Dream-work: Surrealism and Revolutionary Subjectivity in André Breton and Georges Bataille

This paper explores a polemic between André Breton and Georges Bataille around the question of the politics of the avant-garde. Focussing on texts composed in the late 1920s, principally Breton’s Second Manifesto of Surrealism and Bataille’s ‘The “Old Mole” and the Prefix Sur in the Words Surhomme and Surrealist’, this paper argues that in examining this debate around matter and material, it is possible to extract two distinct conceptions of the places of subjectivity and revolution in avant-garde aesthetics. While Breton wishes to separately define the idealist aesthetic projects of Surrealism and the materialist project for revolution, Bataille argues that a commitment to that materialist project requires a similarly materialist aesthetics

The content of the avant-garde : subjectivity, community, revolution

This thesis develops a new conception of the twentieth century avant-garde, viewed through its relationship to the revolutionary politics of that century. In so doing, it stresses the importance of generating a concept that both isolates the specificity of avant-garde aesthetic production, apart from broader trends in aesthetic experimentation, and is able to account for both the initial emergence of such movements and their later reappearance in the ‘neo’-avant-garde. This requirement is met by developing three concepts, the intersection of which, and commitment to, is the unique property of the avant-garde. Preeminent here is the centrality of revolutionary social transformation to the vision of the avant-gardes, and the question of how such change is accomplished. This, in turn, requires the avant-garde to develop a concept both of the subject in whose name revolution is made, and the new community that such a revolution founds. This thesis argues that all avant-gardes, regardless of their ostensible political orientation, shared a common answer to these questions. Deploying a term developed to describe the particular orientation of the working-class movement in the early twentieth century, I describe this common answer as ‘programmatism’. It consists of revolution viewed as the steady accumulation of victories by a mass, male subject engaged in industry, envisioning a community where such labour was generalised. Using this as a heuristic, this thesis relates the emergence of an initial or ‘historical’ avant-garde with the revolutionary height of programmatism, and its greatest political victories, followed by a subsequent emergence of a ‘neo’-avant-garde marked by the decomposition of programmatism, and revolutionary moments that brought that conception itself into question. This broad theoretical panorama is illustrated by a series of close readings of distinct texts and bodies of work. The conceptual apparatus is first developed by a close engagement with previous texts that have attempted to develop a ‘theory of the avant-garde’, followed by studies of the manifestos of the historical avant-garde, of the films of Sergei Eisenstein and Guy Debord, the political writing of the Situationist International, and the feminist manifestos of Mina Loy and Valerie Solanas. These individual studies follow a broadly chronological sequence, and trace the limits of an avant-garde structured by programmatism. In mapping this sequence, the thesis concludes that, once understood in this way, the avant-garde must be seen not as an always-present potential in aesthetic production, but as an historically contingent product of a certain configuration of revolutionary politics and capitalist development. The thesis thus closes with the suggestion that new forms of aesthetic radicalism will have to abandon the particular commitments that marked the twentieth-century avant-gardes. THESIS RESTRICTED TO ABSTRACT ONLY UNTIL 27/02/202

Trends in qualitative research in language teaching since 2000

This paper reviews developments in qualitative research in language teaching since the year 2000, focusing on its contributions to the field and identifying issues that emerge. Its aims are to identify those areas in language teaching where qualitative research has the greatest potential and indicate what needs to be done to further improve the quality of its contribution. The paper begins by highlighting current trends and debates in the general area of qualitative research and offering a working definition of the term. At its core is an overview of developments in the new millennium based on the analysis of papers published in 15 journals related to the field of language teaching and a more detailed description, drawn from a range of sources, of exemplary contributions during that period. Issues of quality are also considered, using illustrative cases to point to aspects of published research that deserve closer attention in future work, and key publications on qualitative research practice are reviewed

Best Practices for Siting Solar Photovoltaics on Municipal Solid Waste Landfills. A Study Prepared in Partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency for the RE-Powering America's Land Initiative: Siting Renewable Energy on Potentially Contaminated Land and Mine Sites

