Sciascia and Calvino, … and Giufà

This essay traces the evolution of the personal and professional relationship of Italo Calvino and  Leonardo Sciascia, using their divergent readings of the tales of the Sicilian folk hero Giufà as a yardstick  for measuring their personal and professional association and their development as writers and thinkers.  Thus, it sheds light on Italian literary culture as it took new form after WWII through the years of lead  and the death of the two men in the 1980s; specifically, the two disagreed publicly as to how the Italian  State should react to the terrorist threat posed by the Red Brigades in the late 1970s. Subsequent to these  polemics Sciascia broke with Einaudi (the firm for whom Calvino, since the 1950s had edited most of  Sciascia’s books). Then, in 1989 (four years after Calvino’s death in 1985), Sciascia, in perhaps the last  essay he wrote, disagreed with Calvino’s 1971 characterization of the Giufà as a trickster and village  idiot, as a sort of societal antibody, someone communities need to expel in the interest of their well-being.This essay traces the evolution of the personal and professional relationship of Italo Calvino and  Leonardo Sciascia, using their divergent readings of the tales of the Sicilian folk hero Giufà as a yardstick  for measuring their personal and professional association and their development as writers and thinkers.  Thus, it sheds light on Italian literary culture as it took new form after WWII through the years of lead  and the death of the two men in the 1980s; specifically, the two disagreed publicly as to how the Italian  State should react to the terrorist threat posed by the Red Brigades in the late 1970s. Subsequent to these  polemics Sciascia broke with Einaudi (the firm for whom Calvino, since the 1950s had edited most of  Sciascia’s books). Then, in 1989 (four years after Calvino’s death in 1985), Sciascia, in perhaps the last  essay he wrote, disagreed with Calvino’s 1971 characterization of the Giufà as a trickster and village  idiot, as a sort of societal antibody, someone communities need to expel in the interest of their well-being

Leonardo Sciascia e la funzione sociale degli intellettuali

Leonardo Sciascia e la funzione sociale degli intellettuali collects the translations of three writings that have already appeared in English-speaking scientific journals - L'onore, il qualunquismo e l'essenzialismo ne L'antimonio di Sciascia, Sciascia e La scomparsa di Majorana and De L'Affaire Moro e della (ri)scrittura della storia - as well as an in-depth introduction that provides an overview of the author's research results on Sciascia - from which a much more conservative Sciascia than is commonly believed is revealed - as well as an analysis of Sciascia's poetics (centred on the public self-image of the "spoiler"). The essay ends with a concluding chapter where the last decade of Sciascia's career is examined (the period after L'Affaire Moro and the participation of the Sicilian writer in the Moro Commission) during which the author publishes various collections of essays - such as La strega e il capitano, 1912+1, Una storia semplice - and traces an essay on Telesio Interlandi, ideologue of the discriminatory legislation of 1938

Vincenzo Consolo: gli anni de «l’Unità» (1992-2012), ovvero la poetica della colpa-espiazione

Vincenzo Consolo: gli anni de «l’Unità» (1992-2012), ovvero la poetica della colpa-espiazione analyses the frequent collaboration between Vincenzo Consolo (1933-2012) and the Italian newspaper «l’Unità», which started in the 1990s and would continue until the author’s death. This collaboration reveals a form of political protagonism which the writer had originally shied away from. Over this period of time, in his written pieces, Consolo turns from the «contastorie consolatorio» (a consoling storyteller) into a Benjamin-style narrator, offering the new generations a progressive life model based on his own youthful experiences. This artistic development reflects in a similar transformation within his narration, and explains the reason behind the use of the first person narrator, that «impudico io» (the “impure I”), as the author himself puts it. This form of literary experimentation, which differs from the work he carried out over the previous decades, allows the writer to atone for not having done more in the Seventies and the Eighties to improve the social, environmental and political degradation whose spread he had witnessed

