A Didactics of Cultural Readings

This article makes a case for the effectiveness of using imitation-style teaching as a way to introduce how to write theoretically informed pieces of literary or media criticism to undergraduates. By making a case for the relevance of teaching this form of criticism in the undergraduate classroom, as well as exploring exactly how imitation-style teaching can be used to teach this skill, this article argues that teachers can fruitfully study closely with students pieces of literary criticism in the undergraduate classroom. The article argues that this teaching practice is able to live up to the idea of “transparent performance expectations,” one of didactician Hilbert Meyer’s 10 central criteria for good teaching. Click here to read the corresponding ISSOTL blog post.

Regulation of mechanics and dynamics of actin filaments and networks by actin-binding proteins

Actin is a highly ubiquitous and evolutionarily conserved protein capable of polymerizing and forming filamentous polymers which play a central role in cell mechanics and motility. Here, we study the in vitro regulation of actin mechanics and dynamics by calponin and caldesmon, two actin binding proteins believed to be involved in regulating cytoskeletal mechanics and structure through mechanisms not currently well understood. Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the reader to actin and its roles in the cell, as well as to the methods and theoretical foundations used in this work. In Chapter 3, we use total internal reflection and confocal fluorescence microscopy to investigate the polymerization dynamics of actin in the presence of a caldesmon C terminal fragment, H32K. We show that H32K stabilizes a nascent structural state of actin without altering the polymerization dynamics of the filament. We also show that H32K stabilized nascent actin has increased affinity for the actin branching protein complex Arp2/3 involved in driving membrane protrusions during cell motility, and propose the nascent state of actin as a possible transient differentiator targeting certain actin binding proteins to actin in vivo. This is to our knowledge the first reported direct functional effect of nascent actin. In Chapter 4, we use fluorescence microscopy to quantify actin bending mechanics in the presence of the binding protein calponin and show that calponin reduces the persistence length of actin. We compare our results to the literature and compare the mechanical change to electron microscopy reconstructions, which suggest that calponin affects actin intermonomer contacts through interactions with actin subdomain 2. In Chapter 5, we expand on the results from Chapter 4 using bulk rheology and show that calponin increases the tensile strength of reconstituted actin networks, similar to the effect seen in whole cells and tissues. We discuss these data within an affine network model and show that the results can be entirely explained in terms of the reduced actin persistence length. We use this to propose a novel physical mechanism for calponin function in vivo. This work elucidates the physical mechanisms of calponin and caldesmon function and their role in regulating the cellular cytoskeleton.2031-01-01T00:00:00

Intertextual Dialogue and Humanization in David Simon’s <i>The Corner</i>

This article presents a reading of the six-part HBO miniseries The Corner (2000) which was co-written by David Simon and David Mills and directed by Charles S. Dutton. Focusing in particular on its use of flashbacks, intertextuality, melodrama, and realism, the article argues that this series has its chief interest in humanizing a group of people—namely drug addicts—who otherwise are relegated to the margins of popular television shows. Taking a point of departure in showing how a family in an impoverished neighborhood is afflicted by drug addiction, The Corner tries to counter existing discourses about people living in blighted inner-city neighborhoods, and through intertextual dialogue with the genre of the “hood film”—exemplified by John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991)—The Corner explicitly makes a different depiction of similar subject matters than is generally found in “hood films.” The article shows how The Corner’s societal critique is embedded in both realism and melodrama as a way of insisting on the veracity of its subject matter while also using emotionality—pathos—as a core part of its appeal and political argumentation

Bisimulation and expressivity for conditional belief, degrees of belief, and safe belief

Plausibility models are Kripke models that agents use to reason about knowledge and belief, both of themselves and of each other. Such models are used to interpret the notions of conditional belief, degrees of belief, and safe belief. The logic of conditional belief contains that modality and also the knowledge modality, and similarly for the logic of degrees of belief and the logic of safe belief. With respect to these logics, plausibility models may contain too much information. A proper notion of bisimulation is required that characterises them. We define that notion of bisimulation and prove the required characterisations: on the class of image-finite and preimage-finite models (with respect to the plausibility relation), two pointed Kripke models are modally equivalent in either of the three logics, if and only if they are bisimilar. As a result, the information content of such a model can be similarly expressed in the logic of conditional belief, or the logic of degrees of belief, or that of safe belief. This, we found a surprising result. Still, that does not mean that the logics are equally expressive: the logics of conditional and degrees of belief are incomparable, the logics of degrees of belief and safe belief are incomparable, while the logic of safe belief is more expressive than the logic of conditional belief. In view of the result on bisimulation characterisation, this is an equally surprising result. We hope our insights may contribute to the growing community of formal epistemology and on the relation between qualitative and quantitative modelling