Common sense philosophy and politics in America: John Witherspoon, James McCosh, and William James

This dissertation examines the political significance of the two leading strains of common sense thought in the history of American philosophy—Scottish Common Sense and Pragmatism—as suggested in the writings of John Witherspoon and James McCosh in the Scottish Common Sense line, and of the more famous co-founder of Pragmatism, William James. These two strains of American common sense are placed in context of the larger Western common sense tradition. Each is shown to aim at finding a solid middle ground epistemologically between skeptical doubt and idealistic certitude that could serve as a stable basis for moral and political life. Witherspoon, the first great advocate and popularizer of Scottish Common Sense in America, gave the United States its first coherent, systematic common sense political theory, and that theory is here traced out as a common sense theory of politics for the first time. The first systematic text-based treatment of the moral and social thought of McCosh, the last great proponent of Scottish Common Sense in the American setting, is also provided. In James’ case, the first systematic treatment of the place of common sense in his philosophic worldview is rendered, and it is argued in the process that he is rightly understood as a kind of common sense philosopher. Together, Witherspoon, McCosh, and James offer a vision of man and society that avoids the rigidity of dogmatic foundationalism, on the one hand, and the slackness of foundationless ethics and politics, on the other

Door to Remain: Community in Poetry\u27s Threshold

Austin Segrest, recipient of the 2022 Faculty Convocation Award, saw his debut book, Door to Remain, garner significant praise even before it hit bookshelves this spring. The book of poetry from the Lawrence University assistant professor of English took home the 2021 Vassar Miller Poetry Prize last year. Published by University of North Texas Press, the deeply personal book presents poems focused on Segrest’s mother, Susu, who died in 2003 when he was 23, and his time growing up in Alabama. Segrest, whose poetry also can be found in Poetry, The Yale Review, The Threepenny Review, Ecotone, New England Review, and Ploughshares, will deliver the Honors Convocation address at 12:30 p.m. May 27 in Memorial Chapel. He has been teaching at Lawrence since 2014, first as a visiting professor and for the last three years as an assistant professor of English. He teaches classes in poetry writing and literature, as well as First-Year Studies. Segrest earned a bachelor’s degree from Emory University, an MFA in poetry at Georgia State University, and a Ph.D. in literature and creative writing (poetry) at the University of Missouri

The Art of Cross-Examination in PTAB Trials

Despite similarities in form, a cross-examination in a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) trial constitutes trial testimony, which is different from a discovery deposition occurring in civil litigation. While most practitioners would readily recognize this distinction in the abstract, it can be easy to fall back into patterns learned in and applicable to pretrial discovery in civil litigation that may not fit for a PTAB cross-examination. The PTAB regulations describe cross-examination as “routine discovery” in the “form of a deposition transcript,” but a civil action discovery deposition and a PTAB trial cross-examination deposition differ in their goals, their applicable rules, and their use in the case, all of which should inform how one approaches the cross-examination process. One of the classic texts on trial advocacy, THE ART OF CROSS-EXAMINATION, was published more than a century ago. Through stories and descriptions, that book has taught generations of lawyers its techniques for approaching cross-examination in a live courtroom setting. In this article, drawing its title from that work, we will review some of the regulations, guidelines, and cases from the Board instructing counsel on how to approach and conduct cross-examination in the PTAB trial

Panel. Faulkner and the Literary Canon

Considering the Unthinkable: The Risks and Rewards of Decanonizing Faulkner / Deborah Clarke, Arizona State UniversityAre we doing Faulkner any favors by canonizing him? To what extent does our belief in his greatness foreclose different ways of reading his work? Do we default to “if Faulkner did it, it must be brilliant,” giving him the benefit of all doubts? I’ll be looking at how our reverence for his work may actually hinder our understanding of it, as well as alienating students and colleagues who don’t dare to admit their resistance and doubt. Rather than using Faulkner’s difficulty as a way to silence critics, let’s consider what happens if we admit that it may be a problem. It’s time to re-think why Faulkner should—or shouldn’t—retain his position atop the American literary canon. Popular Faulkner: Pulp Paperbacks, Oprah’s Book Club, and the Curse of the Hypercanonical / Jaime Harker, University of MississippiBecause of Faulkner’s hypercanonical status—that is, because his writing seems to exemplify the autonomous aesthetic object, placed in opposition to mass culture—decades of brilliant scholarship about Faulkner’s deep and complicated relationship to popular culture have had little effect on the larger direction of Faulkner studies. Building on David Earle’s book Re-Covering Modernism, I suggest that Cold War paperbacks created an egalitarian, diverse reading and writing community that Oprah’s Book Club continued. I conclude by speculating about how a pulp Faulkner canon might construct a new vocabulary for talking about style that articulates multiple interpretive communities and their contingencies of value (in Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s provocative phrase). What happens when we no longer understand popular culture as base source material transformed by genius but as alternate interpretive communities? What if we consider a ‘fertile interchange’ without assuming that our own designations of quality are natural and innate? Benjy Compson\u27s Mind of the South / Mab Segrest, Connecticut CollegeBenjy Compson is more than likely the referent of Faulkner\u27s title for The Sound and the Fury. But a reading of the novel through the lens of southern psychiatric history and my own study of Georgia\u27s mammoth and iconic \u27lunatic asylum\u27\u27/sanitarium/state hospital at Milledgeville reveals the complex signification that results from the family\u27s decision to keep a cognitively disabled son and brother out of the state hospital. What do we learn about Faulkner and about the disciplining of mind in the Jim Crow South from Faulkner\u27s radical decision to write the novel\u27s opening from Benjy\u27s point of view? How do the Compsons’ choices and those of the African Americans who care for them and for Benjy reverberate through The Sound and the Fury and through other southern works, from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Violent Bear It Away to The Member of the Wedding to Streetcar Named Desire

