Literary Ethics

Review of 1997-98 books by Rey Chow, Thomas Keenan, Colin McGin

JLFT 010 Lancie Thomas 11-8-1996

Acc #: 328; JLFT 010 In this recording, Lancie Thomas is interviewed by John Beebee and Sheila Flanagan about John LeFlore and the Civil Rights Movement in Mobile, Alabama. The interview begins with Ms. Thomas discussing her and her husband’s work in founding the Mobile Beacon newspaper in Mobile’s Down the Bay neighborhood, and John LeFlore’s visits to the Beacon on his mail route. Ms. Thomas was in Tuscaloosa when Autherine Lucy attempted to integrate the University of Alabama, and she describes the work she did to support Ms. Lucy at that time, including helping to orchestrate community protective details to keep her safe when white people rioted and drove her from campus. She concludes the interview with reflections on Mr. LeFlore’s legacy

Introduction: Departures, Emanations, Intersections

This is the introduction to the book German Literature as World Literature published by Bloomsbury Press in 2014

Are mixed diets beneficial for the welfare of captive axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum)? Effects of feeding regimes on growth and behavior

Good nutritional husbandry is crucial to maintain high welfare standards in captive animals. Both direct effects of diet on growth, development, and maintenance and indirect effects of feeding regimes on behavior may be important. Despite this, many questions remain as to how we should best feed many of the species that are commonly kept in captivity. There is a great deal of speculation among animal keepers as to issues such as whether a mixed diet is better than an invariant one, but little research is available to inform this question. In this study, we investigate the impact of mixed versus invariant diets on growth and behavior in the axolotl (. Ambystoma mexicanum), an aquatic amphibian of severe conservation concern that is frequently maintained in captive collections. We then use our results to provide advice on feeding management in the context of improved welfare. We maintained juvenile axolotls under 1 of 3 "diets" (feeding regimes): bloodworm (invariant), Daphnia (invariant), and alternating these 2 prey items between feeds (mixed). Morphologic and behavioral data were collected over a period of 15weeks and analyzed using generalized linear mixed models to determine whether our feeding treatments influenced growth and behavior. We find that axolotls grew fastest on our bloodworm diet and slowest on our Daphnia diet, with a mixed feeding regime leading to intermediate growth rates. Diet treatment did not significantly influence our measured behaviors, but feeding and locomotion events were more frequent (and resting less frequent) on feeding days than nonfeeding days. These data suggest that providing a mixed diet is not necessarily beneficial to either growth or welfare of captive animals. In the case of axolotls, an invariant diet of bloodworm should increase growth rates, but the diet (mixed vs. invariant) does not influence behavior. Overall, our results suggest that mixed diets in themselves may not be beneficial to the growth or welfare of axolotls as compared with a high-quality invariant diet

Evaluation of Microorganisms Cultured from Injured and Repressed Tissue Regeneration Sites in Endangered Giant Aquatic Ozark Hellbender Salamanders

Investigation into the causes underlying the rapid, global amphibian decline provides critical insight into the effects of changing ecosystems. Hypothesized and confirmed links between amphibian declines, disease, and environmental changes are increasingly represented in published literature. However, there are few long-term amphibian studies that include data on population size, abnormality/injury rates, disease, and habitat variables to adequately assess changes through time. We cultured and identified microorganisms isolated from abnormal/injured and repressed tissue regeneration sites of the endangered Ozark Hellbender, Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi, to discover potential causative agents responsible for their significant decline in health and population. This organism and our study site were chosen because the population and habitat of C. a. bishopi have been intensively studied from 1969–2009, and the abnormality/injury rate and apparent lack of regeneration were established. Although many bacterial and fungal isolates recovered were common environmental organisms, several opportunistic pathogens were identified in association with only the injured tissues of C.a. bishopi. Bacterial isolates included Aeromonas hydrophila, a known amphibian pathogen, Granulicetella adiacens, Gordonai terrae, Stenotrophomonas maltophilia, Aerococcus viridans, Streptococcus pneumoniae and a variety of Pseudomonads, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, P. stutzeri, and P. alcaligenes. Fungal isolates included species in the genera Penicillium, Acremonium, Cladosporium, Curvularia, Fusarium, Streptomycetes, and the Class Hyphomycetes. Many of the opportunistic pathogens identified are known to form biofilms. Lack of isolation of the same organism from all wounds suggests that the etiological agent responsible for the damage to C. a. bishopi may not be a single organism. To our knowledge, this is the first study to profile the external microbial consortia cultured from a Cryptobranchid salamander. The incidence of abnormalities/injury and retarded regeneration in C. a. bishopi may have many contributing factors including disease and habitat degradation. Results from this study may provide insight into other amphibian population declines

