Erotic positions for two consenting males : considerations for a gay painting practise : an exegesis presented with exhibition as fulfillment of the requirements for thesis Master of Fine Arts at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand

This exegesis is an exploration into painting and gay visual culture, and investigates what might constitute a "gay painting practise". It discusses my focus on the work of American photographer Bob Mizer and Physique Pictorial as source material for painting and the questions it raises regarding queer histories, gay sexuality and camp sensibilities. It considers the idea of queer utopian memory as a framework of looking back to moments of "sexual possibility" in order to transmit and receive utopian visions across intergenerational divides. It also considers gay sexuality, its ability to reimagine and restructure notions of intimacy, and its role in resisting gay assimilationist narratives. Drawing on the writings of various queer theorists, this exegesis considers how colour, form and content may contribute to a queer aesthetic. Making the argument for camp as a style of relating to things, I aim to situate my painting practise as a "gay painting practise" through a network of gay associations, affiliations and references

Machiavellis Der Fürst: die Rezeption vor der Publikation (1513-1532)

Seit fünfhundert Jahren wird Machiavellis Der Fürst gelesen, kontrovers diskutiert und von politischen Theorien für sich in Anspruch genommen, und dies, obgleich die Schrift eigentlich erst 1532 veröffentlicht wurde. Wohl auch aufgrund dieses Umstands sind die Diskussionen über Der Fürst vor allem nach 1532 zum Gegenstand von Untersuchungen geworden, während die Rezeptionsgeschichte der Schrift in den zwanzig Jahren zwischen der ersten Erwähnung der Schrift (1513) und der Erstveröffentlichung (1532) weitgehend unbeleuchtet geblieben ist. Der vorliegende Artikel widmet sich diesem Forschungsdesiderat. Dafür werden die uns überlieferten Quellen -wie etwa Vorworte zu Manuskriptkopien, Briefwechsel und Anekdoten- systematisch ausgewertet und auch die kommentierenden Stellungnahmen Machiavellis, des "ersten Lesers" von Der Fürst, berücksichtigt. Die Untersuchung zeigt, dass die frühsten Rezipienten den Deutungshorizont von Der Fürst maßgeblich verschoben und bis heute populäre Interpretationsmuster der Schrift entwickelten. Neben dem Aufzeigen der mit einer solchen Untersuchung einhergehenden methodischen Probleme bietet der Artikel eine funktionalistisch-rezeptionstheoretische Erklärung der koproduktiven Leistung der Leserschaft für die Bedeutungsgenese von Der Fürst an.Machiavelli's The Prince has been the subject of controversial debates among political theorists for five hundred years, even though, strictly speaking, The Prince was published no earlier than 1532. Probably owing to this fact, scholarship has primarily analyzed the reception of The Prince from 1532 onwards, while the reception between its first mentioning in 1513 and the first publication of the writing in 1532 has rarely been studied. The present article addresses this research gap by systematically analyzing the surviving textual sources of earliest readership, including prefaces to manuscript copies, letters and anecdotes. Additionally, the article draws on how Machiavelli himself - as the "first reader"- commented on his writing. The inquiry reveals that the earliest recipients substantially adjusted the horizon of possible interpretations and supplied a number of readings of The Prince that have been handed down to the present day. In addition to providing a functional explanation of why the earliest receptions could play such an active part in producing the meaning of The Prince, this article identifies a number of methodological challenges that research on Machiavelli’s The Prince based on reception history needs to address

Das Paradox der Toleranz

How should civil society deal with radical actors such as populists? Should democrats engage in an open dialogue or avoid confrontation? Should they listen to them, let them speak and try to expose them argumentatively, or should they deny them any kind of public platform? Rather than providing a normative answer to these questions, this article analyzes and systematizes responses that are already circulating in public discourse. In particular, we focus on reactions to the invitations of the AfD politicians Alice Weidel and Marc Jongen to the Oxford Union (2018), the Zurich Theater Gessnerallee as well as the Hannah Arendt Center in New York (both 2017). We will show that the debates gave excessive weight to fundamental questions of democratic theory while marginalizing the specific context factors of the events. Because of this, the populists eventually gained the moral victory

Role of the Interaction Motif in Maintaining the Open Gate of an Open Sodium Channel

Voltage-gated sodium channels undergo transitions between open, closed, and inactivated states, enabling regulation of the translocation of sodium ions across membranes. A recently published crystal structure of the full-length prokaryotic NavMs crystal structure in the activated open conformation has revealed the presence of a novel motif consisting of an extensive network of salt bridges involving residues in the voltage sensor, S4-S5 linker, pore, and C-terminal domains. This motif has been proposed to be responsible for maintaining an open conformation that enables ion translocation through the channel. In this study, we have used long-time molecular dynamics calculations without artificial restraints to demonstrate that the interaction network of full-length NavMs indeed prevents a rapid collapse and closure of the gate, in marked difference to earlier studies of the pore-only construct in which the gate had to be restrained to remain open. Interestingly, a frequently discussed “hydrophobic gating” mechanism at nanoscopic level is also observed in our simulations, in which the discontinuous water wire close to the gate region leads to an energetic barrier for ion conduction. In addition, we demonstrate the effects of in silico mutations of several of the key residues in the motif on the open channel’s stability and functioning, correlating them with existing functional studies on this channel and homologous disease-associated mutations in human sodium channels; we also examine the effects of truncating/removing the voltage sensor and C-terminal domains in maintaining an open gate

Understanding biomolecular motion, recognition, and allostery by use of conformational ensembles

We review the role conformational ensembles can play in the analysis of biomolecular dynamics, molecular recognition, and allostery. We introduce currently available methods for generating ensembles of biomolecules and illustrate their application with relevant examples from the literature. We show how, for binding, conformational ensembles provide a way of distinguishing the competing models of induced fit and conformational selection. For allostery we review the classic models and show how conformational ensembles can play a role in unravelling the intricate pathways of communication that enable allostery to occur. Finally, we discuss the limitations of conformational ensembles and highlight some potential applications for the future