indie film is described. The chapter also provides some historical and conceptual background to the term ‘indie’ as it has been used in both music and film cultures. It is argued that ‘indie’ is complex term subject to contestation; different types of indie productions are thus outlined, including micro-productions and, at the other end of the spectrum, ‘indie’ releases that involve some form of corporate involvement. Values pertaining to indie cultures are also limned – including a discussion of DIY – in addition to a discussion of how indie can function in a broad, generic sense and as a mode of production.
Manacled to Identity: Fugitive Aesthetics in Stephen Crane’s Pluralistic Universe
Authors: Collins Michael J.
Published: May 2024

Starting with a story from 1900 by Stephen Crane, “Manacled”, this chapter considers the relationship between realism and class politics on the eve of modernism, arguing that Crane’s ambiguous relationship to literary realism reveals his critique of the reduction of class relationships to social habitus. Crane, I argue, developed an aesthetically rich style whose complexity, rather than reinforcing conservative conceptions of the relationship between literary art and classed regimes of reading, sought to develop the democratic proposition that literary art can, and should, be for any group – uncoupling literature from the “regime of representation” and moving towards and expressionistic style that informed modernism proper.
Illustrated Poetry in the Romantic Period
Authors: Matthews Susan
Published: May 2024

This chapter traces changes in the idea of ‘illustration’ in relation to poetry in the Romantic period, by examining the changing role of landscape in illustrated editions of poetry in the context of developments in the book market, and discussions in the periodical press. During this time, for instance, illustrated editions of Thompson’s The Seasons moved from figure based allegorical representations to depictions of landscape. Illustrated editions of William Cowper’s poems show a parallel process, with Thomas Stothard’s figurative version of 1798 and Henry Fuseli’s of 1806 giving way to Richard Westall’s detailed landscape images for the Sharp edition of 1810. For Samuel Rogers’s 1820s edition of Italy, Stothard provided the figures for landscape work by J. M. W. Turner. Further examples discussed in the chapter include William Blake’s illustrations for Young’s Night Thoughts, along with Stothard’s illustrations for Cowper, and Westall and Turner’s work for Lord Byron, Walter Scott, and Rogers.
Fashioning the Female Artist: Allegory and Celebrity in Lady Diana Beauclerk’s Watercolours of The Faerie Queene
Authors: Engel Laura
Published: May 2024

This chapter explores Lady Diana Beauclerk’s (1734-1808) rarely studied large-scale images of scenes from Edmund Spenser’s epic, The Faerie Queene, completed while she was in residence at Horace Walpole’s gothic mansion, Strawberry Hill. These remarkable watercolours depict key moments from the epic that focus on Spenser’s heroines in action. Borrowing from a variety of styles and techniques, the portraits are a blend of fantastical detail, global iconography, and au courant fashion trends. Lady Diana Beauclerk provides the spectator with a dazzling array of examples of the eclectic nature of eighteenth-century visual culture. In particular, her portrayal of Spenser’s Britomart as a powerful and striking Minerva figure capitalises on the associations between Minerva, the goddess of war and wisdom, and women’s intellectual and artistic accomplishments across visual and narrative materials. Although these watercolours have been largely unseen, I argue that we might be able to understand them as cleverly staged advertisements for Beauclerk’s work.
South Side’s Overdevelopment: Farrell and Wright’s Extreme Youths
Authors: Avery Tamlyn
Published: May 2024

