Migrant cuisine, critical regionalism and gastropoetics

This essay is based around two sentences from Nadeem Alslam’s 2004 novel Maps for Lost Lovers. From this base comes an exploration of what aesthetics could mean for cultural studies, and what sorts of practices it could foster. The essay argues for the pertinence this may have for the study of food culture, while also taking up the project of ‘critical regionalism’ and ‘gastropoetics’ as a way of moving from the tightly figured frame of a fragment from a novel, to the histories, geographies and affects that impact on it

Memory and Cultural Identity: Negotiating Modernity in Nadeem Aslam's "Maps for Lost Lovers."

In Les abus de la mémoire, Tzvetan Todorov makes the distinction between literal and exemplary memory, the first subordinating the present to the past, while the second – potentially liberating – allows the past to be exploited in the present, “de quitter le soi pour aller vers l’autre†(31-32).  While Todorov’s discussion is largely focussed on extreme forms of cultural trauma, the Pakistani family at the center of Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) suffers a similar loss, albeit on a smaller scale: their immigration to England and the murder of Chandra – living with, but not married to, Jugnu – by her brothers.   Cultural identity is always a function of social relations, of belonging to a certain group, a process from which individuals are “theoretically absent†(Terry Eagleton 88); this family’s struggle, living in a close-knit Pakistani community in England, is a microcosm of contemporary Pakistan in its fitful attempt to define itself, to answer the essential question: “To what end will we use collective memory?â€Â  Retreat into community, integration, a negotiated, cross-cultural position between the traditional and the modern, something else entirely?   The discord between past and present, the competing myths of traditional and modern, ultimately destroys this family, highlighting the very real dangers when memory has not been put to good use, provoking a collision of cultural identities rather than an integration of diversity.  Â

Cultural Hybridity in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers

The purpose of this research article is to highlight the significance of cultural choices to establish one’s identity as well as to affirm that migrant identity is not a given but rather a product of lived reality, something always in process in a culturally hybrid world. It is to explore the ways in which Nadeem Aslam advocates hybrid world, a world in which heterogeneity and diversity are to be tolerated as sources of cultural enrichment and safe living. In Maps for Lost Lovers Nadeem Aslam has explored these matters which plague the post-colonial world marked by polarization, hybridity and assimilations.Complex phenomenon of cultural hybridity in post-colonial era provides the background to this study. Three aspects of cultural identity will be focused regarding hybridity: individual migrants, post-colonial history and Language. In review of literature critical approaches towards cultural hybridity and work of Nadeem Aslam have been explored in context of the topic. Homi k Bhabha’s The Location of Culture (1994) provides the undercurrent to this work. Keywords: Post-colonial, Migrants, Culture, Hybridity

Cultural Hybridity in Nadeem Aslam’S Maps for Lost Lovers

The purpose of this research article is to highlight the significance of cultural choices to establish one’s identity as well as to affirm that migrant identity is not a given but rather a product of lived reality, something always in process in a culturally hybrid world. It is to explore the ways in which Nadeem Aslam advocates hybrid world, a world in which heterogeneity and diversity are to be tolerated as sources of cultural enrichment and safe living. In Maps for Lost Lovers Nadeem Aslam has explored these matters which plague the post-colonial world marked by polarization, hybridity and assimilations. Complex phenomenon of cultural hybridity in post-colonial era provides the background to this study. Three aspects of cultural identity will be focused regarding hybridity: individual migrants, post-colonial history and Language. In review of literature critical approaches towards cultural hybridity and work of Nadeem Aslam have been explored in context of the topic. Homi k Bhabha’s The Location of Culture (1994) provides the undercurrent to this work. Keywords: Post-colonial, Migrants, Culture, Hybridity

The role of the Amyloid Precursor Protein mutations and PERK-dependent signaling pathways in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a highly complex, progressive, age-related neurodegenerative human disease entity. The genetic basis of AD is strictly connected with occurrence of mutations in Amyloid Precursor (APP) gene on chromosome 21. Molecular mechanism that leads to AD development still remains unclear. Recent data reported that it is closely correlated with Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress conditions, which subsequently activate Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) signaling pathways, via the induction of protein kinase RNA-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK), as a self-protective, adaptive response to adverse stress conditions. That results in the attenuation of global protein synthesis and, on the contrary, selective translation of Activating Transcriptor Factor 4 (ATF4) and secretase β. Interestingly, under prolonged, severe ER stress UPR may switch its signal into apoptotic cell death. That ensues by ATF4-CHOP-mediated activation of a range of pro-apoptotic genes and, on the other hand, downregulation of the expression of the anti-apoptotic protein B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl-2) genes. Current investigations suggest that inhibitions of PERK activity may contribute to the attenuation of the deposition of toxic senile plaques in the brain tissue and, as a result, prevent degeneration of neurons and decline in cognitive abilities

