University Park Research Articles

Robert the Devil: The First Modern English Translation of Robert le Diable, an Anonymous French Romance of the Thirteenth Century trans. by Samuel N. Rosenberg

Reviewed by: Robert the Devil: The First Modern English Translation of Robert le Diable, an Anonymous French Romance of the Thirteenth Century trans. by Samuel N. Rosenberg Nicholas D. Brodie Rosenberg, Samuel N., trans., Robert the Devil: The First Modern English Translation of Robert le Diable, an Anonymous French Romance of the Thirteenth Century, University Park, PA, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018; paperback; pp. 168; R.R.P. US $19.95; ISBN 9780271080161. In describing this text, translator Samuel N. Rosenberg describes it as 'basically the tale of a boy born to a childless noble couple only after the mother has secretly called on Satan to help her conceive' (p. 1). This dark start, the reader soon learns, is borne out by a week-long labour. While handsome, Robert is a violent child. He is prone to biting while nursing, frightening his teachers, and attacking the poor. The naughty boy grows into a troublesome man, causing the Pope to deny Robert communion and ultimately leading Robert's father to boot him out of home. Robert then takes to the forest and a career in highway robbery. As knighthood is seen as a potential cure of his wicked ways, Robert is knighted. Yet while he then tourneys with brutal effectiveness, he remains a malevolent force. Evidencing this is the fact that he does not pray, and a shocking event where he massacres a house of nuns. Only then, with a moment of self-reflection, does Robert question his path in life. Seeking answers, Robert threatens his mother before heading to Rome. There the Pope redirects him to a hermit in the mountains where, with tears and mass, Robert seeks salvation and is put under a strict penitential regime. Robert must play at being mad, be silent, and fast. And so he does, all the way to the Emperor's palace, where he becomes a court fool. Which proves just as well, for from there he three times rescues Rome. Incognito, Robert turns the tide of each battle, riding a fine white horse and slipping back into penitential disguise afterwards, observed only by a mute princess whose tale of Robert's heroics is disbelieved. Throw in a side story of a scheming and disloyal seneschal, and you have the gist of the narrative arc, leading ultimately to a decidedly medieval twist. Translations should be measured against their purpose, and Rosenberg easily meets his declared intentions. This is 'a work suitable for recitation, a work whose rhythms and sonorities bespeak the presence […] of a storyteller' (p. 5). Whether as teaching aid or pleasure read, this translation of Robert's tale brings medieval Europe to life with aplomb. [End Page 304] Nicholas D. Brodie Hobart, Tasmania Copyright © 2020 Nicholas D. Brodie

