Point Of Departure Research Articles

Late Nineteenth-Century Radical Utopias in Theatre Reviews

Anne Charlotte Leffler’s Sanna Kvinnor (True Women 1883) is one of many gender-critical plays by Swedish women playwrights during the 1880s which linger in the shadows of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Sanna kvinnor certainly asks for a change of the prevailing gender norms in the 1880s, in other words, for a transformation into a better world, but how was this utopian drive staged at the theatres and how was it received by the theatre critics? By taking the theoretical point of departure in Slavoj Žižek’s notion of a radical utopia (2003), the aim of my article is to illuminate the reviewers’ perception of the stagings in the first production at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1883 and in Albert Ranft’s touring production 1884–86. My archival sources mainly consist of reviews from which both the stagings and the reviewers’ reactions will be traced through a systematic method developed from the semiotics of Jurij Lotman.

Social and Spatial Aspects of Loneliness: Challenges to Belong and Acquiring a Sense of Home in a Senior Housing Facility in Denmark

This paper contributes to the literature on loneliness by exploring how loneliness is impacted by a sense of home and experiences and negotiations of belonging. With an ethnographic point of departure in a newly established senior housing facility for older adults experiencing loneliness in Denmark, the paper discusses loneliness as a social and spatial phenomenon that is not static and does not exclusively pertain to the individual. Instead, it is something that is reshaped and (re)negotiated among the residents and their surroundings. This holds promise for welfare professionals to work on alleviating loneliness among older adults at senior housing facilities through working with the arrangements of the social and physical environments. This paper also notes that structures and physical settings that are purportedly supportive can also alienate older adults and hence risk worsening their experiences of loneliness.

Reconfiguring the strategic/non-strategic binary in im/politeness research

Abstract In this article, I explore the potential of the strategic/non-strategic distinction to link im/politeness with recent developments in pragmatics more generally. My point of departure is the claim that the binary between strategic/non-strategic politeness, as drawn in previous research starting with the distinction between discernment and volition, leaves a blind-spot when it comes to established ways of achieving politeness that do not rely on recognition of the speaker’s intention, yet go beyond a pre-defined repertoire of forms. To shed light on this blind spot, I recruit the notions of first-order (S1) and higher-order (S2) polite speakers from Rational Speech Act models, which distinguish between different types of speakers depending on the degree to which they reason not just about their own goals but also about what the hearer thinks of them. However, contrary to the standard RSA model, I propose to think of such reflexive reasoning as a matter of degree, which can be used to explain a continuum of uses from strategic to non-strategic politeness. This move highlights points of contact between theoretical traditions that have developed independently and helps to reinstate im/politeness as a driver of pragmatics research broadly conceived.

What is morality? A historical exploration

The objective of the article was to get more clarity on what morality is by addressing the question: ‘Can, in spite of undeniable adaptation and change through the ages, core elements of morality be detected that might be regarded as constitutive of morality?’ The method followed was to undertake a historical exploration of some of the pivotal factors contributing to the historical development of morality. An attempt was first made to identify the most important historical sources of morality. This was followed by a discussion of the social function and characteristics morality displayed in history. The article came to the conclusion that morality is a normative social institution with distinctive and stable core constituents: a core function of enhancing cooperation in communities by providing normative guidance to members on the fair advancement of wellbeing, a set of moral values attuned to the fulfilment of this function, a set of mechanisms to motivate people to act in accordance with the moral values and approved ways to make moral decisions in concrete situations based on the moral values. At the same time, morality is a flexible social institution that adapts to changes in the social and cultural environment.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The research undertaken in the article drew on research findings in the fields of religious ethics, philosophy, evolutionary ethics, and psychology. Research results present religious and philosophical ethics with the challenge to critically evaluate the conception of morality they take as point of departure.

The Reproduction of Nationalism and the Nationalism of Reproduction: Putin’s Biopolitics of Defending Tradition, 2012–2021

Abstract After Putin’s return to the Russian presidency in 2012, a further turn toward authoritarianism has been coupled with attacks on Western secularism, multiculturalism, and alleged moral decay. At home, the Kremlin has been increasingly preoccupied with defining and addressing problems related to citizens’ bodies, linking “traditional values” to national security. Central to this discourse are issues relating to reproductive norms. This analysis uses the Foucauldian concept of “biopower” as an epistemic point of departure in an attempt to understand the central role of reproduction in the Kremlin’s identity project. Administering the bodies of a population simultaneously produces and delimits that population according to bodily criteria. Thus, this “bodily turn” in Russian nation-building may be understood as “bionationalism,” a depoliticizing style of nationalism that relies on biopolitical techniques. The analysis explicates the mechanisms of this style of nationalism: how and why this discourse functions, legitimates problematic practices, excludes “abnormals,” expands the state into the everyday lives of citizens, and marginalizes and even securitizes alternative notions of national identity. Putin’s bionationalism may be read as an existential nationalism and thereby as producing a specific mobilizational context.

