Review of Yiannos Katsourides', History of the Communist Party in Cyprus: Colonialism, Class and the Cypriot Left

Yiannos Katsourides. History of the Communist Party in Cyprus: Colonialism, Class and the Cypriot Left. London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014. 266 pp

A Hand that Holds a Machete: Race and the Representation of the Displaced in Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan

This article explores the norms, spaces, positions and conditions of visibility for non-white refugees and migrants as well as white non-refugee characters in Dheepan (Jacques Audiard, 2015), a film which received much praise for its humane representation of refugees and won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. Through a close analysis, this article aims to demonstrate number of recurring elements that are often determined by imaginations of race in European film productions that represent refugees and migrants. Analysing the film, along with its production and reception, this study shows how European whiteness remains the invisible norm of non-violence, while the non-whiteness of the displaced remains outside this norm and is visibly and unquestionably locked into acts, positions, objects (holding a machete) and spaces of violence and crisis: the jungle, the refugee camp, the banlieue, the darkness of a cellar

Book review: French-language road cinema: borders, diasporas, migration and 'New Europe' by Michael Gott

As road movies have become more prominent in European cinema, in French-Language Road Cinema: Borders, Diasporas, Migration and ‘New Europe’ author Michael Gott analyses a corpus of French-language films that utilise the road to explore the complexity of mobility, borders and identity in contemporary Europe. Ipek Celik Rappas welcomes this as a thoughtful, timely and exciting book that will be an indispensable guide for researchers in European film and mobility studies

Gouvernance coloniale en Méditerranée orientale : perspectives croisées italo-britanniques, 1920-1940

Cet article constate et tente d’interpréter un durcissement parallèle des gouvernances coloniales britannique et italienne en Méditerranée orientale dans les années 1930 en s’appuyant sur les exemples de Rhodes, l’île majeure du Possedimento italien du Dodécanèse depuis 1912, et de Chypre, sous domination britannique depuis 1878. Face à l’Enosis, mouvement irrédentiste grec prônant l’union avec la Grèce indépendante, le tournant autoritaire des administrations en place a pu sembler parfaitement compatible avec l’idéologie fasciste dans le cas italien ; on a en revanche souligné son « exceptionnalité » dans une tradition impériale britannique par ailleurs « libérale ». Plutôt que de distinguer et donc de réifier ces deux traditions impériales, nous proposons ici d’envisager l’Enosis comme le prétexte justifiant la mise en place d’une gouvernance coloniale expérimentale, issue d’une interfécondation des projets coloniaux britannique et italien. L’objectif de cet article, méthodologiquement inspiré par l’histoire croisée, est d’évaluer la mesure dans laquelle ces expérimentations coloniales préfigurent une tradition de gouvernement autoritaire qui se construirait par le transnational et dont la Méditerranée semble être depuis restée le laboratoire.This article focuses on the interwar convergence of the colonial policies implemented by British authorities in Cyprus and Italian authorities in the Dodecanese. The authoritarian regimes that took form in these insular post-Ottoman spaces during the 1930s were ostensibly meant to curb Enosis, an irredentist movement claiming political union with Greece widespread among the Greek-Orthodox majorities both in Cyprus and Rhodes (the Dodecanese’s main island and administrative center). Such an authoritarian turn, it is generally assumed, was less complicated in Italian Rhodes after the advent of fascism whereas it contradicted the liberal principles purportedly inspiring British imperial policy. Rather than distinguishing –and reifying– these two imperial traditions, this paper offers to consider Enosis as a pretext for the implementation of an experimental form of colonial governance deriving from the cross-fertilization of the British and Italian colonial projects. The aim of this article, methodologically inspired by entangled history, is to appraise the extent to which these colonial experimentations prefigure a tradition of authoritarian governance for which the Mediterranean appears to have remained a laboratory

Phosphorylation-dependent assembly and coordination of the DNA damage checkpoint apparatus by Rad4TopBP1

The BRCT-domain protein Rad4(TopBP1) facilitates activation of the DNA damage checkpoint in Schizosaccharomyces pombe by physically coupling the Rad9-Rad1-Hus1 clamp, the Rad3(ATR) -Rad26(ATRIP) kinase complex, and the Crb2(53BP1) mediator. We have now determined crystal structures of the BRCT repeats of Rad4(TopBP1), revealing a distinctive domain architecture, and characterized their phosphorylation-dependent interactions with Rad9 and Crb2(53BP1). We identify a cluster of phosphorylation sites in the N-terminal region of Crb2(53BP1) that mediate interaction with Rad4(TopBP1) and reveal a hierarchical phosphorylation mechanism in which phosphorylation of Crb2(53BP1) residues Thr215 and Thr235 promotes phosphorylation of the noncanonical Thr187 site by scaffolding cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) recruitment. Finally, we show that the simultaneous interaction of a single Rad4(TopBP1) molecule with both Thr187 phosphorylation sites in a Crb2(53BP1) dimer is essential for establishing the DNA damage checkpoint

