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Habsburg Encounters With Native America: Familiar Strangers
No full textThe central European lands of the Habsburg monarchy have long shared an intertwined past with the Indigenous inhabitants of the Americas. This volume focuses on the process of encountering these peoples as a continual action across several centuries that has produced numerous and varied instances of cultural dialogues, perspectives, and understandings. Moreover, this central European element is something that has not been considered in its own right before now and has been overshadowed by the focus on a wider Germanic fascination for Indigenous cultures. Breaking away from this wider narrative allows us not only to recover a more distinct historical connection but also uncovers the particular dynamics of direct and indirect contact between Indigenous worlds and that of the Habsburg monarchy
Multilevel Selection In The Margins: A Review Of Its Representation In Undergraduate Biology Textbooks
No full textMultilevel selection (MLS) is a foundational framework that expands the concept of natural selection beyond the traditional focus on individuals or genes to larger units, like groups. Despite strong empirical support and applications in a broad range of biological fields, MLS, often referred to as group selection, has a controversial history, which has impeded its wide use and led to incorrect inferences on the sources and strength of selection. Here, we explore how MLS is currently presented to undergraduate biology students by analyzing the content of nine commonly used Evolutionary Biology and Animal Behavior textbooks. We ask whether and how the textbooks describe MLS—as part of the toolbox of evolutionary theory, as a controversial topic, or not at all. Using qualitative textual analysis and descriptive statistics, we found that MLS was mentioned in all of the textbooks analyzed, although usually only in the context of the evolution of social behavior. MLS was generally dismissed as unimportant when compared to individual selection and given less space and fewer examples than kin selection. We highlight the value of a more accurate presentation of MLS and present suggestions for teaching MLS in undergraduate courses based on empirically supported practices in biology education
Music Making As Community Formation In Auschwitz-Birkenau: The Case Of Krystyna Żywulska
No full textThis chapter focuses on the poems and songs written by Krystyna Żywulska in Auschwitz-Birkenau to show how they contributed to the formation of a community around her. Several scholarly studies have noted the role of music in Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the camp’s system of organised cruelty, but an exclusive focus on this role played by music risks making prisoners appear as simply passive. Żywulska’s writings from within the concentration camp serve as evidence of how at least some prisoners were able to form and reinforce social ties between them, and express a range of emotions
Anticolonial Study: Anton de Kom and \u3cem\u3eWe Slaves of Suriname\u3c/em\u3e
No full textIn 1933 Anton de Kom set up an advice bureau in his family’s yard in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname, then a Dutch colony. After years of living in The Netherlands, De Kom wanted to hear the klachten (complaints) of Surinamese workers and the unemployed. Thousands responded to De Kom’s invitation; the descendants of African slaves and Asian indentured workers, Indigenous peoples, and Maroon leaders traveled from the South American plantations and forests to share their experiences of exploitation and abuse. After a month, police arrived to shut down De Kom’s listening project, hundreds of Javanese workers squatted in his yard in a demonstration of passive resistance. As worker protests spread across Paramaribo, colonial authorities brutally attacked gathering crowds. De Kom (often known as ADEK) was arrested and held in jail for three months until authorities suddenly deported him and his family to the Netherlands.
One year later, De Kom published an unusual monograph from exile. We Slaves of Suriname was the first account of Dutch imperialism from the perspective of the colonized (De Kom [1934] 2020; De Kom 2022). Written in Dutch, it has been described as “probably the first historical account of slave resistance and marronage” (Van Stipriaan 2006, 77), though scholars overlook the book’s intellectual contributions. In this paper, I turn to Eli Meyerhoff’s (2019) Beyond Education to understand the significance of De Kom’s important work. Drawing on Meyerhoff’s articulation of modes of study beyond education, I explore how De Kom developed innovative ways to recover Surinamese histories of resistance amid intense repression, intellectual and political isolation, and deeply rooted imperialist ideologies. As I delve into De Kom’s study, I reflect on ways those of us who wish to challenge colonial education can learn from De Kom’s creative, accountable, and genre-bending practice
Diametric Problem For Permutations With The Ulam Metric (Optimal Anticodes)
No full textWe study the diametric problem (i.e., optimal anticodes) in the space of permutations under the Ulam distance. That is, let Sn denote the set of permutations on n symbols, and for each σ,τ∈Sn, define their Ulam distance as the number of distinct symbols that must be deleted from each until they are equal. We obtain a near-optimal upper bound on the size of the intersection of two balls in this space, and as a corollary, we prove that a set of diameter at most k has size at most 2k+Ck2/3n!/(n−k)!, compared to the best known construction of size n!/(n−k)!
Across The Atlantic: Morbidity, Geography, And The Eighteenth-Century French Atlantic Slave Trade
No full textIn 1765, enslaved Africans boarded the Roi Guinguin in Badagry as part of a restitution agreement between a Nantesian slave trading company and an African ruler. These captive Africans endured treacherous journeys from West Africa’s interior to Badagry, then Príncipe, then toward Saint Domingue before being rerouted to Cayenne in Guyane (French Guiana), and then the Îles du Salut for a smallpox quarantine. The captain of the Roi Guinguin and French imperial officials’ fears of smallpox outbreaks and other contagious diseases prompted them to halt and reroute the voyage to refreshment centers and quarantines along the West African and South American coasts. The African captives took these stopovers as opportunities to flee and otherwise resist their enslavement. The enslaved Africans felt West African and European imperialism and commerce come to bear on and in their bodies as slave traders and colonial officials exploited the African and South American coastal geography