Anatomías contrariadas: la representación del cuerpo en la literatura sobre los Andes (Estudios)

La autora analiza tres textos latinoamericanos que muestran construcciones del imaginario andino, extendidas a ciertos estereotipos sobre la corporalidad andina: frágil, dolorida, para la cual la esperanza de liberación radica en un azar. En «Boletín y Elegía de las Mitas», César Dávila presenta una versión del cuerpo indio «exclusivamente centrada en la vejación de lo anatómico» (de su cabeza y genitales, de órganos tan profundos como el corazón y el esqueleto), con lo que el cuerpo desnudo y forzado se convierte en ajeno. En «El sueño del Pongo», de José María Arguedas, el cuerpo del indio oprimido es diminuto, y porta una «gestualidad comprimida que se pone en juego a partir de posturas humilladas». Pese al final aparentemente optimista de ambos textos, se trata de productos culturales que cumplen un rol en el ejercicio de control social. En «Barraquera», de José de la Cuadra, el cuerpo de esta mujer es fundado a partir de violaciones, muertes y migraciones forzadas: habituado a sufrir y callar, para este cuerpo el dolor se convierte en la única vía posible de acceso al placer. Se remarca que el tiempo cronológico de los tres relatos es el de la espera, el tiempo del destino. Para estos cuerpos-lugares siempre vulnerables y violentados, burlados o invisibilizados, lo fatal fundamentaría un cierre de lo histórico.

Memorias montoneras: metáforas de la guerra en Argentina (Crítica)

La autora lee la novela de Sergio Pollastri desde la perspectiva crítica de las posibilidades e imposibilidades de la reconstrucción de una historia, a partir de este relato testimonial que se mueve en el territorio de la violencia y las armas (la militancia política) y en el de la subjetividad (la poesía, la ficción). Resalta los vínculos entre vida y literatura, que cruzan toda la novela, así, apela a la metáfora para referirse a dos tipos de silencios en las ficciones sobre la violencia revolucionaria: la opción por las armas y la delación bajo tortura. Resalta el rol de la metáfora en este texto que tensa hasta sus límites el género testimonial, y que cobra su mayor fuerza hacia el final: «La revolución es frágil y superficial como una violeta, aquello que la comparación desarrolla es al mismo tiempo lo que amortigua la caída del salto brutal al vacío con el que la novela cierra su enunciación».

Paradojas e incertidumbres de las economías andinas (Coyuntura)

El artículo parte de señalar la contradicción entre un desempeño macroeconómico, generalmente calificado como favorable, de las economías andinas en lo que va del presente siglo, sustentado en mayores tasas de crecimiento del PIB Y en la reducción del ritmo inflacionario, con el significativo agravamiento de la inestabilidad política en la región, que se ha constituido en la zona más conflictiva del continente. Posteriormente, se examina detenidamente el comportamiento de las economías andinas, estableciendo sus limitaciones y sobre todo los elevados niveles de desempleo en todos los países andinos, como factores estructurales que unidos a la crisis de sus instituciones políticas configuran una situación paradójica y muy frágil. En este contexto, la apuesta al TLC que realizan tres de sus miembros, con diversos grados de decisión, significa una seria amenaza para la integración andina y abre serias dudas sobre el balance de costos y beneficios.

Economías andinas: también atrapadas por la crisis (Coyuntura)

Este artículo analiza los principales elementos de las crisis en América Latina y sus expresiones en la Comunidad Andina de Naciones (CAN), enfatizando algunas repercusiones en el proceso de integración andina. El autor señala que los países miembros de la CAN presentan un cuadro de debilidad económica y de fragilidad política cuyas perspectivas parecen prolongarse afectadas por las dificultades que atraviesan otras economías como la norteamericana, europea o japonesa, lo que pone en evidencia el poco éxito del modelo económico imperante. Finalmente analiza el papel y las posibilidades de los mecanismos multilaterales y regionales sobre las economías andinas.

El retrato modernista ecuatoriano: simbolismo, mujer y exotismo en Abelardo (1895), de Eudófilo Álvarez (Dossier: La novela ecuatoriana del siglo XIX)

Abelardo (1895) es una novela enmarcada en el Modernismo literario hispanoamericano tanto por sus influencias del simbolismo francés, como de los planteamientos estéticos del movimiento modernista. El sueño y el influjo de este en la vida terrena del narrador-personaje, la transformación de la imagen de la mujer frágil y virginal en la mujer fatal, el exotismo puesto en la mirada sobre lo indígena, lo campesino y los mitos homéricos, y la representación idealizada de la actitud modernista en el héroe de la novela, son algunos de los rasgos que caracterizan a la obra de Eudófilo Álvarez.