Art and Form: From Roger Fry to Global Modernism by Sam Rose

Reviewed by: Art and Form: From Roger Fry to Global Modernism by Sam Rose Patrick Fessenbecker Art and Form: From Roger Fry to Global Modernism. Sam Rose. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019. Pp 224. $89.95 (cloth); $34.95 (paper). Sam Rose's compelling new book Art and Form begins with the observation that modernist formalism has suffered severe blows to its reputation since its heyday in Clement Greenberg's aesthetics, but argues that many of its critics have been attacking straw men. The supposed doxa of formalist aesthetics—that there is an autonomous realm of aesthetic experience, that this realm is radically separated from the world and available only to the sophisticated, and that a work of art is independent of its creator—have been long-standing targets of attack, and have often seemed like important and significant mistakes whose failures require significantly different accounts of the nature of art. But, Rose contends, when one looks back at key sources for modernist formalism, what one finds is that many of these issues were energetically present at the moment of its inception. Returning with this in mind to the central writers for the theory of artistic form in the years between 1910 and 1939, then, restores a sense of the real complexity of the history. But it does something more. In the book's most ambitious (and most tentative) claim, Rose contends that this restored history points towards a more plausible theory of the artwork: a modest or post-formalism, which "acknowledges at once both the end of grand modernist self-confidence and universality and the fact that the desire to do anything historical with objects will always require some… appeal to form" (152). Five pleasantly concise chapters present this revisionist history of formalism topically. The first chapter emphasizes Clive Bell and Roger Fry, and points out, in particular, the importance of connoisseurship for making sense of what Fry thought the formalist response to the work of art involved. Contrary to the assumption that modernist aesthetics ignored artistic intention, Rose contends that Fry's formalism depended on an extensive analysis of just that: interpretation required an imaginative grasp of the process of artistic creation. Chapter two addresses the question of what knowledge, exactly, is produced by formalist art [End Page 407] criticism and how this knowledge compares to scientific investigation; the chapter concludes provocatively by arguing that the postwar revival of aesthetics in analytic philosophy by writers like Nelson Goodman involved forgetting the complexity of earlier formalisms. Chapter three turns to the ethics and politics of formalism, observing the irony by which the informed and active kind of perception championed by Fry became the seed of the experience of mass consumer culture by later writers, and contends that the fusion of social criticism and formalist aesthetics in writers like Richard Wollheim should be understood not "as a move beyond early formalism so much as a development and exemplification of its ethical ideal" (97). Chapter four takes a slightly different tack, narrating formalism's encounter with "mass culture," which Rose portrays as a tension between the mechanized production inherent in "design" on the one hand and Marxist attempts to imagine a truly popular art on the other. The iterations of formalism in this chapter are uncertain, seemingly abandoned by Marxists but surprisingly maintained when such critics hesitated to affirm "mass taste under modern industrialized capitalism" (122). Finally, chapter five turns to the question of global modernism, discussing several artists from Nigeria and India as a way of developing a humbler formalism that neither privileges the artistic tradition of the West or assumes the universality of artistic experience but preserves the sense that formalism is a necessary part of historical interpretation. Rose's correction is a welcome one, restoring a fuller picture to an approach that is often easily caricatured, while keeping in mind a sense of its limitations. It is particularly sharp in pulling out the limitations of British conceptions of aesthetic education and their emphasis on individual and cultural authenticity when they were imported to the Empire, noting of Gerard Sekoto's use of postimpressionism in imperial South Africa that "[t]here could be no stronger indication of...

The Human Spirit: Beginnings from Genesis to Science. Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018. x + 332 pp. $104.95.

The Human Spirit: Beginnings from Genesis to Science. Marjorie O'Rourke Boyle. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018. x + 332 pp. $104.95.

Correspondance de la Grande Guerre à Folco de Baroncelli. Tome I (1914-1915):Sauver le grand homme, réhabiliter l'image de la petite patrie by Jeanne de Flandreysy

Reviewed by: Correspondance de la Grande Guerre à Folco de Baroncelli. Tome I (1914-1915):Sauver le grand homme, réhabiliter l'image de la petite patrie by Jeanne de Flandreysy Callan Roten Flandreysy, Jeanne de. Correspondance de la Grande Guerre à Folco de Baroncelli. Tome I (1914-1915):Sauver le grand homme, réhabiliter l'image de la petite patrie. Ed. Colette H. Winn and Colette Trout. Classiques Garnier, 2018. Pp. 870. ISBN 978-2-406-07217-1. 105€ (cloth). 67€ (paper). World War I ushered in a period of great despair, trauma, and imbalance across Europe. Of all of the hardships faced during the war and the post-war period, a large focus has been placed on the sacrifices and contributions made by men. Modern feminist scholarship has aimed to bring equal attention to the multitude of sacrifices and contributions made by women during the Great War. Jeanne de Flandreysy, though she is still little-known by the French public, is an excellent example of a woman who served her country in the war in the best way that she could—through writing. Like many other women during the war, Jeanne de Flandreysy wrote a substantial number of letters. However, many of the letters written by women during this time are almost impossible to find. Jeanne de [End Page 153] Flandreysy's 998 letters to Folco de Baroncelli during the Great War period are currently being conserved in Avignon at the Palais du Roure, but until now have never been included in a critical edition or published collection. Colette H. Winn and Colette Trout's critical edition embarks on the daunting task of providing a detailed chronicle of Jeanne de Flandreysy's epistolary corpus enriched with a thorough introduction, annotations, and appendix that solidifies the importance of her letters. In this first volume, the editors chose to focus on the letters from the years 1914-1915. They argue that these letters shed light on the essential role that Jeanne played in Folco de Baroncelli's future as a poet and also provide a personal account of the lived experience for both French men and women during the war. Winn and Trout also argue that Flandreysy's friendship with Folco highlights the important (and often ignored) role that women played during the war. Women were the "war's audience"—they encouraged soldiers, listened to them, and mourned with them. Through her letters to Folco while he was stationed in Toul, Jeanne was able to successfully fulfill this role. In her letters, Jeanne feeds Folco's desire for knowledge, detailing the effects of war on daily life, her fears, and the ever-growing number of casualties. The introduction and the abundance of notes in this critical edition provide an extensive overview of Flandreysy's life and her relationship with Folco, while solidifying her importance as a woman of letters. Winn and Trout's introduction carefully examines the multiple functions of epistolary writing. Through a deep analysis of the letters, the editors are successfully able to establish how Flandreysy's correspondence exemplifies each of these functions. Calling upon other scholars, the editors also effectively highlight the importance of the female experience, particularly through writing, during the Great War. Although the volume does not contain Folco's correspondence to Jeanne, his voice is always present in her letters, calling attention to the powerful style of Flandreysy's writing. This remarkable critical edition brings an outstanding and lesser known figure out of the shadows while allowing us to understand the greater importance of epistolary writing and of the female war experience. Callan Roten University of Maryland, College Park Copyright © 2020 Women in French Studies