Carissimo Nino : Il carteggio fra Tatiana Gramsci e Antonio Gramsci, Luglio 1928-dicembre 1928

Quanto segue è una disamina di una selezione del carteggio fra il prigioniero Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) e sua cognata Tatiana Schucht, il pressoché esclusivo contatto fra Gramsci e il mondo esterno dopo la sua condanna. Le lettere sottoposte ad analisi furono scambiate in un lasso di tempo, durato sei mesi, che inizia con il trasferimento di Gramsci dal carcere di San Vittore di Milano al carcere romano di Regina Coeli nei primi giorni del maggio 1928, e termina con la prima visita di Tatiana al carcere di Turi di Bari nel dicembre del medesimo anno. Nel presente scritto metto in rilievo la condizione psicologica di Tatiana in quell period e propongo un modesto contributo alla conoscenza dell’effetto della personalità di Tatiana (e dell’idiosincratico rapport fra lei e la sua famiglia in Russia sul dramma umano di Gramsci in carcere. L’esigenza vissuta da Tatiana, quella di sentirsi parte di una famiglia (non la propria, beninteso, ma quella di Gramsci, indicata dall’utilizzo dell’appellativo di “Nino” nelle sue lettere — a Ghilarza, a Piero Sraffa nonché a Gramsci stesso — da cui il titolo del presente scritto), e il suo insistere sul fatto di non aver bisogno di affetto, cioè la sua tendenza ad ‘annullarsi’ (rappresentandola come altruismo), fa sorgere sì che lei si comporti ‘da protagonista’. Tatiana assume compiti su di sé, a volte senza avvisare Gramsci, a volte senza il suo consenso. In questo modo, fa a volte perdere la pazienza a Gramsci, il quale deve, poi, vedersi con le autorità con le autorità carcerarie. Gli scambi epistolari fra i due mettono in risalto il modo in cui questa pretesa di Tatiana di fare le veci di Gramsci, di stabilirsi come tramite ineludibile, forza e modifica il loro rapporto in un momento critico — i primi anni — del calvario carcerario di Gramsci

Isolation and identification of a male-produced aggregation-sex pheromone for the velvet longhorned beetle, Trichoferus campestris.

The velvet longhorned beetle, Trichoferus campestris (Faldermann) ("VLB"; Coleoptera: Cerambycidae), is native to eastern Asia where it infests and damages a wide range of deciduous and coniferous tree species, including orchard and timber species. Immature stages of VLB are transported to new countries via international commerce, and populations have established outside the native range of the species. Here, we show that identification of pheromones of invasive pest species can be expedited by knowledge of the semiochemistry of related taxa. Histological sectioning revealed subcuticular, male-specific prothoracic glands connected to pits in the cuticle, which, in related species, are diagnostic for production of male-produced aggregation-sex pheromones, usually characterized by 2,3-alkanediol/hydroxyketone structural motifs. However, in preliminary field bioassays, beetles were not attracted by any known cerambycid pheromones. Subsequently, we identified a novel variant of the hydroxyketone motif ("trichoferone") from headspace volatiles of males. In field bioassays, synthetic trichoferone was more attractive to both sexes of VLB than previously developed high-release-rate ethanol lures, and attraction was strongly female biased. This study demonstrated the utility of the prothoracic gland trait for predicting pheromone use in cerambycid species in the subfamily Cerambycinae, and that identification of pheromones of novel species can be expedited by knowledge of pheromones of related species. Trichoferone should prove to be a valuable tool for detection of VLB in regions where the beetle is or may become established

An Equity-focused Assessment of the City of Richmond’s RVAgreen 2050 Planning Process

