« Manche sagen, ich bin irre... » Anmerkungen zu Monika Marons Roman Die Überläuferin

Le roman Die Überläuferin / La transfuge de Monika Maron s’inscrit dans la tradition d’une écriture surréaliste et plaide pour un être plus rond, plus complet qui intègrerait outre notre raison, également nos compétences spirituelles et naturelles voire biologiques. Un tel projet risque de se heurter au discours dominant, et d’être taxé de « fou », d’« hystérique », mais – comme le dit André Breton dans le « Manifeste du surréalisme » : « Ce n’est pas la crainte de la folie qui nous forcera à laisser en berne le drapeau de l’imagination.»Monika Marons Roman Die Überläuferin ver­steht sich als Plädoyer gegen die Einseitigkeit eines ra­tio­nel­len Denkens, das so­wohl unser in­di­vi­duell-pri­va­tes Dasein prägt wie es den po­li­ti­schen Diskurs und die Tradition des Erzählens be­stimmt. Dagegen setzt Monika Maron die Fülle der Imagination und Phantasie, die die Nähe des Wahnsinns und Verbrechens nicht ­scheut und die in ihrer Sprengkraft als ­ebenso uto­pi­sches wie ge­fähr­li­ches Element er­scheint

The Beauty of Art. Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Walter Pater revisited

The influence of the English writer and critic Walter Pater (1839-1984) on Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) has occasionally been noted and discussed. The focus is usually on the figure of the critic Walter Pater and his understanding of art and works of art. Hofmannsthal felt a spiritual kinship with Pater and referred to the English critic and art theorist in several articles and essays. My article is less concerned with the similarities and differences between Walter Pater and Hofmannsthal in their understanding of art and theory of art, but rather with the impetus that Walter Pater gave to Hofmannsthal's turn to the Renaissance and to Hofmannsthal's development of Renaissancism. In fact, Hofmannsthal’s approach to the Renaissance is closer to Pater’s than to the theories of Jacob Burckhardt or Friedrich Nietzsche. In particular, it is the specific notion of beauty in art that Pater sees realized in the Renaissance, which appeals to the aesthetes and symbolists of the fin de siècle and which also becomes the starting point for Hofmannsthal's reflections and writings. This enduring influence of Pater will be explained by analyzing Hofmannsthal's Renaissance dramas "Gestern" and "Der Tod des Tizian". This is a paradigm shift in that the dominant image of the Renaissance up to or before Pater was that of men of power and violence – including hedonism, self-indulgence, libido, corruption, tyranny. With Pater and his studies of the Renaissance – also reinforced by the painting of the Pre-Raphaelites – a more sensitive conception, based entirely on beauty, creativity and refinement, prevailed and would come to define Hofmannsthal's Renaissance dramas

Wir sind ja alle Flüchtlinge, Fremde. Zur Migrationserfahrung bei George Tabori

Nous étudierons dans cette contribution l’œuvre de l’auteur juif George Tabori, originaire de Hongrie, qui écrit en anglais et met depuis longtemps en scène, en Allemagne, des personnages cosmopolites, des migrants et des « étrangers ». Nous étudierons plus précisément trois aspects de la littérature de la migration : 1) le thème de la migration, 2) l’écriture dans un contexte culturel et linguistique étranger, 3) les stratégies littéraires et esthétiques pour lutter contre l’oppression et la marginalisation. Ces trois aspects jouent dans l’œuvre de Tabori un rôle important. Nous découvrirons néanmoins que les questions de la migration et de la littérature de la migration, chez Tabori, se résument à la question de savoir quelle attitude adopter en tant qu’être humain. Ce qui intéresse Tabori, c’est de savoir comment, de victime, on devient bourreau – et inversement. La problématique ainsi posée relève essentiellement de la morale et traduit la désespérante vocation de l’individu à se rendre coupable.Der Artikel behandelt das Werk des ungarnstämmigen, jüdischen, auf Englisch schreibenden und seit langem auf deutschen Bühnen inszenierenden Kosmopoliten, Emigranten und „Fremdlings“ George Tabori. Drei Aspekte der Migrationsliteratur werden genauer untersucht: 1) das Thema der Migration, 2) Schreiben in einem fremden Sprach- und Kulturraum, 3) literarisch-ästhetische Strategien des Kampfes gegen Unterdrückung und Ausgrenzung. Alle drei Aspekte spielen in Taboris Werk eine wichtige Rolle. Eine genaue Analyse zeigt jedoch, dass bei Tabori Phänomene und Probleme der Migration und der Migrationsliteratur unter dem Fokus der Frage nach „richtigem“ menschlichen Handeln zusammengefasst werden. Tabori interessiert sich dafür, wie aus Opfern Täter werden – und umgekehrt. Seine Problemstellung ist eine zutiefst moralische und belässt es zumeist bei der Verzweiflung über die Unausweichlichkeit des Menschen, schuldig zu werden

