Ketābšenāsī-ye Afġānestān. Daftar-e awwal, Tehrān, Šahāb-e Ṯāqeb, 1381/2002, 96 p.

An unannotated bibliography of works written by Afghanistanis on any subject. This first daftar includes books mainly published between the Soviet invasion in 1368/1979 and the fall of the Taliban and the American intervention (1380/2001) although a few predate the period. The bibliography is classified by subject: literature (290 titles), history (50 titles), religion (18 titles), politics (65 titles), social science (37 titles), miscellaneous (45 works), and art (4 titles). The miscellaneou..

« Problems in the Study of Safavid Historiography ». Al-‘Usur al-Wusta: The Bulletin of Middle East Medievalists, 16, 2004, pp. 8-10.

In this brief article, Prof. Quinn, reiterates her published findings that Safavid chroniclers largely followed earlier works in narrating the past, that the chronicle introduction (dībāče) incorporated formal conventions, and that the chroniclers in narrating near-contemporary events, relied on a variety of sources, both oral and written. Through a meticulous examination of Safavid chronicles she was able to identify the time (the reign of Šāh Ṭahmāsp, 1524–1576) when Safavid history began t..

« The Sound of the Image / The Image of the Sound: Narrativity in Persian Art of the seventeenth Century », in : Cynthia Robinson, ed., Seeing Things: Textuality and Visuality in the Islamic World. Princeton Papers, Interdisciplinary Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 8 (2001), pp. 143-162.

The author suggests alternate ways to “read” single-sheet paintings and other complex artistic representations involving text and image. She begins with a Safavid wine bowl dated to 1620-21, the shape of which as well as its textual inscriptions, decoration, and figural representations she sees as combining to produce a complex of meanings. This in contrast to earlier metalware on which text often refers only to the function of the object. What provokes this study, however, is an album page, ..

« Un document généalogique (nasab-nâma) d’une famille de Hwâja Yasawaî dans le Khanat de Kokand (XIXe s.) ». Eurasian Studies, 1 (2002), pp. 1-35.

The Persian nasab-nâmah, presented here in facsimile and translation with a thorough introduction and notes, is from the Qarshi Museum in Uzbekistan. The document was drafted in 1289/1866 to support the authority of a certain Mulla Karim Birdi Khwâjah Shaykh to collect the “voluntary tax” (nadhr ) levied on herds in the Farghana Valley. His authority, as understood in the mid-nineteenth century, was based on his ‘Alid descent and then on his claimed descent, as attested by the genealogy, from..

An Historical Atlas of Central Asia. Handbuch der Orientalistik, Section Eight: Central Asia, Volume Nine, Leiden & Boston, Brill, 2003, 109 pp.

Every student of Islamic Central Asian history must have in their reference collection three books: Persidskaya Literatura: Bio-bibliograficheskii Obzor, Bibliography of Islamic Central Asia, and this historical atlas – all three, remarkably, the work of the dean of Islamic Central Asian historical studies, Prof. Yuri Bregel. This atlas should be the model for any future historical atlases of any region of the Islamic world. The atlas is remarkable because it combines a lucid, detailed, and p..

« Une description des lieux de pèlerinage (ziyāratgāh) autour de Ghazna, Afghanistan (fin du XVIIe s.?) », in : M. Bernardini, N. T. Tornesello, eds., Scritti in onore di Giovanni M. D’Erme. Vol. II, Napoli, Universita Degli Studi di Napoli “L’Orientale”, Series Minor LXVIII, 2005, pp. 1167-1200.

A thirty-eight line anonymous qaṣīde, one of ten mystical texts bound into a volume held at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Tashkent, provides a window into the spiritual and geographical landscape of the town of Ghazna (Ghazni), Afghanistan, “land of 100,000 Sufis” (according to the text) in the late 17th century. The text forms a pilgrimage guide to the area, a circuit of the tombs of the Ghazna region deemed efficacious for their sacred character. Dr. Szuppe has examined the qaṣīde in..

Infection with host-range mutant adenovirus 5 suppresses innate immunity and induces systemic CD4+ T cell activation in rhesus macaques.

Ad5 is a common cause of respiratory disease and an occasional cause of gastroenteritis and conjunctivitis, and seroconversion before adolescence is common in humans. To gain some insight into how Ad5 infection affects the immune system of rhesus macaques (RM) 18 RM were infected with a host-range mutant Ad5 (Ad5hr) by 3 mucosal inoculations. There was a delay of 2 to 6 weeks after the first inoculation before plasmacytoid dendritic cell (pDC) frequency and function increased in peripheral blood. Primary Ad5hr infection suppressed IFN-γ mRNA expression, but the second Ad5hr exposure induced a rapid increase in IFN-gamma mRNA in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC). Primary Ad5hr infection suppressed CCL20, TNF and IL-1 mRNA expression in PBMC, and subsequent virus exposures further dampened expression of these pro-inflammatory cytokines. Primary, but not secondary, Ad5hr inoculation increased the frequency of CXCR3+ CD4+ T cells in blood, while secondary, but not primary, Ad5hr infection transiently increased the frequencies of Ki67+, HLADR+ and CD95+/CCR5+ CD4+ T cells in blood. Ad5hr infection induced polyfunctional CD4 and CD8+ T cells specific for the Ad5 hexon protein in all of the animals. Thus, infection with Ad5hr induced a complex pattern of innate and adaptive immunity in RM that included transient systemic CD4+ T cell activation and suppressed innate immunity on re-exposure to the virus. The complex effects of adenovirus infection on the immune system may help to explain the unexpected results of testing Ad5 vector expressing HIV antigens in Ad5 seropositive people

Aquello es ahora, y esto fue entonces: Walter Lippmann y la crisis del periodismo

Ante la actual crisis del periodismo, McChesney busca respuestas en dos obras no muy conocidas del consagrado Walter Lippmann, escritas durante la grave crisis democrática de 1920: A test of the News y Liberty and the News. En estos textos, Lippmann defiende un acceso suficiente a información de calidad para logar una opinión pública saludable, como base de todo sistema democrático. Ello autoriza a considerar el periodismo un servicio público que no puede abandonarse a las veleidades del mercado o a la presión gubernamental, y promueve la inversión pública para facilitar la aparición de medios independientes

Accountability and Transparency of Entrepreneurial Journalism: Unresolved ethical issues in crowdfunded journalism projects

Crowdfunding is a new business model in which journalists rely—and depend—on (micro-) payments by a large number of supporters to finance their reporting. In this form of entrepreneurial journalism the roles of publisher, fundraiser and journalist often overlap. This raises questions about conflicts of interest, accountability and transparency. The article presents the results of selected case studies in four different European countries—Germany (Krautreporter), Italy (Occhidellaguerra), the United Kingdom (Contributoria) and the Netherlands (De Correspondent)—as well as one US example (Kickstarter). The study used a two-step methodological approach: first a content analysis of the websites and the Twitter accounts with regard to practices of media accountability, transparency and user participation was undertaken. The aim was to investigate how far ethical challenges in crowdfunded entrepreneurial journalism are accounted for. Second, we present findings from semi-structured interviews with journalists from each crowdfunding. The study provides evidence about the ethical issues in this area, particularly in relation to production transparency and responsiveness. The study also shows that in some cases of crowdfunding (platforms), accountability is outsourced and implemented only through the audience participation