Chapter 3 observes the socialist and sociological theories of adolescence, urbanity, and regional development which underwrote James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan trilogy and Richard Wright’s Native Son, two portraits of “extreme youth” set in Chicago’s South Side. Distinguishing themselves from the earlier Midwestern naturalists, rural or urban, Farrell and Wright portrayed a Midwest utterly voided of the region’s organic environmental features. They instead mapped the inorganic contours of the urban spaces that enclose the young protagonist’s development, to accentuate the conscious and unconscious psychological effects of that mode of living upon developing subjects. The experimental method they enacted was this: a “delinquent” adolescent—whose emulation of racist stereotypes stalls their maturation—is situated within the confines of Chicago’s South Side neighborhoods. These locations formed a microcosm of the ethnic and class antagonisms that accompanied mass migration, including systemic issues relating to cultural integration, pluralism, and 100% Americanism. These neighborhoods formed strategic battlegrounds upon which these effects of national policies and regional development were rehearsed. The story of the region’s uneven development as told by Farrell and Wright thus redefined the Bildungsroman’s teleology of development that was configured by the soul-nation allegory.
Introduction: The Political Context of a Unique Scottish Approach to Immigration
Authors: Westfall Aubrey L.
Published: May 2024

The Introduction presents the book’s central argument that immigration is a critical tool of nation-building in Scotland. Nation-building requires a claim of distinctiveness that justifies the creation of governing institutions that represent the unique political community. The national endorsement of immigration and diversity is a symbol and facilitator of the Scottish nation-building project. The chapter describes recent political transformations in the UK that have provoked a new politics of immigration in Scotland, including the rise of populism, the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and its fallout, and Brexit. It makes a case for the uniqueness of Scotland’s politics of immigration relative to other sub-state nations, and reviews the book’s methodology and structure.
One Hundred Years of Kemalisms
Authors: Akkoyunlu Karabekir
Published: May 2024

The post-Kemalists may have got many things wrong, but they were spot on about the destructive and oppressive side of nationalism and its terrible manifestations in Turkey’s modern history. Discarding those critical insights together with the post-Kemalist paradigm, and glorifying nationalism once again as an emancipatory ideal would be a terrible mistake.
Introduction Sultan Qaboos, Omani Society, and the “Blessed Renaissance”, 1979–2020
Authors: Fromherz Allen James
Published: May 2024

In addition to introducing the themes and chapters of the book, the introduction challenges prevailing views by showing the ways the Sultan did not work alone. He and his government strategically established and maintained links with Omani society. It argues for a new model of modernization for Oman’s particular case. The chapter provides an overview of the Sultan’s life and reforms from 1970-2020.
Tripped up by Tartan: Settler Colonialism and the Highland Scots on Cape Breton Island
Authors: Kehoe S. Karly
Published: May 2024

In the late eighteenth and early-to-mid nineteenth centuries, the maritime colonies of northeastern British North America were a popular destination for thousands of Scottish migrants. A significant proportion were from the Scottish Highlands and Islands and many of them ended up settling on Cape Breton Island, either directly from Scotland or indirectly via Prince Edward Island and mainland Nova Scotia. It was not an easy transition. This chapter considers the complex legacy of this settlement by interrogating some of the real and imagined understandings of Scottishness there. By the 1930s, tourism had emerged as one of the province’s primary industries with powerful advocates such Angus L. MacDonald, a provincial and federal politician whose love of all things Highland blinded him to the damage that such a preoccupation would do to the future sustainability of an economically-vulnerable region. In questioning the authenticity of the ‘Scottishness’ put on display, this chapter shines an important light on those legitimate aspects of Highland culture that have survived and continue to thrive in a province that has, for so long, billed itself as the New Scotland.
Conscientious Objection and International Law
Authors: Çaltekın Demet Asli
Published: May 2024

Chapter 2 focuses on the conflict between conscience and law, which raises controversial questions over the responsibility of states in accommodating different forms of moral beliefs. It examines the legal status of the right to conscientious objection under Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights (Right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Although the chapter adopts the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion as a main legal ground for recognition of the right to conscientious objection to study the obstacles faced by objectors, it also examines conscientious objection in the light of Article 14 of the ECHR (protection from discrimination). It analyses the unequal treatment received by conscientious objectors with criminal records. Therefore, it aims to answer the question of whether failing to distinguish conscientious objectors from other law-breakers violates Article 14 of the ECHR. Finally, it analyses the right to conscientious objection under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the case law of Human Rights Committee.
The Compatibility of Turkish Domestic Law with International Law
Authors: Çaltekın Demet Asli
Published: May 2024

