Transmedia Franchises and the Digital Humanities

How can we improve digital humanities accessibility? In other words, how can a small, resource-strapped liberal arts humanities classroom foreground the transformative impact of digital methods of analysis without imposing a high skills or materials threshold on students

Transmedia Franchises and the Digital Humanities

How can we improve digital humanities accessibility? In other words, how can a small, resource-strapped liberal arts humanities classroom foreground the transformative impact of digital methods of analysis without imposing a high skills or materials threshold on students

Beasts of the Southern screen: race, gender, and the global South in American cinema since 1963

“Beasts of the Southern screen: race, gender, and the global South in American cinema since 1963,” explores the role that the Southern imaginary has played at the crux of national, media, and personal mythmaking. This dissertation argues that the Southern imaginary—here defined as filmic images of Southernness—has helped Americans manage a series of crises from the late Cold War period to the current moment. Repudiating an allegedly recalcitrant South allowed the United States to see itself as a democratic, progressive place (via downward comparison) even as events like the Civil Rights movement, feminism, and the Vietnam War imperiled the coherence of national identity. Imagined sojourns through the South have also helped filmmakers glimpse the alternative, unauthorized fantasies and fears that swirl just underneath “official narratives” of national and personal identity. Films set in the Southern imaginary are thus crucially important to processing the traumas that connect nation and subject. As a fantasy space, the Southern imaginary allows subjects to confront overwhelming events that can only be endured when “staring over the fence” into a region at once a part of and distinct from the nation. The first two chapters argue that filmmakers use images of an antiquated South to process Vietnam War-era traumas. Slavery epics like The Beguiled and Southern horror films including Deliverance allegorize white anxieties over the political influence of minority populations. Later chapters contend that Southern-set films continue to appropriate stories of marginalized peoples, but now under the mantle of tolerance. The third chapter argues that Hollywood films starring Southern, queer cowboys demonstrate the ascendancy of American progressivism even in the once-repressive South. However, these films often exclude minority subjects from their purportedly tolerant landscapes. The final chapter of this dissertation therefore turns to films made within Southern communities like Moonlight, analyzing how the filmmakers use silence and visual obscurity to resist the objectifying gaze of the camera. In the films analyzed, the Southern imaginary emerges as fertile site for trenchant social critique and fantasies that connect the personal to the political

Distributions of highly branched isoprenoid alkenes and other algal lipids in surface waters from East Antarctica: Further insights for biomarker-based paleo sea-ice reconstruction

The occurrence and variable abundance of certain di- and tri-unsaturated C₂₅ highly branched isoprenoid (HBI) biomarkers in Antarctic marine sediments has previously been proposed as a possible proxy measure of paleo sea-ice extent in the Southern Ocean. In the current study, we obtained 47 near-surface (ca. 0-10 m) water samples taken from locations in East Antarctica with different sea ice settings and analysed them for their HBI, sterol and fatty acid content. Sampling locations ranged from the permanently open-ocean zone (POOZ), with no seasonal sea-ice cover, the near-shore summer sea ice zone (SIZ), where sea ice remains long into the summer melt season, and the marginal ice zone (MIZ), located between the POOZ and the SIZ, and with a highly variable latitudinal sea-ice edge throughout the season. A di-unsaturated C₂₅ HBI (diene II) was only identified in surface waters from the MIZ and the SIZ, consistent with a sea-ice diatom origin for this biomarker. In contrast, a tri-unsaturated C₂₅ HBI (triene III) was detected in all samples from the POOZ, the MIZ and the SIZ, and with a stable isotopic composition (δ¹³C = -35 ± 1.5‰) consistent with a phytoplankton source. The highest concentrations of diene II and triene III were in samples from the SIZ and the MIZ, respectively, thus providing further insights into the sea-ice conditions likely favourable for their production and how their relative abundances (the II/III ratio) in underlying sediments might be better interpreted for paleo sea-ice reconstruction. In this respect, relatively high II/III might be a good indicator of extended (into summer) seasonal sea-ice cover, while lower II/III may provide a better indicator of the MIZ. However, the observation of highly variable II/III within the polynya setting of the SIZ may also have significant impacts on sedimentary values. Distributions of diatom sterols and fatty acids were also variable between the three sampling zones, but these were not as distinctive as those observed for the HBIs.10 page(s

