Original Story Research Articles

Origins of xyloglucan-degrading enzymes in fungi.

The origin story of land plants - the pivotal evolutionary event that paved the way for terrestrial ecosystems of today to flourish - lies within their closest living relatives: the streptophyte algae. Streptophyte cell wall composition has evolved such that profiles of cell wall polysaccharides can be used as taxonomic markers. Since xyloglucan is restricted to the streptophyte lineage, we hypothesized that fungal enzymes evolved in response to xyloglucan availability in streptophyte algal or land plant cell walls. The record of the origins of these enzymes is embedded in fungal genomes, and comparing genomes of fungi that share an ancient common ancestor can provide insights into fungal interactions with early plants. This Viewpoint contributes a review of evidence underlying current assumptions about the distribution of xyloglucan in plant and algal cell walls. We evaluate evolutionary scenarios that may have given rise to the observed distribution of putative xyloglucanases in fungi and discuss possible biological contexts in which these enzymes could have evolved. Our findings suggest that fungal xyloglucanase evolution was more likely driven by land plant diversification and biomass accumulation than by the first origins of xyloglucan in streptophyte algal cell walls.

Curating reflexivity: industry events and the performative politics of alternative finance

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of industry events in curating reflexivity within the financial sector. Through an examination of industry events related to impact bonds and Islamic finance, it identifies three important mechanisms through which reflexivity is curated. First, industry events act as foundational frames, creating historical narratives and origin stories that conjure up a shared sense of social purpose and direction amongst professionals from different backgrounds; second, they act as deliberative spaces where market rationalities are presented, challenged, and negotiated; and third, they act as networking nodes where alternative market subjectivities are cultivated, validated, and shaped. Together, we argue, these three mechanisms perform a politics of reflexivity within alternative finance. In contrast to investigations arguing that alternative finance seeks to silence political confrontation, our work reveals that it is the very performance of dissent and outside voices at such events that creates credibility, and stability.

La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories by Kevin Kokomoor (review)

La Florida: Catholics, Conquistadores, and Other American Origin Stories by Kevin Kokomoor (review)

Hearing home: Exploring place and identity through voice

Creating or recreating voices through the writing of fictional letters can be a way of reconnecting with places that may have been taken from us. For the person denied an authentic connection with their birthplace, the writing of voice through fictional stories, novels and creative nonfiction may have the power to bridge time and distance, to take a person back to the place where they were born and to help rebuild an origin story that was refused them. By recreating the voices of people associated with one’s original home, especially when writing for an audience who may take the theoretical place of an absent respondent, a person may come to develop a better understanding of their relationship with that region. This paper is informed by Elspeth Probyn’s theory that childhood is a repeatable point of beginning, Anne-Marie Fortier’s extended definition of home, and an examination of the results a return to the past may bring. It references studies on dialect as it relates to character the epistolary form. It provides examples that informed the author’s thinking in using voice to reflect place and follows with samples of the author’s attempts to connect with their birthplace by drawing imaginary portraits using dialect reflected in the epistolary form. It ends with a reflection on this process.

The Office of Shaykh al-‘Aql of the Druze in Lebanon

This book forum centers on Said Abou Zaki's Arabic book, “The Office of Shaykh al-‘Aql of the Druze in Lebanon.” It includes contributions from various scholars, each offering a unique perspective on the historical and institutional analysis of Druze religious leadership in Lebanon: Tuba Yildiz, Yusri Hazran, Akram Khater, and Abdul Rahman M. Chamseddine. Yildiz acknowledges the lack of historical readings and erroneous information in early 20th-century works on the Druze. She appreciates Abou Zaki's comprehensive study of Lebanese and Ottoman perspectives, offering a broader understanding of the Druze religious institution's development and its connection with the Ottoman Empire's socio-religious policies. Hazran commends the book for providing a comprehensive historical study of the Druze community's religious and spiritual leadership, shedding light on its evolution from the 11th century through to the Ottoman Empire's fall. Although the book excels in its research methods and historical insights, Hazran suggests strengthening it by addressing specific methodological and historical issues, such as placing the discussion on existing narratives and substantiating Emir Bashir Shihab II's role in the schism. Khater highlights the internal tensions in Abou Zaki's book arising from its threefold goals: serving as a historiographical essay, an origins story, and a history of Mashyakhat al-‘Aql. Khater commends the work's critical review of existing literature and acknowledges the book's significant contribution to understanding the position of Shaykh al-‘Aql amidst political crises. Chamseddine praised Abou Zaki's critical historiographical approach and genealogical method. Chamseddine highlights the importance of integrating oral histories and local traditions into academic research. He notes that Abou Zaki's work sheds light on the Druze community's religious evolution, although he critiques the book's occasional lack of coherence due to abrupt transitions and unexplained terminology. The reviewers concluded that the book constitutes a significant contribution to Druze Studies.

