129 research outputs found
An Interview with Cass R. Sunstein: Author of The World According to Star Wars
No full textThe guest editors of special issue 12, Jason W. Ellis and Sean Scanlan, interview Cass R. Sunstein, the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard, where he is founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy. He is the author of many books, including the bestseller Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler). His 2016 book The World According to Star Wars attempts to understand the Star Wars universe in ten chapters through the lenses of Sunstein’s academic interests, namely: culture, sociology, psychology, behavioral science, and political science. The book is both personal and theoretical, practical and academic. It takes accurate measure of the genesis of the movies, the movies themselves, and briefly, but trenchantly, it examines concepts such as reputational cascades and speculates on what Star Wars can teach viewers about constitutional disputes
Fragments of bacterial endoglycosidase S and immunoglobulin G reveal subdomains of each that contribute to deglycosylation
No full textEndoglycosidase S (EndoS) is a glycoside-hydrolase secreted by the bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes. EndoS preferentially hydrolyzes the N-linked glycans from the Fc region of IgG during infection. This hydrolysis impedes Fc functionality and contributes to the immune evasion strategy of S. pyogenes. Here, we investigate the mechanism of human serum IgG deactivation by EndoS. We expressed fragments of IgG1 and demonstrated that EndoS was catalytically active against all of them including the isolated CH2 domain of the Fc domain. Similarly, we sought to investigate which domains within EndoS could contribute to activity. Bioinformatics analysis of the domain organization of EndoS confirmed the previous predictions of a chitinase domain and leucine-rich repeat but also revealed a putative carbohydrate binding module (CBM) followed by a C-terminal region. Using expressed fragments of EndoS, circular dichroism of the isolated CBM, and a CBM-C-terminal region fusion revealed folded domains dominated by β sheet and α helical structure, respectively. Nuclear magnetic resonance analysis of the CBM with monosaccharides was suggestive of carbohydrate binding functionality. Functional analysis of truncations of EndoS revealed that, whereas the C-terminal of EndoS is dispensable for activity, its deletion impedes the hydrolysis of IgG glycans
Traces of Another Time : History and Politics in Postwar British Fiction /
No full textIs the historical novel the outmoded genre that some people imagine--form inseparable from romanticism, nationalism, and the nineteenth century? In this stimulating volume, Margaret Scanlan answers a convincing "no," as she demonstrates the relevance of historical novels by well-known figures such as Anthony Burgess, John le Carr, Graham Greene, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, and Paul Scott, as well as by less well established writers such as Joseph Hone and Thomas Kilroy. Scanlan shows what a skeptical, experimental approach to the relationship between history and fiction these writers adopt and how radically they depart from the mimetic conventions usually associated with historical novels. Drawing on contemporary historiography and literary theory, Scanlan defines the problem of writing historical fiction at a time when people see the subject of history as fragmentary and uncertain. The writers she discusses avoid the great events of history to concentrate on its margins: what interests them is history as it is experienced, usually reluctantly, by human beings who would rather be doing something else. The first section of the book looks at fictional representations of England's difficult history in Ireland; the second examines spies, aliens, and the loss of public confidence; and the third probes the theme of Apocalypse, nuclear or otherwise, and depicts the collapse of the British Empire as an instance of the greatly diminished importance of Western culture in the world.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.Is the historical novel the outmoded genre that some people imagine--form inseparable from romanticism, nationalism, and the nineteenth century? In this stimulating volume, Margaret Scanlan answers a convincing "no," as she demonstrates the relevance of historical novels by well-known figures such as Anthony Burgess, John le Carr, Graham Greene, Doris Lessing, Iris Murdoch, and Paul Scott, as well as by less well established writers such as Joseph Hone and Thomas Kilroy. Scanlan shows what a skeptical, experimental approach to the relationship between history and fiction these writers adopt and how radically they depart from the mimetic conventions usually associated with historical novels. Drawing on contemporary historiography and literary theory, Scanlan defines the problem of writing historical fiction at a time when people see the subject of history as fragmentary and uncertain. The writers she discusses avoid the great events of history to concentrate on its margins: what interests them is history as it is experienced, usually reluctantly, by human beings who would rather be doing something else. The first section of the book looks at fictional representations of England's difficult history in Ireland; the second examines spies, aliens, and the loss of public confidence; and the third probes the theme of Apocalypse, nuclear or otherwise, and depicts the collapse of the British Empire as an instance of the greatly diminished importance of Western culture in the world.Originally published in 1990.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.Electronic reproduction.Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher’s Web site, viewed March 24, 2015
An Interview with Michael Betancourt, author of Agnotology & Crisis in Digital Capitalism
No full textSean Scanlan, NANO's editor, interviews artist, curator, art historian and critical theorist Michael Betancourt to discuss the nature of agnotology, a term that means the “creation of uncertainty and ambivalent ‘fact’; it is a competitive tool incompatible with the idealized ‘free market’ of capitalism.” Betancourt is skeptical of Big Data and the ways that the consumers who unknowingly “produce” data for business interpretation are increasingly becoming transformed into a “token of exchange (valorized) by the database.
