Diplomatic Wives, Cultures of Dress and Brita Kekkonen

In this article, I discuss the private dress collection of Brita Kekkonen (1927–2013), a diplomatic wife, who was a very well-known figure in Finland during the period of the Cold War. Brita Kekkonen was also a very talented dressmaker and a very fashionable figure in diplomatic circles. Some eighty outfits made by Brita Kekkonen have survived to this day, in addition to her voluminous pattern collection, containing more than 1,000 patterns from several decades. The aim of my new postdoctoral research project is to identify Brita Kekkonen’s dresses and examine their use, politico-cultural meanings and design in the context of the Cold War, diplomatic etiquette and Kekkonen’s own personal history.

Ask me anything: Joanne O’Meara

Joanne O’Meara is professor of physics at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. She has a PhD in medical physics, and has done postdoctoral research at Tufts University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her outreach activities frequently include shows for schoolchildren and short segments on physics for the TV show Daily Planet.

Sources in historical dialectology

Any scholarly description of Hungarian dialects may only be possible for the time period after the settlement of the Hungarian-speaking population in the Carpathian Basin. Research in historical dialectology has primarily focused on the phonological characterization of 11th-14th century conditions, while in terms of sources, scholars have so far relied primarily on early data related to tribes’ names, historical data recorded in charters, today’s dialects, as well as evidence provided by related languages and elements borrowed from others. My paper sets out to establish the value of various sources in historical dialectology in view of our current knowledge in language history and calls attention to related methodological pitfalls. As most of these source types may also greatly contribute to the better understanding of the history of other languages, these methodological issues are relevant not only for Hungarian historical linguistics and dialectology but also more generally. The research and writing of this essay has been supported by the University of Debrecen and the MTA Premium Postdoctoral Research Program, Eötvös Loránd Research Network.

Future leader to watch – Aaron Savage

ABSTRACT First 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. Aaron Savage is first author on ‘ Germline competent mesoderm: the substrate for vertebrate germline and somatic stem cells?’, published in BiO. Aaron is a postdoctoral research associate at the Biodiscovery Institute, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom, investigating how stem cells can be used in regenerative medicine and how we can understand stem cell biology using embryonic and post-embryonic development.

First person – Craig Barcus

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. Craig Barcus is first author on ‘ Tyrosine kinase-independent actions of DDR2 in tumor cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts influence tumor invasion, migration and metastasis’, published in JCS. Craig is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Gregory Longmore at Washington University in St Louis, MO, USA, where he is interested in how progressing tumors interact with the extracellular environment to promote metastasis.

Theatre and Indigenous Peoples: Learning to Imagine New Worlds in End Times

This article examines the relationship between the performing arts and Amerindian peoples, specifically the Araweté, Juruna/Yudjá and Kamayurá peoples, which belong to the Tupi branch, whom I met as part of postdoctoral research carried out from February 2018 to January 2019, at the University of São Paulo (USP). It analyses the conjuncture of the fight of Amerindian and riparian peoples before the destruction of the forest and rivers of the Amazon, based on case studies of two theatre performances: Altamira 2042, a scenic ritual instauration triggered by listening to the testimony of the Xingu river about the Belo Monte dam, and Os Um e Os Outros (The One and the Others), loosely based on The Horatians and the Curiatians by Bertolt Brecht.

In the field: an interview with Glenn Tattersall

Glenn Tattersall is a Professor at Brock University, Canada, where he investigates the mechanisms of animal adaptations to extreme environments. After his undergraduate degree in 1994 at the University of Guelph, Canada, he completed his PhD in Comparative Physiology at the University of Cambridge, UK, with Bob Boutilier, before undertaking postdoctoral research at NEOMED College of Medicine, USA, and Kent State University, USA, with Steve Wood, and at University of British Columbia, Canada, with Bill Milsom. Tattersall talks about his experiences using a thermal imaging camera in South Africa, the Galapagos Islands, Scotland and Brazil.