Translating Linguistic Theories into Practical Solutions for ESP Materials Design: from Discourse Analysis to Teaching Political Discourse

Linguistics plays a key role in foreign language education both in relation to the teaching/learning process and to materials development. As a point of departure the article examines the implications of linguistic paradigms for foreign language teaching methods and follows the evolution of the concept discourse competence. Together with Discourse Analysis it is identified as central to updating contemporary teaching methods and instructional materials. The major objective is to show how research within linguistics informs and gives new impetus to FLT which is illustrated by a model of ESP instructional material designed for teaching political discourse to university students. The main conclusion is that such a form of mediation between theory and practice can broaden the focus on authenticity to encompass not only exposure to real language but also to genuinely analytical and critical thinking experiences typical for the academia.

Natural born cullers? How hunters police the more-than-human right to the city

Urban areas are a messy more-than-human interface for humans and synanthropic wildlife. Norms for what constitutes a ‘problem’ animal to be culled, a displaced animal to be rescued, or a species nuisance whom one simply has to let live, are undergoing rapid change. We investigate the changing expectations that municipal hunters experience that they have from society in relation to managing problem wildlife in cities. Adding to the literature on the constitution of ‘problem’ animals in human environments, we show what happens to these animals in the practical sense, and what informs this decision. Our point of departure is to ask by what rationales hunters consider lethal interventions in urban nature to be legitimate, and which they find to be morally problematic. In a discussion, we reflect on what this says about, and means for, multispecies coexistence. Through interviews and go-along participant observation with 32 municipal hunters in Sweden, we show how municipal hunters wrestle with growing unease about new custodial roles they are expected to inhabit, as facilitators of the natural order, as garbage collectors of society for unwanted wildlife, and as enforcers of an interspecies code of conduct for the city. Based on this analysis, we discuss the relative standing of reparative, sacrificial, aesthetic, goodwill, practical, categorical and situational rationales for culling. This paints a picture of hunters as more conflicted about their control of urban nature, in challenge with the stereotypical idea of the professional hunter as a ‘natural born culler’. It also shows a city of parallel planes of multispecies coexistence, where some species and animals get a pass more than others.

Perturbation of IP3R-dependent endoplasmic reticulum calcium homeostasis by PPARδ-activated metabolic stress leads to mouse spermatocyte apoptosis: A direct mechanism for perfluorooctane sulfonic acid-induced spermatogenic disorders

Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) as an archetypal representative of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) is ubiquitously distributed in the environment and extensively detected in human bodies. Although accumulating evidence is suggestive of the deleterious effects of PFOS on male reproduction, the direct toxicity of PFOS towards spermatogenic cells and the relevant mechanisms remain poorly understood. The aims of the present study were to explore the direct effects and underlying molecular mechanisms of PFOS on spermatogenesis. Through integrating animal study, transcriptome profiling, in silico toxicological approaches, and in vitro validation study, we identified the molecular initiating event and key events contributing to PFOS-induced spermatogenic impairments. The mouse experiments revealed that spermatocytes were involved in PFOS-induced spermatogenic disorders and the activation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor delta (PPARδ) was linked to spermatocyte loss in PFOS-administrated mice. GC-2spd(ts) cells were treated with an increased gradient of PFOS, which was relevant to environmental and occupational exposure levels of PFOS in populations. Following 72-h treatment, cells was harvested for RNA sequencing. The transcriptome profiling and benchmark dose (BMD) modeling identified endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress as the key event for PFOS-mediated spermatocyte apoptosis and determined the point-of-departure (PoD) for perturbations of ER stress signaling. Based on the calculated PoD value, further bioinformatics analyses combined with in vitro and in vivo validations showed that PFOS caused metabolic stress by activating PPARδ in mouse spermatocytes, which was responsible for Beclin 1-involved inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) sensitization. The disruption of IP3R-mediated ER calcium homeostasis triggered ER calcium depletion, leading to ER stress and apoptosis in mouse spermatocytes exposed to PFOS. This study systematically investigated the direct impacts of PFOS on spermatogenesis and unveiled the relevant molecular mechanism of PFOS-induced spermatogenic disorders, providing novel insights and potential preventive/therapeutic targets for PFAS-associated male reproductive toxicity.