Four challenges in the field of alternative, radical and citizens’ media research

In January 1994 the Zapatista movement in southern Mexico inaugurated a new era of media use for dissent. Since that time, an array of dissenting collectives and individuals have appropriated media technologies in order to make their voices heard or to articulate alternative identities. From Zapatista media to the Arab Spring, social movements throughout the world are taking over, hybridizing, recycling, and adapting media technologies. This new era poses a new set of challenges for academics and researchers in the field of Communication for Social Change (CfSC). Based on examples from Mexico, Lebanon, and Colombia, this article highlights and discusses four such research challenges: accounting for historical context; acknowledging the complexity of communication processes; anchoring analysis in a political economy of information and communication technologies; and positioning new research in relation to existing knowledge and literature within the field of communication and social change.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline

Slow Catastrophes, Uncertain Revivals

A collection of research-based stories about the future, proudly published by Project Hieroglyph. The book features stories created by students in “Slow Catastrophes, Speculative Futures, Science & Imagination: Rewriting and Rethinking Sustainability,” a course designed and taught by Dr. Michele Speitz at Furman University in South Carolina. The course and the stories in this volume were inspired by Project Hieroglyph, particularly by our first anthology, Hieroglyph: Stories and Visions for a Better Future (2014), which the students read and discussed throughout the course – along with a wealth of scholarly readings on sustainability, ecocriticism, international development, narrative, and ecology. The book is edited by Michele Speitz and Joey Eschrich, and designed by Ariel Shamas. It features stories from Graham Browning, Anna Peterson, Elisa Edmonson, Elly Gay, and Hagan Capnerhurst

BH3-only proteins: Orchestrators of apoptosis

AbstractThe BH3-only proteins of Bcl-2 family are essential initiators of apoptosis that propagate extrinsic and intrinsic cell death signals. The interaction of BH3-only proteins with other Bcl-2 family members is critical for understanding the core machinery that controls commitment to apoptosis by permeabilizing the mitochondrial outer membrane. BH3-only proteins promote apoptosis by both directly activating Bax and Bak and by suppressing the anti-apoptotic proteins at the mitochondria and the endoplasmic reticulum. To prevent constitutive cell death, BH3-only proteins are regulated by a variety of mechanisms including transcription and post-translational modifications that govern specific protein–protein interactions. Furthermore, BH3-only proteins also control the initiation of autophagy, another important pathway regulating cell survival and death. Emerging evidence indicates that the interaction of BH3-only proteins with membranes regulates binding to other Bcl-2 family members, thereby specifying function. Due to the important role of BH3-only proteins in the regulation of cell death, several promising BH3-mimetic drugs that are active in pre-clinical models are currently being tested as anti-cancer agents. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled Mitochondria: the deadly organelle

A Nation of Informants: Reining In Post-9/11 Coercion of Intelligence Informants

This article challenges the adequacy of the existing legal and regulatory framework governing informant recruitment and coercion practices to protect fundamental rights, informed by the Muslim-American experience. It looks at the growing law enforcement practice of recruiting informants among Muslim-American communities for intelligence gathering purposes. Although the coercion of law-abiding individuals to provide information to federal law enforcement agencies for intelligence gathering purposes implicates significant rights, it is left unregulated. Existing, albeit limited, restraints on the government agents’ ability to coerce individuals to provide information either assume a criminal context, or are driven by historical concerns over FBI corruption. As the U.S. government engages in widespread surveillance of Muslim-American communities, it relies heavily on recruiting members of those communities as informants. These individuals are targeted for their community ties, or their religious or linguistic knowledge—and not because of any nexus they might have to criminal activity. This has led FBI agents to search for coercive levers outside of the criminal process and that have far fewer procedural protections—namely, immigration and watch-listing authorities. Thus, existing protections that have evolved to prevent civil rights violations in the criminal informant context—limited as those protections may be—do not apply. In light of these expanding authorities and the significant rights at stake, this article makes several proposals that would regulate the recruitment of intelligence informants