Elizabeth A. Fisher

Elizabeth A. Fisher Judith P. Hallett, Denis Sullivan, and John Ziolkowski Nunc est ovandum, nunc grato animo pulsanda mensa, ut laudemus hanc feminam, humilem sed eruditissimam, sodales.8 Adepta gradum Baccalaureae Artis apud universitatem quaerentem quaecumque sint vera,9 propinquam ventosae urbi in horto,10 tunc attinuit apud universitatem Veritate insignem,11 propinquam fabarum oppido, gradus Magistrae Artis Doctorisque Philosophiae. Illuminavit opera scriptorum Byzantinorum luculentissime, apud docta domicilia consecrata investigandis et explicandis litteris Graecis per multa saecula, et in scribendo dicendoque. Multas per gentes, multa per aequora vecta,12 summo studio servivit universitati proclamanti deum nobis fiduciam,13 fulciens et fovens disciplinam non solum linguarum sed etiam sententiarum Romanorum Graecorumque. Sustinendis magistris linguae Latinae et studiis classicis ipsis locuplevit et discipulos et professores in hac regione, et in nostra societate. Plaudamus igitur Elizabeth A. Fisher. ________ Now, companions, an ovation must be delivered, now with grateful hearts our tables must be pounded, so that we may praise this woman, modest but extraordinarily learned. Having received her BA degree at [End Page 484] Northwestern University, she then obtained her MA and PhD degrees at Harvard. Her scholarship—recognized as distinguished by fellowships from Harvard’s Center for Hellenic Studies and the Center for Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks; and shared in numerous publications, conference papers, and invited talks—has brilliantly cast light on the writings of such authors as Michael Psellos and Maximus Planudes. Exploring remote classical and Byzantine sites, she has also traveled extensively throughout eastern Turkey and Syria. As department chair, she invested immense energies in keeping the Classics program alive and well at The George Washington University; she also has taught its courses in both ancient languages and on literature and culture in translation. Her support for secondary school Latin at the School Without Walls, and for university-level research through her leadership of the Washington-area Ancient Mediterranean Seminar, has greatly enriched our region and organization. Let us thus applaud Elizabeth A. Fisher. Denis Sullivan University of Maryland, College Park John Ziolkowski The George Washington University Footnotes 8. Cf. Horace, Odes 1.37.1-4 Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero / pulsanda tellus . . . sodales and 32 non humilis mulier. 9. Quaecumque sunt vera: motto of Northwestern University, outside of Chicago. 10. Urbs in horto: motto of the city of Chicago. 11. Veritas: motto of Harvard University, outside of Boston. 12. Cf. Catullus 101.1 Multas per gentes, multa per aequora vectus. 13. Deus nobis fiducia: motto of The George Washington University. Copyright © 2020 The Classical Association of the Atlantic States

Christians in Caesar’s Household: The Emperors’ Slaves in the Makings of Christianity by Michael Flexsenhar III

