James Miller Research Articles

British Enlightenment Theatre: Dramatizing Difference

British Enlightenment Theatre: Dramatizing Difference

Від структуралізму до поструктуралізму: мотивація зміни методологічної траєкторії у досвіді Мішеля Фуко

Crises are able to change and even ruin the traditional ways of text interpretation. They also affect the production of new phenomena in culture, science, and arts. The experience of Paul-Michel Foucault (1926–1984) is a typical example of how external events lead to drastic changes in scholar’s methodological views. According to G. Deleuze, P.-M. Foucault’s way of thinking «did not evolve, but went through crises». P.-M. Foucault has repeatedly pointed out that revolutionary events are the result of a general restructuring of the episteme. Relying mostly on the works of Maurice Blanchot, Didier Eribon, James Miller, and Paul Veyne, the scientific accomplishments of P.-M. Foucault might be divided into three stages: the archeology of knowledge (until 1968), the genealogy of power (1968-1980), and the esthetics of existence (1980s). The year 1968 has marked the epistemological border between the «archaeological» and «genealogical» stages – the period of change in the methodology of his research. While delivering the course lectures «Man in Western Thought» in 1968 in Tunisia, where (as in Paris) occurred a few student protests, P.-M. Foucault took part in them. At that time P.-M. Foucault possessed expressive «political intuition» (G. Deleuze), so he realized the myth-making function of political ideology and emphasized the importance of «revolutionary energy». At the experimental Vincennes University, which was opened at the request of the demonstrators, he headed the department of philosophy, feeding on the rebellious enthusiasm of communists, Trotskyists and leftists. According to D. Eribon, it was at this time that «a new Foucault was born», the one who embodied the image of an intellectual fighter. Thus, the events of May 1968 caused «the outing of the structure on the street» and even created the new ways of interpretation. In such conditions, trying to get rid of the «shortcuts» and «privileges of structuralism», P.-M. Foucault changed his methodology, as well as articulated a «new subjectivity» in the stream of post-structuralist poetics, which became the leading methodological trend in literary studies of the second half of the XX century – the early XXI centuries.

Foucault's Formative Years

Foucault's Formative Years Paul Allen Miller (bio) Review of Stuart Elden, The Early Foucault, Cambridge Polity Press 2021. xiv + 280 pp. Stuart Elden has become the definitive chronicler of Foucault's intellectual evolution. The Early Foucault is the third in what will ultimately be a four-volume history. The series began with Foucault's Last Decade (2016). While the first volume was originally intended as a stand-alone work, it immediately became clear to the publisher and the reviewers alike that this approach should be extended to the whole of Foucault's intellectual life. Elden has created what is in effect a kind of Bible for Foucault scholars, a series of works that any serious student of Foucault simply must consult. Elden is careful not to call his work a biography to distinguish it from the admirable work of David Macey and Didier Eribon on the life of Foucault as well as the gossip-filled scandalmongering of the regrettable James Miller. Elden focuses on Foucault's published work, not in terms of a close reading of his texts, although he is a more than competent interpreter, but in terms of how they came to be, on their intellectual genealogy. How did arguments come together? Who were Foucault's interlocutors? What sources did he consult? Elden's work in the Foucault archives housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale as well as those found in the Institut Mémoires de l'Édition Contemporaine is extraordinarily thorough and meticulous. For the present volume he has also consulted archives in Uppsala and Hamburg, where Foucault worked in the 1950s, and the personal archives of such early mentors as Louis Althusser, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, and Jean Hyppolite. Elden does not ignore issues in Foucault's personal life, but he explores them only to the extent that they are relevant to his oeuvre. Thus, in the current volume there is a short discussion of Foucault's relationship (1953–55) with the young serialist composer Jean Barraqué, but the focus is on their mutual intellectual influence, with particular regard to Foucault's early interest in Nietzsche. Foucault would later observe that Barraqué's and Boulez's serialist music had an analogous effect on his intellectual formation to that of Nietzsche himself, creating a "rupture in the dialectical universe" (124). [End Page 343] The telos of this volume is the writing of Foucault's major thesis for his doctorat d'État, what would eventually become known as Histoire de la folie or, according to the greatly abridged version that was first translated into English and was long the only version available, Madness and Civilization. The story begins in 1945 when Foucault moved to Paris and matriculated at the Lycée Henri IV, where he enrolled in the preparatory course for the entrance exam for the École normale supérieure (ENS) and first encountered the great Hegel scholar Jean Hyppolite, who was briefly his instructor in philosophy there. At Henri IV, Foucault studied a comprehensive liberal arts curriculum that focused on philosophy, literature, and history in French, German, Latin, and Greek. He entered the ENS in 1946 and was awarded a licence in philosophy in 1948 and a second in psychology in 1949, with an advanced diploma in general psychology from the Paris Institut de Psychologie that same year. This pairing of the disciplines set the intellectual agenda for Foucault for the following decade, as he both deepened and expanded his philosophical knowledge and gained theoretical and practical knowledge of psychology, psychiatry, and psychoanalysis. Elden provides thorough coverage of the scope of Foucault's philosophical education, detailing each of his professors and their respective specialties. In 1949, Foucault submitted the equivalent of an MA thesis on "The Constitution of a Transcendental in Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit" under the direction of Hyppolite. He then immediately began studying under the direction of Althusser for the aggrégation, the national exam given each year that qualifies you to teach philosophy, which he passed with high marks on the second attempt, in 1951. He began his teaching career in 1952 with an appointment in Lille, while also lecturing at the ENS. Elden reconstructs the substance of Foucault's...