Chapter 3 explores whether Turkey’s domestic law – that is, Article 318 of the Penal Code, entitled ‘alienating people from military service’ – is compatible with international standards. The chapter examines significant domestic cases to understand the current legal problems of conscientious objection under domestic Turkish law. In this context, it focuses on the criminalisation of objection (‘civil death’), with particular attention paid to Turkey’s compliance with international standards on the following key aspects: the right to freedom of expression, the arbitrary detention of conscientious objectors, the prohibition of torture, inhuman and degrading treatment.
The Deadly Seduction of a Rake: British Costume Melodrama, Noir, and the ‘Othered’ Woman in The Gypsy and the Gentleman
Authors: Weedman Christopher
Published: May 2024

Christopher Weedman reappraises Joseph Losey’s critically-neglected The Gypsy and the Gentleman (1958), which finds the blacklisted Hollywood director subverting the British costume melodrama by infusing it with an American noir sensibility, particularly in its dark depiction of the duplicitous femme fatale: a half-Romani, half-British travelling woman named Belle. Played by Greek cinema star Melina Mercouri in a sexually bold and aggressive manner seldom found in either British film noirs or Gainsborough-style costume melodramas during the post-World War II period, Belle embodies cultural fears of both female promiscuity and racial miscegenation and arguably serves as a harbinger of the type of sexually complex female performances that became more prevalent on British cinema screens after the emergence of the British New Wave with the release of Jack Clayton’s seminal Room at the Top in 1959.
Dostoyevsky ’58: Richard Brooks’s Brothers Karamazov as Baroque Noir
Authors: Sorrento Matthew
Published: May 2024

Matthew Sorrento’s (re)consideration of Richard Brooks’s The Brothers Karamazov (1958) focuses on noir style as it energises an adaptation of one of the most page-bound of nineteenth-century novels. While critical commentary has largely dismissed the film as tamed by the Hollywood assembly line, Sorrento illustrates noir visuals and framing open up the screenplay’s chamber-drama treatment.
Introduction
Authors: Gander Catherine
Published: May 2024

In this extended introductory chapter, Gander offers both a roving overview of, and a series of close-ups into Don DeLillo’s career-long commitment to the arts. The chapter explores key ways of seeing DeLillo and the arts in relationship, and provides examples of how DeLillo’s engagement with the arts opens up ways of seeing our relationship with the world. Guided by John Berger’s pioneering work in art history and visual theory, the writings of art theorists such as Hal Foster, and by the scholarship contained in the essays of the Companion, this chapter considers DeLillo’s position on the form and function of the arts from his first novel (Americana) to his most recent (The Silence), with particular attention to questions of aesthetics, gender, history, media, war, ontology, and death. The chapter undertakes to examine the work of art (i.e., its practical and metaphysical e/affects). As such, analyses are grouped under the subheadings ‘History, Art, Terror’, ‘Archival’, ‘Connected/Disconnected’, ‘Still Life’, ‘Possession and Property’, and ‘The Triumph of Death?’ The ways of seeing suggested in this chapter are not exhaustive, but gesture towards DeLillo’s overlapping fields of vision, thereby illuminating perspectives on the practical, mystical, life-affirming ways that art works.
Staged Events: Don DeLillo, the Short Story, Intellectuals and the Arts
Authors: Veggian Henry
Published: May 2024

Over the course of six decades, Don DeLillo has published nearly two dozen works of short fiction, several prose excerpts that were extracted and modified from longer works, or published short writings and fragments in an earlier form that reappear later as revised parts of longer writings. Additionally, he has strategically chosen public events where he has read a short work, placing it in a paratactic relationship to the occasion for the event, or even as a commentary on the very concept of an event. In sum, DeLillo’s short stories and fragmentary works present an ephemeral and dynamic history of publication and performance. This chapter considers DeLillo’s short story career to examine the developments and digressions of DeLillo’s small but impressive body of short fiction, with the aim not only of explaining its relationship to his other literary art but also of positioning his short stories in a manner that does not limit them as ‘previews’ to the longer fiction. Focusing also on DeLillo’s public readings, this chapter draws comparisons between his public appearances, often for reasons of political and literary advocacy, and the publication of some of his short fiction.
DeLillo Across Page and Stage
Authors: Rey Rebecca
Published: May 2024

