bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
SEPTIC ORTHO-PLASTIC RECONSTRUCTION SURGERY: OUTCOMES FROM A SIX-YEAR COLLABORATIVE STUDY
Authors: Lentini Audrey , Djoko Joseph , Putineanu Dan , Tribak Karim , Coyette Maude , Yombi Jean-Cyr , Cornu Olivier
Published: November 2024

Aim

Bone infections often manifest with soft tissue complications such as severe scarring, fistulas, or ulcerations. Ideally, their management involves thorough debridement of infected bone and associated soft tissues, along with achieving stable bone structure, substantial tissue coverage, and long-term antibiotic therapy. The formation of a multidisciplinary team comprising orthopedic surgeons, plastic surgeons, and infectious disease specialists is essential in addressing the most complex cases.

Method

We conducted a retrospective study during six years (2018-2023) at our university center. Focusing on the most challenging cases, we included patients with bone infections in the leg and/or foot requiring free flap reconstruction. Each patient underwent simultaneous bone debridement and reconstruction by the orthopedic team, alongside soft tissue debridement and free flap reconstruction by the plastic surgery team. Targeted antibiotic therapy for either 6 weeks (acute) or 12 weeks (chronic osteitis) was initiated based on intraoperative cultures. Additional procedures such as allografts, arthrodesis, or autografts were performed if necessary. We analyzed the rates of bone union, infection resolution, and limb preservation.

Results

Forty-five patients were enrolled. Twenty-four patients (53.3%) had urgent indications (e.g., open infected fractures, osteitis, acute osteoarthritis, or wound dehiscence), while 21 (46.7%) underwent elective surgery (e.g., septic pseudarthrosis or chronic osteitis). Two patients underwent amputation due to flap failure (4.4%), and one patient was lost to follow-up. Follow-up of the remaining 42 patients averaged 28 months (range: 6–60 months). During this period, 35 patients (83.4%) experienced no recurrence of infection. Similarly, 35 patients (83.4%) achieved bone union. Overall, the rate of lower limb preservation was 93.3%.

Conclusions

Managing bone infection coupled with soft tissue defects brings significant challenges. Although the majority of patients treated here belong to a complex framework based on the BACH classification, the outcomes achieved here appear to align with those of the simpler cases, thanks to optimal care with a dedicated septic ortho-plastic team. Our study demonstrates a notable success rate in treating infection, achieving bone consolidation, and preserving lower limb function.
VANCOMYCIN ELUTION KINETICS FROM ANTIBIOTIC AUGMENTED ALLOGRAFT AND RESORBABLE SYNTHETIC BONE FILLER SUPERIOR TO ANTIBIOTIC AUGMENTED BONE CEMENT: AN IN VITRO STUDY OVER 42 DAYS
Authors: Glehr Mathias , Smolle Maria , Murtezai Hana , Amerstorfer Florian , Hörlesberger Nina , Leitner Lukas , Klim Sebastian , Hauer Georg , Leithner Andreas
Published: November 2024

Background

The aim of the present experimental study was to analyse vancomycin elution kinetics of nine bone fillers used in orthopaedic and trauma surgery over 42 consecutive days.

Methods

Two allograft bone chips (carriers 1 and 2), a calcium-sulfate matrix (carrier 3), a hydroxyapatite/calcium-sulphate composite (carrier 4), four bone cements (carriers 5-8) and a pure tricalcium phosphate matrix (carrier 9), either already contained vancomycin, or were mixed with it following manufacturer's recommendations. Over 42 days, half of elution medium was substituted by the same amount of PBS at 9 distinct time points. Vancomycin concentration in obtained samples were measured with a kinetic microparticle immunoassay, and masses consecutively calculated. To enhance comparability between carriers analysed, vancomycin mass released related to overall mass within each probe was determined. Notably, elution kinetics of carriers 1 to 4 have been published previously.

Results

All carriers initially released high vancomycin masses, followed by constant reduction later into the experiment. Mean initial vancomycin masses released after 4 hours were highest for carriers 1 (337.7 ± 76.2 mg), 9 (68.4 ± 4.9 mg), and 2 (49.0 ± 54.6 mg). From prefinal (35 days) to last measurement (42 days) carriers 2 (8.6 ± 4.8 mg), 1 (2.4 ± 1.0 mg), and 5 (0.1 ± 0.1 mg) had released highest vancomycin masses. Notably, all five bone cements tested only released a small percental amount of their total mass up to the last measurement (42 days; 2.1% – 9.3%), whilst allografts and resorbable synthetic bone fillers discarded high percental values (22.5% – 79.2%).

