scholarly journals Introduction

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Fransiska Louwagie ◽  
Simon Lambert

This thematic issue arises from the symposium ‘Tradition and Innovation in Franco-Belgian Bande dessinée’, held at the University of Leicester on 13 March 2020. Over three panels with a respective focus on ‘Revisiting the Classics’, ‘Contemporary Perspectives’, and ‘Reshaping Franco-Belgian Bande dessinée’, the symposium brought out a variety of perspectives on contemporary bande dessinée and its links to the Franco-Belgian tradition. The symposium saw the participation of a range of international contributors, including early career scholars, faculty, and artist contributors, based in Greece, Switzerland, Portugal, Canada, Panama, Israel, and the UK. We would like to thank our speakers for their contributions as well as for their flexibility in revising travel arrangements and, in some cases, arranging online delivery at short notice, as the start of the COVID-19 pandemic was unfolding in their respective countries at the time of the event. Our particular thanks go to Laurence Grove from the University of Glasgow for his keynote intervention entitled ‘The Relevance of Tintin’, and to graphic novelist Michel Kichka, who gave a keynote talk about the Franco-Belgian influences in his own work as well as a public seminar on his graphic novel Deuxième Génération. We are grateful to Wallonia-Brussels International (WBI), the Association for the Study of Modern and Contemporary France (ASMCF), the Society for French Studies (SFS), and the School of Arts at the University of Leicester for their sponsorship of the keynote sessions, the conference participation of comics artist Ilan Manouach, and travel and registration bursaries for early career researchers. For this follow-up publication, we express our particular thanks to all contributors and peer-reviewers, to Wallonia-Brussels International for support to the translation, and to the editors of European Comic Art, for their kind and patient assistance.

2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (16) ◽  

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Fanny Jaudon and Martina Albini are co-first authors on ‘ A developmental stage- and Kidins220-dependent switch in astrocyte responsiveness to brain-derived neurotrophic factor’, published in JCS. Fanny is a postdoc at the University of Trieste in the lab of Lorenzo A. Cingolani at Center for Synaptic Neuroscience and Technology, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genova, Italy, investigating the molecular mechanisms controlling development and function of neuronal circuits and implementing genome-editing approaches for the treatment of neurological disorders. Martina is a PhD student at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia in the lab of Fabio Benfenati and Fabrizia Cesca investigating neurotrophin biology and its involvement in neurological diseases.


Author(s):  
Kirsten Forkert ◽  
Ana Lopes

This article examines unwaged posts at UK universities, using recent examples of advertised job posts. While unpaid work is common in the UK higher education system, unwaged posts are not. The posts under scrutiny in this article differ from traditional honorary titles as they target early career academics, who are unlikely to have a paid position elsewhere, rather than established scholars. The article contextualizes the appearance of these posts in a climate of increasing marketization of higher education, entrenching managerialism in higher education institutions, and the casualization of academic work. We also discuss resistance to the posts, arguing that the controversy surrounding unpaid internships in the creative industries created a receptive environment for resisting unwaged posts in academia. We analyze the campaigns that were fought against the advertisement of the posts, mostly through social media and the University and College Union. We explore the tactics used and discuss the advantages and limitations of the use of social media, as well as the role of trade unions in the campaigns against these posts, and we reflect on what future campaigns can learn from these experiences.


2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (24) ◽  

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Alessandra da Silva Dantas is first author on ‘ Crosstalk between the calcineurin and cell wall integrity pathways prevents chitin overexpression in Candida albicans’, published in JCS. Alessandra is a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Prof. Neil Gow at the Medical Research Council Centre for Medical Mycology at the University of Exeter, UK, and is interested in the mechanisms controlling cell division and death in human fungal pathogens.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Andreia Nunes is first author on ‘ Identification of candidate miRNA biomarkers for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy using DUX4-based mouse models’, published in DMM. Andreia is a postdoc in the lab of Peter L. Jones at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, Reno, NV, USA, investigating therapeutics for and disease mechanisms of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luisa T Schneider

In a contradictory fashion, researchers, their departments and universities simultaneously recognize the unpredictability of fieldwork experiences and outcomes and help establish a bureaucratic system of planning every component of their research. Ethnographic unpredictability and its consequences are a fact of fieldwork and it is essential that researchers and institutions are prepared to view these as part of interpretable data, to learn from them and not mask them. This article examines ethnographic unpredictability through the lens of sexual violence which I experienced during my doctoral fieldwork in Sierra Leone. I show how I redirected my research and renegotiated my position as an academic. I discuss the culture of risk and analyse the influence of neoliberalism on the university. I describe how ‘market logic’ conceptualizes unpredictability as competitive disadvantage. I show the impact that the imaginary ‘perfect academic’ has on early career researchers and the complicity of mainstream academic (re-)presentation in nourishing the image of the ‘in-control academic’ through muting personal field experiences and vulnerabilities and silencing unpredictable occurrences in academic writing. I conclude with recommendations on how personal situatedness, vulnerabilities, and transformations can be approached as factors in every research endeavour which must not pose threats to an institution’s competitive advantage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. dmm046292

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Jenny Vermeer and Jonathan lent are co-first authors on ‘A lineage-tracing tool to map the fate of hypoxic tumour cells’, published in DMM. Jenny conducted the research described in this article while a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Ruth Muschel at the University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. She is now a project leader in the lab of Miranda van der Lee at Byondis, Nijmegen, The Netherlands, investigating new targets, particularly in cancer, that will lead to novel treatments. Jonathan is a PhD student in the lab of Marc Vooijs at Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, investigating new cancer targets and testing possible new interventions with a focus on tumour hypoxia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. dmm047415

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Disease Models & Mechanisms, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Gideon Hughes is first author on ‘Machine learning discriminates a movement disorder in a zebrafish model of Parkinson's disease’, published in DMM. Gideon conducted the research described in this article while a PhD student in Betsy Pownall's lab at the University of York, York, UK. He is now a postdoc in the lab of Henry Roehl at the University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, using the zebrafish as a model organism to study human disease and tissue regeneration, combining his research with his interest in computer science.


2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (17) ◽  

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Giulia Corbet is first author on ‘ ADAR1 limits stress granule formation through both translation-dependent and translation-independent mechanisms’, published in JCS. Giulia is a PhD student in the lab of Roy Parker at the University of Colorado Boulder, CO, USA, investigating how ribonucleoprotein granules form, function and are regulated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 134 (7) ◽  

ABSTRACT First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Victor Palacios is first author on ‘Importin-9 regulates chromosome segregation and packaging in Drosophila germ cells’, published in JCS. Victor conducted his PhD research in the lab of Michael Buszczak at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, TX, where he investigated the essential role of Importin-9 in Drosophila fertility.


Biology Open ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. bio054171

ABSTRACTFirst Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Biology Open, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Stéphanie Cottier is first author on ‘The yeast cell wall protein Pry3 inhibits mating through highly conserved residues within the CAP domain’, published in BiO. Stéphanie is a post-doc in the lab of Roger Schneiter at the University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland, investigating using yeast model organism to gain insight into the function of the widespread CAP protein superfamily.


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