Classification of jinjiang oysters Crassostrea rivularis (Gould, 1861) from China, based on morphology and phylogenetic analysis

The jinjiang oyster Crassostrea rivularis [Gould, 1861. Descriptions of Shells collected in the North Pacific Exploring Expedition under Captains Ringgold and Rodgers. Proc. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist. 8 (April) 33-40] is one of the most important and best-known oysters in China. Based on the color of its flesh, two forms of C rivularis are recognized and referred to as the "white meat" and 11 red meat" oysters. The classification of white and red forms of this species has been a subject of confusion and debate in China. To clarify the taxonomic status of the two forms of C. rivularis, we collected and analyzed oysters from five locations along China's coast using both morphological characters and DNA sequences from mitochondrial 16S rRNA and cytochrome oxidase 1, and the nuclear 28S rRNA genes. Oysters were classified as white or red forms according to their morphological characteristics and then subjected to DNA sequencing. Both morphological and DNA sequence data suggest that the red and white oysters are two separate species. Phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences obtained in this study and existing sequences of reference species show that the red oyster is the same species as C. ariakensis Wakiya [1929. Japanese food oysters. Jpn. J. Zool. 2, 359-367.], albeit the red oysters from north and south China are genetically distinctive. The white oyster is the same species as a newly described species from Hong Kong, C. hongkongensis Lam and Morton [2003. Mitochondrial DNA and identification of a new species of Crassostrea (Bivalvia: Ostreidae) cultured for centuries in the Pearl River Delta, Hong Kong, China. Aqua. 228, 1-13]. Although the name C. rivularis has seniority over C. ariakensis and C. hongkongensis, the original description of Ostrea rivularis by Gould [1861] does not fit shell characteristics of either the red or the white oysters. We propose that the name of C. rivularis Gould [1861] should be suspended, the red oyster should take the name C. ariakensis, and the white oyster should take the name C. hongkongensis. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Edmund Irwin Gordon Papers, 1936-1984

The Edmund Irwin Gordon papers document Gordon’s studies and professional work. The collection contains correspondence, EIG’s writings for publication and otherwise, course materials from the University of Pennsylvania and teaching at Harvard University, photographs of tablets and from digs, translations and notes from writings and tablets in ancient languages, forms and papers related to various grants, and materials from EIG’s work in Signal Intelligence during World War II.

Farmers, agriculture and politics in the Irish Free State area, 1919-1936

Given the economic and social importance of agriculture in the early years of the Irish Free State, it is surprising that the development of organisations representing farmers has not received the attention it deserves from historians. While the issues of government agricultural policy and the land question have been extensively studied in the historiography, the autonomous response by farmers to agricultural policies and the detailed study of the farmers’ organisations has simply been ignored in spite of the existence of a range of relevant primary sources. Farmers’ organisations have only received cursory treatment in these studies; they have been presented as passive spectators, responding in a Pavlovian manner to outside events. The existing historiography has only studied farmers’ organisations during periods when they impinged on national politics, epecially during the War of Independence and the Economic War. Therefore chronological gaps exist which has led to much misinterpretation of farmers’ activities. This thesis will redress this imbalance by studying the formation and continuous development of farmers’ organisations within the twenty-six county area and the reaction of farmers to changing government agricultural policies, over the period 1919 to 1936. The period under review entailed many attempts by farmers to form representative organisations and encompassed differing policy regimes. The thesis will open in 1919, when the first national organisation representing farmers, the Irish Farmers’ Union, was formed. In 1922, the union established the Farmers’ Party. By the mid- 1920’s, a number of protectionist agricultural associations had been formed. While the Farmers’ Party was eventually absorbed by Cumann na nGaedheal, local associations of independent farmers occupied the resultant vacuum and contested the 1932 election. These organisations formed the nucleus of a new national organisation; the National Farmers’ and Ratepayers’ League. The agricultural crisis caused by both the Great Depression and the Economic War facilitated the expansion of the league. The league formed a political party, the Centre Party, to contest the 1933 election. While the Centre Party was absorbed by the newly-formed Fine Gael, activists from the former farmer organisations led the campaign against the payment of annuities and rates. Many of them continued this campaign after 1934, when the Fine Gael leadership opposed the violent resistance to the collection of annuities. New farmer organisations were formed to co-ordinate this campaign which continued until 1936, the closing point of the thesis.