Hervé Guibert as Foucault might have imagined him

This essay attempts to reconfigure our understanding of the relationship between Michel Foucault and the French photographer and writer Hervé Guibert. It contends that this relationship has been misunderstood inasmuch as it has been described in terms of a dynamic of confession and betrayal. In place of this familiar understanding, developed largely by James Miller, this essay seeks to create the grounds for a Foucaultian appreciation of Guibert’s work as both photographer and writer. On the basis of Guibert’s Ghost Image, as well as several clues scattered throughout Foucault’s corpus, this essay argues that Guibert’s work issues in an anti-realist aesthetics that allows for desire to be articulated outside of the deployment of sexuality. In the final section of the essay, I use these concepts in order to suggest a reading of some of Guibert’s most famous images, including the portrait of Foucault contained in Guibert’s 1990 novel, To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life. In general, I aim to show that Guibert’s different works enact the Foucaultian notion of a friendship of between men, wherein the aim is to invent new ways of giving each other pleasure.

Understanding environmental epigenomics in autism spectrum disorder: an interview with Farah RZahir.

In this interview, Dr Farah RZahir speaks with Storm Johnson, Commissioning Editor for Epigenomics, on her work to date in the field of epigenomics, autism and intellectual disability. Dr Farah RZahir specializes in the identification of novel genetic and epigenetic causes for neurodevelopmental diseases. Her PhD, awarded in 2011 by the University of British Columbia (UBC), resulted in the characterization of new intellectual disability (ID) syndromes, as well as discovery of several new causative genes for the disorder. She was awarded the prestigious James Miller Memorial Prize for integrating basic and clinical science in 2010. Her PhD dissertation was nominated for the Governor General's gold medal - the highest possible accolade at UBC for doctoral research work. She then completed a postdoctoral tenure in Canada's premier Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, where she used whole-genome-sequencing methods to comprehensively assess genetic, molecularand structural causes for ID, employing several firsts for bioinformatic data mining in the field. During her postdoctorate she won three distinguishedawards and was a fellow of the Canadian Institute of Health Research, ranking in the top 2% nationally. Dr Zahir was appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Hamad Bin Khalifa University in 2016, where she led a group focused on neurogenomics and neuroepigenomics research. She was a foundingmember of the Precision and Genomics Medicine graduate program there. Currently she has rejoined UBC's department of Medical Genetics. Among her most significant achievements is the establishment of the novel Zahir Friedman syndrome, an intellectual disability/autism spectrum disorder syndrome that is caused by a major epigenomic regulator. Her current primary research interest is how epigenomics can be changed by environmental impactsand how these effects may be harnessed for neurodevelopmental disorders' prophylaxis and therapeutics.

James Miller (Ed.): Lives of the eminent philosophers. Diogenes Laertius. Translated by Pa-mela Mensch.

As a critical journal for all classical studies, the GNOMON fosters the links between the distinct classical disciplines. It has thus an exceptional position among the classical review journals and allows familiarization with research and publications in neighbouring disciplines. The reviews address an international readership from all fields in classical studies. The GNOMON publishes reviews in German, English, French, Italian and Latin.

James Miller, <i>China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future</i>

James Miller, China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future

Diogenes Laertius: Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Pamela Mensch

