Periodical Studies: Why and How to Re-read East European Journals

Nearly a decade ago, Sean Latham and Robert Scholes ambitiously proclaimed “The Rise of Periodical Studies” in the PMLA, the premier publication that institutionalizes new trends in literary and cultural studies. Latham and Scholes proposed a seemingly radical reorientation in the philological scholarship of magazines and journals: treat them as “autonomous objects of study” rather than just as “containers of discrete bits of information.” And while this approach has provoked significant, if at times polemical response in English and American Studies, the Slavic and East European fields have remained surprisingly silent. Is the notion of periodical studies as a discrete field applicable to our work? Does it differ from the ways Slavists have been analyzing journals for decades? At “Decoding the Periodical,” a workshop at Princeton University in March 2015,2 we explored these questions with participants from fields of history, art history, and literary studies. Our conclusion was an emphatic yes, that periodical studies does offer Slavic new methodological avenues that reveal the dynamism of our specific periodical culture

Digital Émigré: Journals of the Russian Diaspora

The Digital Émigré is a web-based resource for exploring the periodical literature of the 20th century Russian emigration. As an online repository of Russian journals and magazines it makes accessible a curated textual corpus in an archive accompanied by a database featuring article-level bibliographical information of these journals. Allowing for new kinds of distant reading of the text and the evaluation of genres, authors and their social communities, Digital Émigré encourages new approaches to journals as mass phenomena that involve thousands of authors and are deeply rooted in the intellectual life of the Russian emigration. The project thereby bridges philological approaches, cultural studies enquiry and sociological questions about intellectual networks and communities of artistic production

Linking to Linked Data

Does very precise description of objects and semantic-web linking truly enable new applications for catalog data? This poster presents research testing this questions using data from a variety of library, museum and archive collections.ye

MEI and Verovio for MIR: A Minimal Computing Approach

While the increase in digital editions, online corpora, and browsable databases of encoded music presents an extraordinary resource for contemporary music scholarship, using these databases for computational research remains a complex endeavor. Although norms and standards have begun to emerge, and interoperability among different formats is often possible, researchers must devote considerable time to discover, learn, and maintain the skill sets necessary to make use of these resources. This talk will discuss our work with the Serge Prokofiev Archive and the creation of a prototype to browse, display, and play notated music from Prokofiev’s notebooks via a web browser. The project is an example of how using the principles of minimal computing can reduce the burden of technological expertise required to both disseminate and access encoded music

High-refractive index and mechanically cleavable non-van der Waals InGaS3

The growing families of two-dimensional crystals derived from naturally occurring van der Waals materials offer an unprecedented platform to investigate elusive physical phenomena and could be of use in a diverse range of devices. Of particular interest are recently reported atomic sheets of non-van der Waals materials, which could allow a better comprehension of the nature of structural bonds and increase the functionality of prospective heterostructures. Here, we study the optostructural properties of ultrathin non-van der Waals InGaS3 sheets produced by standard mechanical cleavage. Our ab initio calculation results suggest an emergence of authentically delicate out-of-plane covalent bonds within its unit cell, and, as a consequence, an artificial generation of layered structure within the material. Those yield to singular layer isolation energies of around 50 meVA-2, which is comparable with the conventional van der Waals material's monolayer isolation energies of 20 - 60 meVA-2. In addition, we provide a comprehensive analysis of the structural, vibrational, and optical properties of the materials presenting that it is a wide bandgap (2.73 eV) semiconductor with a high-refractive index (higher than 2.5) and negligible losses in the visible and infrared spectral ranges. It makes it a perfect candidate for further establishment of visible-range all-dielectric nanophotonics

The Marian Dimension of Mother Maria's Orthodox Social Christianity

“Mother Maria,” has in recent years become an exemplar of modern Orthodox social engagement. Often hailed as Orthodoxy’s Dorothy Day, Skobtsova is known for the network of shelters, soup kitchens and medical facilities she opened from impoverished Russian émigrés in Paris during the 1930s. Perhaps her most radical work was in the French Resistance movement, where her assistance to French Jews led to her arrest by the Nazis and deportation to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Many have read about Mother Maria’s dramatic life and times in the excellent biography by the priest and Slavist Sergei Hackel, whose, Pearl of Great Price: The Life of Mother Maria Skobtsova has been translated into many languages and was republished numerous times since its first appearance in 1965

Cheese as a Tourism Resource in Russia: The First Report and Relevance to Sustainability