Conclusions

Elution kinetics differ between 9 antibiotic-loaded bone fillers, with high vancomycin masses released by allografts and resorbable bone fillers over time. Transferred to clinical practice, these may be favoured over bone cements in case prolonged and high antibiotic release is warranted rather than mechanical stability.
Electric Vehicle Market: A New Arena for Cooperation between China and Gulf Cooperation Council States
Authors: Chaziza Mordechai
Published: November 2024

Abstract: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are experiencing a growing interest in electric vehicles (EVs) due to the region's focus on sustainable development and reducing carbon emissions. Although the GCC EV market is relatively small compared to other global markets, sales are expected to increase in the coming years. Thus, the EVs market presents an opportunity for the People's Republic of China (PRC) and GCC states to enhance their cooperation and achieve their common goal of promoting sustainable transportation, with potential for further collaboration in areas such as technology transfer, joint ventures, and infrastructure development. Chinese car manufacturers have penetrated the GCC market by offering competitive prices, innovative technology, and strong after-sales support. Additionally, their experience in the EV market has allowed them to produce high-quality vehicles that meet the needs of consumers in the region.
Living with the Global Hegemon: How the Chinese Public Views the United States
Authors: Zhai Yida
Published: November 2024

Abstract: As part of a scholarly endeavor to explore micro-foundations of international relations (IR), amid the changing relations between China and the United States, this study examines the Chinese public's view of the United States using three-wave nationally representative survey data from 2011 to 2019. I established a theoretical framework to find out the cognitive, evaluative, and affective dimensions of the public view of a foreign country. The results indicate a lower perception of US influence in Asia and a higher perception of the negative impact of the United States on China. The view of the United States as a model country has also declined among the Chinese public. Mass media and nationalist orientations are associated with this unfavorable evaluation of the United States and an underestimation of its influence. However, internet use, international orientations, and the liberal democracy of the United States are associated with more positive views. China's engagement with the world and the Chinese authorities' manipulation of political socialization are two competing forces shaping the Chinese public's view of the United States.
Why Change Prevails over Continuity? Critical Junctures, Motivations, Cognitions, and Temporals in Japanese Security Policy Tradition
Authors: Jo Sam-Sang
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This article seeks to unearth why change in Japanese security policy tradition prevails over continuity. Japan's recent change, evident in security objectives, military capabilities, defense expenditure, and institutional and legal transformations, connotes a departure from the original principles of the peace constitution and Japan's defense-oriented policies, transforming Japan from a "peace nation" to a "normal power." Moreover, Japanese political elites have willingly tried to exploit the opportunity structure to change Japanese security policy. I argue that the multivariate approach, incorporating structural, motivational, cognitive, and temporal dimensions, can serve as a 'tool kit' to understand this change in Japanese pacifist tradition and elites' willingness to seize the opportunity structure.
Patients' Views on Psychiatry, Coercion, and Social Class
Authors: Düring Signe , Jensen Sarah Kirkegaard , Jensen Line Keller , Nielsen Klaus
Published: November 2024

summary: Based on 180 censored letters and two pamphlets written by psychiatric patients committed to Jydske Asyl (Asylum of Jutland) in Risskov, Denmark, between 1895 and 1920, the authors give an account of how the patients experienced their stay at the newly established mental hospital in Risskov. In the first part of the article, the authors outline central themes. The letters and pamphlets describe how a large part of the treatment at the mental hospitals involved a significant amount of coercion in various forms. In the second part of the article, they outline the mental hospital's historical context to understand the institutional context in which the patients wrote their descriptions of everyday life. The authors focus on the ideas behind the treatments the patients experienced, which involved the ideals the psychiatrists formulated when Jydske Asyl was constructed and the reality of everyday life at the mental hospital.
"Better Babies, Better Mothers, Better City": Eugenic Maternalism, the Babies Welfare Association, and the Urban Better Baby Contest
Authors: Marsella Jamie
Published: November 2024

summary: This paper offers the term "eugenic maternalism" to conceptualize how eugenic thought and practice was disseminated through Progressive Era materialist reform work. Focusing on the Better Babies Contests hosted by the New York City Babies Welfare Association from 1913 to 1916, I argue that the BWA Better Babies Contest provides an opportunity to broaden our understanding of the ways eugenic logic permeated maternalist discussions of child welfare. The contests incentivized mothers and children to participate in educational programming at local community centers, enlisting families in the project of assimilation. Within these spaces, eugenics operated as a reciprocal process of environmental reform, negotiated between reformers and immigrant women. Both participants and organizers acted within a eugenic framework in which their ability to control the environment would determine their future hereditary potential and capacity for citizenship.
Intimate Technologies of Family Making: Birth Control Politics in Cold War Turkey
Authors: Yilmaz Seçil
Published: November 2024

summary: In April 1965, the Turkish Parliament passed the law legalizing birth control, including the pills and the use of intrauterine devices. This article examines the beginnings and expansion of family planning in Turkey in the 1960s by tracing the encounters of American experts, Turkish physicians along with bureaucrats, and thousands of urban squatter dwelling and rural women and men. Different from the previous historical accounts framing family planning as an insular and state-driven modernization project, it provides a transnational history of family planning in Turkey by unearthing intimate links between the discourses of development and histories of family, sexuality, and reproduction. By using Population Council documents, Turkish official papers, Parliament minutes, visual materials, and national and feminist press accounts, this article demonstrates that family planning practices with new technologies of contraceptives constituted often-neglected but indispensable components of infrastructure in the formation of technologies of governance in Turkey in Cold War context.
Parmenidean Resonances in Aeschylus’ Hymn to Zeus
Authors: Reinhardt Isabella
Published: November 2024