Osmotically Induced Membrane Tension Modulates Membrane Permeabilization by Class L Amphipathic Helical Peptides: Nucleation Model of Defect Formation

AbstractThe mechanism of action of lytic peptides on membranes is widely studied and is important in view of potential medical applications. Previously (I. V. Polozov, A. I. Polozova, E. M. Tytler, G. M. Anantharamaiah, J. P. Segrest, G. A. Woolley, and R. M. Epand, 1997, Biochemistry, 36:9237–9245) we analyzed the mechanism of membrane permeabilization by 18L, the archetype lytic peptide featuring the class L amphipathic α-helix, according to the classification of Segrest et al. (J. P. Segrest, G. de Loof, J. G. Dohlman, C. G. Brouillette, and G. M. Anantharamaiah, 1990, Proteins, 8:103–117). We concluded that the 18L peptide destabilizes membranes, leading to a transient formation of large defects that result in contents leakage and, in the presence of bilayer-bilayer contact, could lead to vesicle fusion. Here we report that this defect formation is strongly enhanced by the membrane tension induced by osmotic swelling of vesicles. Even below standard leakage-inducing peptide/lipid ratios, membrane resistance to osmotic tension drops from hundreds to tens of milliosmoles. The actual decrease is dependent on the peptide/lipid ratio and on the type of lipid. We propose that under membrane tension a peptidic pore serves as a nucleation site for the transient formation of a lipidic pore. The tension is released upon pore expansion with inclusion of more peptides and lipids into the pore lining. This tension modulation of leakage was observed for other class L peptides (mastoparan, K18L) and thus may be of general applicability for the action of membrane active lytic peptides

Food Sovereignty Assessment Tool: 2nd Edition

This publication provides an introduction to the food security movement in Indian Country, and it provides a resource for thinking about food systems in Native communities and what can be done to regain control of Native food systems

Intro to This Special Issue: Refugees/Displaced People in the Workplace

This special issue focuses on refugees’ experiences and displaced people across a diverse set of ethnicities and circumstances. The growing number of refugees and displaced people and the work and life difficulties they face are central social issues in the world today. This special issue will explore how refugees and displaced people in Brazil can be fully integrated, socialized, engaged, embraced, and affirmed into the workplace and society. Research is presented on the experiences of refugees and displaced people, a growing but under-researched segment of the world’s population. Little is known about refugees’ career experiences and displaced people and how organizations, leaders, and policymakers can assist them in finding work, maintaining employment, and creating positive life outcomes. There are 12 articles included in this special issue. They focus on three areas of refugees in the workplace. The first area explores biases in the perceptions of refugees based on factors such as skin complexion, countries of origin, and race. The second area presents research that elaborates on the theme of displacement of refugees and barriers to integration, inclusion, social recognition, and belonging. The third area examines ways in which refugees have been integrated and acculturated into Brazilian society, often through the assistance of NGOs or through the efforts of managers in the workplace. It is our hope that the research presented in this special issue will increase interest in this important topic and lead to additional future research related to reducing barriers to integration and acculturation that refugees and displaced people face

Synthetic amphipathic peptides resembling apolipoproteins stimulate the release of human placental lactogen

Previous studies from our laboratory demonstrated native high density lipoproteins and apolipoproteins AI, AII, and CI, stimulate the release of human placental lactogen (hPL) from trophoblast cells in culture. To examine the mechanisms by which these apolipoproteins stimulate hPL release, we have studied hPL secretion in response to several synthetic peptide analogs of the amphipathic helical structure of the apolipoproteins. The magnitude of the stimulation of hPL release in response to the analog peptides correlated with the ability to displace apolipoproteins from high density lipoprotein and with other measures of phospholipid binding affinity such as the increase in alpha-helicity and the size of complexes formed between the peptide and phospholipid. The correlation of stimulatory ability and lipid affinity suggests that the action of the apolipoproteins on hPL release may be mediated through an interaction with plasma membrane phospholipids