Cheese tasting attracts crowds of visitors to areas in countries such as France, Italy, Spain, and New Zealand, distinguishing cheese tourism as an individual tourism direction within food (gastronomic, culinary) tourism. Internationally known, but locally specific and artisanal cheese is thought to be the main resource. Its exploitation by the tourism industry contributes to sustainability, supporting rural lifestyles and facilitating the integration of rural traditions, heritage, and natural landscapes. In Russia, cheese production is concentrated in regions including Altay, Voronezh, and Moscow. The state of tourist activities favors the use of cheese as a valuable tourism resource. Importantly, this resource is linked to the production of common sorts of cheese in big (industry-scale) amounts and the creation of cheese-related attractions like cheese museums. Cheese festivals also take place locally. A comparison to the European experience of cheese tourism reveals significant peculiarities of this activity in Russia and, particularly, a bigger relevance to industrial tourism than to food and rural tourism. Realization of only part of the opportunities linked to cheese tourism presents challenges regarding environmental and socioeconomical sustainability

Is Environment a Strategic Priority of the Leading Energy Companies? Evidence from Mission Statements

Hydrocarbon production, electricity transmission, and other energy-related activities affect the environment. It is expected that environmental issues can be among strategic priorities summarized in mission statements of energy companies. The present analysis of the mission statements of 43 leading energy companies implies that these issues are considered by 36% of the top energy companies and 37% of the fastest-growing energy companies. These considerations often co-occur with attention to a company’s higher tasks and image. Most often, production ecologization is posed as a priority. The fastest-growing companies pay insufficient attention to climate changes. Conceptually, reflection of environmental issues in mission statements depends on the managerial awareness of these issues; additionally, the development of separate sustainability strategies may make environmental priorities somewhat marginal. The ‘greening’ of mission statements of energy companies is recommended

Aesthetic Value of Colluvial Blocks in Geosite-Based Tourist Destinations: Evidence from SW Russia

Nature-based tourism is stimulated by the aesthetic properties of landscapes, and particular elements of the latter determine the overall scenic beauty. Big stones on forested mountain slopes are among such elements. The Partisan Glade geosite-based tourist destination ofthe Western Caucasus in southwestern Russia is distinguished by the occurrence of such stones. Their field investigation (measurements of physical parameters and interpretation of the common criteria of tourist-meaningful beauty) shows that these are essentially blocks (clasts with the size of 1–10 m) of all grades (fine, medium, and coarse blocks) and colluvial origin. The blocks influence on such parameters of scenic beauty as scale, condition, balance, diversity, shape, and uniqueness, and, therefore, these blocks are of aesthetic value. The most important is color and size. Apparently, the presence of these big stones stimulates tourists’ positive emotions. It is recommended to avoid block removal or breaking in the course of road maintenance

The Control of the Crossover Localization in Allium

Meiotic crossovers/chiasmata are not randomly distributed and strictly controlled. The mechanisms behind crossover (CO) patterning remain largely unknown. In Allium cepa, as in the vast majority of plants and animals, COs predominantly occur in the distal 2/3 of the chromosome arm, while in Allium fistulosum they are strictly localized in the proximal region. We investigated the factors that may contribute to the pattern of COs in A. cepa, A. fistulosum and their F1 diploid (2n = 2x = 8C + 8F) and F1 triploid (2n = 3x = 16F + 8C) hybrids. The genome structure of F1 hybrids was confirmed using genomic in situ hybridization (GISH). The analysis of bivalents in the pollen mother cells (PMCs) of the F1 triploid hybrid showed a significant shift in the localization of COs to the distal and interstitial regions. In F1 diploid hybrid, the COs localization was predominantly the same as that of the A. cepa parent. We found no differences in the assembly and disassembly of ASY1 and ZYP1 in PMCs between A. cepa and A. fistulosum, while F1 diploid hybrid showed a delay in chromosome pairing and a partial absence of synapsis in paired chromosomes. Immunolabeling of MLH1 (class I COs) and MUS81 (class II COs) proteins showed a significant difference in the class I/II CO ratio between A. fistulosum (50%:50%) and A. cepa (73%:27%). The MLH1:MUS81 ratio at the homeologous synapsis of F1 diploid hybrid (70%:30%) was the most similar to that of the A. cepa parent. F1 triploid hybrid at the A. fistulosum homologous synapsis showed a significant increase in MLH1:MUS81 ratio (60%:40%) compared to the A. fistulosum parent. The results suggest possible genetic control of CO localization. Other factors affecting the distribution of COs are discussed