The Desperate Rebels of Shimabara: The Economic and Political Persecutions And the Tradition of Peasant Revolt

The Shimabara Rebellion has been studied throughout history by historians of East Asia. Originally conceived by both Japanese and Western scholars as a religious revolt against the anti-Christian Tokugawa government, later scholars contended that the Rebellion was a demonstration by the mistreated and impoverished and only tacitly related to Christian influences. This paper sets out to build on that narrative and to show the connection between the Christian resistance to the Tokugawa government and the movement of impoverished and desperate peasants, pushed to the brink of existence. Furthermore, this paper hopes to explore the goals of the Rebellion and establish the Shimabara Rebellion within the context of other rebellions during the Tokugawa era

On the Web-WorldCat, Digital Publications, and New Editions

I hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the warmer weather! Despite the real arrival of spring and sun, the Reference Desk is expecting a huge pick-up in the library and in citation and research questions as we move towards the end of the semester and the due dates for final research papers. Apart from regular work at the Desk, I am still working on the Collection Development Project, now in the online section of the project. I’ve been working a lot with MUSCAT and WorldCat, trying to discover how many copies of the Parkin books are available in other libraries and to see how rare each book is. Some of the books could only be found in ten or so other libraries worldwide! [excerpt

Weeding... It Isn\u27t Just For Gardens

Sorry, I haven’t posted in a while; I’ve been holding out until I got to the finishing stages of the Collection Development project. Yes, that’s right, for the past couple of weeks, when I was pacing up and down the stacks on the second floor, I was not actually going crazy. [excerpt

Starting at the Research Help Desk

I have just completed my second week at the Research Help Desk and feel as though I am starting to get a good handle of the work. Even after our intense boot camp training, I felt nervous to start fielding questions. But after working through printer issues, citations, and some source searches with patrons, I am feeling more and more comfortable every day. With that said, I still have loads more to learn in the next few weeks. [excerpt

Getting My Feet Wet

In the past two weeks, I have become much more comfortable at the Research Help Desk. I have been asked a whole variety of questions, from printing to citation to looking for books and articles. Despite a few challenging requests, I feel more confident in answering difficult research questions (which is good, because next week I’ll be working my first solo shift!). I will miss working with staff members at the Desk, largely because I enjoyed chatting with them about research skills, politics, sports, or anything that piqued our interests. [excerpt

Robust estimation of bacterial cell count from optical density

Optical density (OD) is widely used to estimate the density of cells in liquid culture, but cannot be compared between instruments without a standardized calibration protocol and is challenging to relate to actual cell count. We address this with an interlaboratory study comparing three simple, low-cost, and highly accessible OD calibration protocols across 244 laboratories, applied to eight strains of constitutive GFP-expressing E. coli. Based on our results, we recommend calibrating OD to estimated cell count using serial dilution of silica microspheres, which produces highly precise calibration (95.5% of residuals <1.2-fold), is easily assessed for quality control, also assesses instrument effective linear range, and can be combined with fluorescence calibration to obtain units of Molecules of Equivalent Fluorescein (MEFL) per cell, allowing direct comparison and data fusion with flow cytometry measurements: in our study, fluorescence per cell measurements showed only a 1.07-fold mean difference between plate reader and flow cytometry data

Robin Hood: There Will Be Tights (A Medieval Drama Production)

Through the staging of this production, the English 312 (Medieval Drama) class developed an academic understanding of the original spirit of five Robin Hood plays & ballads and translated these in a lively manner into contemporary idiom for a modern audience. Students in this course have translated and staged ten very different productions since 1999, and this was our first attempt at popular folk theater. Robin Hood was a wildly popular figure during the late Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, and was often the May King in spring celebrations that combined mumming, music, dance, games, and action-packed improvisational theatrics; in our production, we tried to add some of that festive flavor in in between various scenes. These plays are slapstick and involve broad burlesque humor we might recognize from Monty Python or Benny Hill or modern British pantomime, and involve a certain level of audience participation; our actors performed in front, behind, to the side, and within the audience, and active spectator engagement was encouraged. During the Middle Ages, performances like these might include an opportunity to give alms to the poor, thus manifesting the type of generosity often attributed to Robin Hood. In our production, we invited charitable donations of cash, clothing, and non-perishable food stuffs for our local soup kitchen, and we gathered a substantial volume of such donations. Although we tend to think of Robin Hood as the Outlaw with a Heart of Gold who robs from the rich to give to the poor, this is a fairly late understanding of this figure; during the Middle Ages, on the other hand, Robin Hood provided a mischievous protagonist who inverted the power structure; our plays reflected this theme. In mythological terms, Robin is a Trickster: Like all Tricksters, he is impish and he inverts authority. Tricksters are also associated with fecundity and the rebirth of the natural world and growing season, and are sometimes androgynous. Thus Robin’s role as the May King underscores his identity as a Trickster. In our production, this ambiguity was manifested both by men in tights and by women cast as men: “Robin” is, after all, a gender-neutral name, and so we had two men and one woman playing Robin Hood. Indeed, the “Men in Tights” aspect of the Robin Hood tradition lends itself so readily to humor in our culture precisely because gender-bending and cross-dressing in slapstick comedy both reflects and subverts common perceptions and stereotypes regarding gender; the reason the Monty Python boys are so quick to put a lad in a skirt for a quick laugh is that such humor exposes in a non-threatening way basic tensions in our culture regarding gender roles. The humor in our play stemmed in part from exploiting such tensions