A Different Country?

The chapter focuses on Lil Nas X and his record-breaking hit “Old Town Road” (2018), which combines stylistic elements from country and trap music. The song received immense attention in early 2019 after Billboard discreetly removed it from its Hot Country Songs chart, a decision that was interpreted by some as racially motivated. The chapter investigates how Lil Nas X’s musical eclecticism and queer cowboy iconography raises questions pertaining to the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the country and hip hop genres. First, it critiques the popular narrative that his widespread success following the Billboard incident is indicative of the declining authority of the music industry in the face of the democratizing effects of digital technologies. Then, it turns its attention to the official movie, Old Town Road, in which Lil Nas X is joined by guest artist Billy Ray Cyrus. Particular focus is devoted to the intersectional aspects of masculinity, which are elucidated through a discussion of how certain sounds and vocal characteristics become constructed and experienced as racially coded. Finally, drawing on perspectives from queer of color critique, the chapter explores the idea that Lil Nas X’s queer tactics both stand as a corrective to accounts of the past that bypass the contributions of black musicians in the development of country music (and black cowboys’ participation in the Old West) and introduces new ways of moving past dominant social constraints.

West and East in Ashkenaz in the Time of Judah he-Ḥasid

The present study interprets and frames a long-standing question concerning Judah he-Ḥasid’s motivations in migrating to Regensburg against the social and geographical contexts of the Jews of Ashkenaz. By examining the use of Hebrew geographic terminology during the High Middle Ages (Loter, Ashkenaz, Ashkelonia), the article demonstrates that twelfth-century Jews perceived and were engaged in contemporary political and territorial processes of the surrounding kingdom. The Hebrew terms describe the cultural tripartite division of the German kingdom (Regnum Teutonicum) in Lotharingia, the five duchies of the earlier tribes (Saxony, Franconia, Thuringia, Swabia, and Bavaria), and the still Slavic territories of the East. These imperial territories were settled and Christianized by mostly German migrants from the west of the kingdom from the eleventh century onwards. Comparable developments are evident in the movement and expansion of Jewish settlement in the German Kingdom. After many Jewish communities were founded in the Ashkenazic heartlands, beginning in cities on the Rhine, Main, and the Danube, i.e., in the territories of the five duchies (Ashkenaz), Jewish settlers founded new communities and settlements in the still Slavic areas (Ashkelonia), beyond the Elbe and Saale rivers, as part of the German settlement movement. Judah he-Ḥasid’s family’s migration is part of this development. With his relocation to Regensburg, he lived on the border of the Ashkenazic heartland (Old/West Ashkenaz) and the new Ashkenazic settlement areas in Ashkelonia (New/Eastern Ashkenaz). In Regensburg he became one of the central spiritual and halakhic authorities for the communities of the eastern neighboring territories. Through his work Judah he-Ḥasid opened the way to an “Ashkenazation” of the Jewish communities in eastern Central Europe and Eastern Europe.

American Dreams

Chapter One discusses the rural roots of the men most responsible for Zev's racing career: oil tycoon Harry F. Sinclair, the owner; cantankerous trainer Sam Hildreth; and jockey Earl Sande, a budding national celebrity. Profiles in American newspapers during the buildup to the Race of the Century described the three men's rise from humble, rural roots in the American heartland using language that evoked romantic visions of the mythical American frontier and Old West. These stories of the achievement of the American Dream affirmed the notion of the United States as a place where anyone could succeed through hard work and fair play, even as the environment that had produced their ascent had, by the 1920s, become a distant memory for many, amid an increasingly bureaucratized, industrial postwar modernity in which the United States was a global superpower, trending toward oligarchy, and the world's greatest consumer of mass spectacle.

From Cattle Brand to Corporate Brand: Blue Jean Trademarks in Mid-century America

Cattle brands are physical imprints of ownership applied to the flesh of animals. They were, in the nineteenth century, indispensable to ranchers for differentiating their cattle from a competitors’ stock on the open range. The branding symbol’s utility as a legible marker of property ownership declined after widespread fencing delimited the plains. Yet cattle brands remained present in vernacular visual and material culture as decorative features and motifs signifying the Old West into the twentieth century. Cattle brand imagery, largely divorced from its functional origins, was recombined and repurposed to add decorative flourish to a variety of garments, wearable accessories, and domestic objects. This article explores the persistence of cattle brands as a popular trope in mid-century America and focuses on denim jeans, manufactured by Levi Strauss & Co., and, in particular, Lee, companies that fashioned their company logos in the guise of a brand. Through material culture analysis I will examine how clothing companies employed cattle brand iconography in advertising, promotions, and product design to consider a historical moment in the cattle brand’s semiotic shift from indexical trace of property ownership to corporate brand logo.

Fenbendazole efficacy in lambs: a comparison of oral dosing and feed block additive modes of administration

Twenty-four, 3-month old West African Dwarf (WAD) Lambs were divided into 3 groups of 8 each. Each group was given free access to a common pasture by day, but housed separately in concrete floored and netted pens provided with varied but equal supplements by night. Two of the groups were treated with 2.5% Fenbendazole suspension at a dose rate of 10mg/kg body weight administered orally once a month for 3 consecutive months for one group, dissolved in molasses mixed with Brewer's grains in 5 divided daily doses per month for 3 consecutive months for the second group, while the third 3 group was left us untreated control. The mean haematocrit values, mean percentage egg reduction and mean liveweight gains were higher at the end of the trial for the single monthly dosed group than for the untreated control group, while the same measurements were insignificantly different (P>0.05) for the two treated groups. Significant appreciation in the mean hematocrit values, mean percentage egg reduction and mean liveweight gains were proofs of the effectiveness of treatment and molasses supplementation, while the insignificance of the difference of the same measurements in the two treated groups implied equal efficacy of the two different schedules of administration. The in-feed scheme was easier and convenient for use on weak and pregnant eves that could abort on rough handling