JOACHIM, BRAHMS, AND SCHUMANN: THE FLOURSHING OF NINETEENTHCENTURY VIOLIN REPERTOIRE

The cultivation of violin repertoire and its ultimate dominance of the late Nineteenth-Century orchestral library are best examined through the analysis and study of the works of Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), and Robert Schumann (1810-1856). Each of these men, in their own right, made significant contributions to the development of violin repertoire during the latter half of the Nineteenth Century. Yet their achievements were also the result of a collaborative effort and shared influence, the absence of which would have yielded a diminutive musical landscape, especially in the concerti of Brahms and Joachim. This dissertation explores Joachim’s technical dexterity and its influence on Brahms and Schumann, and further studies the vital role Brahms and Schumann played in forming Joachim as both composer and editor. The pieces examined in this dissertation evidence the significant influence each of these composers shared. Three chamber compositions stand as guideposts in the analysis and establish a stylistic foundation to collaborative efforts among Joachim, Brahms, and Schumann. The preliminary recital focuses on these chamber pieces which illustrate the individual style of each composer, featuring Joachim’s Romance, Op. 2, written between 1848 and 1852, Schumann’s Second Sonata, Op. 121, written in 1851, and Brahms’ Second Sonata, Op. 100, written in 1886. A second performance includes the enigmatic F-A-E Sonata of Brahms, Schumann, and Albert Deitrich, Schumann’s pupil, as well as Joachim’s Second Concerto. A collaborative effort, the F-A-E Sonata represents Brahms’ and Schumann’s efforts to write with Joachim’s unbridled style and technique in mind. An even greater musical offering, Joachim’s Second Concerto, a gift to Brahms in 1860, has been called the “Holy Grail” of concertos, and is considered the preeminent display of Joachim’s creative genius by incorporating demanding technical challenges and Hungarian-like overtones. The third and final program features Brahms’ Concerto in D Major. A fitting response to Joachim’s gift 17 years later, Brahms’ Concerto was written for Joachim at the height of his career, bearing the performer’s stylistic elements throughout. The recital also includes various Hungarian Dances by Brahms. While the Dances were not original to Brahms, they further illustrate the underlying idiom of Hungarian folk music in both Brahms’ and Joachim’s art.

THE PIANO MUSIC OF ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) AND JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833- 1897): A SURVEY OF CONCERTI, VARIATIONS, AND CHARACTER PIECES

Robert Schumann (1810-1856) and Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), in some ways Robert Schumann's artistic descendant, are the most important and representative German piano composers during the Romantic period. Schumann was already a mature and established musician in 1853 when he first met the young Brahms and recognized his talents, an encounter that had a long-lasting affect on the lives and careers of both men. After Schumann’s mental breakdown and death, Brahms maintained his admiration of Schumann’s music and preserved an intimate relationship with Clara Schumann. In spite of the personal and musical closeness of the two men, Schumann’s music is stylistically distinct from that of Brahms. Brahms followed traditions from Baroque and Classical music, and avoided using images and expressive titles in his music. Brahms extraordinarily intermingled earlier musical forms with multicolored tones of German Romanticism. In contrast, Schumann saw himself as a radical composer devoted to personal emotionalism and spontaneity. He favored programmatic titles for his character pieces and extra-musical references in his music. While developing their own musical styles as German Romantic composers, Schumann and Brahms both utilized the piano as a resourceful tool for self-realization and compositional development. To investigate and compare the main characteristics of Schumann and Brahms’s piano music, I looked at three genres. First, in the category of the piano concerto, I chose two major Romantic works, Schumann’s A minor concerto and Brahms’s B-flat major concerto. Second, for the category of piano variations I included two sets by Brahms because the variation framework was such an important vehicle for him to express his musical thoughts. Schumann’s unique motivic approach to variation is displayed vividly in his character-piece cycle Carnaval. Third, the category of the character piece, perhaps the favorite medium of Romantic expression at the piano, is shown by Schumann’s Papillons and Brahms’s sets of pieces Op.118 and Op.119. This performance dissertation consists of three recitals performed in the Gildenhorn Recital Hall at the University of Maryland, College Park. These recitals are documented on compact disc recordings that are housed within the University of Maryland Library System.

Selected Piano Works by Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms Incorporating or Based on Pre-existing Music

This dissertation shows how Schumann, Liszt and Brahms composed piano works based in a variety of ways on other music that already existed. My idea to do this project came through my fascination with Brahms’s Variations on a Theme by Paganini, which was the first piece selected. Brahms composed six sets of variations for solo piano, and I also chose Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel. Besides the variations, I included Brahms’s Ballade in D minor, Op. 10 No. 1, based on the Scottish ballad “Edward”. This piece demonstrates that Brahms applied pre-existing music not only in the form of variations, but also in other genres. Among Romantic composers, Schumann and Liszt are two others besides Brahms whose music frequently quotes pre-existing materials. In Schumann’s output, the inspiration from Clara Wieck is significant. The best examples may be the Impromptus Op. 5 and the third movement of the Grand Sonata No. 3, Op. 14, in which Schumann quotes the music by Clara Wieck as the theme of the variations and in the other movements as well to unify the entire piece. In addition, Schumann quotes the old German folk song “Grossvater Tanz” (Grandfather Dance) in the finale of Papillons. The same tune also appears in Carnaval for a programmatic purpose. These two pieces are a clear illustration that Schumann applies pre-existing music, and in addition they represent the spirit of literary reference. Liszt is well known for his superb transformations of other composers’ works into glorious piano compositions. Liszt drew his inspirations from different genres, including both vocal and instrumental music. His ability to turn earlier musical materials into virtuosic solo piano pieces that demonstrate his brilliance in creating imaginative keyboard sounds is remarkable. Among those pieces composed by Liszt, terms such paraphrase, reminiscence, or fantasy frequently appear as titles. I selected two such pieces: Rigoletto: Paraphrase de concert, S. 434 and Rondeau fantastique sur un thème espagnol, S. 252. In addition, Liszt also uses variation form to explore the possibilities of pre-existing themes. The piece I chose to represent this is Variations on the Theme “Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen” and Crucifixus from the Mass in B minor by J.S Bach, S.180. This dissertation comprises three piano recitals that were performed in 2010 and 2011 in Ulrich Recital Hall and Gildenhorn Recital Hall of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center of the University of Maryland. The recordings are documented on compact discs that are housed within the University of Maryland Library System.

