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Rapid evolution of a coastal marsh ecosystem engineer in response to global change
No full textThere is increasing evidence that global change can alter ecosystems by eliciting rapid evolution of foundational plants capable of shaping vital attributes and processes. Here we describe results of a field-scale exposure experiment and multilocus assays illustrating that elevated CO2 (eCO2) and nitrogen (N) enrichment can result in rapid shifts in genetic and genotypic variation in Phragmites australis, an ecologically dominant plant that acts as an ecosystem engineer in coastal marshes worldwide. Compared to control treatments, genotypic diversity declined over three years of exposure, especially to N enrichment. The magnitude of loss also increased over time under conditions of N enrichment. Comparisons of genotype frequencies revealed that proportional abundances shifted with exposure to eCO2 and N in a manner consistent with expected responses to selection. Comparisons also revealed evidence of tradeoffs that constrained exposure responses, where any particular genotype responded favorably to one factor rather than to different factors or to combinations of factors. These findings challenge the prevailing view that plant-mediated ecosystem outcomes of global change are governed primarily by differences in species responses to shifting environmental pressures and highlight the value of accounting for organismal evolution in predictive models to improve forecasts of ecosystem responses to global change
Beyond the spherical sup-norm problem
No full textWe open a new perspective on the sup-norm problem and propose a version for non-spherical Maa ss forms when the maximal compact K is non-abelian and the dimension of the K -type gets large. We solve this problem for an arithmetic quotient of G = SL2(C) with K = SU2(C). Our results cover the case of vector-valued Maa ss forms as well as all the individual scalar-valued Maa ss forms of the Wigner basis, reaching sub-Weyl exponents in some cases. On the way, we develop analytic theory of independent interest, including uniform strong localization estimates for generalized spherical functions of high K -type and a Paley-Wiener theorem for the corresponding spherical transform acting on the space of rapidly decreasing functions. The new analytic properties of the generalized spherical functions lead to novel counting problems of matrices close to various manifolds that we solve optimally
Launching the Community Learning and Inclusivity Partnership (CLIP) Program at Emmanuel College
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Tracing the Evolution of Welfare Discourse from 1990 to 2016
Get PDFIn August 1996, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) replaced Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) as the primary cash welfare program for single mothers and children. A political debate during the early to mid-1990s that was particularly hard on welfare recipients culminated in a block grant to states tied to mandatory work requirements and time-limited lifetime benefits for recipients. Media coverage during this period closely tracked the unfolding political discourse around welfare reform and recipients. Following TANF’s implementation, though, coverage dwindled to near nonexistent levels. At this writing in early 2022, TANF remains part of the social safety net, though it provides far weaker support than its predecessor for women and children living in poverty. Yet TANF recipients are rarely subjects of media discourse.
How did we arrive at this point? What impact did TANF’s enactment have on welfare recipient representation in the media? Particularly in light of work’s prominence in welfare reform debate, how did coverage change, if at all, during periods of economic recession? And perhaps most important, due to the historical and contemporary racialization of welfare reform debate and welfare dependency rhetoric, what role did recipient racial/ethnic identity have in media discourse?
Using qualitative content analysis, I sought to uncover how media coverage of welfare recipients changed between 1990 and 2016 across 3,360 articles published by The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal. As would be expected, pre-TANF coverage was marked by themes concerning dependency, illegitimacy, and teen parenthood. Articles during this period were more likely to incorporate a threatening frame and less likely to portray suffering than post-TANF enactment coverage. Considering racial/ethnic identity, African American recipients were strongly overrepresented, and coverage was rife with the dependent single mother controlling image.
Representation matters. How and which groups are included in media discourse can have both positive and negative ramifications for those groups. Findings presented in this dissertation and limitations of the study design suggest the importance of continued research into the role of media on the substance and arc of welfare reform
The Art of Burial in the Medieval Nile Valley: Christian and Islamic Interchange in Religious Funerary Contexts
Get PDFChristian communities in medieval Islamic Egypt (ca. ninth to twelfth centuries) were active participants in Islamicate visual culture. Indeed, Christians employed the same artistic objects as their Muslim neighbors in secular contexts, and close commonalities were even pervasive in art employed in religious rituals.