Sylvia Wynter's Decolonial Philosophy: How Being Human Needs an Origin Story

AbstractIn this article, Ingrid Andersson discusses the decolonial philosophy of Sylvia Wynter, with a special focus on addressing her concepts of the hybrid human and origin stories. Andersson shows how Wynter's philosophizing about the being of being human is premised on an entanglement of nature and culture that is on par with the posthuman understanding of the ontological inseparability of matter and discourse. She goes on to interrogate some productive tensions between Wynter's decolonial philosophy and posthumanism by pointing out how Wynter's hybrid human formulates an understanding of human nature that is different in itself and not solely in relation to other nonhuman entities. In the final part of the article, she proposes how we, with Wynter, can devise a pedagogical approach that seeks to counteract harmful taxonomizing practices.

Reconfiguring the Tribe: Changing Ethnic Affiliations in India’s Northeast

This essay sees the form and functioning of the Zeliangrong Naga community as a work in progress. Rather than a perennial, historically immutable and delimited entity, the (relatively recent) formation of the Zeliangrong community indicates that tribes can be formed afresh and that tribal identities are constantly in flux. I begin by tracing and placing the origins of the Zeliangrong Naga as told by Zeliangrong elders and circulating origin and migration stories. Then, continuing my focus on ethnic alignment and realignment, I studied the Zeliangrong movement that emerged in the 1920s. At first, they advocated a Naga Raj through the ousting of the colonial government. Over time, however, this rebellion changed direction and reduced its ambitions to the creation of a Zeliangrong homeland that would unite the Zeliangrong people who currently inhabit three different states of Northeast India, namely Manipur, Nagaland and Assam. Drawing both on historical analysis and fresh ethnography this essay shows how over time the Zeliangrong ethnic identity has come under strain and is increasingly internally contested with its constituent parts now expressing divergent political aspirations while also struggling over status, standing and dominance within.

“Written upon the Stones”: Of the Cyclops, the Shamir and Other Legends of Origin in Benjamin of Tudela’s Book of Travels

This paper examines legends on the origins (aetiologies) of places and placenames in Benjamin of Tudela’s travel account. Origin stories are prevalent in medieval travelogues, but Hebrew travel accounts employ a unique form that is embedded in placenames. Midrash Shem (מדרש שם), as this form is known in Jewish tradition, is the homiletical interpretation of names, typically characterized in some measure by wordplay. I suggest that these legends and placenames serve Hebrew travel literature both as an evidential tool and as an artistic means of expression, contributing to the construction of “known” and “foreign” lands and peoples, and consequently to the formulation of group identities. En route to the foreign and unknown, yet “own”, holy Eretz Yisrael, Benjamin of Tudela encounters Jewish communities and records a variety of aetiologies throughout the Middle East. In retelling the origins of the travelled landscape, he transmits local mythical, theological and historical content as well as particular Jewish-diasporic socio-political realities. Diversely told origins of Roman architecture, scattered across most of Benjamin’s account, show how these local traditions varied. Some aetiologies fuse traditional with foreign content to affirm a sense of belonging under foreign rule, while others actively undermine established non-Jewish narratives or even oppose competing Jewish narratives.

The Book of Genesis and other allegorical origin stories of games

The Book of Genesis and other allegorical origin stories of games

Filling literary gaps of convention

ABSTRACT This article is an interrogation of gaps which hide sex in literature. Avoiding the narration of sex is a persistent narrative convention in much literary fiction, and these gaps offer an opportunity for creative writing to intervene. My critical enquiry is grounded in my creative writing practice, which is further grounded in lived experience of disability. As an embodied orientation to the world and a critical concept, disability can be productively used as a methodology which challenges ingrained attitudes to embodiment and capacity, thereby, according to Siebers, ‘defamiliariz[ing] how we think currently about sex’, and how we write it. Following a theoretical elaboration of the presence of absence in narrative, I present an original story ‘How to be an Other’, which plays with Lorrie Moore’s ‘How to be an Other Woman’ and which offers a practical application of how gaps can be generative of new ways of thinking.

Black holes, Achilles and the original tortoise coordinate

Abstract The “frozen star” picture of black holes, based on the fact that an outside observer will never see a collapsing sphere shrink sufficiently to form a black hole horizon, was a historical obstacle to the understanding of black holes, and continues to be a stumbling point for students trying to understand horizons. Promoting the discrete steps in Zeno’s original story of Achilles and the tortoise to a “Zeno time coordinate” provides a quantitative toy model that allows students to understand why the “frozen star” phenomenon does not mean that objects cannot fall into a black hole. The toy model can be used for teaching about this particular feature of black holes in an introductory setting that does not introduce the Schwarzschild metric and its tortoise coordinates.

Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting: Personal, Ethnographic, and Folkloric Reflections on a Theme

Abstract This address examines the theme, “Roots, Rootlessness, and Uprooting,” of the 2023 American Folklore Society (AFS) Annual Meeting. I explore parts of my own journey as a folklorist by considering my professional origin story; ethnographic fieldwork experiences with my own family, the Buraku of Japan, and the people of Little Cayman; membership in various folklore communities, including the Association of African and African American Folklorists; and some of the history of American Folklore Society.

Response to A Story During Cognitive Screening – Expression of the Inherent Awareness of Survival of Fellow Human Beings

Abstract Background The comprehensive assessment of cognition should include the immediate recall of information as well as that provided after delay. The phenomenon of patients providing intrusions is well recognised in the realm of cognitive assessment. Certain intrusions have been found to recur across patient performances. Methods Retrospective analysis was undertaken of patients (n=9) screened for dementia using the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (Pearson) between 2022 and 2024. Data was sourced from MDT notes cataloguing the results of memory tests undertaken whereby the patient had added information regarding loss of life for persons involved in a fire. Data were elicited regarding List Learning (LL) and Recall; Story Memory and Recall, Figure Copy and Recall. The final sheet was used to elicit scores for each category. Results Median age was 76 (range 61-84 years). Male to female was 4:5. Patients were found to make a comment regarding loss of life e.g. ‘nobody was hurt’ where the information did not exist in the original story script. This occurred equally at Story Memory Stage and Story Recall Stage (77.7%). When compared with list and figure copy elements- only one patient also had errors in both LL and memory figure. Six patients had intrusion errors across other elements. Where the story was accentuated in both immediate and delayed recall stages- pts had intrusions in list learning (n=2, 22%) list recall (n=3, 33.3%) but no intrusions on Figure Copy- immediate or delayed. Conclusion Although this cohort of patients was small- each one of them included the status of life lost when given a short story to recite and then recall. These comments occurred both on immediate episodic recall and after delay and were not always associated with a replicated intrusion phenomena across other elements. This inherent interest in the survival of other humans is worth highlighting.

The Contemporary Transformation of Mythical Women: Helen and Penelope in Margaret Atwoods Reconstruction

The feminist movement has driven the reinterpretation of classical texts such as Homers epics, with Margaret Atwoods works exemplifying this trend. Atwood has created poetry and novels rooted in the tradition of feminist rewriting, utilizing mythological female figures like Helen and Penelope to explore their inner worlds and unveil the long-concealed mechanisms of patriarchal power. Employing techniques such as multiple perspectives and nonlinear narratives, she disrupts the constraints of a singular authoritative discourse. By merging the ancient with the modern, Atwood highlights the shared experiences of women while portraying the awakening of female consciousness. She transforms the stereotypical images of the whore and the virtuous wife into complex, autonomous individuals, challenging traditional gender role definitions. Atwoods rewritings are not merely retellings of the original stories but also explorations of the deeper structures of gender power. She weaves a rich cultural network of women, opening new frontiers for literature of their own.

No thanks: How an ideology of sharing, not reciprocating, ensures abundance in the forests of south‐eastern Cameroon

Abstract Reciprocity and relationality are themes which frequently emerge with respect to human–nature associations in Indigenous groups around the world. But many hunter‐gatherers have been shown to reject systems of reciprocity, instead favouring unconditional sharing both between each other and their environment through egalitarian social structures. Investigations of human–nature reciprocity in Central African hunter‐gatherers has been neglected. In this article, we investigate how Baka‐forest relationships intersect with concepts of reciprocity and what the implications are for forest managers. The work is the result of a collaboration between local knowledge holders and an anthropologist who carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork in a Baka village in south‐eastern Cameroon. Through the examples of three phenomena—origin stories, human–animal shapeshifting, and forest and ancestral spirits—we show that the Baka hold a complex and deeply rooted relational connection with the forest, whereby the two are closely tied. The common notion of direct human–nature reciprocity whereby ‘giving back’ or ‘giving thanks’ that appears in such a diversity of contexts is not present in the case of the Baka. Rather, the focus is on celebrating the abundance of the forest experienced, expressed through sharing properly with others. There is no expectation that this will lead to getting something in return, but instead is known as the ultimate way to achieve joy. As the Baka consider themselves as part of the forest, ensuring their own well‐being is ensuring the well‐being of the forest, an ideology dependent on close relational ties. Extractive industries and mainstream conservation practices in south‐eastern Cameroon are often based on inappropriate approaches which may cause harm to forest communities and jeopardise the state of the forest in the long term. The social‐ecological philosophy we describe, which insists on caring for forest people as the primary means for caring for the forest, provides guidance for forest managers in the tropics and more widely in how to secure a sustainable future for both forests and people. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

The Pre-History of News-Industry Discourse Around Artificial Intelligence

This study examines how automation and then artificial intelligence (AI) was discussed by news workers in journalism trade publications in the 1980s and 1990s and through the 2000s and 2010s. This era saw the full computerization of the newsroom, as well as the introduction of the civilian, commercial internet and its adoption by the news and media industries. Limited use of automated and early AI tools in these fields dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, with the use of software such as spell- and grammar-checkers, as well as the first generation of word-processing tools. This included very early efforts at automated writing, such as for financial and sports news. With this complex origin story, the discourse around AI has a prehistory that deserves a deeper exploration and appreciation.