Local climate action and sustainability initiatives are often critiqued for their inattention to issues of equity and justice. In response, an increasing number of cities are now attempting to respond to this critique by making equity a more explicit goal of their climate action plans: Richmond Virginia is among those cities. The City of Richmond\u27s Office of Sustainability committed to prioritizing equity in the RVAGreen 2050 plan by recognizing how Richmond’s history of racism and structural inequalities have exacerbated climate concerns for largely Black and Latinx communities and centering historically marginalized communities of color in the engagement process. Students in URSP 637 Sustainable Community Development were asked to provide an external evaluation of the RVAGreen 2050 planning process. This report summarizes the findings of this evaluation and highlights recommendations for how to improve equity-centered engagement processed moving forward

COVID-19 and Thrombotic or Thromboembolic Disease: Implications for Prevention, Antithrombotic Therapy, and Follow-up

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a viral respiratory illness caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), may predispose patients to thrombotic disease, both in the venous and arterial circulations, due to excessive inflammation, platelet activation, endothelial dysfunction, and stasis. In addition, many patients receiving antithrombotic therapy for thrombotic disease may develop COVID-19, which can have implications for choice, dosing, and laboratory monitoring of antithrombotic therapy. Moreover, during a time with much focus on COVID-19, it is critical to consider how to optimize the available technology to care for patients without COVID-19 who have thrombotic disease. Herein, we review the current understanding of the pathogenesis, epidemiology, management and outcomes of patients with COVID-19 who develop venous or arterial thrombosis, and of those with preexisting thrombotic disease who develop COVID-19, or those who need prevention or care for their thrombotic disease during the COVID-19 pandemic.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155446/1/Bikdeli-2020-COVID-19 and Thrombotic or Thromb.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155446/3/DeepBluepermissions_agreement-CCBYandCCBY-NC_ORCID_Barnes.docxhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155446/4/license_rdf.rdfDescription of Bikdeli-2020-COVID-19 and Thrombotic or Thromb.pdf : ArticleDescription of DeepBluepermissions_agreement-CCBYandCCBY-NC_ORCID_Barnes.docx : Deep Blue sharing agreemen

Worldwide tests of generic attractants, a promising tool for early detection of non-native cerambycid species

A large proportion of the insects which have invaded new regions and countries are emerging species, being found for the first time outside their native range. Being able to detect such species upon arrival at ports of entry before they establish in non-native countries is an urgent challenge. The deployment of traps baited with broad-spectrum semiochemical lures at ports-of-entry and other high-risk sites could be one such early detection tool. Rapid progress in the identification of semiochemicals for cerambycid beetles during the last 15 years has revealed that aggregation-sex pheromones and sex pheromones are often conserved at global levels for genera, tribes or subfamilies of the Cerambycidae. This possibly allows the development of generic attractants which attract multiple species simultaneously, especially when such pheromones are combined into blends. Here, we present the results of a worldwide field trial programme conducted during 2018-2021, using traps baited with a standardised 8-pheromone blend, usually com-plemented with plant volatiles. A total of 1308 traps were deployed at 302 sites covering simultaneously or sequentially 13 European countries, 10 Chinese provinces and some regions of the USA, Canada, Australia, Russia (Siberia) and the Caribbean (Martinique). We intended to test the following hypotheses: 1) if a species is regularly trapped in significant numbers by the blend on a continent, it increases the prob-ability that it can be detected when it arrives in other countries/continents and 2) if the blend exerts an effective, generic attraction to multiple species, it is likely that previously unknown and unexpected spe-cies can be captured due to the high degree of conservation of pheromone structures within related taxa. A total of 78,321 longhorned beetles were trapped, representing 376 species from eight subfamilies, with 84 species captured in numbers greater than 50 individuals. Captures comprised 60 tribes, with 10 tribes including more than nine species trapped on different continents. Some invasive species were captured in both the native and invaded continents. This demonstrates the potential of multipheromone lures as ef-fective tools for the detection of 'unexpected' cerambycid invaders, accidentally translocated outside their native ranges. Adding new pheromones with analogous well-conserved motifs is discussed, as well as the limitations of using such blends, especially for some cerambycid taxa which may be more attracted by the trap colour or other characteristics rather than to the chemical blend