Don DeLillo has published seven playtexts that have been performed globally multiple times, centred on social themes ranging from euthanasia in Love-Lies-Bleeding (2005) and climate change in The Word for Snow (2014), to madness and mathematics in The Engineer of Moonlight (1979), identity crises and games in The Day Room (1986), and short one-act micro-plays as fragile vials of distilled modern life. Despite this successful playwriting career, DeLillo surprisingly continues to self-identify as a novelist, and his work for the stage has languished in the margins of scholarship. This chapter examines his plays as one-of-kind art forms, seeking to explore the effects of the dramatic form’s ephemerality. Having been taken through the lens of an ephemeral production of a play, we may wonder what is left to hold onto after travelling home from the theatre. What memories, possibilities, movements, impulsions? This chapter moves through DeLillo’s various literary roles, and teases out the threads of form: how does the private work of a novel differ from the public work of a play, and what does that mean for this writer and his audiences?
DeLillo and Land Art
Authors: Lewin Katherine da Cunha
Published: May 2024

Don DeLillo’s 2016 novel Zero K contains his most explicit piece of land art thus far: a building almost inseparable from the desert in which it sits, named the ‘Convergence.’ This invention of ‘an earthwork’ as DeLillo specifically terms it, marks the latest in a line of earthworks that have peppered his oeuvre. From the ‘single round stone, painted black’ in End Zone (1972) to the ‘chamber, a cubical room. Fashioned out of solid rock,’ in his 2008 play Love-Lies-Bleeding, DeLillo’s creations are isolated, singular, and made of stone. Moreover, unlike his invocations of many other artworks, these seem to always be his own creation. This chapter explores the reoccurrence of earthworks in DeLillo’s novels whilst also considering DeLillo’s particular interest in stone, suggesting that DeLillo uses stone and rock as a way of conceiving of the boundary between inside and outside, a way of making material the mechanics of looking. By situating these works among the theoretical writings of the artist Robert Smithson, which echo and collide with DeLillo’s fiction in remarkable ways, this chapter investigates the two writers’ points of intersection, suggesting their shared concept of land art as a gesture of process.
Riboflavin modified carbon cloth enhances anaerobic digestion treating food waste in a pilot-scale system
Authors: Li Yiqun , Huang Yinhui , Li Haoyong , Gou Mingyu , Xu Haiyu , Wu Hongbin , Sun Dezhi , Qiu Bin , Dang Yan
Published: May 2024

Previous laboratory-scale studies have consistently shown that carbon-based conductive materials can notably improve the anaerobic digestion of food waste, typically employing reactors with regular capacity of 1–20 L. Furthermore, incorporating riboflavin-loaded conductive materials can further address the imbalance between fermentation and methanogenesis in anaerobic systems. However, there have been few reports on pilot-scale investigation. In this study, a 10 m2 of riboflavin modified carbon cloth was incorporated into a pilot-scale (2 m3) food waste anaerobic reactor to improve its treatment efficiency. The study found that the addition of riboflavin-loaded carbon cloth can increase the maximum organic loading rate (OLR) by 40% of the pilot-scale reactor, compared to the system using carbon cloth without riboflavin loading, while ensuring efficient operation of the reaction system, effectively alleviating system acidification, sustaining methanogen activity, and increasing daily methane production by 25%. Analysis of the microbial community structure revealed that riboflavin-loaded carbon cloth enriched the methanogenic archaea in the genera of Methanothrix and Methanobacterium, which are capable of extracellular direct interspecies electron transfer (DIET). And metabolic pathway analysis identified the methane production pathway, highly enriched on the reduction of acetic acid and CO2 at riboflavin-loaded carbon cloth sample. The expression levels of genes related to methane production via DIET pathway were also significantly upregulated. These results can provide important guidance for the practical application of food waste anaerobic digestion engineering.
Cerium oxide nanoparticles in wound care: a review of mechanisms and therapeutic applications
Authors: Chen Shouying , Wang Yiren , Bao Shuilan , Yao Li , Fu Xiao , Yu Yang , Lyu Hongbin , Pang Haowen , Guo Shengmin , Zhang Hongwei , Zhou Ping , Zhou Yun
Published: May 2024