Reviewed by: Diogenes Laertius: Lives of the Eminent Philosophers by Pamela Mensch Wolfgang-Rainer Mann Pamela Mensch (tr.) and James Miller (ed.). Diogenes Laertius: Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xxi, 676. $ 45.00. ISBN 978-0-19-086217-6. The high production quality here stands out: heavy, genuinely opaque paper; generous line spacing and margins; and, especially, more than 100 beautiful illustrations, drawn from all periods of (mostly, European) art. Together these make the volume seem more like a coffee-table book than a work of scholarship—a fact that presumably accounts for its being for sale in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its merits are, however, far from being confined to these immediately evident attractions. Mensch's translation, based on T. Dorandi's text (Cambridge 2013), is lively and engaging, and almost always superior to that of R. D. Hicks in the Loeb Classical Library series (Cambridge, MA, and London, England, 1925). But not everything Mensch does is an innovation, nor are all her innovations improvements. Consider this, from book 7, on the Stoics: [107] . . . They apply the term "duty" [καθῆκον] to an action that, when done, can be defended on reasonable grounds, such as its consistency with life; and this extends to plants and animals as well. For "duties" [καθήκοντα] can also be discerned with respect to plants and animals. [109] Actions belonging to duty are those that reason prescribes our doing, as is the case with honoring one's parents, brothers, country, and spending time with one's friends. Actions contrary to duty are those that reason forbids, for example, neglecting one's parents, ignoring one's brothers, being out of sympathy with one's friends, disregarding one's country, and the like. Actions neither belonging to duty, nor contrary to it, are those that reason neither prescribes our doing nor forbids, such as picking up a twig, holding a stylus or a scraper, and the like. Here Mensch reasonably retains "duty," the traditional translation (also Hicks's) for καθῆκον. Of course, her decision to use scare-quotes when speaking of the duties of animals and plants indicates the limitations of "duty." Still, more recent choices, e.g., "proper function" or "appropriate action," lose important connotations of the word, and so are not obviously improvements. For the vexed Stoic term of art φαντασία καταληπτική, Mensch uses "comprehending impression." On its own, this is fine. But is Mensch's "Some impressions involve comprehension, others do not. The comprehending impression, which they say is the criterion of reality, is that which arises from an existing object and is imprinted and stamped in accordance with it. The uncomprehending impression is that which does not arise from an existing object, or, if it does, does not accord with it; it is neither clear nor distinct" (7.44) really better than either of the two following versions? First, B. Inwood and L. P. Gerson, Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings (2nd edn, Indianapolis 1997): "Of presentations, some are graspable, some non-graspable. The graspable presentation, which they say is the criterion of facts [pragmata], is that which comes from an existing object, and is stamped and moulded in accordance with the existing object itself. The non-graspable presentation is either not from an existing object, or from an existing object but not in accordance with it; it is neither clear nor well-stamped [i.e., distinct];" secondly, A. A. Long and D. Sedley, The hellenistic philosophers, vol. 1 (Cambridge 1987): "(1) Of impressions, one kind is cognitive, the other incognitive. (2) The cognitive, which they [the Stoics] [End Page 235] say is the criterion of things, is that which arises from what is and is stamped and impressed exactly in accordance with what is. (3) The incognitive is either that which does not arise from what is, or from that which is but not exactly in accordance with what is: one which is not clear or distinct." Adding yet another option, as Mensch does, only muddies the waters for no real gain. Now something from Epicurus. In 10.44, from the Letter to Herodotus, Dorandi prints: ἀρχὴ δὲ τούτων οὐκ ἔστιν, αἰτιῶν τῶν ἀτόμων οὐσῶν καὶ τοῦ κενοῦ. Mensch translates: "Of these motions there is no beginning, since they are caused...

Daoism and Ecology—An Interview with James Miller

Creative Arts Educ Ther (2019) 5(2):109–112 DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2019/5/23 Daoism and Ecology—An Interview with James Miller 道家思想与生态学：詹姆士·米勒访谈 Abstract The interview focuses on James Miller’s thinking about the relation between Daoism and ecology. Miller believes that, to develop a foundation for ecological sustainability, we need to break down the separation between human beings and the world we live in. This can be done by Daoist techniques of bodily cultivation, based on the concept of the body as porous and interpenetrating with the environment. Practices such as these will lay the groundwork for an aesthetic foundation of ecology. Keywords: China, Daoism, ecology, Qi, bodily cultivation, tong 通 (interpenetration), aesthetic transformation 摘要 此次访谈聚焦于詹姆士.米勒 (James Miller)对道家思想与生态学关联性的思考。米勒相信，为了构建生态可持续性发展，我们需要打破人类与居住环境彼此分离的状态。依托于人体与自然互通互联，互相依存的观念，道家修身的方法能实现天人合一的平衡。这些（道家传统的）践行方式将为生态美学奠定根基。 关键词: 中国，道家思想，生态学，气，修身，通（互通互联），美学转化

Review: James Miller, China’s Green Revolution: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future

Creative Arts Educ Ther (2019) 5(2):113–116 DOI: 10.15212/CAET/2019/5/24 Review: James Miller, China’s Green Revolution: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future 书评: 詹姆士.米勒，中国的绿色革命：问“道”，探索可持续性发展的未来 Abstract This review outlines Miller’s argument that the Daoist tradition offers an important perspective for ecological thought based on the pervasion of nature in human existence and the porosity of the human body. Somatic practices can build a basis for the aesthetic perception necessary for ecological action. The reviewer suggests that there is a possible convergence between Daoism and the thinking of poiesis that shows the importance of the creative and expressive arts in ecological theory and practice. Keywords: Daoism, ecology, wu-wei, cultivating the Dao, somaesthetics, poiesis 摘要 这篇书评概括了米勒的论点，他认为道家传统基于人体与自然互通互联，互相依存的观点, 为生态观提供了重要的思考角度。践行修身为生态行为所需的美学感知建立了基础。评论家提出道家思想和（古希腊）”创造”的观点可能有异曲同工之处，表明了创造性和表达性艺术在生态理论和实践中的重要性。 关键词: 道家思想，生态学，无为，修道，身体美学, 创造

Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China by James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu and Peter van der Veer

Reviewed by: Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China by James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu and Peter van der Veer Ambika Aiyadurai James Miller, Dan Smyer Yu, and Peter van der Veer, Religion and Ecological Sustainability in China. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. xxi, 247 pp. US $160 (hb). ISBN 978-0-415-85515-0 (hb), 978-1-138-07928-1 (pb) This book provides trans-disciplinary perspectives on world religions and ecology. It comes out at a time of ongoing ecological crisis and imbalance that has caused a sense of urgency regarding the environmental changes and their impact on human and non-human beings. This is an edited volume with two sections dedicated to the themes of "Ecology and the Classics" and "Imagining Nature in Modernity." The book sheds light on how to think about nature in an ecologically sustainable way and asks whether engaging with religious traditions and alternate worldviews holds answers to contemporary China's future. Drawing largely on Tucker and Grimm's exemplary scholarship on religion and ecology, the authors of this volume connect together work on the global consciousness and ecological wisdom found in world religions and in indigenous eco-spiritual traditions. The first section of the volume ("Ecology and the Classics") investigates Chinese views and practices towards the natural world from a textual perspective. Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grimm's chapter, titled "Ecology and the Classics," suggests that Chinese texts might be read as ecological classics because "they offer insight into views of nature and the cosmos in China as well as perspectives on human-earth relations," and "ecological crisis is also a crisis of culture and the human spirit" (p. 19). This is followed by Deborah [End Page 230] Sommer's chapter "Conceptualizations of Earth and Land in Classical Chinese Texts," where she explores the divergent views about earth and land found in pre-Han texts. She tells us that in earlier texts (for example, the Analects 論語 and the Mencius 孟子), earth is not perceived as a particularly important phenomenon, but in later texts (such as the Xunzi 荀子 and the Daodejing 道德經), earth is understood as an important cosmic power. A close reading of the Yijing 易經 is presented by Joseph Adler in his chapter "The Great Virtue of Heaven and Earth: Deep Ecology in the Yijing," which is based on the premise that "human beings and the natural world share a common nature" and therefore, there is a meaningful connection of human interests and human creativity and natural process of change (p. 48). At the core of Yijing cosmology is the idea that communion of humans and natural world makes possible the "ultimate fulfilment and self-realization of both human beings and the natural world" (p. 66). Along these lines of interconnectivity between humans and nature, an interesting analysis and rereading of Confucian and Daoist classics as "soft-hearted" and "hardhearted" ecologies is undertaken in Chen Xia and Peng Guoxiang's chapter, "'HardHearted' and 'Soft-Hearted, Ecologies: A Rereading of Daoist and Confucian Classics," to which Miller appends a response. The central position of humans within the cosmos is at the core of the distinction between these two viewpoints. The Confucian one-body ecological vision places human beings at the centre, not as conquerors of nature but of the heart/mind of the cosmos as a living body. Miller observes that Daoists are "mistrustful of the central place afforded to the human heart in the Confucian view of human engagement with the natural world" (p. 82). It is interesting to note that the subsequent chapters on Chinese conceptions of nature, ecology, and religion show that co-existence of such divergent views is possible. James Miller's chapter "Gods and Nature in Highest Clarity Daoism" shows how the Way of Highest Clarity (Shangqing dao 上清道) that flourished for a thousand years was absorbed into the mainstream Daoist traditions and continues till today in the form of practices. This tradition synthesizes a variety of elements of conceptions of nature and divinity from the medieval Daoists religious movements. The interlinkage of heavens, the earth, and human bodies, which he calls a "transgressive ecospirituality" (p. 93) is a concept that could be...

James Miller, The Finest Road in the World – the Story of Travel and Transport in the Scottish Highlands

James Miller, <i>The Finest Road in the World – the Story of Travel and Transport in the Scottish Highlands</i>

