The Musical Poetics of Witness: Two Anthropocene Journeys

Kerstin Ekman’s The Forest of Hours (first published in Swedish in 1988) and Jenny Erpenbeck’s Visitation(published in German as Heimsuchung in 2008) span two decades and two countries, but both novels reach across far larger epochs, in their respective journeys from Europe’s glacial prehistory through the Dark Ages and the Thirty Years War, and through the twentieth century’s collective trauma. Though disagreement persists on when the Anthropocene began to leave its mark in stone, contemporary fiction often registers its traces through a marginally human witness who somehow survives generation after generation, recording in word or action what he or she has seen – and, in Ekman and Erpenbeck’s novels, heard. Music plays a significant role in both of these texts. It works thematically in Ekman’s Forest of Hours, in moments of transformation experienced by a semi-human troll in different historical periods, as well as structurally in the novel’s repetitions. In Erpenbeck’s Visitation, the recurring witness figure of a Gardener echoes Ekman’s liminal, looping perspective, while the novel’s detailed musical references signal the survival of the human in inhuman times. Drawing on Christine Marran’s model of “obligate storytelling,” this article argues that music’s presence in both novels binds human and nonhuman experience, memory and metanoia, like the flow of water that leaves patterns of erosion and transforms the land. The Anthropocene’s long view allows both of these novels to witness, most trenchantly through sound, the human capacity not only to destroy but also to love the sensory world

In Two

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Interdependence in Dating and Cohabiting Relationships: The Role of Cognitive Interdependence, Commitment, and Marital Intent

This study uses Interdependence Theory, specifically cognitive interdependence and the investment model of commitment, to further understand the impact of marital intent in cohabiting versus dating relationships. Contrary to the hypothesis posed, results revealed that individuals in cohabiting relationships and dating relationships experience similar levels of interdependence. However, people who report an intent to marry their partner, whether dating or cohabiting, have higher degrees of centrality of relationship, commitment, satisfaction, investments, and a lower level of perceived relationship alternatives than those who did not report marital intent. The results of this study suggest that marital intent may work similarly in dating relationships and cohabiting relationships, and that Interdependence Theory has utility for understanding why marital intent makes a difference in relational stability

Contrary Voices: Heine, Hölderlin, and Goethe in the Music of Hanns Eisler

Contrary Voices examines composer Hanns Eisler’s settings of nineteenth-century poetry under changing political pressures from 1925 to 1962. The poets’ ideologically fraught reception histories, both under Nazism and in East Germany, led Eisler to intervene in this reception and voice dissent by radically fragmenting the texts. His musical settings both absorb and disturb the charisma of nineteenth-century sound materials, through formal parody, dissonance, and interruption. Eisler’s montage-like work foregrounds the difficult position of a modernist artist speaking both to and against political demands placed on art. Often the very charisma the composer seeks to expose for its power to sway the body politic exerts a force of its own. At the same time, his text-settings resist ideological rigidity in their polyphonic play. A dialogic approach to musical adaptation shows that, as Eisler seeks to resignify Heine’s problematic status in the Weimar Republic, Hölderlin’s appropriation under Nazism, and Goethe’s status as a nationalist symbol in the nascent German Democratic Republic, his music invests these poetic voices with surprising fragility and multivalence. It also destabilizes received gender tropes, in the masculine vulnerability of Eisler’s Heine choruses from 1925 and in the androgynous voices of his 1940s Hölderlin exile songs and later Goethe settings. Cross-reading the texts after hearing such musical treatment illuminates faultlines and complexities less obvious in text-only analysis. Ultimately Eisler’s music translates canonical material into a form as paradoxically faithful as it is violently fragmented.Doctor of Philosoph

Melting, Blurring, Moaning.: Annihilation as Narrative Adaptation to Planetary Crisis?

In Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation and its eponymous 2018 film adaptation directed by Alex Garland, traditional narrative hierarchies and binaries disintegrate, both in thematic material and at the syntactic and (in the film score) musical levels. Words are written with fungus, a bear screams with a human voice, a woman sprouts stems where her veins should be, and a monstrous, flower-like mouth roars humanoid doubles into being. This article applies three lenses to explore this example of narrative genre as a cultural adaptation to the Anthropocene crisis: first, a multispecies perspective of the ‘weird’ storytelling that de-centers the human perspective in order to foreground sensory subjectivities; second, an adaptation studies approach that includes this tradition’s implicit biological connotations; and finally, a musicological analysis of the film score’s unsettling materialit

A systematic review of methods to immobilise breast tissue during adjuvant breast irradiation

Greater use of 3D conformal, Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) and external beam partial breast irradiation following local excision (LE) for breast cancer has necessitated a review of the effectiveness of immobilisation methods to stabilise breast tissue. To identify the suitability of currently available breast (rather than thorax) immobilisation techniques an appraisal of the literature was undertaken. The aim was to identify and evaluate the benefit of additional or novel immobilisation approaches (beyond the standard supine, single arm abducted and angled breast board technique adopted in most radiotherapy departments). A database search was supplemented with an individual search of key radiotherapy peer-reviewed journals, author searching, and searching of the grey literature. A total of 27 articles met the inclusion criteria. The review identified good reproducibility of the thorax using the standard supine arm-pole technique. Reproducibility with the prone technique appears inferior to supine methods (based on data from existing randomised controlled trials). Assessing the effectiveness of additional breast support devices (such as rings or thermoplastic material) is hampered by small sample sizes and a lack of randomised data for comparison. Attention to breast immobilisation is recommended, as well as agreement on how breast stability should be measured using volumetric imaging. Keywords: Breast, immobilisation, positioning, reproducibility, review.</p

P-rex1 cooperates with PDGFRβ to drive cellular migration in 3D microenvironments

Expression of the Rac-guanine nucleotide exchange factor (RacGEF), P-Rex1 is a key determinant of progression to metastasis in a number of human cancers. In accordance with this proposed role in cancer cell invasion and metastasis, we find that ectopic expression of P-Rex1 in an immortalised human fibroblast cell line is sufficient to drive multiple migratory and invasive phenotypes. The invasive phenotype is greatly enhanced by the presence of a gradient of serum or platelet-derived growth factor, and is dependent upon the expression of functional PDGF receptor β. Consistently, the invasiveness of WM852 melanoma cells, which endogenously express P-Rex1 and PDGFRβ, is opposed by siRNA of either of these proteins. Furthermore, the current model of P-Rex1 activation is advanced through demonstration of P-Rex1 and PDGFRβ as components of the same macromolecular complex. These data suggest that P-Rex1 has an influence on physiological migratory processes, such as invasion of cancer cells, both through effects upon classical Rac1-driven motility and a novel association with RTK signalling complexes

The Grizzly, January 29, 1988

Social Changes at Ursinus Become Evident • New Student Center Instituted • Restructuring Plagues Pledging System • Commencement Tradition to Change • Letters: Speak for Outside Graduation; Response to Tuition Increase • Swanson: No Chicken Fillet • Lewis to Present Black Perspective • Notes: Wismer Chimneys Smoked Out; Noon Aerobics Active Again; Chic Sharp Shooters Sought; Air Band Contest Announced • Men\u27s B-ball Win Brings Hopes for National Ranking • Match-Tough Matters Ready for Tourney • Gymnasts Take Bear Classic • Swimmers Stroke Victory in Season Opener • Bears Looking Hot in Winter Track • Chemistry Key for 1st Place Bears • Koffel\u27s Silver Anniversary Made Golden • Shikoda Not Far from Home • Europe Encounter Enraptures Jones • Rock \u27N Roll Forum • Robertson\u27s Release Rocks with Rhythmhttps://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/grizzlynews/1202/thumbnail.jp

A Targeted Conservation Approach for Improving Environmental Quality: Multiple Benefits and Expanded Opportunities

Find out how targeted conservation practices can have the most impact on environmental quality while causing only a small change in overall agricultural production. Environmental benefits are discussed related to clean air and water, productive soils, diverse wildlife and plant habitat, and biological controls for crop protection.https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/extension_ag_pubs/1084/thumbnail.jp