Acute Effects of Brevetoxin-3 Administered via Oral Gavage to Mice.

Brevetoxins (BTXs) constitute a family of lipid-soluble toxic cyclic polyethers mainly produced by Karenia brevis, which is the main vector for a foodborne syndrome known as neurotoxic shellfish poisoning (NSP) in humans. To prevent health risks associated with the consumption of contaminated shellfish in France, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) recommended assessing the effects of BTXs via an acute oral toxicity study in rodents. Here, we investigated the effect of a single oral administration in both male and female mice with several doses of BTX-3 (100 to 1,500 µg kg-1 bw) during a 48 h observation period in order to provide toxicity data to be used as a starting point for establishing an acute oral reference dose (ARfD). We monitored biological parameters and observed symptomatology, revealing different effects of this toxin depending on the sex. Females were more sensitive than males to the impact of BTX-3 at the lowest doses on weight loss. For both males and females, BTX-3 induced a rapid, transient and dose-dependent decrease in body temperature, and a transient dose-dependent reduced muscle activity. Males were more sensitive to BTX-3 than females with more frequent observations of failures in the grip test, convulsive jaw movements, and tremors. BTX-3's impacts on symptomatology were rapid, appearing during the 2 h after administration, and were transient, disappearing 24 h after administration. The highest dose of BTX-3 administered in this study, 1,500 µg kg-1 bw, was more toxic to males, leading to the euthanasia of three out of five males only 4 h after administration. BTX-3 had no effect on water intake, and affected neither the plasma chemistry parameters nor the organs' weight. We identified potential points of departure that could be used to establish an ARfD (decrease in body weight, body temperature, and muscle activity).

The archaeology of pleasure: Evidence for the use of tobacco at Old Dongola in Northern Sudan (16th–19th centuries AD)

This paper presents the first evidence of tobacco seeds (Nicotiana tabacum L.) from northeastern Africa. The evidence comes from Old Dongola, the northern city-state of the Funj Kingdom in Sudan (16th–19th centuries AD). Old Dongola served as a hub for communication and a point of departure for caravans. Since 2018, we carried out large-scale systematic archaeobotanical sampling at the citadel of Old Dongola. We floated sediment samples of 1–20 L to recover botanical remains, which we later processed and identified in the archaeobotany laboratory of the University of Tübingen, Germany, based on anatomical and morphological comparisons with modern seeds from the reference collection. The team recovered a wide variety of economically important plants from this regional capital. Here we present the earliest archaeobotanical evidence for tobacco in Sudan dating to the middle of the 17th century. This research supports the hypothesis that tobacco cultivation in Sudanese Nubia began by the early part of the Funj/Ottoman period. While these results highlight the use of tobacco at Old Dongola, the pathways for the introduction of tobacco into Sudan are poorly documented, and the exact timing of the introduction and cultivation in Sudan remains a subject of lively debate.

Storied Hills

Taking as the point of departure the Ahobilamāhātmya narratives that depict local hills as Narasiṃha‘s residence, the paper considers those hill narratives as a product of interrelatedness of nature and culture and examines the crucial role such a product may play in vesting Ahobilam with the notion of sacredness. To this end, the narratives‘ ability to mediate various concepts is explored from the wider perspective of cultural ecology of literature, which allows them to be viewed as a site where besides nature and culture other domains can be reintegrated and reconciled, e.g., the elements of local and Brahmanic traditions. In addition, as I argue, such narratives may also convey some shifts in perceiving the landscape.

Editorial

This Open Issue showcases the diversity of active scholarship across the International Association for the Study of Popular Music. We have seven contributions from scholars along multiple career stages, covering diverse topics from streaming to composing. They encompass a variety of methodological traditions, notably musicological and ethnographic ways into thinking about the production and consumption of popular music. This richness and variety of scholarship extends across diverse institutions, locations and points of departure, resulting in a dynamic, global academic ecosystem of popular music enquiry. We are a journal with an international reach and membership, and this dynamic richness is what makes reading these pieces so rewarding.

On dreaming a different world together?