The presence of the Aragonese language in the magazine "El Ebro" (1917-1936)

El Ebro (1917-1936) was a magazine published in Barcelona by Aragonese emigrants at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the first experience of coexistence of different dialectal varieties of the Aragonese language in the same media. El Ebro was an experience that has gone virtually unnoticed in the recent history of one of the most minority languages, and with minor media presence, of Western Europe. In its pages El Ebro mixed dialects spoken in different regions of linguistic Aragonese area together with transcripts of medieval documents. At the same time, this newspaper raised debates about the language issue that they were truncated due to disappearance of the publication and the lack of theoretical realization

The first chronicle of Miguel Hernandez: The New Journalism (1936-1939)

This paper presents and analyzes the first literary-journalistic chronicle writen and published by Miguel Hernández: “Defensa de Madrid. Madrid y las ciudades de Retaguardia”, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). This chronicle is the first one of a series establishing a new and personal type of journalism: literary chronicles –poetical and political-. Miguel Hernandez published his masterpieces in different newspapers as a war reporter, with his own name and with a pen-name, playing roles of director and political commissar in different newspapers in the war-trenches. Thematically, this first article shows his personal and political engagement, as well as his desire and strategy to protect the capital city of Spain: Madrid. Methodologically, the analysis is an approached to linguistics in social sciences, which presents some of the personal characteristics and style of the chronist Miguel Hernández. Thus, it becomes patent that the so-called New Journalism (narrative and literary), which flourished in the 70s, had already been deeply and efficiently practiced by Miguel Hernández 40 years before. That is the reason why Miguel Hernández deserves to be added to the well-known collective of chronicle writers that have already been rescued to this moment. His literary style and quality are installing him in a outstanding position as well as pioneer of the genre nowadays known as New Journalism that in his case, it is politically engaged

The Soviet Union and the International Brigades, 1936-1939

The International Brigades are typically viewed as a fighting force whose impetus came from the Comintern, and thus from within the walls of the Kremlin. If the assumption is essentially correct, the broader relation between Stalin’s USSR and the IB has received little attention. This chapter constitutes an empirically-based study of the Soviet role not only in the formation of the IB, but of the Red Army’s collaboration with IB units, and Moscow’s role in the climax and denouement of the brigadistas’ Spanish experience. This study’s principal conclusion is twofold: First, that the creation and sustenance of the IB was part of Stalin’s goal of linking the Loyalist cause with that of the Soviet Union and international communism, a component of a larger geo-strategic gamble which sought to create united opposition to the fascist menace, one which might eventually bring Moscow and the West into a closer alliance. The second conclusion is that the IB, like the broader projection of Soviet power and influence into the Spanish theater, was an overly ambitious operational failure whose abortive retreat is indicative of the basic weakness of the Stalinist regime in the years prior to the Second World War.

Women artists of the international avant-garde: the case of "Abstraction-Création" (1931-1936)

Women’s contribution to abstract art in the interwar period is a subject that, to date, has received very little attention. In this article we deal with the untold story of the participation of women artists in Abstraction-Création, the foremost international group dedicated to abstract art in the 1930s. Founded in Paris in 1931, the group took on the work of two previous collectives to become a platform for the dissemination and promotion of abstract art and consisted of around a hundred members. Twelve of these were women, whose writings and works were published in the group’s annual magazine, abstraction creátion art non figuratif (1932-1936), and who participated in a number of the group’s exhibitions. Compared to what had occurred in previous groups, the participation of women, although reduced in number, was comparable to that of the male artists and being members of the group had a generally positive impact on the women’s careers. However, all this came at the expense of relinquishing any gender specificity in their work and the public presentation of it, and demonstrates that the normalization of women’s contributions to the avant-garde could only be brought about alongside a questioning of the more dogmatic views of modernity.