From Goethe to Gundolf

"From Goethe to Gundolf: Essays on German Literature and Culture is a collection of Roger Paulin’s groundbreaking essays, spanning the last forty years. The work represents his major research interests of Romanticism and the reception of Shakespeare in Germany, but also explores a broader range of themes, from poetry and the public memorialization of poets to fairy stories - all meticulously researched, yet highly accessible. As a comprehensive examination of German literary history in the period 1700-1900, the collection not only includes accounts of the lives and work of Goethe, Schiller, the Schlegels, and Gundolf (amongst others), serving to nuance our understanding of these figures in history, but also considers diverse (and often underexplored) topics, from academic freedom to the rise of travel literature. The essays have been reformulated, corrected, and updated to add references to recent works. However, the core foundations of the originals remain, and just as when they were first published, the value of these essays – to researchers, students, and all those who are interested in German literary history – cannot be overstated.

Die Ähnlichkeit der Götter: Ein Billet Alexander von Humboldts an August Wilhelm Schlegel in der SLUB Dresden

Roger Paulin, einer der besten Kenner der europäischen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, bereitet die erste neuere Biographie zu August Wilhelm Schlegel vor. Die Grundlage dafür ist der Nachlass Schlegels, der sich im Bestand der Handschriftenabteilung der SLUB Dresden befindet

Maria Stuart

"Maria Stuart, described as Schiller’s most perfect play, is a finely balanced, inventive account of the last day of the captive Queen of Scotland, caught up in a great contest for the throne of England after the death of Henry VIII and over the question of England’s religious confession. Hope for and doubt about Mary’s deliverance grow in the first two acts, given to the Scottish and the English queen respectively, reach crisis at the center of the play, where the two queens meet in a famous scene in a castle park, and die away in acts four and five, as the action advances to its inevitable end. The play is at once classical tragedy of great fineness, costume drama of the highest order—a spectacle on the stage—and one of the great moments in the long tradition of classical rhetoric, as Elizabeth’s ministers argue for and against execution of a royal prisoner. Flora Kimmich’s new translation carefully preserves the spirit of the original: the pathos and passion of Mary in captivity, the high seriousness of Elizabeth’s ministers in council, and the robust comedy of that queen’s untidy private life. Notes to the text identify the many historical figures who appear in the text, describe the political setting of the action, and draw attention to the structure of the play. Roger Paulin’s introduction discusses the many threads of the conflict in Maria Stuart and enriches our understanding of this much-loved, much-produced play. Maria Stuart is the last of a series of five new translations of Schiller’s major plays, accompanied by notes to the text and an authoritative introduction.

Morphological and molecular characterization of a new mycobacterium avium Subsp. paratuberculosis S-type strain Genotype in goats

Paratuberculosis is a chronic bacterial disease of global importance mainly in domestic and wild ruminants, caused by Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP). In goats, paratuberculosis is mostly caused by the "C-type" (cattle) and in a few cases by the "S-type" (sheep) strain of MAP. In 2017, a caprine S-type III isolate with a new VNTR profile was identified in a Swiss alpine region. In 2018, new caprine isolates with the same novel VNTR profile originating from a farm of a close by neighboring valley were analyzed. Here we report on this MAP S-type III outbreak in a Swiss dairy goat farm in which we investigated the pathological changes, distribution and genotype of MAP tissue homogenates. Full necropsy and histological examination were undertaken on two female adult goats with a history of weight loss and intermitting diarrhea. Routine and special stains were applied to characterize the morphological changes. DNA was extracted from 33 different tissue samples and tested for MAP by qPCR targeting IS900 and F57. Subtyping was performed, using the variable number tandem repeats (VNTR) and mycobacterial interspersed repetitive units (MIRU) approach. The goats showed moderate to marked emaciation and displayed typical clinical features of paratuberculosis. A moderate granulomatous enteritis and regional lymphadenitis with a small to moderate number of acid-fast bacteria within macrophages was detected. MAP detection was mainly restricted to the gastrointestinal tract, mesenteric and hepatic lymph nodes. Subtyping the S-type isolates using a panel of eight established MIRU-VNTR loci identified a new genotype, INMV 218

Design of the Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcome Measures in COPD (SPIROMICS) AIR Study.