Nitric oxide-responsive interdomain regulation targets the σ54-interaction surface in the enhancer binding protein NorR

Bacterial enhancer binding proteins (bEBPs) are specialized transcriptional activators that assemble as hexameric rings in their active forms and utilize ATP hydrolysis to remodel the conformation of RNA polymerase containing the alternative sigma factor σ54. Transcriptional activation by the NorR bEBP is controlled by a regulatory GAF domain that represses the ATPase activity of the central AAA+ domain in the absence of nitric oxide. Here, we investigate the mechanism of interdomain repression in NorR by characterizing substitutions in the AAA+ domain that bypass repression by the regulatory domain. Most of these substitutions are located in the vicinity of the surface-exposed loops that engage σ54 during the ATP hydrolysis cycle or in the highly conserved GAFTGA motif that directly contacts σ54. Biochemical studies suggest that the bypass mutations in the GAFTGA loop do not influence the DNA binding properties of NorR or the assembly of higher order oligomers in the presence of enhancer DNA, and as expected these variants retain the ability to activate open complex formation in vitro. We identify a crucial arginine residue in the GAF domain that is essential for interdomain repression and demonstrate that hydrophobic substitutions at this position suppress the bypass phenotype of the GAFTGA substitutions. These observations suggest a novel mechanism for negative regulation in bEBPs in which the GAF domain targets the σ54-interaction surface to prevent access of the AAA+ domain to the sigma factor

Different Quaternary Structures of Human RECQ1 Are Associated with Its Dual Enzymatic Activity

RecQ helicases are essential for the maintenance of chromosome stability. In addition to DNA unwinding, some RecQ enzymes have an intrinsic DNA strand annealing activity. The function of this dual enzymatic activity and the mechanism that regulates it is, however, unknown. Here, we describe two quaternary forms of the human RECQ1 helicase, higher-order oligomers consistent with pentamers or hexamers, and smaller oligomers consistent with monomers or dimers. Size exclusion chromatography and transmission electron microscopy show that the equilibrium between the two assembly states is affected by single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) and ATP binding, where ATP or ATPγS favors the smaller oligomeric form. Our three-dimensional electron microscopy reconstructions of human RECQ1 reveal a complex cage-like structure of approximately 120 Å × 130 Å with a central pore. This oligomeric structure is stabilized under conditions in which RECQ1 is proficient in strand annealing. In contrast, competition experiments with the ATPase-deficient K119R and E220Q mutants indicate that RECQ1 monomers, or tight binding dimers, are required for DNA unwinding. Collectively, our findings suggest that higher-order oligomers are associated with DNA strand annealing, and lower-order oligomers with DNA unwinding

Essential roles of three enhancer sites in σ54-dependent transcription by the nitric oxide sensing regulatory protein NorR

The bacterial activator protein NorR binds to enhancer-like elements, upstream of the promoter site, and activates σ54-dependent transcription of genes that encode nitric oxide detoxifying enzymes (NorVW), in response to NO stress. Unique to the norVW promoter in Escherichia coli is the presence of three enhancer sites associated with a binding site for σ54-RNA polymerase. Here we show that all three sites are required for NorR-dependent catalysis of open complex formation by σ54-RNAP holoenzyme (Eσ54). We demonstrate that this is essentially due to the need for all three enhancers for maximal ATPase activity of NorR, energy from which is used to remodel the closed Eσ54 complex and allow melting of the promoter DNA. We also find that site-specific DNA binding per se promotes oligomerisation but the DNA flanking the three sites is needed to further stabilise the functional higher order oligomer of NorR at the enhancers

Essential roles of three enhancer sites in σ54-dependent transcription by the nitric oxide sensing regulatory protein NorR

The bacterial activator protein NorR binds to enhancer-like elements, upstream of the promoter site, and activates σ54-dependent transcription of genes that encode nitric oxide detoxifying enzymes (NorVW), in response to NO stress. Unique to the norVW promoter in Escherichia coli is the presence of three enhancer sites associated with a binding site for σ54-RNA polymerase. Here we show that all three sites are required for NorR-dependent catalysis of open complex formation by σ54-RNAP holoenzyme (Eσ54). We demonstrate that this is essentially due to the need for all three enhancers for maximal ATPase activity of NorR, energy from which is used to remodel the closed Eσ54 complex and allow melting of the promoter DNA. We also find that site-specific DNA binding per se promotes oligomerisation but the DNA flanking the three sites is needed to further stabilise the functional higher order oligomer of NorR at the enhancers