Publication and Recognition: Kay Boyle and the O. Henry Award

From 1932 until 1981, over the course of nearly fifty years, the judges for the O. Henry Award, an annual American award for outstanding short fiction, frequently recognized Kay Boyle’s stories as exemplary. Two of her stories received the award for best short story of the year: “The White Horses of Vienna” in 1935 and “Defeat” in 1941. Eight other Boyle stories were selected as O. Henry Prize Stories, that is, stories that did not receive the top award but were included in the annual collection. In a list of authors whose work has been included in the annual collections, Boyle shares seventh place with John Cheever, Nancy Hale, and Jean Stafford, who also had ten stories included in the annual collections. In addition, Boyle and Eudora Welty often published stories that competed in the same years for the judges’ attention. The series editors’ Introductions to the collections are a valuable yet overlooked resource for scholars of American short fiction writers, both writers well known today and writers whose reputations have diminished over time. The Introductions offer evidence of Boyle’s influential role as a writer of popular and critically acclaimed short fiction. Knowing the history of the O. Henry Award (including criteria for evaluation, series editors, judges, and winners) and Boyle’s history with the Award helps readers to understand her short story publishing history and to appreciate her career in the context of other writers

Learning as salon: honors international collaboration

In May 2011, Dutch students from the honors program in geosciences of Utrecht University, led by Professor Marca Wolfensberger, engaged in an experimental-learning project in Paris, France, with a group of American students from the honors program of Columbia College, South Carolina, led by Professors Christine Hait, Corinne Mann, and John Zubizarreta. Literally and figuratively, the city of Paris served as a salon for the project: a place where rational discussion, cross-cultural dialog, collaborative learning, and culminating critical reflection about the uniqueness and value of the learning process itself were stimulated by the informal setting of a vibrant international city that provided the context for the two groups of students to explore the topics of expatriate artist culture and film history in Paris, especially during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

S1P Is Associated with Protection in Human and Experimental Cerebral Malaria

Cerebral malaria (CM) is associated with excessive inflammatory responses and endothelial activation. Sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) is a signaling sphingolipid implicated in regulating vascular integrity, inflammation and T-cell migration. We hypothesized that altered S1P signaling during malaria contributes to endothelial activation and inflammation, and show that plasma S1P levels were decreased in Ugandan children with CM compared with children with uncomplicated malaria. Using the Plasmodium berghei ANKA (PbA) model of experimental CM (ECM), we demonstrate that humanized S1P lyase (hS1PL)−/− mice with reduced S1P lyase activity (resulting in increased bio-available S1P) had improved survival compared with wild-type littermates. Prophylactic and therapeutic treatment of infected mice with compounds that modulate the S1P pathway and are in human trials for other conditions (FTY720 or LX2931) significantly improved survival in ECM. FTY720 treatment improved vascular integrity as indicated by reduced levels of soluble intercellular adhesion molecule (sICAM), increased angiopoietin 1 (Ang1) (regulator of endothelial quiescence) levels, and decreased Evans blue dye leakage into brain parenchyma. Furthermore, treatment with FTY720 decreased IFNγ levels in plasma as well as CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell infiltration into the brain. Finally, when administered during infection in combination with artesunate, FTY720 treatment resulted in increased survival to ECM. These findings implicate dysregulation of the S1P pathway in the pathogenesis of human and murine CM and suggest a novel therapeutic strategy to improve clinical outcome in severe malaria