China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future by James Miller

Reviewed by: China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future by James Miller Dan Smyer Yü James Miller, China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. xxvi, 200 pp. US$60 (HB). ISBN 978-0-231-17586-9 James Miller’s China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future is an integral part of his ongoing work in religion and ecology, an emerging but rapidly expanding interdisciplinary study of religious values and practices with ecological and environmental implications.1 As a text of religion and ecology, the structure and contents of the book characteristically show the alliance of religious studies and the discourses of the world’s current ecological conditions and environmental issues—a prominent feature of the Harvard Project of religion and ecology initiated twenty years ago.2 The book consists of eight chapters, thematically centered upon the multidimensional intersection of religion, ecology, modernity, and sustainability demonstrated in Miller’s interpretation of Daoist texts, practices, and their potential value for an environmentally healthier China and a sustainable world. Dao, in Miller’s religion-ecology approach, is not a thing-in-itself but a “cosmic power” that saturates nature as a locally expressed “self-generating, creative power” (p. 33) and pervades the human body as a symmetrical embodiment of the local environment (p. 81). From this perspective, Miller proposes Daoist ecology as a “liquid ecology” (pp. 43–88, 110–132) pertaining to the ecological nexus of body, environment, and cosmos, and, thus, envisions the foundation of a sustainable future as an “aesthetic experience of the local world in the personal body” (p. 166). In China’s Green Religion, Miller offers a globally engaged “new vision” of nature, one that generates new possibilities for the flourishing of humans and the natural world from a Daoist perspective (p. 166). The book’s proposed goal is not limited to the fulfillment of a disciplinary endeavor only framed in religious studies (as Daoist studies is sometimes pigeonholed); instead it presents Daoism as “an intellectual tradition” (p. 139) offering us a transformative understanding of the relationships between religion and modernity, nature and humankind, landscape and bodyscape, ecology and economy, and Daoist practice and a commitment to a healthy future. Miller convincingly navigates the textual and conceptual labyrinths of these relationships, and offers the reader a Daoist vision of a sustainable, flourishing future. [End Page 210] Miller’s interdisciplinary approach elaborates fresh insights from Daoism as an indigenous religious and intellectual tradition of China, and offers the reader an understanding of the ecological value of Daoism from a globally engaged interpretive perspective. In particular, his adoption of Michael LaFargue’s “confrontational hermeneutics” (p. xxi) opens up more possibilities not only to reaffirm the originally intended meanings of Daoist texts, but also to see their critical relevance in contemporary social and environment contexts of China and the world. Throughout the book, and in dialogue with his peers, e.g. Chris Coggins (pp. 45–46), Willis Jenkins (pp. 92–109), and Robert Weller (p. 129), Miller presents a Daoist perspective for the understanding of environmental problems as the concurrent problems of landscape, bodyscape, and cosmology (p. 109), all of which are interconnected by qi 氣, the Daoist understanding of the vital energy of nature. In Miller’s interpretation, qi is a kind of “liquid vitality” (p. 44) that permeates everything and everywhere, and that takes particular physical forms to amass, shape, and re-express itself in relational terms. In other words, the “liquid” nature of qi permits different kinds of vitality to connect, merge with one another, embody one another, and co-create synergetic natural-social environments. From this “liquid” perspective, Miller then asserts that the cultivation of Dao is an ecological process in which human body and its environment mutually saturate and embody one another. In this ecological process, the wellbeing or ill-being of the human body coincides with that of the environment (p. 81). Here Miller emphasizes that it is the porosity of the human body that makes possible the environmental flows and cosmic energies pervading the body; therefore, humans and nature coexist within the same enclosure rather...

China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future

James Miller’s China’s Green Religion: Daoism and the Quest for a Sustainable Future is an integral part of his ongoing work in religion and ecology, an emerging but rapidly expanding interdiscipli...

Abstract 490: Single nucleotide variations within and around microRNA-binding sites

Abstract * equally contributed Grant #5P20GM103443 (NIGMS). Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) can either create or destroy microRNA binding sites. We analyzed 200 previously reported cancer associated SNPs within microRNA binding sites and found that more than 90% of them were surrounded by single and multiple low-frequency SNPs. The low-frequency SNPs were positioned within the expected microRNAs seed matching areas (58%), within the whole microRNA matching regions (71% incidence), and within the distance where they potentially can affect microRNA-mRNA interaction (36% incidence). We further analyzed the presence of SNPs within microRNA-binding sites in the 3'UTRs of mRNAs encoding the human V-set domain containing T-cell activation inhibitor 1 (VTCN1) and an AT-rich interaction domain 5B (ARID5B). In VTCN1 single SNPs were present in 36% of microRNAs seed matching areas, and two and more SNPs in 8% of microRNA seed matching sites. For ARID5B, single SNPs were present in 42%, and two and more SNPs in 26% of microRNA seed matching sites. In both VTCN1 and ARID5B, some microRNA seed matching areas harbored as many as 4 SNPs. The predicted binding site for microRNA-6870-5p (miR-6870) within the VTCN1 3'UTR consists of 11 uninterrupted and 2 additional Watson-Crick pairs. The length of mature miR-6870 is 19 bases, and the corresponding VTCN1 mRNA fragment harbors 6 nucleotide variations: rs758251859, rs1001277215, rs551576201, rs539444165, rs949692788, and indel rs9055595515. Hypothetically, the rs1001277215 minor allele (MA) eliminates the miR-6870-mRNA complementarity between the corresponding nucleotides. The rs551576201 MA weakens miR-6870-mRNA complementarity by creating a wobble G-U pair, the rs949692788 MA enhances miR-6870-mRNA complementarity by switching from a non-canonical G-U to canonical Watson-Crick A-U pair, and for indel rs9055595515, the absence of deletion preserves miR-6870-mRNA complementarity between CA and GU nucleotides. The probabilities of the “best” and “worst” matches between miR-6870 and VTCN1 mRNA are 0.009995% and 0.000006% correspondingly. The binding between miR-6870 and VTCN1mRNA may also be affected by variations between A and G within rs758251859 (MA frequency is unknown). As microRNA-binding efficacy depends on the mRNA sequences outside the target region, the indels rs35182629 (located 5 nucleotides upstream and covers 2 bases) and rs896747700 (located 1 nucleotide downstream and covers 1 base) may also impact miR-6870-mediated regulation of VTCN1 expression. The possible coincidence of hyper-functional or completely disabled microRNA-binding sites may result in significant phenotypic variations and predisposition to cancers. Citation Format: Amber Budmark*, Michael Catalano*, Tyrel Haley*, Brady Hicks*, Maria Koenen*, Thea Patrick*, Tyler Larson*, Tyler Wagner*, Clark Butler, Joshua Feiner, Rebecca Frick, Sierra Haage, James Miller, Mackayla Nohr, Dillon Stadlman, Dillon Turner, Sara Husher, Nicholas Woslum, Nathan Stadem, John Dosch, Tyler Fortuna, Chandler Fredrich, Elise Hadley, Brooklynn Oehlerking, Delayna Paulson, Cal Wiese, Paula Mazzer, Tim Mullican, Cynthia Anderson, Mark Larson, Elena Paryiskaya, Alexandra Kharazova, Paola Vermeer, Samuel Milanovich, Alexei Savinov, John Collins, Alexander Kofman. Single nucleotide variations within and around microRNA-binding sites [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 490.

