The enduring culture and limits of political song

The connection between song and politics is well documented, but in recent years is said to be severed. This is not the case. The relationship between politics and song endures, reflecting and revivifying a culture of political struggle. In this essay, I survey political song, outlining how it is approached, before arguing for a tighter definition after working through the claim that all song is political. In doing so, I build a platform for discussion of songs by English singer-songwriter Leon Rosselson. For over 50 years, Rosselson’s songwriting has illuminated historical and topical events from a left-wing perspective, but he is also clear a song converts noone and changes nothing. To think otherwise misunderstands that songs are neither mobilisers or opiates, but an idiom for people to express their everyday lives and struggles. The essay concludes by assessing Rosselson’s insights on the power and limits of song

Taenia solium Cysticercosis in the Democratic Republic of Congo: How Does Pork Trade Affect the Transmission of the Parasite?

Taenia solium is a parasite that can affect both humans and pigs, causing important economic losses in pig production and being the main cause of acquired epilepsy in endemic areas. However, the parasite has been neglected in many African countries and particularly in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where recent data are non-existent. The present study is part of a first initiative to assess whether cysticercosis is actually present in DRC and to estimate its potential economic and public health importance. Focusing our work on porcine cysticercosis, we demonstrated high prevalence figures of active infections in villages in a rural area of DRC and in markets in the city of Kinshasa. Moreover, the intensity of infection was higher in pigs sampled in villages as compared to pigs sampled on urban markets. Preliminary surveys conducted in parallel in both study sites suggest an effect of pork trade on the transmission of the parasite selecting highly infected pigs at village level

The Naturalized Gender Order Of Rock and Roll

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/66933/2/10.1177_019685999501900104.pd

Performing the Spirit: Theatre, the Occult, and the Ceremony of Isis

Cet article, qui s’appuie sur deux approches radicalement différentes de l’occulte et de la performance, analyse comment de nombreux Victoriens de la fin du siècle se sont tournés vers le théâtre pour faire l’expérience d’une communication mystique. Les éditeurs de la revue Borderland: A Psychical Quarterly, W. T. Stead et Ada Goodrich Freer, s’intéressèrent à l’idée de performance en grande partie à des fins stratégiques avec pour objectif de promouvoir le spiritisme ainsi que d’autres phénomènes psychiques. Dans le même temps, Moina et Samuel ‘MacGregor’ Mathers, piliers de l’Ordre Hermétique de l’Aube Dorée conçurent la Cérémonie d’Isis non pas dans un but lucratif, mais pour ériger la performance à la fois en mode de transmigration et en puissant symbole des valeurs clé de l’occultisme païen.Looking at two distinctly different approaches to the occult and performance, this article demonstrates that a range of late-Victorians turned to theatrical performance as an avenue to mystical communication. The editors of Borderland: A Psychical Quarterly, W. T. Stead and Ada Goodrich Freer, focused on performance in large part for strategic purposes intended to assist in the popularization of spiritualism and other psychical phenomena. Meanwhile, Moina and Samuel ‘MacGregor’ Mathers, central members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, developed their Ceremony of Isis not only for marketing purposes, but also to engage performance as a mode of human transmigration and a powerfully allusive embodiment of key values of pagan occultism