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Erotic Returns: Sleeping with the Ancestors in Contemporary Plays about Sexual Violence
No full textThis article analyzes two contemporary plays, Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play and Mary Kathryn Nagle’s Sovereignty, each of which connects twenty-first-century intimacy with sexual violence in the nineteenth-century United States. Both plays feature what I term “erotic returns”—physical and imaginative restorations of sites of historical trauma that hope to animate lost sensations. Erotic returns conjure intimacy with imagined ancestors, which produce in characters and audiences pain, pleasure, or a multivalent combination of the two. Slave Play depicts a Black protagonist, Kaneisha, returning to a cotton plantation like those she visited on childhood field trips, where she now participates in BDSM role-play based on histories of chattel slavery and negotiates her relationship to submissive sexuality. Sovereignty depicts a Cherokee protagonist, Sarah, returning to tribal land from which her family was displaced. There, she engages in a legal battle to confront sexual violence by non-Natives on Native land and, in the process, forms kinships that repairs rifts within Cherokee Nation. In Slave Play and Sovereignty, erotic returns encourage characters to heal with—not from—the past and confront felt dislocations caused by racial and sexual violence. My idea of an erotic return builds on Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic” and Soyicca Diggs Colbert, Douglas Jones, Jr., and Shane Vogel’s call for paradigms for race and performance beyond repetition. For Slave Play and Sovereignty’s Black, Indigenous, and white characters, an erotic return repurposes historical traumas as sites of potential pleasure and imagines communities woven together by common scars
Defective Mitochondrial Dynamics and Protein Degradation Pathways Underlie Cadmium-Induced Neurotoxicity and Cell Death in Huntington\u27s Disease Striatal Cells
No full textExposure to heavy metals, including cadmium (Cd), can induce neurotoxicity and cell death. Cd is abundant in the environment and accumulates in the striatum, the primary brain region selectively affected by Huntington\u27s disease (HD). We have previously reported that mutant huntingtin protein (mHTT) combined with chronic Cd exposure induces oxidative stress and promotes metal dyshomeostasis, resulting in cell death in a striatal cell model of HD. To understand the effect of acute Cd exposure on mitochondrial health and protein degradation pathways, we hypothesized that expression of mHTT coupled with acute Cd exposure would cooperatively alter mitochondrial bioenergetics and protein degradation mechanisms in striatal STHdh cells to reveal novel pathways that augment Cd cytotoxicity and HD pathogenicity. We report that mHTT cells are significantly more susceptible to acute Cd-induced cell death as early as 6 h after 40 mu M CdCl2 exposure compared with wild-type (WT). Confocal microscopy, biochemical assays, and immunoblotting analysis revealed that mHTT and acute Cd exposure synergistically impair mitochondrial bioenergetics by reducing mitochondrial potential and cellular ATP levels and down-regulating the essential pro-fusion proteins MFN1 and MFN2. These pathogenic effects triggered cell death. Furthermore, Cd exposure increases the expression of autophagic markers, such as p62, LC3, and ATG5, and reduces the activity of the ubiquitin-proteasome system to promote neurodegeneration in HD striatal cells. Overall, these results reveal a novel mechanism to further establish Cd as a pathogenic neuromodulator in striatal HD cells via Cd-triggered neurotoxicity and cell death mediated by an impairment in mitochondrial bioenergetics and autophagy with subsequent alteration in protein degradation pathways
State of Decay: A Theory of Fungal Organizing
No full textThe rapid progression of the global climate crisis has been concerning for many. To date, no movement has arisen that has been able to bring an end to the ecological devastation present in most, if not all, environments on Earth. The primary question this project addresses is, what would a successful ecological movement look like? This essay attempts to draw from the theories of social ecology and radical mycology to develop a theory of “fungal organizing.” The role of fungi as organizers of the global ecosystem sets them apart from other species in their ability to serve as a model for complex social organizing. Using decolonial methodology, this paper defines the structural and practical lessons fungi teach about ecological organizing. I examine four case studies to evaluate the efficacy and indivisibility of the fungal model. By evaluating the successes and failures of these social movements — Covid-19 reduction work in China, housing occupation in São Paulo, Brazil, abortion dual power organizing in the US, and ecological liberation struggles in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria — I provide evidence to the effectiveness of fungal organizing and the limitations of failing to follow the model in its entirety
Psalters and Penitence: Forgiveness and Religious Violence in the First Crusade