A View from the United States - Social, Economic, and Legal Change, the Persistence of the State, and Immigration Policy in the Coming Century
No full textIn this article, Professor Scanlan argues that in spite of recent
trends toward globalism, traditionally composed nation-states,
especially the United States, will continue to exercise localized
control over immigration and receiving nations may pursue
increasingly restrictive policies. The author begins with a history
of recent U.S. and European Union (EU) immigration policies,
positing that State self-interest has always played a central role.
Next, he traces the post-World War II development of the
international refugee regime as well as the development of the
European Union\u27s open - labor market. Professor Scanlan
predicts that international agencies will become less efficacious for
several reasons, including the loss of their galvanizing force, the
fight against communism. Next he argues that though labor moves
relatively freely throughout EU Member States, the EU\u27s stance on
immigration from non-EU States has become more and more
restrictionist. Further, to the extent the labor market is open, the
situation developed out of circumstances peculiar to post-War
Europe, and therefore the EU example provides little hope that
North America will become similarly unified. The author concludes
with a prediction that with the possible exception of concerted
responses to emergencies, the nation-states of the developed world
will continue to pursue self-interested immigration policies,
including the vigorous guarding of their borders
Long read review: the new poverty by Stephen Armstrong
No full textCoinciding with the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge Report and written in the spirit of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, The New Poverty takes a tour of contemporary Britain to show how the implementation of austerity has worked to impoverish millions and leave millions more close to crisis. The combination of reportage and statistics presented by author Stephen Armstrong offers compelling, evocative and dismaying insight into the true, intolerable cost of poverty in the UK today, finds Padraic X. Scanlan
Long read review: The new poverty by Stephen Armstrong
No full textCoinciding with the 75th anniversary of the Beveridge Report and written in the spirit of George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier, The New Poverty takes a tour of contemporary Britain to show how the implementation of austerity has worked to impoverish millions and leave millions more close to crisis. The combination of reportage and statistics presented by author Stephen Armstrong offers compelling, evocative and dismaying insight into the true, intolerable cost of poverty in the UK today, finds Padraic X. Scanlan
The representation of the roles of women in the fiction and journalism of Nelle Margaret Scanlan
No full textNelle Margaret Scanlan was New Zealand's all-time best-selling author in the first half of the twentieth century. Despite her popularity with readers critics have tended to dismiss Scanlan as a writer of conservative romances. This thesis ventures a new reading of Scanlan which re-places her fiction in the context of her professional career as a writer and journalist and presents a broad view of the roles of women in a male-dominated society including support for women's equality.
The preliminary chapter assesses Scanlan's current position in New Zealand literary history followed by a second chapter that gives an account of her unorthodox life, emphasising her desire for independence and personal rejection of a division of labour between the genders.
The thesis then focuses on the strategies employed by Scanlan to critique societal roles for women. Beginning with her most well-known works, the family sagas, I suggest that while the novels conform to the conservative conventions of the romance genre on one level, they ultimately suggest that there is no happily-ever-after and that women are trapped by marriage. My argument is developed by extending analysis to Scanlan's other novels, which I classify as domestic romances, showing how these novels use a number of techniques to highlight gender inequality and the unhappy lot of women.
Chapter four moves away from Scanlan's fiction to her journalism, showing that her articles promote equality and outline the problems faced by women. I speculate that though it is too problematic to label her journalism as feminist it does embody elements of feminism. The final chapter develops this argument, suggesting that Scanlan was a progressive thinker but that her writing never truly develops progressive principles. I conclude that Nelle Scanlan used her writing to criticise the enforced gender roles placed upon women in society and that although her work is not subversive it makes some powerful points and merits a rethinking of the way her work is read
We do not sleep under a full moon
No full textComprising four sections to mark distinct phases, from childhood and early adulthood, through the course of a thirty year marriage, to the loss of both parents and the ordinariness of middle-age, We Do Not Sleep Under a Full Moon is a collection of free verse poems the scope of which may be more ambitious than seems possible. But each poem’s spare and fine detail attempts to communicate the ineffably fleeting yet somehow permanent moments of understanding and observation that, amidst all that is ephemeral, may serve as witness to the writer’s very real and concrete business of living as time, people and events pass her by.M.F.A.Poems.by Amy Scanlan O'Hear
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