IntroductionPopulation-based epidemiological evidence suggests that exposure to ambient air pollutants increases hospitalisations and mortality from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but less is known about the impact of exposure to air pollutants on patient-reported outcomes, morbidity and progression of COPD.Methods and analysisThe Subpopulations and Intermediate Outcome Measures in COPD (SPIROMICS) Air Pollution Study (SPIROMICS AIR) was initiated in 2013 to investigate the relation between individual-level estimates of short-term and long-term air pollution exposures, day-to-day symptom variability and disease progression in individuals with COPD. SPIROMICS AIR builds on a multicentre study of smokers with COPD, supplementing it with state-of-the-art air pollution exposure assessments of fine particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, ozone, sulfur dioxide and black carbon. In the parent study, approximately 3000 smokers with and without airflow obstruction are being followed for up to 3 years for the identification of intermediate biomarkers which predict disease progression. Subcohorts undergo daily symptom monitoring using comprehensive daily diaries. The air monitoring and modelling methods employed in SPIROMICS AIR will provide estimates of individual exposure that incorporate residence-specific infiltration characteristics and participant-specific time-activity patterns. The overarching study aim is to understand the health effects of short-term and long-term exposures to air pollution on COPD morbidity, including exacerbation risk, patient-reported outcomes and disease progression.Ethics and disseminationThe institutional review boards of all the participating institutions approved the study protocols. The results of the trial will be presented at national and international meetings and published in peer-reviewed journals

Introduction: building the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT)

The papers presented in this issue are the result of a workshop held at the University of Nottingham in December 2012 as part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council research network Towards a History of Modern Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (2012–14) intended to stimulate historical research into language teaching and learning. This, the first workshop in the programme, focused on exchanging information on the history of language learning and teaching (HoLLT) across the different language traditions, for it had become clear to us that scholars working within their own language disciplines were often relatively unaware of work outside these. We hope that this special issue — with overview articles on the history of English, French, German, and Spanish as second/foreign languages — will help overcome that lack of awareness and facilitate further research collaboration. Charting the history of language teaching and learning will, in turn, make us all better informed in facing challenges and changes to policy and practice now and in the future. It is instructive in the current climate, for example, to realize that grave doubts were held about whether second foreign languages could survive alongside French in British schools in the early twentieth century (McLelland, forthcoming), or to look back at earlier attempts to establish foreign languages in primary schools (Bayley, 1989; Burstall et al., 1974; Hoy, 1977). As we write, language learning in England is undergoing yet more radical change. Language teaching for all children from the age of seven is being made compulsory in primary schools from 2014, while at Key Stage 3 (up to age 16), where a foreign language has not been compulsory since 2002, the most recent programme of study for England has virtually abandoned the recent focus on intercultural competence and now requires learners to ‘read great literature in the original language’,1 a radical change in emphasis compared to the previous half-century, which seems to reflect a very different view of what language learning is for. We seem to be little closer in 2014 than we were at the dawn of the twentieth century to answering with any certainty the questions that lie at the very foundations of language teaching: who should learn a foreign language, why learners learn, what they need to learn, and what we want to teach them — answers that we need before we can consider how we want to teach. The research programme begun under our research network is intended to help us to take ‘the long view’ on such questions

John Clare and place

This chapter tackles issues of place in the self-presentation and critical reception of John Clare, and pursues it across a number of axes. The argument centres on the placing of Clare both socio-economically and ‘naturally’, and limitations exerted upon perceptions of his work. Interrogating criticism this chapter finds a pervasive awkwardness especially in relation to issues of class and labour. It assesses the contemporary ‘placing’ of Clare, and seemingly unavoidable insensitivities to labour and poverty in the history industry, place-naming, and polemical ecocriticism. It assesses the ways Clare represents place – in poverty, in buildings, in nature – and, drawing on Michel de Certeau, considers the tactics Clare uses to negotiate his place. It pursues trajectories to ‘un-place’ Clare: the flight of fame in Clare’s response to Byron; and the flight of an early poem in songbooks and beyond, across the nineteenth century

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century