ABSTRACT: This article examines Parmenidean resonances in the Hymn to Zeus of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon . The works exhibit four distinct similarities: the image of the road of thought, the blending of abstract and physical imagery, the changelessness of the object of knowledge in time, and a focus on correct language. These resonances endow Zeus with properties similar to those of Parmenides’ what-is, and illuminate the chorus’ epistemological uncertainty. Analysis of these references reveals an Aeschylus capable of adapting the language of contemporary presocratic thought. Aeschylus adopts Parmenidean metaphysical language and uses it to illustrate an ethical problem: the nature of Zeus and his influence on the mortal world.
Violence Against Women of the Roman Imperial Household: Examples of Gender-Based Violence?
Authors: Gómez Helena López
Published: November 2024

ABSTRACT: Acts of violence against women were not uncommon in the Roman world. Even matrons from the elite, such as imperial women, could be subject to attacks by men. The aim of this paper is to offer an approach to violence against women in classical antiquity, to address whether that violence can be described as gender-based, and, ultimately, to analyze cases of violence against imperial women to understand their common traits with the intention of determining whether those cases of violence were related to gender stereotypes.
A Daydreamer’s Antiquity: The Weird Classical World of Edward Lucas White
Authors: Daugherty Gregory N.
Published: November 2024

ABSTRACT: Edward Lucas White (1866–1934) taught Latin in private schools in Baltimore MD, published in Classical Weekly , earned a BA from Johns Hopkins but abandoned a PhD program due to ill health. He is known to many classicists for the historical novels The Unwilling Vestal , Andivius Hedulio and Helen . Today, White is the focus of intense admiration for his works of fantasy and horror, now part of the genre of Weird Fiction, especially “Lukundoo” and “The House of the Nightmare.” Thus far this resurgent admiration has not extended to his equally deserving historical fiction or poetry.
Black Internationalism in the Age of Emancipation
Authors: Byrd Brandon R.
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This introductory essay offers a historical and historiographical framework for this special issue. Assessing parallel trends in the fields of US and African American History, it contends that scholars can and should seek out the nexus of the former’s “transnational turn” and what Robin D. G. Kelley has called the “global vision” of the latter. It explains how the articles of this special issue contribute to that goal through their collective assessment of Black internationalism in the Age of Emancipation, a period that began with the Atlantic revolutions of the late-eighteenth century, included the US Civil War and Reconstruction eras, and culminated at the end of the nineteenth century with the final abolitions of American slavery and the emergence of new European and US imperialisms.
“I Dont Know what will be my Lot”: Transnational Migration and Unfree Labor in Early America
Authors: Dang Bianca
Published: November 2024

Abstract: Focused on migration between Hispaniola and Pennsylvania from the 1790s to the 1820s, this article demonstrates how the anti-Black logics of slavery continued to subjugate Black laborers during the era of emancipation. It contends that Black unfreedom was reconstituted both alongside and, at times, as a result of Pennsylvania’s 1780 Gradual Abolition Act. This essay documents how Black migrants, especially children and youths, were affected by the racialized indentured labor regime stimulated by the act. This article employs a transnational analysis of Pennsylvania’s gradual abolition policies to highlight how foreign enslavers could affect the emancipatory reach of domestic legislation.
The International Dimension of Freedom: Revisiting Black Grassroots Activism during US Reconstruction
Authors: Payne Samantha
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This essay argues that many African Americans considered the extension of abolition-democracy throughout the Caribbean to be both a moral imperative and an essential correlate of meaningful domestic freedom. During Reconstruction, they were able to take advantage of revolutionary circumstances to press their claims. They sought to leverage their newfound political power to direct US foreign policy—including the US military—to extend abolition-democracy throughout the Caribbean. Their activism, focused on securing independence for the Cuban Republic, took place through a set of institutions and practices including the Union League, petition drives, legislative proposals, mass assemblies, and political conventions. This grassroots movement collapsed only in the face of sustained opposition from racist Republican elites. This defeat paved the way for the emergence of a new strain of African American internationalism that accommodated and occasionally endorsed US imperialism—although a widespread opposition to US overseas empire endured.
In the Shadow of Haiti: US Black Internationalism in the Dominican Republic, 1860–1904
Authors: Davidson Christina C.
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This article examines nineteenth-century African Americans’ perspectives of the Dominican Republic in comparison to Haiti. As independent Black republics in the US purview, Hispaniola’s two nations seemed fit for African American emigration, Black Protestant evangelization, and Black US diplomatic representation. Yet, while historians have examined African Americans’ ideas about Haiti, scholarly attention on the Dominican Republic has been limited to Frederick Douglass’s diplomatic roles in 1871 and 1889–91. Moving beyond Douglass, this article analyzes the viewpoints of other Black Americans who wrote about the Dominican Republic from the 1860s to 1904. It especially analyzes the perspectives and actions of US Black foreign service officers appointed to Santo Domingo beginning in 1882. By doing so, this article shows that African Americans sometimes subsumed Dominican affairs under Haiti and at other times used the Dominican Republic as a foil to Haiti, marking the Dominican Republic’s distinct significance to Reconstruction-era US Black internationalism.
“Shall I Go?”: Black Colonization in the Pacific, 1840–1914
Authors: Mount Guy Emerson
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This article explores the development of mass Black migration plans to Hawai‘i and the Philippines both before and after emancipation. Through a transnational archival collection, it analyzes the political, intellectual, social, and material conditions that Black activists and white statecrafters faced in their attempts to secure state funding for Black migration within an ever-expanding US empire. From Northern white abolitionist cotton planters in Hawai‘i to radical Black socialists employed by the US state in the Philippines, the complexities of Black colonization in the Pacific offer a fresh look at a Civil War Era and a Black internationalism largely fixated on the Atlantic World. In the end, this article argues that colonization in the Black Pacific reveals a deep and abiding dialectic between US slavery and its overseas empire—a relationship too often obscured by the existing historiography.
A Critique of Hume’s Critique of Religion in the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion
Authors: Sebell Dustin
Published: November 2024