Reviewed by: Christians in Caesar’s Household: The Emperors’ Slaves in the Makings of Christianity by Michael Flexsenhar III Rose MacLean Michael Flexsenhar III Christians in Caesar’s Household: The Emperors’ Slaves in the Makings of Christianity University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019 Pp. xvi + 191. $89.95. In this insightful and ambitious first monograph, Michael Flexsenhar III reevaluates the idea that Christianity succeeded in part because it was embraced by enslaved and freed members of the imperial household at Rome. Through revisionist analyses of both literary and material sources, Flexsenhar argues that, beginning in the second century c.e., Christians invented what he calls the “pioneer narrative” (passim) to center their collective past in imperial geography and to define the boundaries of their communities. The argument hinges on Paul’s extension of greetings to the Philippians from “all the saints, especially those from Caesar’s household” (πάντες οἱ ἅγιοι, μάλιστα δὲ οἱ ἐκ τῆς Καίσαρος οἰκίας, Phil 4.22). Although the details cannot be recovered, Flexsenhar makes a reasonable case for understanding these “saints” as low- to mid-level personnel in the administration at Ephesus (Chapter One). Their connections to Philippi would have been grounded in familial or economic networks, not simply shared cult, and Phil 4.22 cannot be taken as evidence that Paul introduced Christianity to the inner circles of the imperial court. Instead, Flexsenhar argues, the identification of these “saints” with members of the emperor’s household at Rome stems from later attempts to locate the martyrdom of Paul (as well as that of Peter) in the capital (Chapter Two). Most strikingly, the tale of Nero’s cupbearer Patroclus in the Martyrdom of Paul harnesses the symbolic power of the familia Caesaris to establish Christianity in Rome’s urban landscape. This tradition forms the backbone of the triumphalist narrative that the book works to dismantle. Flexsenhar pursues this line of inquiry through well-paired readings of Hippolytus’s Refutation of All Heresies, book 9, and Tertullian’s To Scapula (Chapter Three). His thesis that Christian authors used members of the familia Caesaris as rhetorical instruments is highly plausible, especially in the context of imperial literature. On the other hand, the verbal echoes presented between Hippolytus and Lucian are largely generic, and the precise function of the enslaved characters within each text is not always perfectly clear. Moving to the Acts of Justin and Companions, Flexsenhar methodically interprets the figure of Euelpistus [End Page 340] in recensions B and C as a response to the traumas of the latter third century (Chapter Four). More specifically, the editor(s) of recension B recast Euelpistus on the model of Patroclus to articulate a form of Christian piety based on exclusive devotion to Christ. This strategy is effective because Euelpistus’s refusal to venerate Caesar defies the prescriptions of Roman slavery, including those propagated in the household codes, as Flexsenhar notes (82). In the final portion of the book, Flexsenhar examines how inscriptions and archaeological finds have been martialed by scholars to confirm the presence of Christians in the familia Caesaris. His thoughtful, if primarily deconstructive, analysis of the tomb of M. Aurelius Prosenes emphasizes well-known pitfalls in identifying Christians in the epigraphic record prior to the fourth century (Chapter Five). He then sifts through a handful of epitaphs that attest servi Caesaris and liberti Augusti in catacombs, a phenomenon which he attributes more to spoliation than to the supposed popularity of Christianity among imperial staff (Chapter Six). In a case study of the epitaph of Atimetus, an imperial verna (slave born within the household), Flexsenhar makes the intriguing suggestion that cult activity for Peter and Paul in the late third century may have prompted the reframing of this stone as a Christian artefact. This would offer a parallel in material culture to the processes that are evident in the textual sources. In the course of upending the “pioneer narrative,” Flexsenhar ascribes only a limited role to Paul’s associates “from Caesar’s household” at Ephesus, as well as to other members of the familia Caesaris who did adopt Christianity. What he offers instead is an exposition of how Christian thinkers, much like their non-Christian counterparts, exploited a prominent group of enslaved and freed people...