Skin wound healing is a complex and tightly regulated process. The frequent occurrence and reoccurrence of acute and chronic wounds cause significant skin damage to patients and impose socioeconomic burdens. Therefore, there is an urgent requirement to promote interdisciplinary development in the fields of material science and medicine to investigate novel mechanisms for wound healing. Cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeO2 NPs) are a type of nanomaterials that possess distinct properties and have broad application prospects. They are recognized for their capabilities in enhancing wound closure, minimizing scarring, mitigating inflammation, and exerting antibacterial effects, which has led to their prominence in wound care research. In this paper, the distinctive physicochemical properties of CeO2 NPs and their most recent synthesis approaches are discussed. It further investigates the therapeutic mechanisms of CeO2 NPs in the process of wound healing. Following that, this review critically examines previous studies focusing on the effects of CeO2 NPs on wound healing. Finally, it suggests the potential application of cerium oxide as an innovative nanomaterial in diverse fields and discusses its prospects for future advancements.
Elucidating epigenetic mechanisms governing odontogenic differentiation in dental pulp stem cells: an in-depth exploration
Authors: Huang Lei , Chen Xuan , Yang Xiaoxia , Zhang Yinchun , Liang Yiyun , Qiu Xiaoling
Published: May 2024

Epigenetics refers to the mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histone modification that influence gene expression without altering the DNA sequence. These epigenetic modifications can regulate gene transcription, splicing, and stability, thereby impacting cell differentiation, development, and disease occurrence. The formation of dentin is intrinsically linked to the odontogenic differentiation of dental pulp stem cells (DPSCs), which are recognized as the optimal cell source for dentin-pulp regeneration due to their varied odontogenic potential, strong proliferative and angiogenic characteristics, and ready accessibility Numerous studies have demonstrated the critical role of epigenetic regulation in DPSCs differentiation into specific cell types. This review thus provides a comprehensive review of the mechanisms by which epigenetic regulation controls the odontogenesis fate of DPSCs.
Computational exploration of Picrasma quassioides compounds as CviR-mediated quorum sensing inhibitors against Chromobacterium violaceum
Authors: Revanasiddappa Prasanna D. , H. G. Gowtham , K. P. Chandana , Natarajamurthy Shilpa , K. Nataraj , Pradeep Sushma , Shivamallu Chandan , Elossaily Gehan M. , Achar Raghu Ram , Silina Ekaterina , Stupin Victor , Manturova Natalia , A. Shati Ali , Y. Alfaifi Mohammad , I. Elbehairi Serag Eldin , Kestur Nagaraj Amruthesh , Mahadevamurthy Murali , Kollur Shiva Prasad
Published: May 2024