Abstract: Hume doubted that the immediate experience of order, goodness, or beauty in the world, on which religion depends—“the feeling of design,” as J. C. A. Gaskin put it—is anything other than the product of an overactive imagination. But what were his reasons for doing so? And were they sufficient? Since the Dialogues are the locus classicus of Hume’s critique of religion, I propose to read them carefully, if critically, with both of these questions in mind. I conclude that Hume’s critique of religion, while powerful in its way, does not ultimately succeed.
A Virtuous Way of Doing Philosophy: The Moderation of Curiosity and Hume’s Philosophical Method in A Treatise of Human Nature
Authors: Vásquez Villavicencio Manuel
Published: November 2024

Abstract: In A Treatise of Human Nature , Hume proposes a new philosophical method. This method results from integrating an empirically founded skepticism with an innovative study of the epistemic role of emotions. This combination of skepticism, empiricism, and moral psychology aims to establish a virtuous way of doing philosophy based on the regulation of our epistemic emotions. In this paper, I present the operating principles of this virtuous way of doing philosophy. The paper has three parts. I firstly claim that four principles compose Hume’s philosophical methodology. I contend that the moderation of curiosity plays the central role among them. Secondly, I claim that that is the case because of the pernicious effects resulting when this passion becomes excessive and misplaced. Finally, I show the role of curiosity’s moderation in the Conclusion of Book 1 of the Treatise , to substantiate the claim that the crisis Hume there depicts illustrates his virtuous way of doing philosophy.
Hume on the Rational and Irrational Origins of Religion
Authors: Hartl Péter
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This paper examines Hume’s views on the origin of religion, the priority of polytheism, and the difference between popular religion and philosophical theism in The Natural History of Religion (NHR). Firstly, the paper presents Hume’s account of the origin of religion as a criticism of Christianity. For Hume, both polytheism and popular, institutional monotheism have the same origin: ignorance about natural causes and laws, an unreliable tendency to anthropomorphize, irrational hope, and fear about uncertain future events. Secondly, this paper criticizes two rival interpretative strategies: the psychological reading (proposed by, among others, Emily Kelahan, Keith E. Yandell, and Richard Serjeantson) and the destabilizing reading (defended by Peter Kail). Both approaches interpret Hume’s positive remarks on philosophical theism and his contrast of popular with philosophical religion as either insincere or, at best, irrelevant and inconsequential to the understanding of his position. By contrast, this paper defends a positive reading according to which: (1) Hume’s positive remarks on philosophical theism should be taken in an epistemic sense, which implies the incompatibility of philosophical theism with popular religion (including Christianity); (2) his explanation of the origin of religion explains the origin of superstition only, and thus does not apply to philosophical theism. Although both theses are compatible with an agnostic reading of Hume’s position on theism, the textual and contextual evidence supports the conclusion that, in NHR, Hume took philosophical theism to be a reasonable position based on an inference from the evidence of design.
An Article “Somewhat Abusive”: William Warburton and the First Review of Hume’s Treatise
Authors: Coventry Angela , Mazza Emilio , Mori Gianluca
Published: November 2024

Abstract: In this paper, we examine the authorship of the first review of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), published anonymously in the History of the Works of the Learned in late 1739. We believe that William Warburton is the author of the review, as attested by various clues, partly dependent on the testimony of the editor of the History of the Works of the Learned , Jacob Robinson. Robinson states in 1742 that the author of Hume’s review is the same as the one who sent him the review of Morgan’s Physico-Theology , and he describes this author in words similar to those he had already used to describe another anonymous writing by Warburton. Many other pieces of evidence, philosophical, phraseological, literary, and stylistic, amply support the attribution.
Aesthetic Taste and Moral Sentiment in Hume and Mengzi
Authors: Choi Dobin
Published: November 2024