Exploring Mindfulness for Perceived Teacher Stress and Classroom Climate

Teaching has been identified as the most stressful profession in the human service industry (Greenberg in Teacher stress and heal the effects on teachers, students, and schools, Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 2016). Elevated teacher stress not only affects the teacher’s well-being and likelihood of burnout, but also the classroom climate of young children. The purpose of the present study was to assess whether mindfulness practices can increase positive classroom climate and decrease perceived stress in early childhood teachers. Participating teachers were selected based on results of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS, Cohen in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24:285–396, 1983). Data were collected on the positive and negative climate objectives from the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS; Pianta in Classroom assessment scoring system (CLASS) manual, pre-K, Paul H. Brookes Pub. Co., Baltimore, 2008), which were operationally defined. The Mindfulness Practices Intervention included yoga poses, intentional breathing, and guided mediation (Harris in Mindfulness 7:143–154, 2015), which were implemented within the school day during arrival, mid-morning, lunch, mid-afternoon, and after work in the evening. Perceived Stress Scale scores decreased for two of the participating teachers; all three teachers’ increased positive climate and decreased negative climate. Results of the current study suggest that this low-cost, low labor-intensive intervention was effective in improving classroom conditions for both teachers and young children.

Effects of plant species and soil history on root morphology, arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization of roots, and biomass in four tallgrass prairie species

Although dominant C4 grasses in tallgrass prairie are highly mycotrophic, for many non-dominant species neither extent of mycorrhizal colonization nor root morphology effects on plant–soil feedback interactions are known. In a laboratory study conducted from November 2013 to February 2014 at Governors State University (University Park, IL), we grew plants of a dominant C4 grass (Andropogon gerardii) and three non-dominant forbs (Symphyotrichum laeve var. laeve, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae and Parthenium integrifolium) individually in soil collected in the field beneath a conspecific, collected beneath another study species, or in sterilized soil. The study addressed the following questions: (1) Is extent of mycorrhizal colonization of roots related to root structure? (2) How does soil history interact with plant root traits to influence plant–soil feedback? (3) How might plant–soil feedback patterns influence competitive interactions among study species? We found that proportion arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) colonization decreased with increasing specific root length. Soil history had a stronger influence than plant species on total biomass of plants, with all species having highest total biomass when grown in Andropogon soil. Consequently, net, or heterospecific, feedback did not differ among pairwise species combinations, and was not different from 0. While these results suggest that no study species should have a competitive advantage in the field, Andropogon might still have an advantage through mechanisms such as competition for light. Future work in the field and including less mycotrophic species is needed to better understand AMF effects on competitive interactions.

The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy. By JeremyEngels. Pp. ix, 222, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015, $21.95.Deliberative Acts: Democracy, Rhetoric, and Rights. By ArabellaLyon. Pp. viii, 222, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013, £31.95.

The Politics of Resentment: A Genealogy. By JeremyEngels. Pp. ix, 222, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015, $21.95.Deliberative Acts: Democracy, Rhetoric, and Rights. By ArabellaLyon. Pp. viii, 222, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2013, £31.95.

Review of After Gun Violence: Deliberation and Memory in the Age of Political Gridlock by Craig Rood (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019)

Review of After Gun Violence: Deliberation and Memory in the Age of Political Gridlock by Craig Rood (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2019)

27th Annual GP2A Medicinal Chemistry Conference.

The 27th annual GP2A (Groupement des Pharmacochimistes de l′Arc Atlantique/Group of Medicinal Chemists in the Atlantic Arc) conference took place from 21 to 23 August 2019, at the East Midlands Conference Centre (University Park, Nottingham, United Kingdom) and was hosted by the Division of Biomolecular Science and Medicinal Chemistry (BSMC), within the School of Pharmacy at the University of Nottingham. The event brought together an international delegation of researchers with interests in medicinal chemistry and interfacing disciplines. In addition, a pre-conference workshop provided an opportunity for younger researchers to develop their theoretical knowledge in quantitative pharmacology. s of presentations by the 14 invited speakers and 6 young researchers, in addition to 41 posters, are included in this report.