Chromobacterium violaceum an opportunistic human pathogenic bacterium, exhibits resistance to conventional antibiotics by exploiting its quorum sensing mechanism to regulate virulence factor expression. In light of this, disrupting the quorum sensing mechanism presents a promising avenue for treating infections caused by this pathogen. The study focused on using the cytoplasmic quorum sensing receptor CviR from C. violaceum as a model target to identify novel quorum sensing inhibitors from P. quassioides through in silico computational approaches. Molecular docking analyses unveiled that several phytochemicals derived from Picrasma quassioides exhibit the potential to inhibit quorum sensing by binding to CviR protein. Notably, the compounds such as Quassidine I (– 8.8 kcal/mol), Quassidine J (– 8.8 kcal/mol), Kumudine B (– 9.1 kcal/mol) and Picrasamide A (– 8.9 kcal/mol) exhibited high docking scores, indicating strong binding affinity to the CviR protein. The native ligand C6-HSL (N-hexanoyl-L-homoserine lactone) as a positive control/co-crystal inhibitor also demonstrated a significant binding energy of—7.7 kcal/mol. The molecular dynamics simulation for 200 ns showed the thermodynamic stability and binding affinity refinement of the top-ranked CviR inhibitor (Kumudine B) with its stable binding and minor fluctuations compared to positive control (C6-HSL). Pharmacokinetic predictions indicated that Kumudine B possesses favourable drug-like properties, which suggest its potential as a drug candidate. The study highlight Kumudine B as a potential agent for inhibiting the CviR protein in C. violaceum. The comprehensive evaluation of Kumudine B provides valuable insights into its pharmacological profiles, facilitating its assessment for diverse therapeutic applications and guiding future research activities, particularly as antibacterial agents for clinical drug development.
Exploring monkeypox virus proteins and rapid detection techniques
Authors: Sagdat Kamila , Batyrkhan Assel , Kanayeva Damira
Published: May 2024

Monkeypox (mpox) is an infectious disease caused by the mpox virus and can potentially lead to fatal outcomes. It resembles infections caused by viruses from other families, challenging identification. The pathogenesis, transmission, and clinical manifestations of mpox and other Orthopoxvirus species are similar due to their closely related genetic material. This review provides a comprehensive discussion of the roles of various proteins, including extracellular enveloped virus (EEV), intracellular mature virus (IMV), and profilin-like proteins of mpox. It also highlights recent diagnostic techniques based on these proteins to detect this infection rapidly.
Fungal biomass and ectomycorrhizal community assessment of phosphorus responsive Pinus taeda plantations
Authors: Hackman Jacob , Woodley Alex , Carter David , Strahm Brian , Averill Collin , Vilgalys Rytas , Garcia Kevin , Cook Rachel
Published: May 2024

Ectomycorrhizal fungi and non-ectomycorrhizal fungi are responsive to changes in environmental and nutrient availabilities. Although many species of ectomycorrhizas are known to enhance the uptake of phosphorus and other nutrients for Pinus taeda, it is not understood how to optimize these communities to have tangible effects on plantation silviculture and P use efficiency. The first step of this process is the identification of native fungi present in the system that are associated with P. taeda and influence P uptake efficiency. We used sand-filled mesh bags baited with finely ground apatite to sample ectomycorrhizal and non-ectomycorrhizal fungi associated with the rhizosphere of P-responsive P. taeda under several field conditions. Mesh bags were assessed for biomass accumulation over three years using a single three-month burial period pre-harvest and three six-month burial periods post-planting. Amplicon sequencing assessed ectomycorrhizal and non-ectomycorrhizal communities between phosphorus treatments, sites, mesh bags, and the rhizosphere of actively growing P. taeda in the field. We found biomass accumulation within the mesh bags was inversely related to increasing phosphorus fertilization (carryover) rates from pre-harvest to post-planting. Up to 25% increases in total biomass within the bags were observed for bags baited with P. Taxonomic richness was highest in Alfisol soils treated with phosphorus from the previous rotation and lowest in the Spodosol regardless of phosphorus treatment.
Integrated bioinformatics combined with machine learning to analyze shared biomarkers and pathways in psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma
Authors: Liu Luyu , Yin Pan , Yang Ruida , Zhang Guanfei , Wu Cong , Zheng Yan , Wu Shaobo , Liu Meng
Published: May 2024

Background

Psoriasis extends beyond its dermatological inflammatory manifestations, encompassing systemic inflammation. Existing studies have indicated a potential risk of cervical cancer among patients with psoriasis, suggesting a potential mechanism of co-morbidity. This study aims to explore the key genes, pathways, and immune cells that may link psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma (CESC).

