The King and the Countess, or: Bandello at the Baltic Coast

Contenuto del libro: La forma breve e, all’interno di questa categoria, la novella ebbero molto a che vedere con la riformulazione dell’enciclopedia europea tra il 1400 e il 1650. I meccanismi di riscrittura e di diffusione sotterranea della materia novellistica italiana, che si conserva, perpetua e propaga attraverso le letterature europee, sono proprio ciò cui abbiamo voluto alludere nel titolo di questa miscellanea di studi per mezzo delle due metafore, già ben radicate in ambito critico, poetico e intertestuale, del ‘rizoma’ e del ‘palinsesto’ che vi campeggiano. Il primo sembra un modello particolarmente adatto, per le sue caratteristiche fisiche e spaziali, a rappresentare sintagmaticamente la diffusione di temi, motivi e trame, come quella veicolata dalla novella, una diffusione segreta nei suoi ricorsi, che si presentano ai nostri occhi come privi persino di una ragione logica a guidarli, soggetti all’azzardo di un caso che, qui, là, o in più luoghi contemporaneamente, permetta loro di trovare terreno fertile in cui far spuntare rigoglioso un nuovo germoglio sotto forma di una pièce teatrale, una novella o anche solo un episodio all’interno di un’opera più ampia. Il ‘palinsesto’, proposto da Genette quale paradigma di riscrittura sulla traccia di un testo precedente, delinea una forma di transtestualità, atta ad esemplificare questo tipo di propagazione che caratterizzò particolarmente la fortunata ricezione della novella nell’Europa rinascimentale e barocca

Die bitteren süßen Tränen des Laurence Sterne

Inhaltsbeschreibung des Gesamtwerkes: Über das Lachen ist viel geschrieben worden, wenig über das Weinen. Und doch hat die Menschheit im Verlauf ihrer Geschichte kübelweise Tränen vergossen. Je nach kulturellem Hintergrund wurden sie interpretiert als Zeichen edler Leidenschaft, als Fenster zur Seele, als Beweis tiefer Empfindungsfähigkeit, aber auch als Mangel an Selbstbeherrschung und Kennzeichen von Verweichlichung. Es gibt bittere Tränen, Tränen, die erleichtern, Tränen der Rührung und Tränen des Lachens; nicht selten werden Tränen gar zur Waffe. 21 Wissenschaftler und Wissenschaftlerinnen haben den Tränenfluss durch die Zeiten verfolgt, in der Literatur, im Theater und auch im Film. Was sie zutage fördern, ist hochspannend und absolut lesenswert

Julias Balkon

[Abstract zum Buch]: Die Jahre 2014 und 2016 sind die beiden großen Shakespeare-Jahre des noch jungen 21. Jahrhunderts. Mit Lesungen, Inszenierungen, Ausstellungen, Filmen und akademischen Veranstaltungen zum 450. Geburtstag beziehungsweise dem 400. Todestag gedenkt die Welt in diesen Jahren ihres größten Dichters. Durch seine Werke bleibt William Shakespeare in der kulturellen Erinnerung der Welt nicht nur präsent, sondern lebendig. Die Ringvorlesung, mit der das Englische Seminar der Universität Göttingen einen Beitrag zu den weltweit stattfindenden Shakespeare-Feiern geleistet hat, hat die andauernde Faszination William Shakespeares als Herausforderung begriffen und sich die Frage nach der produktiven Vielfalt der Rezeptionsweisen seines Werks gestellt. Shakespeares Werk und Leben haben in den vergangenen Jahrhunderten immer wieder die literarische, künstlerische und musikalische Imagination inspiriert und sind weltweit zum Ausgangspunkt ästhetischer Neuschöpfungen geworden: in Form von Theateraufführungen und Filmadaptionen, von literarischen Bezugnahmen, von musikalischen oder bildlichen Umsetzungen Shakespeare’scher Szenen. So hat eine jede Zeit „ihren“ Shakespeare hervorgebracht und spiegelt die ihr eigenen Ideen, Identitäten, Konflikte und Probleme in der produktiven Aneignung seiner Dramen

«Music to Hear…»: da Shakespeare a Stravinsky

Two of Shakespeare’s sonnets, 8 and 128, stage an intermedial dialogue between music and poetry. This has challenged a number of modern composers to respond with their own art, among them Igor Stravinsky with a so far rather neglected musical version of Music to hear, which is at the centre of this paper

Complement receptors regulate differentiation of bone marrow plasma cell precursors expressing transcription factors Blimp-1 and XBP-1