Zoological Surrealism: The Nonhuman Cinema of Jean Painlevé by James Leo Cahill

Book Review| December 01 2019 Zoological Surrealism: The Nonhuman Cinema of Jean Painlevé by James Leo Cahill BOOK DATA. James Leo Cahill, Zoological Surrealism: The Nonhuman Cinema of Jean Painlevé. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019. $112 cloth; $28 paper; $26.60 e-book. 408 pages. Oliver Gaycken Oliver Gaycken Oliver Gaycken is an associate professor in the Department of English and a core faculty member of the film studies and comparative literature programs at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of Devices of Curiosity: Early Cinema and Popular Science (Oxford University Press, 2015). Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Film Quarterly (2019) 73 (2): 108–110. https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2019.73.2.108 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Oliver Gaycken; Zoological Surrealism: The Nonhuman Cinema of Jean Painlevé by James Leo Cahill. Film Quarterly 1 December 2019; 73 (2): 108–110. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fq.2019.73.2.108 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentFilm Quarterly Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2019 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints.2019 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

“LENGTHEN YOUR TENT‐CORDS”: THE METAPHORICAL WORLD OF ISRAEL’S HOUSEHOLD IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. By BrittanyKim. Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 23. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2018. Pp. xiii + 245. $64.95.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 45, Issue 4 p. 511-511 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: Ancient Near East “LENGTHEN YOUR TENT-CORDS”: THE METAPHORICAL WORLD OF ISRAEL’S HOUSEHOLD IN THE BOOK OF ISAIAH. By Brittany Kim. Siphrut: Literature and Theology of the Hebrew Scriptures 23. University Park, PA: Eisenbrauns, 2018. Pp. xiii + 245. $64.95. First published: 17 December 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.14310Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume45, Issue4Special Issue: Race and ReligionDecember 2019Pages 511-511 RelatedInformation

Current Bibliography

To help keep this bibliography up to date, please send notices and citations to jma22@psu.edu or to Jeanne M. Alexander, F. Scott Fitzgerald Edition, Department of English, 430 Burrowes Building, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802

Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities, and Economy, Samuel O. Oloruntoba

Reviewed by: Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities, and Economy ed. by Samuel O. Oloruntoba Nana Afua Y. Brantuo BOOK REVIEW of Oloruntoba, Samuel O., ed. 2017. Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities, and Economy. Austin, Texas: Pan-African University Press. 400 pp. Adorning the cover of Samuel O. Oloruntoba's edited collection, Africa and Its Diaspora: History, Identities and Economy, is a simple design—a map of Africa resting on top of a pattern akin to that of textiles woven throughout the African continent. Within the map, several words capture the themes of this monograph. The word diaspora, the biggest and boldest in font, is centered and surrounded by development, history, slavery, identity, immigrant, and other words. The cover, in its aesthetic consistency and deliberateness, functions as shorthand for the book's focus on reorienting the conceptualization and study of the African diaspora as grounded in Paul Zeleza's (2005) definition of diaspora as process, condition, space, and discourse.1 This collection and synthesis of papers from more than two dozen scholars of African and African diasporic studies foregrounds the significance of mirroring the complexity and multiplicity of African diasporic life and experiences in academic exploration and inquiry. Movement and mobility, and the myriad phenomena borne out of the two, are no strangers to the African diaspora, which, spanning time and place, occupies a distinct, multidimensional space within diaspora studies. Africa and Its Diaspora, published by Pan-African University Press—a platform dedicated to revitalizing discourse related to Africa and the African diaspora—functions as both an academic and a political project, which centers the perspectives of African and African diasporic scholars across fields and disciplines. Divided into five parts, it delves into aspects of development at the micro and macro levels: politics of identity and belonging, [End Page 144] the legacies of and challenges posed by slavery and colonialism, the arts and development, religion and development, and alternative development strategies. The chapters within each section employ various methods and methodologies in an attempt to give nuance to their respective populations and topics of inquiry. Section one brings forth a theme of resilience and (re)creation at both the individual and collective levels of the diaspora by way of biographical, ethnographic, philosophical, and survey research, while section two utilizes historical, archival, archaeological, and anthropological methods to approach and reapproach the effects of slavery and colonialism on and off the African continent. Sections three, four, and five take on several spheres of development. In section three, various artistic mediums form the basis of postcolonial discourse and analysis of sociopolitical and sociohistorical African and African diaspora experiences. Section four focuses on multiple ways in which religion, past and present, has influenced the social, physical, and political infrastructures of West African societies. The book concludes with a focus on alternative development strategies, addressing the causes of contemporary forced migration out of Africa, resituating traditional economic systems in place of microcredit and microfinance schemes, and other topics. This section includes discourse on the role of youth in development, the necessity of African integration in resolving complex political, economic, and social issues, and the need to critique and discard the neoliberal development agenda throughout Africa. Overall, this volume makes space for necessary discourse on the past, present, and future for Africa and the African diaspora, offering historical and contemporary analyses alongside proposed recommendations and resolutions for ongoing issues affecting African and African diaspora communities across borders. While the cohesion of the chapters may seem challenged by variation in the communities of focus, the volume in and of itself exhibits the continuum of identities across Africa and the African diaspora, regardless of point of departure, return, or transition. Nana Afua Y. Brantuo University of Maryland, College Park note 1. Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. 2005. "Rewriting the African Diaspora: Beyond the Black Atlantic." African Affairs 104, no. 414 (2005): 35–68. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3518632. Copyright © 2019 The Trustees of Indiana University