Проблема сотрудничества Генделя с либреттистами ораторий

The article is devoted to the issue of Handel’s collaboration with the librettists for his oratorios as one of the most important for the comprehension of his creative process. By revealing the diverse relationships of the composer with literati, the author demonstrates, how in intensive combined work during the times of Handel’s mature and late periods fundamentally important features had crystallized: tragic intensification of the plot, conveyance of feelings of catastrophism and, in connection with this, the deepening of the psychological essence of the main protagonists. Most of Handel’s librettists comprehended their librettos through the prism of predicatory pathos. This was manifested especially distinctly in the late oratorios, in which lamenting and religious tendencies prevailed, having comprised two sides of the ethical-psychological issue. His music standing at the pinpoint of the aesthetics of Classicism connected with the Enlightenment, the composer presented himself not only an active participant in the creation of his librettos, but also as a conceptual leader who directed the creative process in collaboration with the librettists. Keywords: Georg Friedrich Handel, Charles Jennens, Thomas Morell, Newburgh Hamilton, Thomas Browton, James Miller, librettos for oratorios, librettists, tragedy/tragic.

Book Notes

Book Notes Carson E. Benn Integrated: The Lincoln Institute, Basketball, and a Vanished Tradition. By James W. Miller. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2017. Pp. 288. $29.95 cloth; $29.95 ebook) A somber note often found by historians of the Civil Rights and integration years is that after the ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, cherished schooling institutions within African American society were outlawed just as well as whites-only schools. James Miller has found one interesting example of this bittersweet truth in the case of Lincoln Institute, where the cloud of uncertainty and debate over how quickly Kentucky schools would integrate coincided with some of Lincoln's best years of high school basketball. Drawing from an impressive array of the state's newspapers and a host of oral history interviews, Miller offers a compelling local study of integration, and his accounts of contests in the state tournament make the book lively enough for any reader interested in Kentucky education and high school basketball. [End Page 571] My Curious and Jocular Heroes: Tales and Tale-Spinners from Appalachia. By Loyal Jones. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2017. Pp. vii, 246. $95.00 cloth; $25.00 paper) Loyal Jones' contributions to Appalachian studies are well known, both in his own writing and his many years of service at Berea College and Hindman Settlement School. Here he gives four brief and highly amusing biographies of Appalachian folklorists who preceded and inspired him, including Bascom Lamar Lunsford, the legendary fiddle performer and folksong preservationist, and Cratis B. Williams, often called the father of Appalachian studies. After each biography Jones gives a sampling of his subjects' stories, folksong lyrics, notated music, and humor. It's hardly surprising that music is a unifying theme across each of the sections, as the rich field of Appalachian folklore usually comes into contact with the region's celebrated traditions of song and balladry. Humor is the more unique thread here, as each subject contributes jokes and hilarious (though surprisingly bawdy) stories, which Jones uses to illustrate the genial and often "curious" nature of his heroes. Dangerous Waters: A Photo Essay on the Tennessee Valley Authority. By Micah Cash. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2017 Pp. xi, 130. $39.95 cloth) "Nothing about the agency's history is simple" (p. 3). So Micah Cash contends at the beginning of Dangerous Waters, echoing a realization that any historian interested in the Tennessee Valley Authority quickly finds. History, geography, and stunning photography blend very well here, as Cash conveys his meditation on how TVA dams, rivers, and recreation areas symbolize the greater American ideas of public works and spaces. Recreation and tourism are the more current elements in this essay. The herculean effort to change the landscape [End Page 572] and provide power to millions of rural residents is the more well-known aspect of the TVA, but Cash also dwells on TVA lakes and dams as present-day parks and travel destinations. The many dams and green landscapes make for beautiful pictures (as the agency architects intended), but reflecting on which spaces the public are encouraged to visit or prohibited from entering reveals the complicated social history of this massive project. The Ohio: The Historic River in Vintage Postcard Art, 1900–1960. By John A. Jakle and Dannel McCollum. (Kent: Kent State University Press, 2017. Pp. x, 172. $24.95 paper; $20.99 ebook) The Ohio River falls short of the mighty Mississippi in the American mythos, and authors John A. Jakle and Dannel McCollum lament that the former "never had a Mark Twain to champion" it (p.ix), but this book recovers much of the Ohio's relevance to American history. The river's central importance to antebellum western settlement and commerce, as well as the border it signified between slave and free states, are well known. This book looks primarily at the twentieth century through the medium of postcards, which flourished in popularity at the turn of the century. As the authors show, postcards provide historians not only with snapshots of what cities and towns looked like, they also give insight into what printers considered positive signs of urban growth and vitality. From Pittsburgh to Cairo...

