"Tant serieux que facecieux": les prologues de Bruscambille et la littérature sério-comique

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available on open access from via the DOI in this recordCet article examine en quoi les prologues de Bruscambille ( ?-ca. 1634) relèvent du mélange sério-comique. Ces textes, adressés au public de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne à Paris ainsi qu’à de nombreux lecteurs, participent dans cette forme héritée de l’Antiquité qui fait osciller les propos entre la farce et la philosophie, la gauloiserie et l’érudition. Le comédien-auteur affiche son appartenance au sério-comique dans les titres de certains recueils, y compris Les Prologues tant serieux que facecieux de 1610, et elle est également explicite au sein de ses prologues. La dimension sério-comique est une stratégie d’atténuation qui semble protéger le comédien de toute accusation de libertinage tout en lui permettant d’exprimer des facéties tendancieuses qui frisent la subversion religieuse. Elle est également révélatrice d’un public éduqué qui aurait apprécié les équivoques érudites du farceur, par exemple dans le prologue « Conculcavimus », une leçon latine parodique et polissonne. Ce mélange de l’intellect et du bas corporel est une dimension essentielle du sério-comique des prologues qui les distingue d’autres écrits sério-comiques exclusivement érudits. Ceux-ci se seraient opposés au « sel » de la facétie grivoise qui est pourtant essentielle à la farce. La combinaison de la satire et de la facétie est aussi constitutive des éloges paradoxaux qui forment plus de la moitié des 115 prologues. La moquerie savante de l’érudition dans ses éloges paradoxaux de l’ignorance deviendrait ainsi l’expression d’un paradoxe ultime

Performing "imitatio": Bruscambille’s prologues and Cesare Rao’s "Lettres facetieuses" (1584)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Librairie Droz via the link in this recordThe comic actor known as Bruscambille (fl. 1608-34), who performed and published theatrical prologues in early seventeenth-century France, drew on a range of sources for his best-selling works. In the dedication to one of his major collections he includes a lengthy justification of imitatio. Appropriately enough, Bruscambille has in fact adapted the passage on imitation from L’argute et facete lettere (1562) of Cesare Rao (1532-88?), which he knew through a French translation by Gabriel Chappuys (1546?-1613), the Lettres facetieuses (1584). We have identified these letters as Bruscambille’s most prominent source, yet, as detailed discussion of prologues on folly and pedantry reveals, the comedian’s creativity is enhanced by his imitatio. This article is therefore a case-study that sheds light on the status of this rhetorical practice in the late Renaissance as well as on broader issues of plagiarism and adaptation.British AcademyLeverhulme Trus

Social power and approach-related neural activity

It has been argued that power activates a general tendency to approach whereas powerlessness activates a tendency to inhibit. The assumption is that elevated power involves reward-rich environments, freedom and, as a consequence, triggers an approach-related motivational orientation and attention to rewards. In contrast, reduced power is associated with increased threat, punishment and social constraint and thereby activates inhibition-related motivation. Moreover, approach motivation has been found to be associated with increased relative left-sided frontal brain activity, while withdrawal motivation has been associated with increased right sided activations. We measured EEG activity while subjects engaged in a task priming either high o

Pathophysiological Mechanisms of Severe Anaemia in Malawian Children

BACKGROUND: Severe anaemia is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in African children. The aetiology is multi-factorial, but interventions have often targeted only one or a few causal factors, with limited success. METHODS AND FINDINGS: We assessed the contribution of different pathophysiological mechanisms (red cell production failure [RCPF], haemolysis and blood loss) to severe anaemia in Malawian children in whom etiological factors have been described previously. More complex associations between etiological factors and the mechanisms were explored using structural equation modelling. In 235 children with severe anaemia (haemoglobin<3.2 mMol/L [5.0 g/dl]) studied, RCPF, haemolysis and blood loss were found in 48.1%, 21.7% and 6.9%, respectively. The RCPF figure increased to 86% when a less stringent definition of RCPF was applied. RCPF was the most common mechanism in each of the major etiological subgroups (39.7-59.7%). Multiple aetiologies were common in children with severe anaemia. In the final model, nutritional and infectious factors, including malaria, were directly or indirectly associated with RCPF, but not with haemolysis. CONCLUSION: RCPF was the most common pathway leading to severe anaemia, from a variety of etiological factors, often found in combination. Unlike haemolysis or blood loss, RCPF is a defect that is likely to persist to a significant degree unless all of its contributing aetiologies are corrected. This provides a further explanation for the limited success of the single factor interventions that have commonly been applied to the prevention or treatment of severe anaemia. Our findings underline the need for a package of measures directed against all of the local aetiologies of this often fatal paediatric syndrome