Geographies of Nation and Region in Modern European and American Fiction

In his article Geographies of Nation and Region in Modern European and American Fiction Thomas O. Beebee proposes that beyond using character, plot, and style, modern fiction also has entertained its readers with mental maps of heterotopias. A mental map is an imaginative representation of place derived from experience or story. Following Michel Foucault, heterotopia is defined as an other space both familiar as and different from the real. The imagined communities (Anderson) of nation and region are themselves heterotopias that receive confirmation and/or contestation through the discursive territoriality of literary prose. The mental maps of literature participate in the cycle of cultural production, in which readings of texts (in the broadest sense of text ) combine with lived experience and social relations to produce new texts that conform to public genres such as novels, travel narratives, and so forth. For a study-example, the writings of José Maria Arguedas (1911-1967) are analyzed as mental maps that construct a heterotopian vision of the Peruvian nation

The Canudos Perplex: Three Early “Factions”

A vida de Antônio Vicente Maciel, o “Conselheiro,” como a história da construção e destruição de sua comunidade messiânica, Canudos (1893-1897), tem sido uma fonte inesgotável para a literatura e o imaginário brasileiros. Na literatura sobre Canudos nota-se uma tendência para utilizar o gênero de “faction” — da história romantizada ou ficcionalizada. Este ensaio compara Os Jagunços(1898) de Afonso Arinos, O Rei dos Jagunços (1899) de Manoel Benício, e Accidentes da Guerra (1905) de Egmydio Dantas Barreto, que são os três primeiros “factions” a tratar o assunto de Canudos. Analisa, portanto, as razões pelas quais estes autores evitaram os gêneros (relativamente) “puros” da Reportagem e da História, recorrendo em compensação a um gênero misto que acrescenta à suposta veracidade a imaginação. The life of Antônio Vicente Maciel, the Counselor, along with the story of the construction and destruction of his messianic community, Canudos (1893-1897) have been an inexhaustible source for the Brazilian imaginary and in particular for Brazilian literature. Literary texts treating Canudos tend to use the genre of “faction,” i.e. of novelized or fictionalized history. This essay compares Os Jagunços (1898) by Afonso Arinos, O Rei dos Jagunços (1899) by Manoel Benício, e Accidentes da Guerra (1905) by Emygdio Dantas Barreto, which were the first three such Canudos “factions.” The essay analyzes the reasons for these early authors to reject relatively “pure” genres such as reporting or history in favor of a mixed genre that supplements (supposed) veracity with imagination

Las lecturas alemanas y rusas de Bolaño: Asimetrías e influencias

Less pervasively central to Bolaño’s career than Spanish-, English-, and French-language authors, German and Russian Precursors, as Thomas O. Beebee’s essay demonstrates, are nonetheless extensive and generative, including among others Goethe (The Third Reich), Novalis (2666), Kafka (Monsieur Pain, Nazi Literature in the Americas, Distant Star, By Night in Chile) –whom Bolaño calls the “greatest writer of the twentieth century”– and Thomas Mann (2666). Among Russian writers in relation to whom Bolaño situates his late work and sense of himself as a novelist in particular, the combined influences of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy (The Savage Detectives, By Night in Chile, 2666) are considerable. The essay examines the asymmetrical exchanges between these traditions and extrapolates on their interpretative purchase on the oeuvre as a whole.Aunque menos centrales a la obra de Bolaño que los autores en lengua española, inglesa o francesa, sus lecturas alemanas y rusas, como demuestra Thomas O. Beebee en el presente ensayo, son de todas formas extensas y prolíficas, incluyendo entre otras a Goethe (El Tercer Reich), Novalis (2666), Kafka (Monsieur Pain, La literatura nazi en América, Estrella distante, Nocturno de Chile) –a quien Bolaño llama “el más grande escritor del siglo veinte”– y Thomas Mann (2666). De los novelistas rusos entre los cuales Bolaño sitúa su obra tardía y su propia identidad como novelista, la influencia amalgamada de Dostoievski y Tolstói (Los detectives salvajes, Nocturno de Chile, 2666) resulta considerable. El ensayo examina las transacciones asimétricas entre estas tradiciones y extrapola su rol interpretativo en el conjunto de la obra bolañiana