Abstract: I examine Hume’s and Mengzi’s reliance on aesthetic and moral taste in their sentiment-based theories of virtue. Their views on taste seem to conflict. In his essay “Of the Standard of Taste,” Hume observes that people’s taste sentiments appear to vary, but he seeks a standard that can reconcile them. In contrast, relying on the uniformity of aesthetic taste, Mengzi argues that humans, by nature, share a universal taste toward morality. I argue that the apparent contrast in the two philosophers’ views originates from their attending to different aspects of taste and sentiments for their different theoretical goals. For an empirical account of aesthetic evaluation, Hume observes the ordinary phenomena of taste, people’s varied particular sentiments; he then investigates their initial causes in the mind to establish a reliable standard. Mengzi takes cases of uniform taste to imply the same mental cause of moral taste, which is the cornerstone of people’s moral self-cultivation. Relying on the sentiments for moral distinction and cultivation, both Hume and Mengzi reach similar conclusions: they recognize a practical standard, rather than empirical rules, in those who have achieved excellence in their aesthetic and moral taste, and suggest that the ultimate standard of taste is the natural constitution of the human mind.
From Mind Only to Buddha Only: Shakya Chokden's Interpretation of Tathāgatagarbha in Tantric Philosophy and Practice
Authors: Komarovski Yaroslav
Published: November 2024

Abstract: Shakya Chokden's approach consists of reducing all phenomena to mind and its appearances, and then negating dualistic minds as illusory and nonexistent and establishing the non-dual jñāna transcending them as the only phenomenon existent in reality—the primordial tathāgatagarbha with all buddha-qualities complete. For him, this interpretation of tathāgatagarbha is indispensable for tantric contemplative practice and for explaining how and why that practice works. The initial identification of tathāgatagarbha as the primordially existent jñāna endowed with buddhaqualities serves as the foundation for conceptually envisioning deities of the ultimate body-maṇḍala and eventually, when enough clarity is achieved, directly perceiving them by jñāna itself. Further cultivation of that self-cognizing jñāna displaying Cakrasaṃvara maṇḍala takes the practitioner through the stages of the tantric path to the eventual achievement of buddhahood qualified by the full manifestation and vision of buddha-qualities from within and by jñāna .
Weaving Maṇḍala s with Jñāna : Shakya Chokden's Yogācāra-based Approach to the Practice of Guhyasamāja Tantra
Authors: Komarovski Yaroslav
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This paper explores Shakya Chokden's approach to the philosophical dimensions of the tantric path. In particular, it explores how his philosophical ideas inform his interpretation of several stages of the Guhyasamāja practice with references to the generation stage ( bskyed rim ) and the completion stage ( rdzogs rim ). Shakya Chokden's interpretive approach involves four interrelated points: all ultimate and relative phenomena are mind-made; tantric practice is based on the other-emptiness view of reality as jñāna ; conceptuality envisioning tantric maṇḍalas is destroyed by—not transformed into—the non-conceptual jñāna manifesting them; and visions of maṇḍalas cultivated on the tantric path eventually arise from and appear to jñāna itself. The paper addresses all four, with the focus on the last claim, which is the most complicated feature of Shakya Chokden's approach.
Tantric Initiation and the Epistemic Role of the Glimpse
Authors: Tomlinson Davey K.
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This paper explores the philosophical stakes of eighth–twelfth-century Sanskrit debates about tantric initiation ( abhiṣeka ). I propose that three models of tantric initiation emerged in this period, in part in response to the Dharmakīrtian model of the gradual development of yogic perception. According to one, the true glimpse view, initiation gives a glimpse of precisely the experience of buddhahood, which is then made firm in post-initiatory practice. According to another, the exemplary glimpse view, the initiatory glimpse is only exemplary of what buddhahood is like. Post-initiatory practice is necessary to transform the practitioner's attitude toward that glimpse, which eventually results in an experience of buddhahood itself. Finally, others advanced a no glimpse view: only the experience of reality itself in post-initiatory practice can result in an experience of buddhahood. I explore these three views through a close engagement with some representative texts from the period.
Whiteness, Cosmopolitanism, and the Clootsian Body Politic in The Confidence-Man
Authors: Brown Peter W.
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This essay locates Melville's cosmopolitan aesthetics in his recurring references to the historical personage of Anacharsis Cloots—a figure from the French Revolution whose political theater on behalf of worldwide equality ended in his execution. Assembling representatives of different races and nations, Melville's narrators create picturesque tableaus that evoke Cloots's idealistic vision of cosmopolitics without merely affirming his utopian optimism. Rather, Melville's work reveals the problem of single voices who appoint themselves as spokesmen for a cosmopolitan demos . His characters repeatedly attempt to masquerade their whiteness as if it were able to encompass—or simply be—an interracial assembly of mankind. In The Confidence-Man , Melville grafts the picturesque spectacle of Clootsian assembly onto the character of the cosmopolitan, whose embodiment of interracial collectivity, I argue, amounts to whiteness in disguise. The cosmopolitan's masquerade attempts to collapse political vision and action, troubling the possibility that we can harness the "energies" of Melville's most elaborate Cloots deputation without also understanding the racialized and erotic investments that the cosmopolitan has in his own politics. I end with a brief consideration of the African sailor from Billy Budd , whose position dramatizes the Clootsian vision at its "ragged edges" between utopia and what Melville refers to as "more reality, than real life itself can show."
The "Mystical Cosmetic": White Light and the Ideology of Energy in Moby-Dick
Authors: Downes Paul
Published: November 2024

