Slaying Blunderboer: Cross-Dressed Heroes, National Identities, and Wartime Pantomime

The late Victorian pantomime role of principal boy can be and sometimes was seen as existing outside established gender categories, even as actresses performed in exaggerated fashion some of the markers of both femininity and masculinity. Whether defeating villains, introducing a parade of national types, or leading the audience in song, the cross-dressed principal boy also served as a focal point for fantasies of Englishness. I focus on an 1899 Drury Lane pantomime production of Jack and the Beanstalk, specifically the ways that contemporaneous anxieties about the Second Boer War resonate in the panto’s trademark forms of spectacle and burlesque. Drawing on the panto script and accounts of the production, I argue that the principal boy’s ambiguous relation to gender categories positioned her as an apt embodiment of the ambitions, desires, and anxieties of empire at the fin de siècle

Fairy Gold: The Economics and Erotics of Fairy-Tale Pantomime

For nearly two centuries the English theatrical tradition of Christmas pantomime has served as a significant medium for the transmission of fairy tales. Highly profitable and erotically charged, pantomime complicates received histories of the genre. By the late nineteenth century a select number of tales had emerged as panto standards-the vast majority of which originated in French print traditions. In a print domain increasingly dominated by field-based collections and a new breed of literary tale, pantomimes maintained cultural centrality while simultaneously providing a vocabulary with which Victorian commentators would criticize French literary fairy tales

Primary HIV-1 Infection Among Infants in sub-Saharan Africa: HPTN 024.

Our objectives were to assess clinical signs and diagnoses associated with primary HIV-1 infection among infants. We analyzed data from a clinical trial (HIV Prevention Trials Network Protocol 024) in sub-Saharan Africa. Study visits were conducted at birth, at 4-6 weeks, and at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months. The study population comprised live born, singleton, first-born infants of HIV-1-infected women with negative HIV-1 RNA assays who were still breastfeeding at 4-6 weeks. Of 1317 HIV-1-exposed infants, 84 became HIV-1 infected after 4-6 weeks and 1233 remained uninfected. There were 102 primary and 5650 nonprimary infection visits. The most common signs were cough and diarrhea, and the most common diagnoses were malaria and pneumonia. Primary infection was associated with significantly increased odds of diarrhea [odds ratio (OR) = 2.4], pneumonia (OR = 3.5), otitis media (OR = 3.1), and oral thrush (OR = 2.9). For the clinical signs and diagnoses evaluated, sensitivity was low (1%-16.7%) and specificity was high (88.2%-99%). Positive predictive values ranged from 0.1%-1.4%. Negative predictive values ranged from 28.0%-51.1%. Certain clinical signs and diagnoses, although more common during primary HIV-1 infection, had low sensitivity and high specificity. Efforts to expand access to laboratory assays for the diagnosis of primary HIV-1 infection among infants of HIV-1-infected women should be emphasized

Decreased reactivation of a herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) latency-associated transcript (LAT) mutant using the in vivo mouse UV-B model of induced reactivation

Blinding ocular herpetic disease in humans is due to herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) reactivations from latency, rather than to primary acute infection. The cellular and molecular mechanisms that control the HSV-1 latency-reactivation cycle remain to be fully elucidated. The aim of this study was to determine if reactivation of the HSV-1 latency associated transcript (LAT) deletion mutant (dLAT2903) was impaired in this model, as it is in the rabbit model of induced and spontaneous reactivation and in the explant TG induced reactivation model in mice. The eyes of mice latently infected with wild type HSV-1 strain McKrae (LAT((+)) virus) or dLAT2903 (LAT((−)) virus) were irradiated with UV-B and reactivation was determined. We found that compared to LAT((−)) virus, LAT((+)) virus reactivated at a higher rate as determined by shedding of virus in tears on days 3 to 7 after UV-B treatment. Thus, the UV-B induced reactivation model of HSV-1 appears to be a useful small animal model for studying the mechanisms involved in how LAT enhances the HSV-1 reactivation phenotype. The utility of the model for investigating the immune evasion mechanisms regulating the HSV-1 latency/reactivation cycle and for testing the protective efficacy of candidate therapeutic vaccines and drugs are discussed

Decolonising imperial heroes:Britain and France

The heroes of the British and French empires stood at the vanguard of the vibrant cultures of imperialism that emerged in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century. Yet imperial heroes did not disappear after 1945 as British and French flags were lowered around the world. On the contrary, their reputations underwent a variety of metamorphoses in both the former metropoles and the former colonies. The introduction to this special issue of the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History presents an overview of the changing history and historiography of imperial heroes half a century after the end of empire