"Tant serieux que facecieux": les prologues de Bruscambille et la littérature sério-comique

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available on open access from via the DOI in this recordCet article examine en quoi les prologues de Bruscambille ( ?-ca. 1634) relèvent du mélange sério-comique. Ces textes, adressés au public de l’Hôtel de Bourgogne à Paris ainsi qu’à de nombreux lecteurs, participent dans cette forme héritée de l’Antiquité qui fait osciller les propos entre la farce et la philosophie, la gauloiserie et l’érudition. Le comédien-auteur affiche son appartenance au sério-comique dans les titres de certains recueils, y compris Les Prologues tant serieux que facecieux de 1610, et elle est également explicite au sein de ses prologues. La dimension sério-comique est une stratégie d’atténuation qui semble protéger le comédien de toute accusation de libertinage tout en lui permettant d’exprimer des facéties tendancieuses qui frisent la subversion religieuse. Elle est également révélatrice d’un public éduqué qui aurait apprécié les équivoques érudites du farceur, par exemple dans le prologue « Conculcavimus », une leçon latine parodique et polissonne. Ce mélange de l’intellect et du bas corporel est une dimension essentielle du sério-comique des prologues qui les distingue d’autres écrits sério-comiques exclusivement érudits. Ceux-ci se seraient opposés au « sel » de la facétie grivoise qui est pourtant essentielle à la farce. La combinaison de la satire et de la facétie est aussi constitutive des éloges paradoxaux qui forment plus de la moitié des 115 prologues. La moquerie savante de l’érudition dans ses éloges paradoxaux de l’ignorance deviendrait ainsi l’expression d’un paradoxe ultime

Torque magnetometry of an amorphous-alumina/strontium-titanate interface

We report torque magnetometry measurements of an oxide heterostructure consisting of an amorphous Al2O3 thin film grown on a crystalline SrTiO3 substrate (a-AO/STO) by atomic layer deposition. We find a torque response that resembles previous studies of crystalline LaAlO3/SrTiO3 (LAO/STO) heterointerfaces, consistent with strongly anisotropic magnetic ordering in the plane of the interface. Unlike crystalline LAO, amorphous Al2O3 is nonpolar, indicating that planar magnetism at an oxide interface is possible without the strong internal electric fields generated within the polarization catastrophe model. We discuss our results in the context of current theoretical efforts to explain magnetism in crystalline LAO/STO.Chemistry and Chemical Biolog

Performing "imitatio": Bruscambille’s prologues and Cesare Rao’s "Lettres facetieuses" (1584)

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Librairie Droz via the link in this recordThe comic actor known as Bruscambille (fl. 1608-34), who performed and published theatrical prologues in early seventeenth-century France, drew on a range of sources for his best-selling works. In the dedication to one of his major collections he includes a lengthy justification of imitatio. Appropriately enough, Bruscambille has in fact adapted the passage on imitation from L’argute et facete lettere (1562) of Cesare Rao (1532-88?), which he knew through a French translation by Gabriel Chappuys (1546?-1613), the Lettres facetieuses (1584). We have identified these letters as Bruscambille’s most prominent source, yet, as detailed discussion of prologues on folly and pedantry reveals, the comedian’s creativity is enhanced by his imitatio. This article is therefore a case-study that sheds light on the status of this rhetorical practice in the late Renaissance as well as on broader issues of plagiarism and adaptation.British AcademyLeverhulme Trus

The chronometry of affective startle modulation in unipolar depression.

Affective startle eyeblink modulation by unipolar depressed and nondepressed participants was assessed during the anticipation and viewing of emotional pictures. Anticipatory startle probes were presented at 2,000 ms and 750 ms before picture onset. Startle probes during picture viewing were presented at 300 ms and 3,500–4,500 ms after picture onset. Although nondepressed participants demonstrated the predicted quadratic and linear patterns of responding in the 2,000-ms anticipatory and 3,500–4,500-ms viewing conditions, respectively, depressed participants were not significantly responsive to differences among picture valence categories at these probe conditions. There were no between-groups differences in startle modulation at the other two probe intervals, in picture ratings, or in behavioral responses to pictures. There was also little evidence of hyperresponsivity to negatively valenced stimuli in the depressed group. These results indicate that depression-related affective hyporesponsivity extended to startle modulation but that the nature and magnitude of the differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals were conditional on the specific cognitive and motivational processes recruited at different points in time

Correlated double-electron additions at the edge of a two-dimensional electronic system

We create laterally large and low disorder quantum well based quantum dots to study single electron additions to two dimensional electron systems (2DES). Electrons tunnel into these dots across an AlGaAs tunnel barrier from a single $n+$ electrode. Using single-electron capacitance spectroscopy in a dilution refrigerator, we identify capacitance peaks for the addition of the first electron to a dot and record subsequent peaks in the addition spectrum up to occupancies of thousands of electrons. Here, we report two remarkable phenomena that occur in the filling factor range $\nu=2$ to $\nu=5$ while selectively probing electron additions to the edge states of the dot: (1) Coulomb blockade peaks arise from the entrance of two electrons rather than one; (2) at and near filling factor 5/2 and at fixed gate voltage, these double-height peaks appear uniformly with a periodicity of $h/2e$. At other filling factors in the range $\nu=2$ to $\nu=5$, the mean periodicity for the twice-height electron peaks remains $h/2e$, but the twice-height peaks are instead further bunched into pairs of double-height peaks, with pairs spaced $h/e$ apart. The unusual two-electron Coulomb blockade peaks suggest a novel pair tunneling effect that involves electron correlations that arise in the quantum dot, with spectra at $\nu=5/2$ identical to those previously only seen in superconducting dots.Comment: Added discussion to "bunching phenomena" section in supplemen