Conversational Lollardy: Reading the Margins of MS Bodley 978

Considers an unusual set of “key-object” annotations, pictorial as well as verbal, that appear in the margins of the Middle English gospel harmony Oon of Foure in Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 978. Argues that the margins of Bodley 978 record a variety of conversations shaped by lollardy. After briefly locating the Bodley manuscript in relation to the larger Oon of Foure tradition, the article proceeds by tracing a set of often-repeated annotative objects across the Bodley margins—key, sword, cross, lantern, heart. Taking these messy and amateurish finding aids seriously as intellectual work, it finds the primary Bodley annotator(s) developing a nuanced response to lollard hermeneutics and ecclesiology. Rather than defending scriptural translation or asserting scriptural authority, the Bodley key-object annotator(s) explore the nature of scriptural signs and track shifting modes of divine communication across the gospel narrative. And rather than directly attack the abuses of the clergy, they explore the nature of works and the uses of power—clerical and lay, human and divine—as they evolve across the unfolding arc of salvation history. Other hands respond variously to this annotative project, sometimes developing and other times critiquing the readings developed by main hand(s)’ key-objects. Lollardy itself emerges from this study, less as a coherent set of doctrines identified by a “sect vocabulary,” and more as a scripturally-grounded language for thinking with, a set of discursive and conceptual resources for entering into conversation on reformist topics in the vernacular

Preliminary Report on the 2016 Field Season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP)

In its fourth season, the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP) continued archaeological investigations inside a modest house of Hellenistic date located near the western edge of the ancient urban center at Morgantina. Previous CAP excavations, conducted between 2013 and 2015, had verified the presence of an adaptive urban grid in this portion of the ancient city and, moreover, revealed much of the northern part of the building that occupied Lot 1 of insula W13/14S. Following the 2015 excavations, we came to identify this building as a modestly-appointed house that had been occupied for roughly 50 to 75 years, beginning in the second quarter of the third century BCE. The 2016 CAP season represented a significant expansion of the excavation, as four large trenches were set across the entirety of the lot, with the twin goals of resolving stratigraphic questions that remained from previous seasons and exploring the lesser-known southern area of the building. In this report we describe newly excavated evidence for the construction and use of the building as a whole, proceeding phase by phase and trench by trenc

Preliminary Report on the 2018 Field Season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP)

In its sixth season, the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP) continued archaeological investigations inside the House of the Two Mills, a modestly-appointed house of Hellenistic date located near the western edge of the ancient city of Morgantina. This report gives a phase-by-phase summary of the significant discoveries from the 2018 excavation season, highlighting the architectural development of the building as well as evidence for the various activities that took place there over the course of its occupation

Preliminary Report on the 2017 Season of the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP)

In its fifth season, the American Excavations at Morgantina: Contrada Agnese Project (CAP) continued archaeological investigations inside the Southeast Building, a modestly-appointed house of Hellenistic date located near the western edge of the city. The 2016 CAP season had revealed the full extent of the property’s boundary walls and allowed us to propose a cohesive phasing scheme for the building’s construction, occupation, and abandonment. We suggested that the house was occupied for approximately 60-75 years, beginning in the second quarter of the third century BCE. The 2017 CAP excavations resolved a number of remaining questions, particularly those concerning the phasing of the boundary walls, the layout of interior spaces in the southern and eastern parts of the building, and the nature of domestic activities at different stages of the house’s occupation. This report describes the results of these excavations and pro-poses a new account of the building’s early development. The discovery of two large rotary millstones within the building raises the possibility that the occupants of the house may have specialized in the milling of grains and prompts us to re-name the building, “the House of the Two Mills”

Multi-omics of the gut microbial ecosystem in inflammatory bowel diseases.

Inflammatory bowel diseases, which include Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, affect several million individuals worldwide. Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are complex diseases that are heterogeneous at the clinical, immunological, molecular, genetic, and microbial levels. Individual contributing factors have been the focus of extensive research. As part of the Integrative Human Microbiome Project (HMP2 or iHMP), we followed 132 subjects for one year each to generate integrated longitudinal molecular profiles of host and microbial activity during disease (up to 24 time points each; in total 2,965 stool, biopsy, and blood specimens). Here we present the results, which provide a comprehensive view of functional dysbiosis in the gut microbiome during inflammatory bowel disease activity. We demonstrate a characteristic increase in facultative anaerobes at the expense of obligate anaerobes, as well as molecular disruptions in microbial transcription (for example, among clostridia), metabolite pools (acylcarnitines, bile acids, and short-chain fatty acids), and levels of antibodies in host serum. Periods of disease activity were also marked by increases in temporal variability, with characteristic taxonomic, functional, and biochemical shifts. Finally, integrative analysis identified microbial, biochemical, and host factors central to this dysregulation. The study's infrastructure resources, results, and data, which are available through the Inflammatory Bowel Disease Multi'omics Database ( http://ibdmdb.org ), provide the most comprehensive description to date of host and microbial activities in inflammatory bowel diseases

Long-Term Blocking of Calcium Channels in mdx Mice Results in Differential Effects on Heart and Skeletal Muscle

The disease mechanisms underlying dystrophin-deficient muscular dystrophy are complex, involving not only muscle membrane fragility, but also dysregulated calcium homeostasis. Specifically, it has been proposed that calcium channels directly initiate a cascade of pathological events by allowing calcium ions to enter the cell. The objective of this study was to investigate the effect of chronically blocking calcium channels with the aminoglycoside antibiotic streptomycin from onset of disease in the mdx mouse model of Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)

Borderlands Chaucer

This essay pursues imperfect analogies between Chaucerian poetics and border theory/pedagogy, drawing on the author’s experience teaching Chaucer in the US-Mexico Borderlands. It calls for reading Chaucer from the classroom and from the margins, in order best to locate Chaucer and medieval studies in leaner, less canon-driven, and more effectively anti-racist 21st-century curricula