MARK DRISCOLL: Absolute Erotic, Absolute Grotesque The Living, Dead, and Undead in Japan’s Imperialism, 1895–1945

http://dx.doi.org/10.13185/ST2013.0111

Representations of gendered violence in Manga: the case of enforced military prostitution

As a key part of contemporary Japanese mass visual culture, manga has increasingly been usedto shape popular perceptions of history. In recent years, there has been a great deal of discussionsurrounding politically conservative and revisionist manga that distort the militaryÿs actionsduring Japanÿs wars throughout the 1930s and 1940s. In regard to the issue of enforced militaryprostitution, victims, activists, and scholars have found the depiction of so-called `comfortwomenÿ as willing prostitutes or participants to be extremely offensive. Compared to theserevisionist works, there are other artists who look to address and faithfully represent and depictthe military prostitution issue in manga. Unlike their revisionist counterparts, these artistsgrapple with the inherent sensitivities of such an issue and struggle with ways to communicatethe brutality of gendered violence. These works illustrate important similarities and differences inhow artists structure and frame historical narratives in manga. More importantly, the worksraise questions about the impossibility of adequately conveying the experiences of soldiers andvictims during the war. They also serve as a reminder to the diversity of representations incontemporary Japanese discourse

Mutable history: Japanese language historiographies of wartime Korean enforced labor and enforced military prostitution, 1965-2008

© 2011 Dr. Heinz-Erik RopersIn this thesis I analyze Japanese-language historiography on Korean enforced labor and enforced military prostitution which took place during the Greater East Asia War. Utilizing discourse analysis, I focus on works published from 1965 to 2008, examining variant historical narratives of these same historical events. The existence of both enforced labor and enforced military prostitution has been widely known since the war itself, and both topics have been widely written about and debated by researchers, scholars, and activists across the postwar period. However, while there has been a great deal of archival research on both topics, there has yet been no significant attempt to analyze the decades of accumulated historiography on either issue. Nor has there been any serious effort to present a comparative analysis of both topics across the postwar period. This research reveals that the interpretations of similar or identical source materials has yielded vastly different or conflicting analyses in historical narratives on enforced labor and enforced military prostitution. I argue within that there are hitherto unrecognized similarities in the ways these two sets of narratives are constructed despite their polarization in the historical literature along lines of gender. By exploring the production of historiography of enforced labor and enforced military prostitution, this thesis contributes to the ongoing political and academic debates about the veracity of Japanese war crimes and explicates Japanese-language thought and debate on these topics

Intelligence : shared genetic basis between Mendelian disorders and a polygenic trait

Multiple inquiries into the genetic etiology of human traits indicated an overlap between genes underlying monogenic disorders (eg, skeletal growth defects) and those affecting continuous variability of related quantitative traits (eg, height). Extending the idea of a shared genetic basis between a Mendelian disorder and a classic polygenic trait, we performed an association study to examine the effect of 43 genes implicated in autosomal recessive cognitive disorders on intelligence in an unselected Dutch population (N=1316). Using both single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)- and gene-based association testing, we detected an association between intelligence and the genes of interest, with genes ELP2, TMEM135, PRMT10, and RGS7 showing the strongest associations. This is a demonstration of the relevance of genes implicated in monogenic disorders of intelligence to normal-range intelligence, and a corroboration of the utility of employing knowledge on monogenic disorders in identifying the genetic variability underlying complex traits

Intelligence: Shared genetic basis between Mendelian disorders and a polygenic trait

Multiple inquiries into the genetic etiology of human traits indicated an overlap between genes underlying monogenic disorders (eg, skeletal growth defects) and those affecting continuous variability of related quantitative traits (eg, height). Extending the idea of a shared genetic basis between a Mendelian disorder and a classic polygenic trait, we performed an association study to examine the effect of 43 genes implicated in autosomal recessive cognitive disorders on intelligence in an unselected Dutch population (N=1316). Using both single- nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)- and gene-based association testing, we detected an association between intelligence and the genes of interest, with genes ELP2, TMEM135, PRMT10, and RGS7 showing the strongest associations. This is a demonstration of the relevance of genes implicated in monogenic disorders of intelligence to normal-range intelligence, and a corroboration of the utility of employing knowledge on monogenic disorders in identifying the genetic variability underlying complex traits

MCT8 mutation analysis and identification of the first female with Allan-Herndon-Dudley syndrome due to loss of MCT8 expression

Mutations in the thyroid monocarboxylate transporter 8 gene (MCT8/SLC16A2) have been reported to result in X-linked mental retardation (XLMR) in patients with clinical features of the Allan–Herndon–Dudley syndrome (AHDS). We performed MCT8 mutation analysis including 13 XLMR families with LOD scores >2.0, 401 male MR sibships and 47 sporadic male patients with AHDS-like clinical features. One nonsense mutation (c.629insA) and two missense changes (c.1A>T and c.1673G>A) were identified. Consistent with previous reports on MCT8 missense changes, the patient with c.1673G>A showed elevated serum T3 level. The c.1A>T change in another patient affects a putative translation start codon, but the same change was present in his healthy brother. In addition normal serum T3 levels were present, suggesting that the c.1A>T (NM_006517) variation is not responsible for the MR phenotype but indicates that MCT8 translation likely starts with a methionine at position p.75. Moreover, we characterized a de novo translocation t(X;9)(q13.2;p24) in a female patient with full blown AHDS clinical features including elevated serum T3 levels. The MCT8 gene was disrupted at the X-breakpoint. A complete loss of MCT8 expression was observed in a fibroblast cell-line derived from this patient because of unfavorable nonrandom X-inactivation. Taken together, these data indicate that MCT8 mutations are not common in non-AHDS MR patients yet they support that elevated serum T3 levels can be indicative for AHDS and that AHDS clinical features can be present in female MCT8 mutation carriers whenever there is unfavorable nonrandom X-inactivation.Suzanna Gerarda Maria Frints, Steffen Lenzner, Mareike Bauters, Lars Riff Jensen, Hilde Van Esch, Vincent des Portes, Ute Moog, Merryn Victor Erik Macville, Kees van Roozendaa, Constance Theresia Rimbertha Maria Schrander-Stumpel, Andreas Tzschach, Peter Marynen, Jean-Pierre Fryns, Ben Hamel, Hans van Bokhoven, Jamel Chelly, Chérif Beldjord, Gillian Turner, Jozef Gecz, Claude Moraine, Martine Raynaud, Hans Hilger Ropers, Guy Froyen and Andreas Walter Kus