Humoral immune responses are thought to be enhanced by complement-mediated recruitment of the CD21–CD19–CD81 coreceptor complex into the B cell antigen receptor (BCR) complex, which lowers the threshold of B cell activation and increases the survival and proliferative capacity of responding B cells. To investigate the role of the CD21–CD35 complement receptors in the generation of B cell memory, we analyzed the response against viral particles derived from the bacteriophage Qβ in mice deficient in CD21–CD35 (Cr2−/−). Despite highly efficient induction of early antibody responses and germinal center (GC) reactions to immunization with Qβ, Cr2−/− mice exhibited impaired antibody persistence paralleled by a strongly reduced development of bone marrow plasma cells. Surprisingly, antigen-specific memory B cells were essentially normal in these mice. In the absence of CD21-mediated costimulation, Qβ-specific post-GC B cells failed to induce the transcriptional regulators Blimp-1 and XBP-1 driving plasma cell differentiation, and the antiapoptotic protein Bcl-2, which resulted in failure to generate the precursor population of long-lived plasma cells residing in the bone marrow. These results suggest that complement receptors maintain antibody responses by delivery of differentiation and survival signals to precursors of bone marrow plasma cells

Lack of IL‐6 augments inflammatory response but decreases vascular permeability in bacterial meningitis

Interleukin (IL)‐6 is a multifunctional cytokine with diverse actions and has been implicated in the pathophysiology of many neurological and inflammatory disorders. In this study, we investigated the role of IL‐6 in pneumococcal meningitis. Cerebral infection in wild‐type (WT) mice caused an increase in vascular permeability and intracranial pressure (ICP), which were significantly reduced in IL‐6-/- mice. In contrast, meningitis in IL‐6-/- mice was associated with a significant increase in CSF white blood cell count compared with infected WT mice, indicating an enhanced inflammatory response. Analysis of mRNA expression in the brain showed an increase in tumour necrosis factor (TNF)‐α, IL‐1β, and macrophage inflammatory protein 2 (MIP‐2) levels, but decreased expression of granulocyte-macrophage colony‐stimulating factor in infected IL‐6-/- mice compared with infected WT controls. Similar results were obtained when rats challenged with pneumococci were systemically treated with neutralizing anti‐IL‐6 antibodies, resulting in an increased pleocytosis but at the same time a reduction of vascular permeability, brain oedema formation, and ICP, which was not accompanied by a downregulation of matrix metalloproteinases. Our data indicate that IL‐6 plays an important anti‐inflammatory role in bacterial meningitis by reducing leukocyte infiltration but contributes to the rise in intracranial pressure by increasing blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability. These findings suggest that the migration of leukocytes across the BBB and the increase in vascular permeability are two independent processes during bacterial meningiti

Deep Brain Stimulation in KMT2B-Related Dystonia: Case Report and Review of the Literature With Special Emphasis on Dysarthria and Speech

Objective: KMT2B-related dystonia is a progressive childhood-onset movement disorder, evolving from lower-limb focal dystonia into generalized dystonia. With increasing age, children frequently show prominent laryngeal or facial dystonia manifesting in dysarthria. Bilateral deep brain stimulation of the globus pallidus internus (GPi-DBS) is reported to be an efficient therapeutic option. Especially improvement of dystonia and regaining of independent mobility is commonly described, but detailed information about the impact of GPi-DBS on dysarthria and speech is scarce. Methods: We report the 16-months outcome after bilateral GPi-DBS in an 8-year-old child with KMT2B-related dystonia caused by a de-novo c.3043C>T (p.Arg1015*) non-sense variant with special emphasis on dysarthria and speech. We compare the outcome of our patient with 59 patients identified through a PubMed literature search. Results: A remarkable improvement of voice, articulation, respiration and prosodic characteristics was seen 16 months after GPi-DBS. The patients' speech intelligibility improved. His speech became much more comprehensible not only for his parents, but also for others. Furthermore, his vocabulary and the possibility to express his feelings and wants expanded considerably. Conclusion: A positive outcome of GPi-DBS on speech and dysarthria is rarely described in the literature. This might be due to disease progression, non-effectiveness of DBS or due to inadvertent spreading of the electrical current to the corticobulbar tract causing stimulation induced dysarthria. This highlights the importance of optimal lead placement, the possibility of horizontal steering of the electrical field by applying directional stimulation with segmented leads as well as the use of the lowest possible effective stimulation intensity

Recurrent intragenic rearrangements of EGFR and BRAF in soft tissue tumors of infants.

Soft tissue tumors of infancy encompass an overlapping spectrum of diseases that pose unique diagnostic and clinical challenges. We studied genomes and transcriptomes of cryptogenic congenital mesoblastic nephroma (CMN), and extended our findings to five anatomically or histologically related soft tissue tumors: infantile fibrosarcoma (IFS), nephroblastomatosis, Wilms tumor, malignant rhabdoid tumor, and clear cell sarcoma of the kidney. A key finding is recurrent mutation of EGFR in CMN by internal tandem duplication of the kinase domain, thus delineating CMN from other childhood renal tumors. Furthermore, we identify BRAF intragenic rearrangements in CMN and IFS. Collectively these findings reveal novel diagnostic markers and therapeutic strategies and highlight a prominent role of isolated intragenic rearrangements as drivers of infant tumors