The article provides some broad perspectives on what is happening in the global Reformed world today. It takes its point of departure in two recent editions of the Reformed World, the official journal of the World Communion of Reformed Churches that is again being published since 2021 after a short interruption in publication. It shows how these editions embody the present self-description of the global body, namely “Called to Communion; Committed to Justice” as well as its strategic vision, “Confessing the God of Life in a World Fallen Among Thieves.” In this process, a brief overview is offered of distinct Reformed emphases in four of the most important bilateral reports in which the World Communion participated in recent years. Based on this overview, four brief theological observations conclude the broad picture.

Application of N-Terminal Labeling Methods Provide Novel Insights into Endoproteolysis of the Prion Protein in Vivo.

Alternative α- and β-cleavage events in the cellular prion protein (PrPC) central region generate fragments with distinct biochemical features that affect prion disease pathogenesis, but the assignment of precise cleavage positions has proven challenging. Exploiting mouse transgenic models expressing wild-type (WT) PrPC and an octarepeat region mutant allele (S3) with increased β-fragmentation, cleavage sites were defined using LC-MS/MS in conjunction with N-terminal enzymatic labeling and chemical in-gel acetylation. Our studies profile the net proteolytic repertoire of the adult brain, as deduced from defining hundreds of proteolytic events in other proteins, and position individual cleavage events in PrPC α- and β-target areas imputed from earlier, lower resolution methods; these latter analyses established site heterogeneity, with six cleavage sites positioned in the β-cleavage region of WT PrPC and nine positions for S3 PrPC. Regarding α-cleavage, aside from reported N-termini at His110 and Val111, we identified a total of five shorter fragments in the brain of both mice lines. We infer that aminopeptidase activity in the brain could contribute to the ragged N-termini observed around PrPC's α- and β-cleavage sites, with this work providing a point of departure for further in vivo studies of brain proteases.

‘Count your Blessings!’ The Interpretive Potential of Sacramental Theology for Everyday Ritualizations around Food

In this article, the authors explore the yield of a sacramental lens on extra-ecclesial ritualizations around food in contemporary Dutch ‘secularized’ culture. In an effort to explore the scope of sacramental theology beyond the liturgical ritual of the Eucharist/Holy Communion, they conclude that sacramental theology as a heuristic lens has a promising potential to reveal what is at stake when it comes to ordinary practices of food. Taking Louis-Marie Chauvet’s ground-breaking study Symbol and Sacrament as a point of departure for a sacramental frame, and using three examples from a recent Dutch TV series on counting blessings at dinner time, they seek to answer the question “What is the heuristic potential of a sacramental perspective on food-related ritualizations in everyday life?” The authors conclude that everyday ritualizations, in turn, constructively challenge ‘classic’ sacramental and liturgical theology. Thus, a sacramental lens on extra-ecclesial food-related ritualizations can enhance the understanding of the Eucharist/Holy Communion, as well as reveal what is at stake when it comes to ordinary (ritualized) practices of food.

Local Government: A Social Ontology of Care

Setting out to determine what ‘local government’ is and how it can be understood, I conducted an analysis of the concept ‘local government’ by identifying its institutional, behavioural and territorial attributes. This analysis informed an ontological description of the nature of local government and the underlying assumptions about this reality. Ontological, local government, as a collection of ‘Dasein’ with an immanent tension between anxiety and care, may simultaneously be viewed as being a social collective of individuals, an institution consisting of individuals, and a social action or intervention performed by caring individuals. The description of the nature of local government provides a point of departure for describing and comparing this reality as situated in different contexts. It also serves as a proposed menu for the questioning and challenging of underlying assumptions about local government. The value of this social ontology of care lies in the description of the nature of the reality of local government situated in different contexts. Furthermore, it serves as an agenda for questioning and challenging the underlying assumptions about local government within different contexts.

American Partition

The current assessment of the state of political division in the United States is foreboding. Americans are more divided than any time since the Civil War, leaving some to opine that these differences may be irreconcilable. This speculative analysis takes seriously as its point of departure the position of a growing number of American commentators and policy experts who argue that the United States exhibits many of the risk factors that could lead down the path toward another civil war. Some of these commentators have advocated breaking up the union to pre-empt this outcome. The critical analysis within this article draws upon historical analogues from states partitioned during the 20th century such as such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Palestine, and India. These comparisons are used to evaluate proposals for a geographical sundering of the United States into Red and Blue Americas. My analysis highlights the ways in which any kind of national dissolution, though appealing to some at first glance, would be more politically complex, demographically fraught, and possibly no-less violent than the alternative of civil conflict. The most promising alternative appears to be that of learning to live and work together through difference.