Modified Mohs Micrographic Surgery in Lentigo Maligna Treatment: A Series of Six Cases

The surgical approach to lentigo maligna is a challenge to dermatologists, given its clinical and histopathological particularities. Staged excision with paraffinembedded, permanent sections for histopathological evaluation of surgical margins is an effective treatment of lentigo maligna because it enables complete excision of the tumor, at the same time preserving maximum amount of healthy tissue. We report a case series of 6 patients diagnosed with lentigo maligna who underwent this procedure in our Institution and we describe the procedure we used. Complete excision of the tumors was achieved with one to three levels, with margins of excision ranging from 2 to 8 mm. There were no local recurrences at the median follow-up of 16 months, obtaining 100% cure rate with this technique. These are comparable with the margins and number of levels of excision described in previous case series reported in the literature. The technique described herein for the treatment of lentigo maligna provides excellent cure rates for this type of cutaneous malignancy notorious for its challenging managemen

Modified Mohs Micrographic Surgery in Lentigo Maligna Treatment: A Series of Six Cases

The surgical approach to lentigo maligna is a challenge to dermatologists, given its clinical and histopathological particularities. Staged excision with paraffinembedded, permanent sections for histopathological evaluation of surgical margins is an effective treatment of lentigo maligna because it enables complete excision of the tumor, at the same time preserving maximum amount of healthy tissue. We report a case series of 6 patients diagnosed with lentigo maligna who underwent this procedure in our Institution and we describe the procedure we used. Complete excision of the tumors was achieved with one to three levels, with margins of excision ranging from 2 to 8 mm. There were no local recurrences at the median follow-up of 16 months, obtaining 100% cure rate with this technique. These are comparable with the margins and number of levels of excision described in previous case series reported in the literature. The technique described herein for the treatment of lentigo maligna provides excellent cure rates for this type of cutaneous malignancy notorious for its challenging managemen

Temporal and spatial patterns in the Ross Sea: Phytoplankton biomass, elemental composition, productivity and growth rates

The temporal and spatial patterns of phytoplankton biomass, productivity, and particulate matter composition in the Ross Sea were assessed during cruises in January 1990 and February 1992. Biomass and primary productivity in the southern Ross Sea were greatest during mid-January, with surface chlorophyll concentrations, particulate organic carbon levels, and integrated primary productivity averaging 4.9 Ixg L \u27l, 0.54 mg L-•, and 2.63 g C m • d \u27•, respectively. Comparable mean concentrations and rates for February were 1.1 Ixg L \u27l, 0.29 mg L \u27l, and 0.78 g C m \u27•- d \u27• (decreases of 76, 46, and 70%, respectively), indicative of the scale of temporal changes. A distinct south-north transition also was observed both in productivity and phytoplankton biomass, with the lowest values occurring in the northern Ross Sea. East-west gradients in phytoplankton biomass and composition occurred within the southern Ross Sea. The areal productivity of the Ross Sea ranged from 0.15 to 2.85 g C m • d -• and is among the highest found in the entire Antarctic. Carbon:chlorophyll ratios were uniformly high but were highest (150) in 1990 in the diatom-dominated western Ross Sea. Surface growth rates were modest, averaging less than 0.2 day \u27• during both seasons. We hypothesize that the marked seasonality in the region provides an environment in which net growth rates, although slow, are maximized through low loss rates and which allows biomass to accumulate in the surface layer. Furthermore, the temporal variations are quantitatively similar to the observed spatial variations. Therefore the dominant determinant of phytoplankton biomass and productivity at any one point on the Ross Sea continental shelf is the stage of the seasonal growth cycle