This dissertation investigates one such instance of the shared use of objects between Christians and Muslims in distinct sacred contexts. Christian and Muslim burials shared deep similarities, including the use of burial shrouds and grave markers with almost identical iconographic and compositional features. I draw attention to ways that Christians deployed an interreligious visual and material culture to communicate unique social and theological values. While medieval Christianity and Islam shared a belief in bodily resurrection, their conceptions of the state between death and resurrection differed fundamentally. Islamic doctrine maintained that deceased individuals remained sentient and suffered “tortures of the grave,” including decaying flesh, crumbling bones, and agonizing loneliness. In contrast, Christians believed that the dead were impervious to the hardships of burial. Christian souls separated from the confinement of interred corpses and existed in an extrasensory paradise, joining the otherworldly community of Christian dead.
Over three parts, focusing on 1) wall paintings depicting the blessed in heaven and damned in hell; 2) garments shrouding deceased bodies; and 3) grave markers where mourners congregated, I argue that these differences in belief concerning the circumstances of the dead shaped the meanings of funerary objects in significant ways. Christians adapted visual and material features of funerary objects that originally served Islamic doctrine in order to accommodate Christian beliefs. At the same time, burial objects held meanings that were common to Muslims and Christians, including the expression of a shared culture of social prestige
Schemata: The Language of the Body in Middle Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts
Get PDFRepresentations of body language add a vital layer of meaning to middle Byzantine figural art, and they deserve systematic scholarly attention. My dissertation offers a method for unpicking the meanings of individual movements, and, more importantly, it explores the underlying cultural concerns that shaped the form of the body in middle Byzantine art. I argue that Byzantine images of body language are intentionally schematic and programmatic. By combining a restricted vocabulary of motion with pared-down renderings of physical forms, Byzantine artists engaged the vital force of embodied expression, while also transfiguring the body into a metaphoric representation of disembodied ideas and ideals. Individual images of body language may communicate on their own. However, their most powerful, subtle, and unexpected meanings emerge when we read them within and across wider image programs.
My dissertation centers on three case studies, and each explores an individual manuscript or a small group of manuscripts. These books all contain lavish, narrative illustrations, and so they are an ideal context in which to study the forms and meanings of figural programs. The three chapters deal, in turn, with posture, gesture, and repeated iconic compositions. In each one, I explore a different bodily iconography, and I show how its meaning develops over the space of the book. The first chapter deals directly with the spiritualization of the body, by arguing that speech gestures were tied to a notion of the divine Logos. However, the second chapter moves into the realm of individual identity and court intrigue. I propose that a tenth-century Byzantine courtier used an idiosyncratic bowing posture in his own donor portrait to mark his power and connection to sacred history. Finally, the third chapter analyzes a manuscript containing repeated, iconic figural compositions. I contend that even icons, the most static and formulaic Byzantine figural images, could be intensely animated by schematic forms that are connection to a larger visual program and to a space of performance.
My dissertation thinks about images, but also about the spaces between images. It reimagines Byzantine bodies as sites of expression and repression, caught in a constant tension between the physical and the spiritual and between the demands of individual and collective meaning
BMCR: Thirty Years After
No full textKeynote talk delivered at the 30th Anniversary Celebration of Bryn Mawr Classical Review (Bryn Mawr College, October 21-22, 2022)
Two Classes of Political Activists: Evidence from Surveys of U.S. College Students and U.S. Prisoners
Get PDFWe applied Latent Class Analysis (LCA) to responses to items from the Activism and Radicalism Intentions Scales (ARIS). In two studies (undergraduates n = 530) and prisoners (n = 670), item profiles identified four groups – Inert, Moderate Activists, Strong Activists, Radicals, and Mixed – that confirm and extend the levels of the Action Pyramid of the Two Pyramids Model of Radicalization. Radicals were a higher proportion of prisoners than undergraduate respondents (20% vs. 12%), and, among prisoners, Radicals were more likely than other groups to be gang members. The distinction between Moderate and Strong Activists is a surprising addition to the literature of political radicalization, and we suggest in the Discussion that the study of Activists, and comparison of Activists and Radicals for the same cause, deserve more attention