Self-Fulfilling Crises in the Eurozone: An Empirical Test. CEPS Working Document No. 366, 22 June 2012

This paper tests the hypothesis that government bond markets in the eurozone are more fragile and more susceptible to self-fulfilling liquidity crises than in stand-alone countries. We find evidence that a significant part of the surge in the spreads of the PIGS countries (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) in the eurozone during 2010-11 was disconnected from underlying increases in the debt-to-GDP ratios and fiscal space variables, and was the result of negative self-fulfilling market sentiments that became very strong since the end of 2010. We argue that this can drive member countries of the eurozone into bad equilibria. We also find evidence that after years of neglecting high government debt, investors became increasingly worried about this in the eurozone, and reacted by raising the spreads. No such worries developed in stand-alone countries despite the fact that debt-to-GDP ratios and fiscal space variables were equally high and increasing in these countries.

Beyond retrenchment over Iran: can the EU offer a framework for regional security? CEPS Commentary, 3 September 2012

A new and far-reaching round of sanctions imposed recently on Iran by the EU is starting to hurt the country, its economy and its citizens. Yet Iran’s leadership seems deaf to demands for international weapons inspectors to be allowed unhindered access to its nuclear enrichment facilities. With a regime that is not likely to sway to international and domestic pressure, and in view of the shifting strategic landscape in the Middle East, the question is whether the twin-track approach of sanctions and diplomacy should be kept up, or whether it should make way for an alternative set of policies that could preserve the fragile stability in the wider Middle East and turn a vicious circle into a virtuous one. In this new Commentary, CEPS Senior Research Fellow Steven Blockmans argues that the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, supported by the European External Action Service, is in a good position to offer a negotiated way out of this seemingly intractable situation.

Children's sociospatial (re)production of disability within primary school playgrounds

There is a contemporary shift in the institutional context of 'disabled' children's education in the United Kingdom from segregated special to mainstream schools. This change is tied to wider deinstitutionalised or reinstitutionalised geographies of disabled people, fragile globalised educational 'inclusion' agendas, and broader concerns about social cohesiveness. Although coeducating children is expected to transform negative representations of (dis)ability in future society, there are few detailed explorations of how children's everyday sociospatial practices (re)produce or transform dominant representations of (dis)ability. With this in mind, children's contextual and shifting performances of (dis)ability in two case study school playground (recreational) spaces are explored. The findings demonstrate that children with mind-body differences are variously (dis)abled, in comparison with sociospatially shifting norms of ability, which have body, learning, and emotional-social facets. The discussion therefore places an emphasis on the need to incorporate 'intellectual' and 'emotional' differences more fully into geographical studies of disability and identity. The paper has wider resonance for transformative expectations placed on colocating children with a variety of 'axes of difference' (such as gender, 'race, ethnicity, and social class) in schools.

The ACTH response to dexamethasone in PTSD

Objective: Enhanced negative feedback and reduced adrenal output are two different models that have been put forth to explain the paradoxical observations of increased release of corticotropin-releasing factor in the face of low cortisol levels in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSID). To discriminate between these models, the authors measured levels of adrenocorticopic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol at baseline and in response to dexamethasone in medically healthy subjects with and without PTSID. Under conditions of enhanced negative feedback inhibition, ACTH levels would not be altered relative to cortisol levels, but the ACTH response to dexamethasone would be augmented, in concert with the enhanced cortisol response to dexamethasone. In contrast, under conditions of reduced adrenal output, ACTH levels would be expected to be higher at baseline relative to cortisol levels, but the ACTH response to dexamethasone would be unchanged in PTSID relative to healthy comparison subjects. Method: The ACTH and cortisol responses to 0.50 mg of dexamethasone were assessed in 19 subjects (15 men and four women) with PTSID and 19 subjects (14 men and five women) without psychiatric disorder. Results: The ACTH-to-cortisol ratio did not differ between groups before or after dexamethasone, but the subjects with PTSD showed greater suppression of ACTH (as well as cortisol) in response to dexamethasone. Conclusions: The data support the hypothesis of enhanced cortisol negative feedback inhibition of ACTH secretion at the level of the pituitary in PTSD. Pituitary glucocorticoid receptor binding, rather than low adrenal output, is implicated as a likely mechanism for this effect.

The need for sustainable remediation

Humanity requires healthy soil in order to flourish. Soil is central to food production, the regulation of greenhouse gases, recreational areas such as parks and sports fields and the creation of an environment pleasing to the eye. But soil is fragile and easily damaged by uninformed management or accidents. One type of damage is contamination by chemicals that provide the lifestyles to which the developed world has become accustomed. Traditional soil "clean-up" has entailed either simple disposal or isolation of contaminated soil. Clearly this is not sustainable. Modern remedial techniques apply mineralogical and geochemical knowledge to clean up contaminated soil and make it good for reuse, rather than simply discarding this precious and finite resource.