Abstract: In his chapter on "The Whiteness of the Whale," Ishmael suggests that he joined Ahab's vendetta against Moby Dick in response to a kind of existential panic attack brought on by a series of associated thoughts having to do with white light. Whiteness, Ishmael concludes, is "the mystical cosmetic" which "for ever remains white or colorless in itself," and, as such, white light threatens to dissolve all color and hence all visible difference in the universe. While noting some of the ways in which light has served as a privileged metaphor for reason or, in Ishmael's hands, as an agent of deception (effecting various tricks of the light), this paper also thinks about light in the context of the developing nineteenth-century discourse on energy. Finally, I propose that Ishmael's meditation on whiteness both registers and disavows light as the commodified product of the whale hunting industry.
"If more than once": Tyranny and "Timoleon"
Authors: Duquette Elizabeth
Published: November 2024

Abstract: The title poem of Timoleon returns to a theme Herman Melville developed across his long career—the regular emergence of tyranny. Drawing on Walter Benjamin's juxtaposition of the tyrant and the martyr in The Origin of German Tragic Drama , this article shows that Melville's incisive analysis of a key challenge democracy always faces—the possibility that tyranny will prevail—and links the poem to another late work, Billy Budd . Melville's wariness about the ability to assert knowledge of the common good links these works.
Lilith, a Monster Feminist Icon: Four Genealogies of a Divine Jewish Demon
Authors: Clay Simon
Published: November 2024

Abstract: Lilith has radically changed since she first appeared in ancient Mesopotamia and late antique Babylonia. Medieval Kabbalists situated her as the mother of demons and a murderous succubus, she was a muse to nineteenth century European poets and artists, and radical feminists in the 1970s reclaimed Lilith as the embodiment of female emancipation. This article critically examines four cross-cultural manifestations of Lilith, including Lilith as the “hand of Inanna,” Eve’s lesbian lover, genetrix and protector of children, and a trans divinity, and expands upon Creed’s theory of the “monstrous-feminine” to present a unique type of feminism that has emerged from Lilith’s cultural history: monster feminism. This brand of feminism is a praxis that arises from within groups marginalized by patriarchal gender roles that mobilize the monstrous as a way of resisting structural violence. These genealogies also show the way her evolution over time has been a dynamic and iterative process, rendering her a constellation of ideas rather than a single coherent figure.
Resisting the Invader: Witchcraft in World War II
Authors: Phillips Julia
Published: November 2024

Abstract: There is a popular belief that in the early days of World War II, a coven of witches gathered in the New Forest in southern England to conduct a ritual designed to repel the threat of a German invasion. Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner, both of whom have demonstrated a willingness to fabricate or manipulate incidents or historical elements in their efforts to promote witchcraft, made the first public reference to the ritual in 1952. This article examines the evidence for the ritual within the context of modern Pagan Witchcraft and World War II and analyzes the evolution of the narrative from its first public appearance to the present day. The source material reviewed is primarily newspapers, magazines, and books, published during the period 1952 to 2022. The analysis of these sources provides a well-documented account of the development of the story and invites speculation about whether a witchcraft ritual at Lammas 1940 genuinely took place, or if it was simply an imaginative creation that gained traction during the years following the War.
A Case of Clerical Magic Involving Treasure Hunting from 1880: An English Translation from the Acta Sanctae Sedis
Authors: Douglas Robin
Published: November 2024

Abstract: The old volumes of the Acta Sanctae Sedis , the official journal of the Holy See, contain a largely unexplored trove of riches for historians of religions and ideas to explore. This article unearths from this source a report from 1880 on an episode of magical treasure hunting involving a priest. The episode very probably took place in Italy, likely in Sardinia. The report is interesting in that it attests to the persistence of this form of magic in an unusually late period: the latter part of the nineteenth century. The case serves to increase our stock of evidence regarding the Euro-American cultural practice of magical treasure hunting, as well as shedding significant light on a number of aspects of life in the community in which it arose.
A Palynological Record of Sarracenia and Fire from a Pine Savanna Bog: Buttercup Flats, Mississippi
Authors: Reese Carl , Greene Helen , Garretson Kathryn , Heitmuller Franklin
Published: November 2024