One Problem, Many Solutions: Simple Statistical Approaches Help Unravel the Complexity of the Immune System in an Ecological Context

The immune system is a complex collection of interrelated and overlapping solutions to the problem of disease. To deal with this complexity, researchers have devised multiple ways to measure immune function and to analyze the resulting data. In this way both organisms and researchers employ many tactics to solve a complex problem. One challenge facing ecological immunologists is the question of how these many dimensions of immune function can be synthesized to facilitate meaningful interpretations and conclusions. We tackle this challenge by employing and comparing several statistical methods, which we used to test assumptions about how multiple aspects of immune function are related at different organizational levels. We analyzed three distinct datasets that characterized 1) species, 2) subspecies, and 3) among- and within-individual level differences in the relationships among multiple immune indices. Specifically, we used common principal components analysis (CPCA) and two simpler approaches, pair-wise correlations and correlation circles. We also provide a simple example of how these techniques could be used to analyze data from multiple studies. Our findings lead to several general conclusions. First, relationships among indices of immune function may be consistent among some organizational groups (e.g. months over the annual cycle) but not others (e.g. species); therefore any assumption of consistency requires testing before further analyses. Second, simple statistical techniques used in conjunction with more complex multivariate methods give a clearer and more robust picture of immune function than using complex statistics alone. Moreover, these simpler approaches have potential for analyzing comparable data from multiple studies, especially as the field of ecological immunology moves towards greater methodological standardization

Which patient will feel down, which will be happy? The need to study the genetic disposition of emotional states

Purpose In quality-of-life (QL) research, the genetic susceptibility of negative and positive emotions is frequently ignored, taken for granted, or treated as noise. The objectives are to describe: (1) the major findings of studies addressing the heritable and environmental causes of variation in negative and positive emotional states and (2) the major biological pathways of and genetic variants involved in these emotional states

Authenticity and place attachment of major visitor attractions

This paper aims to explore the relationships between place attachment and perceived authenticity of major visitor attractions. The empirical study was conducted with a sample of international tourists to major visitor attractions in two capital cities, Helsinki, Finland and Jerusalem, Israel. The results indicate a positive correlation between place attachment and authenticity. Major visitor attractions located in places with considerable heritage experience value are considered more authentic, and that authenticity of visitor attractions is influenced by place attachment moderated by iconicity and heritage value of the destination region. These findings provide insight to the ways tourists perceive authenticity of visitor attractions and highlight the importance of the heritage value of tourism destinations for strategic planning and marketing purposes

For which side the bell tolls: The laterality of approach-avoidance associative networks

The two hemispheres of the brain appear to play different roles in emotion and/or motivation. A great deal of previous research has examined the valence hypothesis (left hemisphere = positive; right = negative), but an increasing body of work has supported the motivational hypothesis (left hemisphere = approach; right = avoidance) as an alternative. The present investigation (N = 117) sought to provide novel support for the latter perspective. Left versus right hemispheres were briefly activated by neutral lateralized auditory primes. Subsequently, participants categorized approach versus avoidance words as quickly and accurately as possible. Performance in the task revealed that approach-related thoughts were more accessible following left-hemispheric activation, whereas avoidance-related thoughts were more accessible following right-hemispheric activation. The present results are the first to examine such lateralized differences in accessible motivational thoughts, which may underlie more “downstream” manifestations of approach and avoidance motivation such as judgments, decision making, and behavior