Reliance and Confinement: Washington Allston’s Dual Attitudes Towards European Ideals in His Paintings

The paper examines the dual attitudes reflected in the artistic work of Washington Allston. Born in 1779 and died in 1843, Allston is a famous American painter and poet whose artworks are greatly shaped by European philosophical concepts and artistic traditions. Allston's inheritance of such traditions could be mainly reflected by the deliberate representation of the concept of sublimity and divinity in his artistic creation. This could be readily seen from Allston’s artistic techniques, by which he better instills his aesthetics into his religious paintings while arousing greater empathy among the audience. However, against the background of American Romanticism, Allston was faced with the conflict between conforming to the European aesthetic standards in terms of “general air” and tradition, and the dramatic departure of objects from their “proper place”. As a result, Allston resorted to the institutional liberation, thus forming his distinct artistic style with an evident feature of dual attitudes.

Chemical approaches to discover the full potential of peptide nucleic acids in biomedical applications

Peptide nucleic acid (PNA) is arguably one of the most successful DNA mimics, despite a most dramatic departure from the native structure of DNA. The present review summarizes 30 years of research on PNA’s chemistry, optimization of structure and function, applications as probes and diagnostics, and attempts to develop new PNA therapeutics. The discussion starts with a brief review of PNA’s binding modes and structural features, followed by the most impactful chemical modifications, PNA enabled assays and diagnostics, and discussion of the current state of development of PNA therapeutics. While many modifications have improved on PNA’s binding affinity and specificity, solubility and other biophysical properties, the original PNA is still most frequently used in diagnostic and other in vitro applications. Development of therapeutics and other in vivo applications of PNA has notably lagged behind and is still limited by insufficient bioavailability and difficulties with tissue specific delivery. Relatively high doses are required to overcome poor cellular uptake and endosomal entrapment, which increases the risk of toxicity. These limitations remain unsolved problems waiting for innovative chemistry and biology to unlock the full potential of PNA in biomedical applications.

What is on the agenda for the new health secretary?

Following the dramatic departure of the former Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, the Highland Marketing advisory board, made up of NHS and health industry personnel, came together to consider the challenges facing the new minister, Sajid Javid

Chapter 17

By 1941, Cary Grant had his pick of films. Almost everything was offered to him and everyone wanted to work with him. Wary of being typecast, he resisted making more screwball comedies. Instead, he made the gentle “weepie” Penny Serenade (1941) with George Stevens directing and Irene Dunne co-starring. His performance, including a tearful moment when he must plead with a judge to maintain custody of an adopted child, brought his first nomination for an Academy Award. He made an even more dramatic departure from his established image playing the wayward, possibly murderous Johnny Aysgarth in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941). The making of this film was rocky, not least because of on-the-set friction between Grant and co-star Joan Fontaine, but Grant’s relationship with Hitchcock was strong both personally and professionally. His relationship with director Frank Capra, with whom he made Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), was not as strong. Grant hated his own manic performance in this slapstick comedy. Although the film was a big success at the time and still has many admirers, he always cited it as the least favorite of his films.

Israeli Settlements, U.S. Foreign Policy, and International Law

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement that Israel’s settlements are not contrary to international law caused international outrage as it marked a dramatic departure from previous U.S. statements on the legality of Israel’s West Bank settlements. This paper argues that the announcement was connected to developments at the International Criminal Court (ICC) where the Prosecutor, a month later, announced that there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Palestine by Israel and Hamas.

Satirizing Education in Crisis

The fifth chapter analyzes the use of parody and satire to depict education in Mohamed Nedali’s Grâce à Jean de la Fontaine! (Thanks to Jean de la Fontaine!) and Yacine Adnan’s Hūt Marūk (Hot Maroc). Nedali’s novel describes the satiric misadventures of a teacher-in-training who, upon finding himself surrounded by incompetency at the school where he works, learns to play along with absurdity rather than fight it. Hūt Marūk, in a similarly satiric tone, describes a young man who embodies the new kind of author produced by a failing education system: a comments section troll on an online blog. These novels offer a dramatic departure from the earnest striving heroes examined in the fourth chapter. They poke fun at education, exaggerating the foibles of incompetent administrators, skewering teachers who know nothing about their subject, and presenting the classroom as a space of meaningless failed communication. These narratives do more than point a literary finger at current political controversies and educational failings. They bring the entire educational institution into question through their clear refusal to ever be taught to future generations in the classroom