Pine savanna bogs are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the Gulf Coastal Plain of
the southeastern US. This fire-dependent landscape, sometimes dominated by the genus Sarracenia
(pitcher plants), has become threatened over the last century due to fire suppression and other land
management practices. Some studies have estimated a reduction of these pitcher plant bogs in the
region by as much as 97%. Though the exact nature of the relationship between fire and pitcher plants
has long been debated, there is a well-established, positive correlation between the two. Despite
numerous studies on the modern ecology of pitcher plant bogs, no known studies exist that examine
their paleoenvironmental history. Here we present palynological evidence from a core recovered in
Buttercup Flats, a U.S Forest Service pitcher plant restoration site in southern Mississippi. Results
indicate a significant, positive relationship between the presence of Sarracenia pollen in the core and
charcoal concentrations in the samples. These findings also help to establish a palynological baseline
for future Sarracenia studies and provide paleoecological evidence of the widely recognized positive
relationship between pitcher plants and fire on the landscape.
The Political Aesthetics of Agricultural Protest: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives
Authors: Fluhrer Sandra
Published: November 2024

Abstract: This introduction takes recent agricultural protests and Francisco Goya’s famous painting of a revolting peasant, No harás nada con clamar (“You won’t get anywhere by shouting,” c. 1816–1820), as a starting point to discuss pivotal moments in the history of agricultural protest and reflect on recurrent aesthetic tendencies of artistic manifestations of revolt. Its main points of focus are the various global protest cultures of the present in their socio-political, ecological, economic, and aesthetic contexts, including their differences and internal ambivalences. The introduction traces different and recurring aspects of the political imaginary of agriculture from the early-modern peasant wars and 19th-century agricultural realism to the (re-)medialized images and gestures of the 20th century and the present. It concludes with an overview of what is at stake in the contributions of this special issue.
Subversive Threat or Utopian Revolution? Negotiating Spanish Peasant Uprisings around 1900 through Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s La bodega (1905)
Authors: Hiergeist Teresa
Published: November 2024

Abstract: In 19th-century Spain, the demands of the working-class movement were not limited to factory workers in the industrialized centers. The peons too, laboring under miserable conditions on the large estates in southern Spain, began to develop a class consciousness and claim political visibility and better working conditions. In many cases, they resorted to drastic measures due to their landlords’ adversarial attitude: the armed plunder of crops, devastation of fields, and death threats against their exploiters. This article analyzes the representation of these peasant uprisings in factual and fictional artifacts of the second half of the 19th century, understanding them as indices of a conflicted negotiation of conviviality at the time. Using Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s 1905 novel La bodega as example, it considers bourgeois nightmare scenarios of a complot of uncivilized, menacing masses, as well as anarchist and socialist visions of a classless society created by direct action.
Marie Letizia de Rute et l’Exposition Universelle de Paris de 1889: Espace, altérité et écriture féminine
Authors: Schmitz Catherine
Published: November 2024

Abstract: En 1889, la poète, romancière, dramaturge, traductrice, journaliste et éditrice Letizia de Rute, précédemment connue sous les noms de Princesse Marie Laetizia Studholmine Wyse-Bonaparte, Madame de Solms, Madame Rattazzi, et aussi sous le nom de Baron Stock, éditeur et fondateur officiel de La nouvelle revue internationale (1888–1908), fréquente pendant six mois l’Exposition universelle qui se tient à Paris. Entre mai et novembre 1889, Rute publiera sous plusieurs pseudonymes dans cette revue, une série de dix-neuf articles bimensuels intitulés « Lettres sur l’Exposition » et « À vol d’oiseau ». À travers ces textes se révèle le regard d’une femme qui perçoit et représente des cultures et des identités multiples au sein d’un espace public témoignant de changements liés à l’expansion coloniale sous la IIIe République française. Sans réfuter la responsabilité des femmes européennes dans le processus impérial, cette analyse porte ainsi sur trois aspects des écrits de Rute : son fort désir d’aller à la rencontre de « l’autre », son regard ambigu vis-à-vis des étrangers et leurs pratiques culturelles – c’est-à-dire comment elle a soutenu et s’est opposée à des idées impérialistes –, et enfin la façon dont son écriture polyphonique véhiculée par de multiples pseudonymes lui permet d’émerger en tant que femme journaliste et de contribuer à la critique naissante des manifestations culturelles de cette fin de siècle.
Olympe de Gouges, en toute conscience
Authors: Viguier Audrey
Published: November 2024

Abstract: Cet article examine la quête existentielle d’Olympe de Gouges, entre liberté individuelle et liberté universelle. Jean-Paul Sartre s’était déjà intéressé à la Révolution française, et notamment au groupe révolutionnaire qui a pu se former dès la Prise de la Bastille et le Serment du Jeu de Paume. Entre son combat pour l’égalité hommes/femmes et l’écriture politique, où se situe donc Olympe de Gouges au sein du groupe révolutionnaire ? Nous verrons que son projet libérateur la conduira à la périphérie du projet révolutionnaire, faisant d’elle une contrerévolutionnaire, en conscience .
Rencontre avec Zineb Mekouar : La poule et son cumin !
Authors: Edwards Carole
Published: November 2024

