Covid-19 outbreak reflects inequities in health and socioeconomic disadvantage in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific Islands

The Covid-19 outbreak in Aotearoa/New Zealand is a timely reminder of the chronic inequities in health and the importance of socioeconomic factors in the origins of the disease. The pandemic has affected mainly indigenous Maori and Pacific people. There were 5,371 confirmed and probable cases of Covid-19 as at 13 November 2021, of which 2,104 (39%) were in Maori and 1,646 (31%) were in Pacific people. Furthermore, 228 (70%) of all hospital admissions were Maori and Pacific people

Significance of Community-Held Territories in 24 Countries to Global Climate

This research provides a timely reminder of the global significance of community-held lands and territories; their importance for the protection, restoration, and sustainable use of tropical forestlands across the world; and the critical gaps in the international development architecture that have so far undermined progress towards the legal recognition of such lands and territories. Our findings indicate that Indigenous Peoples, Afro-Descendant Peoples, and local communities customarily hold and use at least 958 million hectares (mha) of land in the 24 reviewed countries but have legally recognized rights to less than half of this area (447 mha). Their lands are estimated to store at least 253.5 Gigatons of Carbon (GtC), playing a vital role in the maintenance of globally significant greenhouse gas sinks and reservoirs. However, the majority of this carbon (52 percent, or 130.6 GtC) is stored in community-held lands and territories that have yet to be legally recognized.

Soybean Rust: Lessons learned from the Pandemic in Brazil. (2021) By José Tadashi Yorinori. Edited by Glen L. Hartman, Maurício C. Meyer, Ademir A. Henning, and Cláudia V. Godoy. 136 pp. Published by APS Press, American Phytopathological Society, St Paul, Minnesota, USA. ISBN 978-0-89054-663-5 Price $169. The publication of this book is a timely reminder that global

Some of the key work being undertaken by USDA scientists is reviewed by Len Copping.

Literature in a Time of Migration

Literature in a Time of Migration rethinks British fiction in the light of new practices of human mobility that reshaped the nineteenth-century world. Building on the growing critical engagement with globalization in literary studies, it confronts the paradox that at a time at which transnational human movement occurred globally, on a scale before unknown, British fiction appears to turn inward to tell stories of local places, in which stability and rootedness are rewarded. On the contrary, Literature in a Time of Migration reveals how literary works, from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the advent of the New Imperialism, were active components of a culture of colonization and emigration. Fictional texts, as print commodities, were enmeshed in technologies of transport and communication, and innovations in literary form were spurred by the conditions and consequences of human movement. Works by canonical writers (Scott, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, and George Eliot), and other popular contemporaries (Mary Russell Mitford, John Galt, and Thomas Martin Wheeler), examine issues that overlap with an agenda set in public discussions of colonial emigration, which they also helped to shape. Debates concerning, for example, assisted emigration, ‘forced’ and ‘free’ migration, colonization, settlement, and the removal of native peoples, figure in complex ways in fictions. Read alongside writings by emigration theorists, practitioners, and enthusiasts, fictional texts reveal a sustained engagement with British migratory practices and their worldwide consequences. Literature in a Time of Migration is a timely reminder of the place and importance of migration within British cultural heritage.

“Une force qui va”: Reflections on Gérard Depardieu in Danton

Taking as its starting point a 1978 article by film critic Molly Haskell, in which she described Gérard Depardieu as “tactile […] grasping, eating, touching, coming to physical terms with everything in sight”, this article considers a largely overlooked Depardieu role, as the committed revolutionary leader Georges Danton in Andrzej Wajda’s Danton (1983)—a historical role that reflects the actor’s commitment to the relevance of the Revolutionary politician and intellectual. By examining three key scenes, the article scrutinizes Depardieu’s acting style (body language, vocal delivery, movement choices) and demonstrates that he is committed to new ways of engaging with the ideological processes of acting. In Danton, Depardieu pivots between a familiar set of performative registers—physical menace and self-regarding sensitivity, timidity and flamboyance, innocence and cunning—so that the performance ultimately serves as a timely reminder of his enduring mythic status in French cinema.

A Cultural History of School Uniform

What's a djibbah, how long has the old school tie been around and do yellow petticoats really repel vermin? How have social and educational changes affected the appearance of schoolchildren? This book will provide answers to these questions and more, in an engaging foray into 500 years of British school uniform history from the charity schools of the sixteenth century through the Victorian public schools to the present day. In this cross-disciplinary work, Kate Stephenson presents the first comprehensive academic study of school uniform development in Britain as well as offering an analysis of the social and institutional contexts in which this development occurred. With recent debates around the cost, necessity and religious implications of school uniform and its (re)introduction and increasingly formal appearance in many schools, this book is a timely reminder that modern ideas associated with school uniform are the result of a long history of communicating (and disguising) identity.

Large-scale Scientific Computing in the Fight Against COVID-19

U.S. computing leaders, including the National Science Foundation, have partnered with universities, government agencies, and the private sector to accelerate research into responses to COVID-19 – providing an unprecedented collection of resources that include some of the fastest computers in the world. This current work expands on last month’s Leadership Computing article by continuing to showcase the range of contributions that the national cyberinfrastructure is making to global efforts to stop the pandemic. This article touches on research efforts to learn how SARS-CoV-2 spreads among different populations, the biology and structure of the virus and its mechanisms of infection, and to develop effective vaccines for prevention and antiviral therapies for treatment. Even though we are still early in the process of developing an effective therapeutic response, the rapid mobilization of the national research cyberinfrastructure is a timely reminder of the strategic importance of robust, ongoing investments in large-scale scientific computing.

Large-scale Scientific Computing in the Fight Against COVID-19

U.S. computing leaders, including the National Science Foundation, have partnered with universities, government agencies, and the private sector to accelerate research into responses to COVID-19 – providing an unprecedented collection of resources that include some of the fastest computers in the world. This current work expands on last month’s Leadership Computing article by continuing to showcase the range of contributions that the national cyberinfrastructure is making to global efforts to stop the pandemic. This article touches on research efforts to learn how SARS-CoV-2 spreads among different populations, the biology and structure of the virus and its mechanisms of infection, and to develop effective vaccines for prevention and antiviral therapies for treatment. Even though we are still early in the process of developing an effective therapeutic response, the rapid mobilization of the national research cyberinfrastructure is a timely reminder of the strategic importance of robust, ongoing investments in large-scale scientific computing.