Sexing the Jewish Body: Male Menstruation Libel and the Making of Modern Gender

Recent scholarship on the history of anti-Semitism in Europe has made much of an intriguing and puzzling charge by some early modern Christians that Jewish men menstruated. This particular anti-Semitic libel seems to have been widespread throughout early modern Western Europe, not only within clerical circles, but within secular and popular society as well. Evolving from roots at least as far back as late antiquity, it arrived in its “mature” form in select thirteenth century texts, in which Jewish men suffered monthly flows of blood from the posterior region, either anally or from the penis. This is a difficult topic for the modern mind to study because contemporary conceptions of embodiment and gender are radically different from medieval thought on the subject. However, it is the very difficulty of understanding how identity constructs change over time that makes male menstruation libel such a fascinating and relevant topic for discussion. What are the ancient and medieval roots of the myth of Jewish male menstruation? At what point did these representations become sexed/gendered? What ideological purposes might this gendering have served and what can we moderns learn from the history of Jewish male menstruation libel about what it means for gender to be “modern” in the first place? A critical examination of the theological and medico-scientific origins of the menstruation libel reveals that its production was a contingent historical process that required many permutations and contributions to crystallize. Nevertheless, as early as the thirteenth century, versions of this narrative clearly feminized Jewish men. These representations became more widespread in early modern Europe and constitute an essential shift toward more modern notions of sex, gender, and embodiment that naturalized the role of Jewish men in European society, physically marking them with a badge of difference

Intraflagellar transport (IFT) during assembly and disassembly of Chlamydomonas flagella

Intraflagellar transport (IFT) of particles along flagellar microtubules is required for the assembly and maintenance of eukaryotic flagella and cilia. In Chlamydomonas, anterograde and retrograde particles viewed by light microscopy average 0.12-μm and 0.06-μm diameter, respectively. Examination of IFT particle structure in growing flagella by electron microscopy revealed similar size aggregates composed of small particles linked to each other and to the membrane and microtubules. To determine the relationship between the number of particles and flagellar length, the rate and frequency of IFT particle movement was measured in nongrowing, growing, and shortening flagella. In all flagella, anterograde and retrograde IFT averaged 1.9 μm/s and 2.7 μm/s, respectively, but retrograde IFT was significantly slower in flagella shorter than 4 μm. The number of flagellar IFT particles was not fixed, but depended on flagellar length. Pauses in IFT particle entry into flagella suggest the presence of a periodic “gate” that permits up to 4 particles/s to enter a flagellum

Boston School Desegregation: The Fallowness of Common Ground

This essay scrutinizes the book by J Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, to assess whether it presents a valid and reliable account of the issues, people, and events it chronicles. The substantive core of the book is shown to be the politics of Boston public school desegregation. The parts played by the three families in this event are dramatically portrayed but cannot be corroborated and are not interpreted. The parts played by five major policy leaders, when tested against other evidence, are found to be distorted, questionable legends woven in order to argue that four of the five leaders made flawed decisions that plunged Boston into violence. Lukas\u27s docudramatic method of reporting works to cloak the ignorance, fear, and hostility of the minority of citizens in the white enclaves of Boston who initiated racial violence in the robe of civic innocence

Noah\u27s Farce: The Regulation and Control of Exotic Fish and Wildlife

This Comment examines the dangers inherent in exotic species and evaluates federal and Washington State efforts to regulate the introduction of exotic fish and wildlife. Current federal and state law is poorly equipped to prevent the introduction of harmful exotic species or remedy damages caused by them. The laws governing exotic species should be changed through (1) the enactment of more stringent laws prohibiting or regulating the introduction of exotic species, (2) statutorily created rights to recover for natural resource damage caused by the introduction of exotic species, (3) private rights of action to recover for personal injury or property damage caused by the introduction of exotic species, and (4) national and international efforts to effectively deal with the problem. Part II of this Comment explores the means by which an exotic species may be released or established into an ecosystem and surveys some of the typical effects of transferring species to foreign habitats. Part III surveys some of the current regimes governing exotic species\u27 introductions, including federal and Washington State laws and regulations. Part IV critically evaluates the existing regulatory framework and, in particular, addresses the difficulties inherent to state-by-state regulation of exotic species\u27 introductions. Part V of this Comment argues that only comprehensive national and even international approaches regulating the importation, transfer, and release of exotic species will be effective in controlling the ever increasing number of native species threatened with extinction. Part V also suggests how a national approach might be structured to better protect native fish and wildlife resources