Methods

The cervical squamous cell carcinoma dataset (GSE63514) was downloaded from the Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). Two psoriasis-related datasets (GSE13355 and GSE14905) were merged into one comprehensive dataset after removing batch effects. Differentially expressed genes were identified using Limma and co-expression network analysis (WGCNA), and machine learning random forest algorithm (RF) was used to screen the hub genes. We analyzed relevant gene enrichment pathways using GO and KEGG, and immune cell infiltration in psoriasis and CESC samples using CIBERSORT. The miRNA-mRNA and TFs-mRNA regulatory networks were then constructed using Cytoscape, and the biomarkers for psoriasis and CESC were determined. Potential drug targets were obtained from the cMAP database, and biomarker expression levels in hela and psoriatic cell models were quantified by RT-qPCR.

Results

In this study, we identified 27 key genes associated with psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma. NCAPH, UHRF1, CDCA2, CENPN and MELK were identified as hub genes using the Random Forest machine learning algorithm. Chromosome mitotic region segregation, nucleotide binding and DNA methylation are the major enrichment pathways for common DEGs in the mitotic cell cycle. Then we analyzed immune cell infiltration in psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma samples using CIBERSORT. Meanwhile, we used the cMAP database to identify ten small molecule compounds that interact with the central gene as drug candidates for treatment. By analyzing miRNA-mRNA and TFs-mRNA regulatory networks, we identified three miRNAs and nine transcription factors closely associated with five key genes and validated their expression in external validation datasets and clinical samples. Finally, we examined the diagnostic effects with ROC curves, and performed experimental validation in hela and psoriatic cell models.

Conclusions

We identified five biomarkers, NCAPH, UHRF1, CDCA2, CENPN, and MELK, which may play important roles in the common pathogenesis of psoriasis and cervical squamous cell carcinoma, furthermore predict potential therapeutic agents. These findings open up new perspectives for the diagnosis and treatment of psoriasis and squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix.
Predicting role of Myc-induced nuclear antigen 53 in determining the development and severity of systemic lupus erythematosus
Authors: Zamani Batool , Dadgostar Ehsan , Akbari Hossein , Motedayyen Hossein , Nikoueinejad Hassan
Published: May 2024

Introduction

Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) as an autoimmune disease can relate to an imbalance between regulatory T cells (Tregs) and Th17 cells. Previous reports have shown that Myc-induced nuclear antigen (Mina) 53 protein is involved in the developments of Tregs and Th17 cells. Therefore, the current study focused on determining whether Mina53 level is correlated to the severity of SLE.

Methods

The blood samples were collected from 60 patients with SLE (30 cases with mild SLE and 30 cases with severe SLE) and 30 healthy subjects. The serum concentration of Mina53 was measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). The expression of Mina53 gene was assessed using real-time PCR method after extracting RNA from isolated peripheral blood mononuclear cells and synthesizing cDNA.

Results

Patients with SLE showed significant increases in the serum level and gene expression of Mina53 compared to healthy subjects (P<0.001). Furthermore, serum level and gene expression of Mina53 showed significant effects on SLE disease and its severity (P<0.01). There was the highest sensitivity and maximum specificity in the cut-off point of Mina53 serum level equal to 125.4 (area under the curve (AUC)=0.951) and Mina53 expression level equal to 8.5 (AUC=0.88) for SLE diagnosis. The cut-off point of Mina53 serum level equal to 139.5 (AUC=0.854) and the cut-off point of Mina53 expression level equal to 8.5 (AUC=0.788) had the highest sensitivity and maximum specificity determining severe forms of SLE.

Discussion

Our results showed that the changes in serum and expression levels of Mina53 have significant effects on SLE disease and its severity. These levels may be considered as diagnostic and predictive markers for SLE.