Development and Evaluation of “Period Kits” For Adolescents with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: An Embedded Mixed Methods Study

BackgroundPatients with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) experience greater unmet medical service needs and decreased care satisfaction compared to those without these diagnoses. There are no evidence-based resources widely available to prepare children with IDD for menarche. MethodsThis IRB approved embedded mixed methods study investigated the efficacy of “period kits” for patients with IDD to ease anxiety and improve preparedness for menarche. Custom kits included a colorful pouch, an original social story, a resource list, and common period management items. Nine family pairs (child/adult) were enrolled. Surveys performed before and after kit exploration queried participants’ understanding of menarche, and feedback about the kit itself. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsSurveys of the children showed limited knowledge about periods at baseline. Additional themes prior to provision of the “period kit” included limited knowledge, negative perceptions and emotional responses about menstruation and puberty and hesitancy approaching period conversations. After kit exposure, there was an improvement in period related knowledge and promotion of interhousehold discussion with continued room for conversation. ConclusionsMany kids with IDD have limited baseline knowledge about menstruation. Custom “period kits” may be helpful in stimulating conversation within families and promoting increased knowledge about menses to children and families. Limitations of this study are small size and qualitative nature, potentially limiting generalizability and external data validity.

Black Gravity, or a Hidden History of Empire

This essay takes this occasion—the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Evelynn Hammonds’s germinal essay “Black (W)holes and the Geometry of Black Female Sexuality”—as an opportunity to explore the turn to spacetime and astrophysics in Black feminist writing and scholarship. This understudied tradition has unfolded concurrently alongside the rise of maritime and aquatic metaphors in Black studies. Focusing on the image of the black hole, the essay argues that this metaphor operates as a stimulus for confronting disciplinary objects of anxiety in Black studies, Caribbean studies, physics, and Black feminist studies. By analyzing origin stories that surround the moniker black hole in physics, the essay shows how imperial violence and notions of Black gender and sexual alterity suffused the term from its inception in the world of physics—a history that Black feminist theorists call to memory and challenge in their redeployment of the image.

“Words Cluster like Chromosomes”: Marianne Moore and Poetic-Genetic Origination

In 1963, Marianne Moore tells an interviewer, “I never ‘plan’ a stanza. Words cluster like chromosomes, determining the procedure.” Six decades earlier, when Moore first learned about chromosomes, the concept was relatively new. Her education at Bryn Mawr from 1905 to 1909 placed her at the forefront of the understanding of heredity for her time, among those who knew that embryos inherited chromosomes equally from each parent. As her early poetry placed embryonic origins in tension with religious, national, and poetic origins, she posed the embryo both as disruptive to Western origin stories—like the Christian story of the fall—and as generative for her poetics, offering a model for a poetics of iterative and continual origination. Heather Cass White has suggested that the future of Moore criticism depends on recognizing how two schools—“the scientific Moore” and “the Protestant Moore”—are ultimately united around “her pursuit of an aesthetically and ethically tenable ‘original’ poetics.” Moore’s attention to embryos suggests that she was also performing a study of origin itself.

정선의 옛길 ‘안돌이지돌이다래미한숨바우’의 보존·전승을 위한 리스토리텔링 전략

‘Andoljidolidaeraemihansumbau’ straddled a remote canyon area in Odaecheon Stream of Jeongseon, Gangwon state, is the longest old road name in Korea with outstanding historicity, regionality, and mystique, but it is on the verge of being abandoned and forgotten. In this study, I collected the origin stories of place names through field trips and in-depth interviews with stakeholders, and analyzed the narratives by applying David Herman’s Archetypal Narrative Structure Theory and then created re-story conservation plans by using Karen Bain’s Storytelling Model. As a result, the meaning of the place name was analyzed as ‘a risky rocky cliff road where even squirrels sigh in bewilderment because they had to barely go around holding the rock or turning their back.’ Combining the orthodox and heterodox oral traditions, it contained an active view of life and high-heartedness against the threats of nature, and the spirit of community collaboration in the life of isolated mountain villages. In order to preserve it as a cultural resource, the strategy of reinforcing the completeness of the existing story and integrating the landscape and traditional elements of the surrounding nine village to create a ‘Andori Old Road Byeolcheonji Forest Village’ was found to be suggestive and effective.