Key Issues Facing the Boston Public Schools

This article is the third examination of the six issues the author identified in Some Key Issues Facing Boston\u27s Public Schools in 1984, following the November 1983 election of the first thirteen-member Boston School Committee. He revisited these issues in a 1988 report and now assesses how the policy leadership of the system fared in dealing with these challenges during the past decade. He discusses other issues at the close of this article. Writing from a sociological point of view, Dentler is primarily concerned with the question of how well the public school districts and their school staff are able to provide optimal learning opportunities to all students. He assumes that this can best be appraised in terms of district structure, history, and educational policy

Boston School Desegregation: The Fallowness of Common Ground

This essay scrutinizes the book by J. Anthony Lukas, Common Ground: A Turbulent Decade in the Lives of Three American Families, to assess whether it presents a valid and reliable account of the issues, people, and events it chronicles. The substantive core of the book is shown to be the politics of Boston public school desegregation. The parts played by the three families in this event are dramatically portrayed but cannot be corroborated and are not interpreted. The parts played by five major policy leaders, when tested against other evidence, are found to be distorted, questionable legends woven in order to argue that four of the five leaders made flawed decisions that plunged Boston into violence. Lukas\u27s docudramatic method of reporting works to cloak the ignorance, fear, and hostility of the minority of citizens in the white enclaves of Boston who initiated racial violence in the robe of civic innocence

Fractionation of Tetrahymena ciliary membranes with triton X-114 and the identification of a ciliary membrane ATPase

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://jcb.rupress.org/content/107/6/2679.Cilia were isolated from Tetrahymena thermophila, extracted with Triton X-114, and the detergent-soluble membrane + matrix proteins separated into Triton X-114 aqueous and detergent phases. The aqueous phase polypeptides include a high molecular mass polypeptide previously identified as a membrane dynein, detergent-soluble alpha and beta tubulins, and numerous polypeptides distinct from those found in axonemes. Integral membrane proteins partition into the detergent phase and include two major polypeptides of 58 and 50 kD, a 49-kD polypeptide, and 5 polypeptides in relatively minor amounts. The major detergent phase polypeptides are PAS-positive and are phosphorylated in vivo. A membrane-associated ATPase, distinct from the dynein-like protein, partitions into the Triton X-114 detergent phase and contains nearly 20% of the total ciliary ATPase activity. The ATPase requires Mg++ or Ca++ and is not inhibited by ouabain or vanadate. This procedure provides a gentle and rapid technique to separate integral membrane proteins from those that may be peripherally associated with the matrix or membrane

Microtubule-membrane interactions in cilia. I. Isolation and characterization of ciliary membranes from Tetrahymena pyriformis

This is the publisher's version, also available electronically from http://jcb.rupress.org/content/84/2/364.Tetrahymena ciliary membranes were prepared by four different techniques, and their protein composition was analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE), electron microscopy, and two-dimensional thin-layer peptide mapping. Extraction of the isolated cilia by nonionic detergent solubilized the ciliary membranes but left the axonemal microtubules and dyneine arms intact, as determined by quantitative electron microscopy. The proteins solubilized by detergent included a major 55,000-dalton protein, 1-3 high molecular weight proteins that comigrated, on SDS-PAGE, with the axonemal dynein, as well as several other proteins of 45,000-50,000 daltons. Each of the major proteins contained a small amount of carbohydrate, as determined by PAS-staining; no PAS-positive material was detected in the detergent-extracted axonemes. The major 55,000-dalton protein has proteins quite similar to those of tubulin, based on SDS-PAGE using three different buffer systems as well as two-dimensional maps of tryptic peptides from the isolated 55,000-dalton protein. To determine whether this tubulin-like protein was associated with the membrane or whether it was an axonemal or matrix protein released by detergent treatment, three different methods to isolate ciliary membrane vesicles were developed. The protein composition of each of these differetn vesicle preparations was the same as that of the detergent-solubilized material. These results suggest that a major ciliary membrane protein has properties similar to those of tubulin