Between Documentality and Imagination: Five Theses on Curating the Violent Past

This article considers the notion that to document or inscribe our lives not only leaves a trace of our creaturely presence, but may also become a form of juris-writing, a writing that concerns and aims at Justice. Employing an expanded notion of Justice that takes it beyond the institutions of law, therefore, it asks about forms of documentality (Ferraris) that put us ‘before memory’ in Derrida’s sense. How is it possible to think curation in relation to a violent past in such a way that neither attempts to deny the lacunae nor surrenders in the face of the difficulties of such attempts? How should we consider the relation between the delimited encounter with an ‘invitation to imagine’ (Didi-Huberman) and processes of institutionalisation that build a society? What about those things that it is not possible to show, including relations of power, that arise analytically? Reflecting on current memory spaces, especially within ex-clandestine centres for detention, torture and extermination (ex-ccdtyes) in Argentina, the article offers five theses in order to consider what is at stake in the encounters staged at these sites

Sonorous memory in Jonathan Perel’s El predio (2010) and Los murales (2011)

Throughout his filmic production, Argentine director Jonathan Perel has demonstrated strict adherence to a unique aesthetic programme in which human agents appear to have only a minimal role. Each film contains only diegetic sounds and consists of fixed shots of architectural spaces and objects closely associated with the most recent Argentine military dictatorship (1976–1983) and recent attempts to memorialise the atrocities they committed. Through the close analysis of Perel’s first two films – El predio (2010) and Los murales (2011) – this article focusses on Perel’s highly distinctive use of environmental sound and argues that they are, in fact, uniquely musical works. Drawing on the work of John Cage, Michel Chion, Deleuze and Guattari, and Doreen Massey, the article proposes that Perel manipulates sound in order to situate debates over the memorialisation of recent atrocities in a perpetual present and thus critique contemporary abuses of power in Argentina

The role of the complement system in ischemic stroke and neural plasticity

Evidence from experimental animal studies suggests that complement activation in the brain is a “double-edged sword” as it exerts beneficial or detrimental effects depending on the context. Here, we assessed whether complement activation in the systemic circulation could be a predictive biomarker of functional outcome after stroke. Further, we studied the role of the complement system in brain plasticity and recovery after ischemic stroke. We found that acute and delayed phase plasma levels of C3 and C3a differ substantially among patients suffering from ischemic stroke of different etiology, and the association of plasma C3 and C3a levels with case/control status and with functional outcome is ischemic stroke subtype-dependent. In large vessel disease and cardioembolic stroke patients, C3 levels at 3-month follow up were associated with an unfavorable functional outcome at both 3 months and 2 years after stroke. However, in cardioembolic stroke patients moderate increase in plasma C3a/C3 ratio predicted favorable outcome after 2 years (Paper I and II). Furthermore, two single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the C3 gene were found to be associated with ischemic stroke independently of traditional risk factors and one of these SNPs was associated with cryptogenic stroke (Paper III). Also, two SNPs were associated with plasma C3a or C3 levels independently of age, sex and case/control status. Taken together, the role of the complement system in ischemic stroke is strongly dependent on stroke etiology. We have also found that C3a overexpression in mice increased, whereas C3a receptor (C3aR) deficiency decreased the number of post-stroke-born neurons in the peri-infarct cortex without affecting the infarct size. Furthermore, the density of presynaptic puncta and GAP43-positive axonal growth cones in the cortex surrounding the infarct were lower in the C3aR-deficient compared to control mice, while in the C3a-overexpressing mice post stroke axonal plasticity response was increased. Mice lacking C3aR showed a more pronounced sensorimotor functional deficit as assessed by behavioral testing (Paper IV). These results indicate that C3aR signaling should be considered as a target when designing therapeutic strategies to improve functional recovery after ischemic stroke. To study complement-related neural plasticity in a non-pathological context, we performed electrophysiological recordings in the CA1 region of live hippocampal slices of young mice lacking C3 and control mice. We found that the C3-deficient mice had a decreased neurotransmitter release probability but dendritic spine density, and frequency and amplitude of miniature excitatory postsynaptic potentials were comparable in both groups of mice. Behavioral testing using the IntelliCage platform revealed that the C3-deficient mice performed better in the place and reversal learning tasks (Paper V). These findings may have implications for the management of disorders involving synapse elimination, such as Alzheimer’s diseases, autism or multiple sclerosis

Development and validation of a prognostic scoring system for patients with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia

The natural course of chronic myelomonocytic leukemia (CMML) is highly variable but a widely accepted prognostic scoring system for patients with CMML is not available. The main aim of this study was to develop a new CMML-specific prognostic scoring system (CPSS) in a large series of 558 patients with CMML (training cohort, Spanish Group of Myelodysplastic Syndromes) and to validate it in an independent series of 274 patients (validation cohort, Heinrich Heine University Hospital, Düsseldorf, Germany, and San Matteo Hospital, Pavia, Italy). The most relevant variables for overall survival (OS) and evolution to acute myeloblastic leukemia (AML) were FAB and WHO CMML subtypes, CMML-specific cytogenetic risk classification, and red blood cell (RBC) transfusion dependency. CPSS was able to segregate patients into 4 clearly different risk groups for OS (P < .001) and risk of AML evolution (P < .001) and its predictive capability was confirmed in the validation cohort. An alternative CPSS with hemoglobin instead of RBC transfusion dependency offered almost identical prognostic capability. This study confirms the prognostic impact of FAB and WHO subtypes, recognizes the importance of RBC transfusion dependency and cytogenetics, and offers a simple and powerful CPSS for accurately assessing prognosis and planning therapy in patients with CMM