No full textDuring and following the First Crusade of 1095, Christian understandings of religious violence and forgiveness became closely intertwined. Pope Urban II’s Call to Crusade established a violent pilgrimage as a form of penitence, conflating forgiveness with religious violence. This coalescence shifted understandings of forgiveness as documented through early Crusader art. Looking specifically at Queen Melisende’s Psalter (c. 1131), a history of religious violence surrounding the Crusading Kingdom emerges, showing the intimate relationship between violence and forgiveness that dictated Christianity during this period. By examining the First Crusade and the Psalter, a new understanding of forgiveness and religious violence emerges. Through these two separate instances of Crusader understandings of forgiveness, I argue that there is lingering Crusader guilt surrounding the misappropriation of religious violence as put forth by Urban II, revealed through the Psalter’s portrayal of King David’s biblical journey through sin and violence towards servitude to God
Canceled but not Forgotten: An Examination of the E↵ects of Online Shaming on Music Streaming
No full textIn the past few years, the cancel culture phenomenon of publicly criticizing individuals or brands for their questionable actions has emerged and begun impacting the music industry. This phenomenon has been facilitated and intensified by the widespread use of social media platforms such as Twitter. As a result, customers, particularly music fans, have gained the power to voice their disapproval online. This paper investigates the short-term effects of online cancel culture on music streaming to identify if negative publicity boosts a musician’s career. Results indicate that cancel culture does not have a significant effect on a musician’s streams or popularity in the six months after cancellation. One of my models demonstrates a temporary boost in streams only within the first 30 days. Furthermore, the specific reason for cancellation does not appear to alter the stream trajectory. These findings have broader implications for online culture, extending beyond the music industry
Ophelia: A Prism (2023) Image 05
No full textOphelia: A PrismFebruary 2-5, 2023 Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theater, Oberlin College
By Mieko Gavia \u2711Directed by H. Harvey \u2711
More information about this productionhttps://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/images_ophelia/1004/thumbnail.jp
Ophelia: A Prism (2023) Image 23
No full textOphelia: A PrismFebruary 2-5, 2023 Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theater, Oberlin College
By Mieko Gavia \u2711Directed by H. Harvey \u2711
More information about this productionhttps://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/images_ophelia/1022/thumbnail.jp
Stonewallin\u27 (2023) Image 27
No full textStonewallin\u27April 13-16, 2023Irene and Alan Wurtzel Theater, Oberlin College
Written and directed by Kari Barclay
More information about this productionhttps://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/images_stonewallin/1026/thumbnail.jp
Perspectives on the Asian Baby Girl
No full textThe experiences of young Asian American women and their sense of identity are often insufficiently researched within Asian American Studies. In response to this challenge, this research explores the socio-historical development of the Asian Baby Girl (ABG) aesthetic, culture, and lifestyle. By conducting six in-depth interviews with young Asian Americans from coastal regions of the United States on their perceptions of the aesthetic, I found that young Asian Americans feel a range of different attitudes towards ABGs, ranging from dislike to indifference. Young Asian Americans have a loosely unified definition of ABGs as young Asian American women who attend raves, drink alcohol, smoke, have tattoos, and come from strict Asian households. Harmful stereotypes of Asian Americans and the “pick me” girl trope in contemporary popular culture are other factors that affected their characterizations of ABGs. Throughout my research, I also argue that the ABG aesthetic and culture originates from the imperial histories between the United States and Asia, and persists through the sexual socialization of young Asian American women, the influence of popular and consumer culture, and the impact of Asian female influencer representation in social media. While the ABG aesthetic and culture resist white ideals of beauty and harmful stereotypes of Asian women, many critique it for amplifying the visibility of East Asians and appropriating Black and Brown culture. Thus, diverse perspectives on ABGs make this research a significant starting point for further exploration into Asian American youth cultures
Ni-Catalyzed 1,1- and 1,3-Aminoboration of Unactivated Alkenes
No full textAlkene functionalization has evolved to become a resourceful approach to accessing more complex molecules, such as medicines. In particular, alkene borylamination reactions have been a valuable synthetic strategy in recent years due to the versatile C-N and C-B bonds afforded in the process. Although significant work has been done on 1,2-borylamination reactions, successful conditions for 1,1- and 1,3-borylamination of unactivated alkenes have not been reported. The present collaborative study introduces a Ni-catalyzed methodology for the 1,1-borylamination of disubstituted and mono-substituted alkenes and the 1,3-borylamination of cyclic alkenes. We explored the reaction mechanism of the latter using density functional theory (DFT) calculation, which unveiled the presence of a facile equilibrium between regioisomeric intermediates via sequential syn-��-hydride eliminations and re-insertion transition states (TSs). It also revealed the relevance of favorable non-covalent interactions between the ring’s substituents in the axial position for better stabilization. The calculations suggested that the reaction proceeds with close to barrierless oxidative addition, followed by facile reductive elimination. Together, these factors contribute to the favored regio- and stereoselectivity towards the major 1,3-borylamination product from cyclohexene, therefore supporting the experimental observations and results