El Es Dios!

This article outlines a brief historical sketch of the Danza Azteca-Chichimeca, or danza for short, which is becoming ubiquitous in areas of the United States with a significant Mexican American population. It looks at its origins during the early colonial period of Mexico, especially its mythological beginnings, to help elucidate the deep foundation of the dance tradition. This sketch also addresses the evolution of danza after it spread from its place of origin in the Bajío into major urban areas like Mexico City, where, once there, it changed due to ideological and political trends that circulated in the post-revolution period. The article also looks at danza’s pseudo-militaristic undertones to suggest that it might have contributed to the growing discontent among peasants and indigenous people, leading to Mexican independence. Some scholars have suggested that it, as a revitalizationist tradition, belongs in the “crisis cult” category. This analysis became evident when danza encountered neo-Aztec philosophies that promoted nationalistic and restorationist ideologies. In sum, the article touches on the popularity of danza in the United States despite the current climate of xenophobia and anti-migration, and nods at its growing international and global appeal.

Protamine—The Journey from DNA to Heparin Neutralization to Gene therapy

Protamine is now well recognized as a key heparin neutralizing agent. However, protamine was discovered over a century ago, during experiments performed to uncover the secrets behind heritability. Although protamine was discovered as a highly charged protein, it did not receive the attention it deserved until the dawn of insulin era, when it was used to create the neutral protamine Hagedorn formulation. Based on the same principles, protamine was identified to neutralize heparin and has since been used successfully for many years in cardiothoracic surgery. More recently, its clinical applications have extended to gene therapy. In this historical sketch, the journey from the discovery of protamine, onwards to heparin neutralization, and up to its utilization in genetic modulatory treatments is detailed.

A Social Psychological Toolbox for Clinical Psychology

Translational science involves the fruitful interplay between basic research paradigms and related fields of application. One promising candidate for such synergy is the relationship between social and clinical psychology. Although the relation is principally bi-directional, such that either discipline can take the role of the basic and the applied science, we take the perspective of transfer from basic social and cognitive social psychology to applications in the clinical realm. Starting from a historical sketch of some of the earliest topics in the interface of both disciplines, we first come to conclude that truly integrative co-theorizing is conspicuously missing. Then, however, we recognize the strong potential for productive collaboration at the pragmatic level of an adaptive research toolbox containing approved methods and compact theoretical tools that carry over between disciplines. We outline the notion of a generic, provisional toolbox as distinguished from a fixed repertoire of established standard procedures. We provide examples of two subsets of tools, methods and logical principles required proper diagnostic reasoning, and theoretically founded influence tools that can enrich the repertoire of therapeutic interventions. Rather than propagating a normatively prescriptive toolbox, we interpret translational science as a pluralistic endeavor, such that different clinicians complete their personalized toolboxes in manifold ways.

Culinary Nostalgia and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Addenda to Kinga Király's Az újrakezdés receptjei (2019) / Recipes for a New Beginning (2020)

Kinga Király conducted interviews with ten North Transylvanian survivors who represent the last witnesses of a generation that is about to disappear and leave us with the question of what to remember and how. On reading the testimonies catalogued in the volume Király produced from those interviews, I realized that I felt compelled to make further connections with my own research on foodways and war trauma and on the ecologies of survival witnessing. In a section on the mass genocide of Transylvanian Jewry I provide a brief historical sketch to help the understanding of the historical complexity and tragedy of the lives of pre- and postwar Transylvanian Jewry. I then contrast the stories of some of Király's subjects with the postwar memoirs of other Transylvanian survivors who emigrated either right after the war or under the Ceausescu dictatorship. I discuss prewar Transylvanian Jewish food culture, and subsequently locate Király's collection as a continuation of the tradition of the memorial or yizkor [‘remembrance’] books. Finally, I discuss Jewish cemeteries and the virtual social death of Jewish tradition in Transylvania, to ask: what is it that remains today from the shattered culture of Transylvanian Jewry?

A HISTORICAL STUDY OF ROLE OF THE LEFT IN THE MOVEMENT FOR RESTORATION OF DEMOCRACY

The movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) was launched against the then military dictatorship in Pakistan in the 1980s. This paper is an attempt to present a historical sketch of the movement and also to discuss the role of the Left in that movement. The study considers those political parties as ‘Left’ which were following Socialist/Communist ideology, based in Sindh, province of Pakistan, specifically Awami Tehrik, a Marxist-Leninist-Moist party, and the Communist Party of Pakistan. This research is based on relevant literature, especially jail diaries and conducting interviews with victims of Communist Case registered by then military regime against communist leaders. The research addresses the events and mass movements launched by the Left in order to strengthen the movement for the restoration of democracy. Moreover, this paper shows how the Left converted a movement for the restoration of democracy into a great mass movement against the then military dictatorship. Key Words: Communist case, democracy, left, military dictatorship, movement for restoration of democracy, Pakistan, Sindh.