The Environmental Protection Agency and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory developed this best practices document to address common technical challenges for siting solar photovoltaics (PV) on municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. The purpose of this document is to promote the use of MSW landfills for solar energy systems. Closed landfills and portions of active landfills with closed cells represent thousands of acres of property that may be suitable for siting solar photovoltaics (PV). These closed landfills may be suitable for near-term construction, making these sites strong candidate to take advantage of the 30% Federal Business Energy Investment Tax Credit. It was prepared in response to the increasing interest in siting renewable energy on landfills from solar developers; landfill owners; and federal, state, and local governments. It contains examples of solar PV projects on landfills and technical considerations and best practices that were gathered from examining the implementation of several of these projects

EROS is a selective chaperone regulating the phagocyte NADPH oxidase and purinergic signalling

EROS (essential for reactive oxygen species) protein is indispensable for expression of gp91phox, the catalytic core of the phagocyte NADPH oxidase. EROS deficiency in humans is a novel cause of the severe immunodeficiency, chronic granulomatous disease, but its mechanism of action was unknown until now. We elucidate the role of EROS, showing it acts at the earliest stages of gp91phox maturation. It binds the immature 58 kDa gp91phox directly, preventing gp91phox degradation and allowing glycosylation via the oligosaccharyltransferase machinery and the incorporation of the heme prosthetic groups essential for catalysis. EROS also regulates the purine receptors P2X7 and P2X1 through direct interactions, and P2X7 is almost absent in EROS-deficient mouse and human primary cells. Accordingly, lack of murine EROS results in markedly abnormal P2X7 signalling, inflammasome activation, and T cell responses. The loss of both ROS and P2X7 signalling leads to resistance to influenza infection in mice. Our work identifies EROS as a highly selective chaperone for key proteins in innate and adaptive immunity and a rheostat for immunity to infection. It has profound implications for our understanding of immune physiology, ROS dysregulation, and possibly gene therapy.</jats:p

Arginine methylation and ubiquitylation crosstalk controls DNA end-resection and homologous recombination repair

Cross-talk between distinct protein post-translational modifications is critical for an effective DNA damage response. Arginine methylation plays an important role in maintaining genome stability, but how this modification integrates with other enzymatic activities is largely unknown. Here, we identify the deubiquitylating enzyme USP11 as a previously uncharacterised PRMT1 substrate, and demonstrate that the methylation of USP11 promotes DNA end-resection and the repair of DNA double strand breaks (DSB) by homologous recombination (HR), an event that is independent from another USP11-HR activity, the deubiquitylation of PALB2. We also show that PRMT1 is a ubiquitylated protein that it is targeted for deubiquitylation by USP11, which regulates the ability of PRMT1 to bind to and methylate MRE11. Taken together, our findings reveal a specific role for USP11 during the early stages of DSB repair, which is mediated through its ability to regulate the activity of the PRMT1-MRE11 pathway

'Becoming' in classroom talk

The nature of the talk between teachers and children is highly significant in a pedagogy that seeks to assist all children in their progress towards both individually and socially productive learning and development. In the long term, such progress is made difficult, especially for bilingual children, when talk is characterised by tight teacher control and relatively narrow and predictable patterns of participation. And while these restricted patterns of communication afford little opportunity for children to develop both linguistically and cognitively, they also frame for the child the kind of learner they are considered to be. Similarly, children also learn about themselves in more open forms of classroom communication, and these forms only come about when teachers loosen the reins on the minds of the children in their classrooms and assist them to move into challenging new cognitive domains through dialogue. This paper will look at a sample of talk, between a teacher and a small group of children, taken from a larger action research project that sought to expand the talk opportunities for all the children in a combined Year 3/4 multilingual classroom. The suggestion will be made that, in expanding talk roles and responsibilities in classrooms, teachers not only engage children more effectively with the language and content of the curriculum, they assist young people to come to see themselves as capable doers and thinkers. It is this 'gift of confidence' (Mahn and John-Steiner 2002) that encourages children to engage with the next challenge that teachers place before them.23 page(s