Do We Need a New Biography of Michel Foucault?

Do We Need a New Biography of Michel Foucault? Stuart Elden (bio) In the 34 years since his death, there has been no lack of interest in Michel Foucault's work. His ideas continue to be analysed, critiqued, utilised, and cited, across an ever-broadening range of disciplines. New books of material by Foucault, whether lecture courses or other previously unpublished material, have appeared at a rapid rate over the last twenty years. Most of these have been quickly translated into English and other languages. Yet there has been no new biography of Foucault for twenty-five years. Didier Eribon's biography was translated in 1991, and David Macey's The Lives of Michel Foucault and James Miller's The Passions of Michel Foucault both appeared in 1993. Naturally, some of the many books on Foucault have had biographical elements, of which David Halperin's Saint Foucault (1995) is perhaps the key example. But that book, as with so many other interpretations and analyses had a rather different purpose than a biography in a strict sense. It was to read Foucault as a gay saint, a figure who could be held up as an exemplar of a particular way of life. I do not doubt that he can be that, but he was of course much more. The second and third editions of Eribon's biography, which appeared in French in 1992 and 2011, are important. The third, in particular, includes a lot of new material, and its English translation is overdue: the existing translation is of the first French edition (1989). Eribon's Michel Foucault et ses contemporains also includes a lot of biographical material, and there are biographical discussions in his Insult and the Making of the Gay Self (1999, 2004). Macey moved onto other topics before his own early death in 2011. His biography will be reissued by Verso in 2019, with an afterword by me. While Eribon and Macey are hard to beat in terms of their analysis and breadth of coverage, a large amount of new material has come to light in the past several years. Beginning in 1997, all Foucault's courses at the Collège de France have been published under the general editorship of François Ewald and Alessandro Fontana. The last of these appeared in French in 2015 and is currently being translated by Graham Burchell. A number of other volumes of material have appeared posthumously. These include Foucault's Introduction to his translation of Kant's Anthropology, originally submitted as part of his secondary thesis. Lecture courses from Toronto, Louvain, Berkeley, and Dartmouth have all been published, as well as volumes of interviews, radio addresses, and other talks. His activist work with the Groupe d'Information sur les prisons (GIP) has been collected in two French volumes edited by Philippe Artières and others (2003, 2013), and an English translation of some of this material is forthcoming. In 2013, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) bought a large collection of Foucault's papers from his partner, Daniel Defert, and much of this is now available to researchers. Led by Foucault's nephew, Henri-Paul Fruchaud, and with the assistance of Daniele Lorenzini, Ariana Sforzini, Elisabetta Basso and others, some of this material has been published, and a future programme is underway. In recent years we have had, for example, an early 1960s text on madness, the introduction to an early draft of The Archaeology of Knowledge, and a text on Homer dating from the same period. And perhaps the most eagerly awaited, the fourth volume of the History of Sexuality, Les aveux de la chair, was published in February 2018. Some recent books on Foucault have made use of this newly available material to fill out their analysis of Foucault. This was certainly the impetus behind my own studies Foucault's Last Decade (2016), Foucault: The Birth of Power (2017) and one for which the research is still ongoing, The Early Foucault. With each of these, taking the periods 1974-84, 1969-74, and 1950-61 respectively, I have tried to outline Foucault's intellectual history through a juxtaposition of his writings and speeches, his interviews, his lectures and...