Irgafos 168 and Irganox 1076 as new cocaine cutting agents: A COVID-19 pandemic impact on cocaine profiling and trafficking in Brazil

BackgroundsRestrictions in movement and closure of borders imposed by the Sars-Cov- 2 worldwide pandemic have affected the global illicit drug market, including cocaine trafficking. In this scenario, comparing cutting agents added to the cocaine and the drug purity are valuable strategies to understand how the drug trade has been impacted by the pandemic. MethodsIn this work, 204 cocaine salt materials seized in the Brazilian Federal District, before (2019) and during COVID-19 pandemics (2020) were analyzed by two analytical techniques: gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC–MS) and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Statistical analyses, including Principal Component Analysis (PCA), were applied to evaluate the COVID-19 pandemic impact in the local market. Bibliometric analysis was performed as a forensic intelligence tool. Results: From 2019–2020, cocaine average purity decreased 26 % while the frequency of cutting agents, as caffeine and anesthetics (lidocaine, tetracaine) increased. The high percentage of unknown were increased. Different cocaine profiling seized in 2020 showed new cutting agents, such as Irganox 1076, and Irgafos 168, indicating a trend on new adulterants/diluents introduced in the local market to mitigate the local drug shortage. Also in 2020, there was an increase in the local cocaine seizures, despite of the cocaine drug purity decreased by 26 % compared to 2019. Conclusions: Taken together, these data showed that the covid-19 pandemics has impacted cocaine trafficking in the Brazilian Federal District, an increase in cocaine seizures, which may indicate greater demand for the drug and, specially, changes in the cocaine purity and cutting agents profiling showing how traffickers tried to minimize difficulties in crossing the Brazilian border during COVID-19 restrictions. The information is relevant since Brazil is one of the major departure points for traded cocaine to the world. Bibliometric analysis showed that Irgafos 168 and Irganox 1076 were consistently identified as cocaine cutting agents for the first time.

Investigating the dependency of in vitro benchmark concentrations on exposure time in transcriptomics experiments

There is increasing interest to employ in vitro transcriptomics experiments in toxicological testing, for example to determine a point-of-departure (PoD) for chemical safety assessment. However current practices to derive PoD tend to utilise a single exposure time despite the importance of exposure time on the manifestation of toxicity caused by a chemical. Therefore it is important to investigate both concentration and exposure time to determine how these factors affect biological responses, and as a consequence, the derivation of PoDs. In this study, metabolically competent HepaRG cells were exposed to five known toxicants over a range of concentrations and time points for subsequent gene expression analysis, using a targeted RNA expression assay (TempO-Seq). A non-parametric factor-modelling approach was used to model the collective response of all significant genes, which exploited the interdependence of differentially expressed gene responses. This in turn allowed the determination of an isobenchmark response (isoBMR) curve for each chemical in a reproducible manner. For 2 of the 5 chemicals tested, the PoD was observed to vary by 0.5–1 log-order within the 48-h timeframe of the experiment. The approach and findings presented here clearly demonstrate the need to take both concentration and exposure time into account when designing in vitro toxicogenomics experiments to determine PoD. Doing so also provides a means to use concentration-time-response modelling as a basis to extrapolate a PoD from shorter to longer exposure durations, and to identify chemicals of concern that can cause cumulative effects over time.

Lack of genotoxicity potential and safety assessment of 4-(2-hydroxyethyl) morpholine present as an impurity in pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements

4-(2-Hydroxyethyl) morpholine (HEM) is widely used as a building block of macromolecules in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements and could remain as an impurity in the finished products. An evaluation of HEM was conducted to identify endpoints that could be used to determine the point-of-departure (POD) for use in assessing the potential risk from exposure to HEM. No oral repeated dose toxicological studies of appropriate duration were found for HEM. Therefore, suitable analogue(s) were identified. Although oral repeated dose studies were available for the analogues, the studies were not of sufficient duration for use in the assignment of a POD for risk evaluation. Accordingly, the Threshold of Toxicological Concern (TTC) approach, which proposes that a de minimis value can be derived to qualitatively assess risk, was considered for HEM. To determine the appropriate TTC approach (genotoxic or non-genotoxic), the genotoxicity of HEM and its analogues were evaluated. The weight of the evidence indicated that HEM, and the appropriate analogues, are not genotoxic. Considering the chemical structure of HEM, the non-genotoxic Cramer class III TTC value of 1.5 μg/kg bw/day was determined to be appropriate for use in safety assessment of HEM as an impurity in products intended for human consumption.