Abstract: Dans cet entretien, la romancière franco-marocaine primée, Zineb Mekouar, nous éclaire sur sa posture d’écrivaine contemporaine. Elle partage ses affinités et inspirations littéraires afin que l’on saisisse pleinement sa venue à l’écriture. Engagée dans les changements qui s’opèrent actuellement au Maroc, elle se positionne sur les droits de la femme et la liberté d’expression. Son roman La poule et son cumin ! se pose en propédeutique à la culture et la société marocaine qu’elle tisse dans des thèmes universels et des personnages profondément humains.
Enhanced in-glass nonlinear optical modulation by coupling thin ENZ film with a femtosecond laser-written skimming waveguide
Authors: Wang Haochen , Yang Yi , Zhong Lijing , Wang Yuying , Han Xuhu , Lau Kuenyao , Liu Xiaofeng , Chen Zhi , Qiu Jianrong
Published: November 2024

Glass-based photonic and electronic chips are attractive due to the high transparency, strong mechanical strength and biocompatibility of such substrates, or where low-loss connections to fiber-optic networks are required. However, efficient nonlinear optical modulation is difficult to achieve in ordinary silicate glass substrates, due to their inherent small optical nonlinearity in the broadband transparency window. In this paper, by integrating low-loss skimming waveguides using femtosecond laser pulses, we report a general strategy to significantly enhance the nonlinear response of glass photonic circuits based on the evanescent-coupling of an epsilon-near-zero (ENZ) thin film with the skimming waveguides. The fabricated device exhibits flexible tuning of absorptive optical nonlinearity between saturable absorption and reverse saturable absorption. This work provides what we believe to be a new method for optical switches and modulators that could offer potential solutions for 3D high-density photonic integration with dynamic programmability.
Competition for resources can reshape the evolutionary properties of spatial structure
Authors: Devadhasan Anush , Kolodny Oren , Carja Oana
Published: November 2024

Many evolving ecosystems have spatial structures that can be conceptualized as networks, with nodes representing individuals or homogeneous subpopulations and links the patterns of spread between them. Prior models of evolution on networks do not take ecological niche differences and eco-evolutionary interplay into account. Here, we combine a resource competition model with evolutionary graph theory to study how heterogeneous topological structure shapes evolutionary dynamics under global frequency-dependent ecological interactions. We find that the addition of ecological competition for resources can produce a reversal of roles between amplifier and suppressor networks for deleterious mutants entering the population. We show that this effect is a nonlinear function of ecological niche overlap and discuss intuition for the observed dynamics using simulations and analytical approximations. We use these theoretical results together with spatial representations from imaging data to show that, for ductal carcinoma, where tumor growth is highly spatially constrained, with cells confined to a tree-like network of ducts, the topological structure can lead to higher rates of deleterious mutant hitchhiking with metabolic driver mutations, compared to tumors characterized by different spatial topologies.
Factors associated with viral load re-suppression after enhanced adherence counseling among people living with HIV with an initial high viral load result in selected Nigerian states
Authors: Obasa Gbenga Benjamin , Ijaiya Mukhtar , Okwor Ejike , Dare Babafemi , Emerenini Franklin , Oladigbolu Remi , Anyanwu Prince , Akinjeji Adewale , Brickson Kate , Zech Jennifer , Ogundare Yemisi , Atuma Emmanuel , Strachan Molly , Fayorsey Ruby , Curran Kelly
Published: November 2024

The WHO recommends monitoring viral load (VL) to gauge ART efficacy among People Living with HIV (PLHIV). Low suppression rates persist in low- and middle-income countries due to poor adherence. Enhanced Adherence Counseling (EAC) aims to improve adherence and treatment outcomes. This study, part of the Reaching Impact Saturation and Epidemic Control (RISE) project in Nigeria, analyzes factors affecting viral re-suppression post-EAC. It aims to inform clinical decisions and improve PLHIV health outcomes in the country. This was a retrospective analysis of a de-identified client-level dataset of unsuppressed VL clients who were current on treatment at the end of June 2022 and subsequently enrolled in the EAC program. A log-binomial regression model was used to report crude and adjusted risk ratio with 95% Confidence Intervals (95% CI) and a p-value of 0.05 to determine the association between clinical characteristics and suppression of VL post-EAC in the RISE program (July 2021 to June 2022). A total of 1607 clients with initial high VL who completed EAC were included in this analysis out of which 1454 (91%) were virally suppressed. The median time to completion of EAC was 8 weeks and the median time for post EAC VL test was 8 weeks. Following EAC, PLHIV in the 10–19 years age band were 10% more likely to be re-suppressed (ARR: 1.10; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.19). In addition, there was a 50% reduced likelihood of viral re-suppression among PLHIV on second-line regimens compared to PLHIV on first-line regimens (ARR: 0.50; 95% CI 0.41 to 0.62). Findings show that Age and ART regimen were significant predictors of VLS. More targeted outreach of EAC amongst second-line regimens and ages 10 and above is necessary to ensure better VLS within these groups.