Whitman's "Song of Myself" The Structure of "Song of Myself"

Walt Whitman’s "song of myself" is one of the original twelve pieces- first edition of Leaves of Grass appeared in. 1852. Like most of the other Whitman’s poems, "song of myself" is revised extensively till its final permutation in 1881. The song is a sprawling combination of biography, sermon, and poetic meditation. It is not nearly as heavy-handed in its pronouncements as "Starting at Paumanok", rather, Whitman uses symbols and sly commentary to get at important issues. “Song of Myself” is composed more of vignettes than lists, he uses small, precisely drawn scenes to compose his. Song of My Self does not take on the title “Song of Myself” until the 1881 edition. Previously titled “Poem of Walt Whitman, an American” and, in the 1860, 1867, and 1871 editions, simply “Walt Whitman.” The poem’s shifting title suggests Whitman’s intentions. Whitman was acquainted with the varying aspects of the metropolis, listening to the oratory of the time, becoming intimate with drivers of omnibus and ferryboat pilots, joining the crowds at bathing beaches, all of which had an effect on the manner of his poetry. " Song of Myself" and other poems have distinctive features as repetition, parallelism, rhetorical mannerisms and the employment of the phrase instead of the foot as unit of rhythm, to create forms called free verse. "It stands to reason", says one critic, "that Whitman gave much thought to the planning and organizing of his poems" (James Miller, 1964).

Introduction: The Future of Scholarly Knowledge in the Humanities

IntroductionThe Future of Scholarly Knowledge in the Humanities James Miller (bio) it seems fitting that david bromwich kicked off the new school's two-day conference on "The Future of Scholarly Knowledge." A quarter-century ago, Bromwich helped shape our ongoing conversations about the future of the academy by publishing Politics by Other Means: Higher Education and Group Thinking, a polemic of rare eloquence. Then as now, Bromwich himself defies stereotyping: he champions the idea of tradition, but he's an open-minded pluralist whose heroes range from Burke and Hume to Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill. And he writes a plain prose that exemplifies the pleasures of demotic English in the hands of a scholar who knows how to wear his learning lightly. As Bromwich's keynote paper for the conference makes plain, the terms of his critique remain largely unaltered: today, as he did 25 years ago, he deplores how young scholars are advised "to aim at corporate approval, at the sacrifice of the difficult thing that intellectual self-knowledge may be. There has never been a more desolate title of a scholarly essay than 'The Way We Think Now.'" That is true enough, even though the late Clifford Geertz, who wrote the classic essay of that title, was jaunty, even insouciant, while contemplating the barbarians inside the academy's gates, quite unlike Bromwich, whose lamentations are keen. In his opening remarks, Bromwich directed our attention to two different forces that he believes darken the prospects for free inquiry in the contemporary academy: the growing influence of learning [End Page 557] assessment experts who demand that scholarship and teaching undergo a kind of cost-benefit accounting to demonstrate their utility to students; and the countervailing influence of the intellectual fashionistas of the academic left, who beat the drum of "social justice" in an effort to secure "safe spaces" for individuals belonging to previously marginalized and oppressed groups. As Bromwich puts it, the most militant proponents of social justice on campuses "have discouraged the inquisitive instincts that nourish education quite as effectually as the funding giants who demand to know the cash value of every course a student might take." Even worse, "the branch of the humanities that has gone furthest to make a fetish of 'resistance' and 'transgression' has itself sponsored protocols of intellectual conformity as thoroughly routinized as any in academic history." The three panelists who convened the day after Bromwich's keynote to discuss the challenges to scholarly knowledge in the humanities were a diverse group, including Daniel Kevles, a historian of science; Rosalind Morris, an anthropologist with a strong interest in the humanities; and Akeel Bilgrami, a multifaceted philosopher from an analytic background. In his paper, Daniel Kevles issued a salutary reminder that the pursuit of useful results in applied research sometimes fosters progress in fundamental knowledge in the sciences—it would be too glib simply to denounce all forms of instrumental inquiry. The American land grant research universities that sprang up in the nineteenth century were built, in part, on the promise that they would produce advances in knowledge that would prove useful to society as a whole. I would add that it is also worth recalling how Enlightenment proponents of universal education, such as Condorcet, hoped that the spread of free public schools would be instrumental in fostering "real equality, the final end of the social art," by enabling all citizens to "have the knowledge necessary to conduct himself in the ordinary affairs of life, according to the light of his own reason, to preserve his mind free from prejudice, to understand his rights and to exercise [End Page 558] them in accordance with his conscience and his creed" (Condorcet [1794] 2012, 126). Rosalind Morris, in sharp contrast to Kevles, issued a sweeping denunciation of the instrumental focus of the "corporate university"—and she clearly received Bromwich's keynote address as the provocation he intended. At one point in her spoken remarks, she made plain her core disagreement with him: deploring his lack of sympathy for students seeking safe spaces, she declared that "the problem is that there should be an aspiration for an imagination of the place of the other."1...