Denominational Higher Education During World War II

This book on a fascinating but generally ignored topic was generated by its editor, John J. Laukaitis, Associate Professor of Education at North Park University in Chicago. Moved by the letters the...

I&EC Research Appoints Huanting Wang as Associate Editor

ADVERTISEMENT RETURN TO ISSUEEditorialNEXTI&EC Research Appoints Huanting Wang as Associate EditorPhillip E. SavagePhillip E. SavageThe Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, United StatesMore by Phillip E. Savagehttp://orcid.org/0000-0002-7902-3744Cite this: Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2019, 58, 45, 20495Publication Date (Web):November 13, 2019Publication History Published online13 November 2019Published inissue 13 November 2019https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.9b05962Copyright © 2019 American Chemical SocietyRIGHTS & PERMISSIONSArticle Views467Altmetric-Citations-LEARN ABOUT THESE METRICSArticle Views are the COUNTER-compliant sum of full text article downloads since November 2008 (both PDF and HTML) across all institutions and individuals. These metrics are regularly updated to reflect usage leading up to the last few days.Citations are the number of other articles citing this article, calculated by Crossref and updated daily. Find more information about Crossref citation counts.The Altmetric Attention Score is a quantitative measure of the attention that a research article has received online. Clicking on the donut icon will load a page at altmetric.com with additional details about the score and the social media presence for the given article. Find more information on the Altmetric Attention Score and how the score is calculated. Share Add toView InAdd Full Text with ReferenceAdd Description ExportRISCitationCitation and abstractCitation and referencesMore Options Share onFacebookTwitterWechatLinked InReddit PDF (212 KB) Get e-AlertsSUBJECTS:Catalysis,Chemical engineering and industrial chemistry,Fuel cells,Membranes,Nanoporous materials Get e-Alerts

The Total Direct Cost of Healthcare in the United States in Patients with Sickle Cell Disease: A Propensity Score Matched Analysis