A Study Of A New Class Of Discrete Nonlinear Schroedinger Equations

A new class of 1D discrete nonlinear Schr${\ddot{\rm{o}}}$dinger Hamiltonians with tunable nonlinerities is introduced, which includes the integrable Ablowitz-Ladik system as a limit. A new subset of equations, which are derived from these Hamiltonians using a generalized definition of Poisson brackets, and collectively refered to as the N-AL equation, is studied. The symmetry properties of the equation are discussed. These equations are shown to possess propagating localized solutions, having the continuous translational symmetry of the one-soliton solution of the Ablowitz-Ladik nonlinear Schr${\ddot{\rm{o}}}$dinger equation. The N-AL systems are shown to be suitable to study the combined effect of the dynamical imbalance of nonlinearity and dispersion and the Peierls-Nabarro potential, arising from the lattice discreteness, on the propagating solitary wave like profiles. A perturbative analysis shows that the N-AL systems can have discrete breather solutions, due to the presence of saddle center bifurcations in phase portraits. The unstaggered localized states are shown to have positive effective mass. On the other hand, large width but small amplitude staggered localized states have negative effective mass. The collison dynamics of two colliding solitary wave profiles are studied numerically. Notwithstanding colliding solitary wave profiles are seen to exhibit nontrivial nonsolitonic interactions, certain universal features are observed in the collison dynamics. Future scopes of this work and possible applications of the N-AL systems are discussed.Comment: 17 pages, 15 figures, revtex4, xmgr, gn

Volume-energy correlations in the slow degrees of freedom of computer-simulated phospholipid membranes

Constant-pressure molecular-dynamics simulations of phospholipid membranes in the fluid phase reveal strong correlations between equilibrium fluctuations of volume and energy on the nanosecond time-scale. The existence of strong volume-energy correlations was previously deduced indirectly by Heimburg from experiments focusing on the phase transition between the fluid and the ordered gel phases. The correlations, which are reported here for three different membranes (DMPC, DMPS-Na, and DMPSH), have volume-energy correlation coefficients ranging from 0.81 to 0.89. The DMPC membrane was studied at two temperatures showing that the correlation coefficient increases as the phase transition is approached

A deterministic oscillatory model of microtubule growth and shrinkage for differential actions of short chain fatty acids.

Short chain fatty acids (SCFA), principally acetate, propionate, butyrate and valerate, are produced in pharmacologically relevant concentrations by the gut microbiome. Investigations indicate that they exert beneficial effects on colon epithelia. There is increasing interest in whether different SCFAs have distinct functions which may be exploited for prevention or treatment of colonic diseases including colorectal cancer (CRC), inflammatory bowel disease and obesity. Based on experimental evidence, we hypothesised that odd-chain SCFAs may possess anti-mitotic capabilities in colon cancer cells by disrupting microtubule (MT) structural integrity via dysregulation of β-tubulin isotypes. MT dynamic instability is an essential characteristic of MT cellular activity. We report a minimal deterministic model that takes a novel approach to explore the hypothesised pathway by triggering spontaneous oscillations to represent MT dynamic behaviour. The dynamicity parameters in silico were compared to those reported in vitro. Simulations of untreated and butyrate (even-chain length) treated cells reflected MT behaviour in interphase or untreated control cells. The propionate and valerate (odd-chain length) simulations displayed increased catastrophe frequencies and longer periods of MT-fibre shrinkage. Their enhanced dynamicity was dissimilar to that observed in mitotic cells, but parallel to that induced by MT-destabilisation treatments. Antimicrotubule drugs act through upward or downward modulation of MT dynamic instability. Our computational modelling suggests that metabolic engineering of the microbiome may facilitate managing CRC risk by predicting outcomes of SCFA treatments in combination with AMDs

Traffic and Related Self-Driven Many-Particle Systems

Since the subject of traffic dynamics has captured the interest of physicists, many astonishing effects have been revealed and explained. Some of the questions now understood are the following: Why are vehicles sometimes stopped by so-called ``phantom traffic jams'', although they all like to drive fast? What are the mechanisms behind stop-and-go traffic? Why are there several different kinds of congestion, and how are they related? Why do most traffic jams occur considerably before the road capacity is reached? Can a temporary reduction of the traffic volume cause a lasting traffic jam? Under which conditions can speed limits speed up traffic? Why do pedestrians moving in opposite directions normally organize in lanes, while similar systems are ``freezing by heating''? Why do self-organizing systems tend to reach an optimal state? Why do panicking pedestrians produce dangerous deadlocks? All these questions have been answered by applying and extending methods from statistical physics and non-linear dynamics to self-driven many-particle systems. This review article on traffic introduces (i) empirically data, facts, and observations, (ii) the main approaches to pedestrian, highway, and city traffic, (iii) microscopic (particle-based), mesoscopic (gas-kinetic), and macroscopic (fluid-dynamic) models. Attention is also paid to the formulation of a micro-macro link, to aspects of universality, and to other unifying concepts like a general modelling framework for self-driven many-particle systems, including spin systems. Subjects such as the optimization of traffic flows and relations to biological or socio-economic systems such as bacterial colonies, flocks of birds, panics, and stock market dynamics are discussed as well.Comment: A shortened version of this article will appear in Reviews of Modern Physics, an extended one as a book. The 63 figures were omitted because of storage capacity. For related work see http://www.helbing.org