Articulations of ethics : energy worlds and moral selves

Funding: This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 715146. I also gratefully acknowledge the funding I have received to carry out this research from the Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2013-177) and the British Academy (EN150010).This chapter introduces the notion of ‘regimes of ethics’ to explore the diverse ways that ethics is articulated in corporate capitalism, particularly in industries that are involved in the extraction of natural resources such as oil and gas. I show how companies draw on corporate social responsibility frameworks as public-facing demonstrations of ethics for stakeholder engagement, while also generating greater company loyalty and pride among employees. While corporate social responsibility (CSR) provides an explicit corporate strategy, the professional codes of ethics that apply to engineering practices in the USA specifically anchor ethics in individual decision-making. Animated by a generally conservative, if not stultifying, ethos, engineering ethics sees practices such as whistleblowing and breaking ranks as epitomising individual ethical action. Co-existing with and sometimes challenging these two formal regimes of ethics are also industry actors’ own moral convictions. This third regime of ethics draws on my ethnographic research in the oil and gas industry in Colorado, USA. By discussing these various articulations of ethics, my aim is to take seriously formal rules and codes as well as industry actors’ own ethical sensibilities. I suggest that rather than existing as entrenched hardened moral worlds, these multiple and competing regimes of ethics indicate the underdetermined nature of ethical life.Publisher PD

Domesticating Spectacle in the Roman Empire. Representations of Public Entertainment in Private Houses of the Roman Provinces.

Gladiatorial combats, animal fights, and public executions of criminals were parts of the munus – public spectacles that took place over the course of multiple days and were an integral component of the social and political life of many communities across the Roman Empire. In this dissertation I reevaluate a corpus of 79 known images of spectacle dating from the 1st century BCE to the late 5th century CE, focusing on images of gladiatorial fights and animal hunts found on floor mosaics and wall paintings in areas once part of the Roman Empire. Rather than regard the images as illustrations of specific historical spectacles sponsored by a given patron, I argue that depictions are visual constructs that condense perceptions of the events into abstracted, abbreviated images. The images do not function as ‘eye-witness’ snapshots but instead are commentaries on a multivalent event. Taking into account the historical background of the munus, features of the visual representations themselves, the archaeological contexts in which the representations occur, and the greater geographical setting in which the sites are found, I identify both commonalities and regional variations among images. The formal analysis of the images reveals that the images conform to types and that they were often consciously adapted to fit specific architectural contexts. My reassessment of the archaeological contexts indicates that the great majority of images of spectacle originally appeared in publicly accessible spaces in private houses, including hallways, reception rooms, and bedroom, in addition to dining rooms. The distribution of these images throughout the Roman Empire is surprisingly uneven, with the largest clusters found at three sites: Cos (Greek Islands), Leptis Magna (Libya), and Trier (Germany). These clusters are shown to be the result of local fashions, historical associations, and the presence of prolific workshops. In contrast to earlier scholars, I understand the images of spectacle as celebrations of victory that drew upon established conventions for representing the munus. My study shows that the images fulfilled a variety of functions that reflected the social setting, wealth, and identity of a patron, all of which were often heavily influenced by the regional context.PhDClassical Art and ArchaeologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/120698/1/nicohigh_1.pd

Mechanistic insights into the inhibition of Sec61-dependent co- and post-translational translocation by mycolactone.

The virulence factor mycolactone is responsible for the immunosuppression and tissue necrosis that characterise Buruli ulcer, a disease caused by infection with Mycobacterium ulcerans. In this study, we confirm that Sec61, the protein-conducting channel that coordinates entry of secretory proteins into the endoplasmic reticulum, is a primary target of mycolactone, and characterise the nature of its inhibitory effect. We conclude that mycolactone constrains the ribosome-nascent chain-Sec61 complex, consistent with its broad-ranging perturbation of the co-translational translocation of classical secretory proteins. In contrast, the effect of mycolactone on the post-translational, ribosome-independent translocation of short secretory proteins through the Sec61 complex is dependent on both signal sequence hydrophobicity and the translocation competence of the mature domain. Changes to protease sensitivity strongly suggest that mycolactone acts by inducing a conformational change in the pore-forming Sec61α subunit. These findings establish that mycolactone inhibits Sec61-mediated protein translocation and highlight differences between the co- and post-translational routes that the Sec61 complex mediates. We propose that mycolactone also provides a useful tool for further delineating the molecular mechanisms of Sec61-dependent protein translocation