Gospel Zeal: Missionary Citizens Overseas and Armchair Missionaries at Home; American Catholic Missions in China, 1900–1989

This chapter deals with the American Catholic missionary movement in the twentieth century, which was dominated by a gospel-driven zeal to convert the Chinese. It examines two interlocking cohorts operating throughout the first half of the twentieth century. One group is the American citizens serving as missionaries in China. In addition to their national passports, spiritual citizenship in conjunction with the Holy See proved to be of paramount influence in the evangelization process. Oftentimes contentious, this fostered encounters between bishops and diplomats, priests, sisters, and laity and the local transnational political actors in China. The second group is the armchair missionaries. These important benefactors on the American home front first came to identify with associated events when they attended the dramatic departure ceremonies for missionaries proceeding on to China.

Overcoming Barriers to Transnational Organizing Through Identity Work: Finnish–Estonian Trade Union Cooperation

This article analyses a project by Finnish and Estonian unions to adopt ‘organizing model’ strategies through establishing the transnational ‘Baltic Organising Academy’. Initially aimed at Estonian workplaces, successful campaigns inspired Finnish unions to copy the model in Finland. This cooperation was originally motivated by labour market interdependence between the two countries, and the failure of past social-partnership oriented union strategies in Estonia. The willingness of Finnish and Estonian unions to commit resources to transnational cooperation around an ‘organizing model’ marks a dramatic departure from the unions’ previous strategies. This change was accomplished by transnational activists who have developed and raised support for the adoption of an ‘organizing model’ in the face of structural challenges and ideological opposition by some union officials. The project’s transnational organizing exemplifies one possible solution to union weakness in Eastern Europe, and underlines the importance of ‘identity work’ in building transnational trade union coalitions around organizing.

The Snowden Stakes: Challenges for Understanding Surveillance Today

The drip-feed disclosures about state surveillance following Edward Snowden’s dramatic departure from his NSA contractor, Booz Allen, carrying over one million revealing files, have ired some and prompted some serious heart-searching in others. One of the challenges is to those who engage in surveillance studies. Three kinds of issues present themselves: One, research disregard: responses to the revelations show a surprising lack of understanding of the large-scale multi-faceted panoply of surveillance that has been constructed over the past 40 years or so that includes but is far from exhausted by state surveillance itself. Two, research deficits: we find that a number of crucial areas require much more research. These include the role of physical conduits including fibre-optic cables within circuits or power, of global networks of security and intelligence professionals, and of the minutiae of everyday social media practices. Three, research direction: the kinds of surveillance that have developed over several decades are heavily dependent on the digital – and, increasingly, on so-called big data -- but also extend beyond it. However, if there is a key issue raised by the Snowden revelations, it is the future of the internet. Information and its central conduits have become an unprecedented arena of political struggle, centred on surveillance and privacy. Those concepts themselves require rethinking.

SINCERITY AND REFLEXIVE SATIRE IN ANTHONY TROLLOPE’STHE STRUGGLES OF BROWN, JONES AND ROBINSON

Despite the recent revivalof interest in the works of Anthony Trollope, his short novelThe Struggles of Brown, Jones and Robinsonhas largely escaped serious attention. Trollope called the book a “satire on the ways of trade,” (Autobiography106) and serialized it inCornhill Magazine, 1861–62. The novel turned out to be a critical and commercial failure, perhaps because it marked a dramatic departure from the familiar social comedy ofBarsetshirenovels. Contemporary reviewers called it “coarse,” “odiously vulgar,” and “unmitigated rubbish.” Later readers were no more generous. C. P. Snow judgedSBJR“one of the least funny books ever written” and thought Trollope had “perpetrated idiocy. . .” by writing it (95–96).