Elitism vs populism in the West African epic: the politics of 'Sunjata'.

Paper presented at the Wits History Workshop: Democracy; Popular Precedents, Practice and Culture, 13 -15 July 1994. Copyright freeThe epic is a political genre whose function is to calibrate the power of the masculine warrior, or aristocracy, at the expense of other social groups. This is the understanding of the African oral narrative the Mende 'Sunjata'. It focuses on the conquering founder of the Mali Empire. The dominant idea of the epic is of hunting, limited in membership to the male. Despite this the appeal of the epic is in its subversive relationship to the hegemonic patriarchal order

Political generations in Bukoba :1890-1939.

What theoretical framework I have been able to salvage is, as the title of my paper suggests, largely evolutionary. The "political generations" which I wish to distinguish in the various stages of colonial rule are those Africans who were able to mediate spontaneously between the machinery of alien government and the outlook of the indigenous population

Africans speak, colonialism writes: the transcription and translation of oral literature before World War II

African Studies Center Papers in the African Humanities No. 8This paper was presented at the Seminar on Translation held at Boston University in December 1989 as part of the project on "African Expressions of the Colonial Experience. Publication of this paper was made possible by an interpretive research grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Coming of age through colonial education : African autobiography as reluctant Buldungsroman : the case of Camara Laye

African Studies Center Papers in the African Humanities No. 3

The Freshman, vol. 6, March 1936

The Freshman was a weekly, student newsletter issued on Mondays throughout the academic year. The newsletter included calendar notices, coverage of campus social events, lectures, and athletic teams. The intent of the publication was to create unity, a sense of community, and class spirit among first year students

Validation and characterisation of a novel peptide that binds monomeric and aggregated beta-amyloid and inhibits the formation of neurotoxic oligomers

Although the formation of β-amyloid (Aβ) deposits in the brain is a hallmark of Alzheimer disease (AD), the soluble oligomers rather than the mature amyloid fibrils most likely contribute to Aβ toxicity and neurodegeneration. Thus, the discovery of agents targeting soluble Aβ oligomers is highly desirable for early diagnosis prior to the manifestation of a clinical AD phenotype and also more effective therapies. We have previously reported that a novel 15-amino acid peptide (15-mer), isolated via phage display screening, targeted Aβ and attenuated its neurotoxicity (Taddei, K., Laws, S. M., Verdile, G., Munns, S., D'Costa, K., Harvey, A. R., Martins, I. J., Hill, F., Levy, E., Shaw, J. E., and Martins, R. N. (2010) Neurobiol. Aging 31, 203–214). The aim of the current study was to generate and biochemically characterize analogues of this peptide with improved stability and therapeutic potential. We demonstrated that a stable analogue of the 15-amino acid peptide (15M S.A.) retained the activity and potency of the parent peptide and demonstrated improved proteolytic resistance in vitro (stable to t = 300 min, c.f. t = 30 min for the parent peptide). This candidate reduced the formation of soluble Aβ42 oligomers, with the concurrent generation of non-toxic, insoluble aggregates measuring up to 25–30 nm diameter as determined by atomic force microscopy. The 15M S.A. candidate directly interacted with oligomeric Aβ42, as shown by coimmunoprecipitation and surface plasmon resonance/Biacore analysis, with an affinity in the low micromolar range. Furthermore, this peptide bound fibrillar Aβ42 and also stained plaques ex vivo in brain tissue from AD model mice. Given its multifaceted ability to target monomeric and aggregated Aβ42 species, this candidate holds promise for novel preclinical AD imaging and therapeutic strategies

Gardens of happiness: Sir William Temple, temperance and China

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Taylor & Francis via the DOI in this recordSir William Temple, an English statesman and humanist, wrote “Upon the Gardens of Epicurus” in 1685, taking a neo-epicurean approach to happiness and temperance. In accord with Pierre Gassendi’s epicureanism, “happiness” is characterised as freedom from disturbance and pain in mind and body, whereas “temperance” means following nature (Providence and one’s physiopsychological constitution). For Temple, cultivating fruit trees in his garden was analogous to the threefold cultivation of temperance as a virtue in the humoral body (as food), the mind (as freedom from the passions), and the bodyeconomic (as circulating goods) in order to attain happiness. A regimen that was supposed to cure the malaise of Restoration amidst a crisis of unbridled passions, this threefold cultivation of temperance underlines Temple’s reception of China and Confucianism wherein happiness and temperance are highlighted. Thus Temple’s “gardens of happiness” represent not only a reinterpretation of classical ideas, but also his dialogue with China.European CommissionLeverhulme Trus

Wilmsen, Edwin N. - Land Filled with Flies. A Political Economy of the Kalahari

Austen Ralph A. Wilmsen, Edwin N. - Land Filled with Flies. A Political Economy of the Kalahari. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 31, n°123, 1991. pp. 402-404