Introduction: Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited blood disorder with significant healthcare resource utilization in the United States (US). The clinical management throughout the course of the disease is variable. Children born with SCD in the US receive routine comprehensive care that significantly reduces their morbidity and mortality. Upon transition to adulthood, there are marked increases in disease-related complications and morbidity. The extent to which disease management costs vary by age and overall lifetime cost of treatment are unknown. The aim of this study is to estimate the total direct healthcare cost among patients with SCD in the US across consecutive age ranges. Methods: We estimated direct costs of chronic management for SCD through a retrospective database analysis of Optum's de-identified Clinformatics® Data Mart Database (CDM) commercial insurance medical and pharmacy claims from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2017. CDM provides information on 15 to 18 million annual insured lives and roughly 57 million unique lives over our study period (2007-2017). The population spans 50 states and is similar to the US distribution with respect to sex, age, and geography. We identified patients using ICD-9-CM (282.4x or 282.6x) and ICD-10-CM (D57.x sans D57.3x) diagnosis codes. Patients were required to have at least one inpatient (IP) claim or three or more outpatient (OP) claims (spaced at least 30 days apart) with a diagnosis of SCD and minimum of one year of continuous enrollment in both medical and prescription drug coverage. Each patient's index date was designated the date of their first SCD-related claim for patients with SCD, or their first date of eligibility for patients without SCD (controls). We matched patients with SCD to controls using 1:1 propensity score matching without replacement with a greedy nearest neighbor algorithm. Propensity scores were generated using probit regression on covariates gender, state, plan type, year of birth, and index year. Total direct costs of healthcare including IP, OP, professional (PF), ancillary (AN), and pharmacy (RX) services were calculated first year post-index (Y1), second year post-index (Y2), third year post-index (Y3), and overall (annualized) post-index. We calculated annualized costs by aggregating all costs after index and dividing by the remaining number of years the patient was eligible for coverage. Average incremental costs (AIC) are defined as the mean difference in costs between patients with SCD and respective controls. We report AIC by decade of age on the patient's index date, inflated to 2018 US dollars. All analyses were performed in SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute, Raleigh, NC) and Stata 16.0 (StataCorp, College Station, TX). This study was approved by the University of Southern California's University Park Institutional Review Board (UPIRB). Results: We identified 10,447 patients with SCD along with 10,447 unique matched controls from 2007 to 2017. Average total costs (sum of IP, OP, PF, AN, and RX costs) for patients with SCD were greater at all age categories, relative to controls. Annualized AIC, i.e. costs attributable to management of SCD, ranged from $18,859 (SD = 44,716) for ages 0-9 to $43,586 (SD = 109,735) for ages 20-29 (Table 1). First-year AIC were consistently greater than second and third-year AIC across all age groups (Figure 1). For patients with SCD, AIC were greatest for patients in the 20-29 years band across all specifications. Details on AIC of SCD management across all consecutive age ranges are available in Table 1. Conclusions: The cost of disease management for patients with SCD in the US is substantial. We observe a rise in SCD-specific costs from childhood to early adulthood. This may reflect the higher risk of disease-associated complications and mortality seen during this period. Additionally, AIC first year after initial SCD-related claim are consistently higher compared to AIC in years two and three. This finding may be attributable to an increased utilization of healthcare services from previously underinsured patients with SCD. Future work should involve simulating estimated lifetime total direct cost of healthcare attributable to management of SCD for patients in the US. Disclosures No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

Chemically tweaked nanotubes trap trions

Thanks to a clever chemical strategy, researchers have trapped an unusual subatomic quasiparticle known as a trion using an altered carbon nanotube (ACS Cent. Sci. 2019, DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.9b00707). When a photon strikes a material, the energy gets absorbed and can give rise to a trion, a combination of an electron, a positively charged hole, and either another electron or hole. Trions usually disintegrate in a few trillionths of a second. YuHuang Wang of the University of Maryland, College Park, and colleagues found that when they added different alkyl and fluorinated alkyl groups to single-walled carbon nanotubes and then excited the nanotubes with light, they could trap the resulting trions. Trapped trions lasted more than 100 times as long as free trions at room temperature. Wang says the functional groups alter the nanotubes’ electronic properties, creating areas with energy wells that the trions can fall into. Not only were the lifetimes

Understanding user experience in bring your own device spaces in the library

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to triangulate qualitative and quantitative data with existing data to inform on the function and user experience of a newly created the “News Library,” and, further, to inform on the viability of “bring your own device spaces” (BYOD) in meeting the computing needs of Penn State University Park students through a multi-dimensional study. Design/methodology/approach This study leverages several methodologies for data collection, including observation, survey, flip chart prompts, interviews and focus groups. Findings Findings suggest that the News Library accommodates users’ social needs. However, it does not accommodate their communal needs well. The majority of students at the Penn State University Park campus, own laptops and bring them to the library when they intend to study. Personal device usage is preferable to library-provided computers per a familiarity with their personal device, access to personal files and independence of workspace. Research limitations/implications As this is a case study, the findings are not generalizable. This study was conducted in one library, on one campus at a 24-campus institution with over 30 libraries. Originality/value The mixed-methods study provides multiple views into user behaviors and expectations. The authors propose guidelines for informing the design of BYOD spaces.