Pathogenicity and other genomic islands in plant pathogenic bacteria

Pathogenicity islands (PAIs) were first described in uropathogenic E. coli. They are now defined as regions of DNA that contain virulence genes and are present in the genome of pathogenic strains, but absent from or only rarely present in non-pathogenic variants of the same or related strains. Other features include a variable G+C content, distinct boundaries from the rest of the genome and the presence of genes related to mobile elements such as insertion sequences, integrases and transposases. Although PAIs have now been described in a wide range of both plant and animal pathogens it has become evident that the general features of PAIs are displayed by a number of regions of DNA with functions other than pathogenicity, such as symbiosis and antibiotic resistance, and the general term genomic islands has been adopted. This review will describe a range of genomic islands in plant pathogenic bacteria including those that carry effector genes, phytotoxins and the type III protein secretion cluster. The review will also consider some medically important bacteria in order to discuss the range, acquisition and stabilization of genomic islands.

NATO, Britain, France and the FRG: Nuclear Strategies and Forces for Europe, 1949-2000

This is vol. I of my two-volume study of the nuclear strategies/strategy preferences of NATO collectively, and individually of Britain, France, and West Germany in the Cold War. It shows that NATO strategy was a fragile compromise, and that these three countries, all within range of Soviet medium/intermediate range nuclear missiles and thus with less geostrategic difference than in previous military threat contexts, had wildly divergent strategies/preferences which cannot be explained merely by geography. It raises the question of what made them so different, addressed in Volume II "Nuclear Mentalities" (q.v.)

Britain as a global power in the twentieth century

This chapter examines the extent to which Britain's status as a global power in the twentieth century was underpinned by the existence of its empire. It suggests that, in a military sense, empire represented an uncertain resource. While the mobilization of the empire in the two world wars was ultimately crucial to British victory, its latent power in the years leading to those conflicts was poorly appreciated, not least by UK policy‐makers themselves. As such, it had limited value as a deterrent to Britain's enemies. Furthermore, the process of mobilizing the empire for war placed an almost intolerable strain on the fragile structures of imperial control. Britain's continuing aspirations to play the role of a global power following post‐war decolonization reflect the extent to which its overseas interests had always transcended the formal boundaries of empire. Meanwhile the Anglo‐American alliance provided Britain with a degree of security that its empire had never offered.

How the double spherules of infectious bronchitis virus impact our understanding of RNA virus replicative organelles

Powered by advances in electron tomography, recent studies have extended our understanding of how viruses construct "replication factories" inside infected cells. Their function, however, remains an area of speculation with important implications for human health. It is clear from these studies that whatever their purpose, organelle structure is dynamic (M. Ulasli, M. H. Verheije, C. A. de Haan, and F. Reggiori, Cell. Microbiol. 12:844-861, 2010) and intricate (K. Knoops, M. Kikkert, S. H. Worm, J. C. Zevenhoven-Dobbe, Y. van der Meer, et al., PLOS Biol. 6:e226, 2008). But by concentrating on medically important viruses, these studies have failed to take advantage of the genetic variation inherent in a family of viruses that is as diverse as the archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes combined (C. Lauber, J. J. Goeman, M. del Carmen Parquet, P. T. Nga, E. J. Snijder, et al., PLOS Pathog. 9:e1003500, 2013). In this climate, Maier et al. (H. J. Maier, P. C. Hawes, E. M. Cottam, J. Mantell, P. Verkade, et al., mBio 4:e00801-13, 2013) explored the replicative structures formed by an avian coronavirus that appears to have diverged at an early point in coronavirus evolution and shed light on controversial aspects of viral biology.

Harnessing the ancestors: mutuality, uncertainty and ritual practice in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

In the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, chronic economic uncertainty has seen social relations stretched to breaking point. Informants speak of a 'war between men and women'. While grinding poverty, death in the shape of the 'axe' (HIV/AIDS) and suspicion stalk the land, and the project of building the umzi (homestead) falters, hope for the future and with it, trust between people, leaches away. One response to such uncertainty is a turn to ritual. Through a nearly relentless schedule of ritual activity which invokes the ancestors and the Christian deity in various forms, Xhosa people attempt to dam up trust, secure ongoing investment in the rural homestead and sustain ties of reciprocity both among rural people and between them and their urban kin. It is also through the staging of these rituals that women, acting together and in support of each other, are increasingly assertive – often in the face of a violent, rearguard opposition from men - in their efforts to exercise agency over the differentiated, fragmented and fragile social and economic relationships within their homesteads and across their villages.