Against Amnesia

"An important study in American literature."--

Changing Concepts of the Nervous System, presents the proceedings of the First Institute of Neurological Sciences Symposium in Neurobiology, held at the University of Pennsylvania in October 1980. The book is divided into four parts consisting of mini symposia on different aspects of the neurosciences. The first mini symposia discuss the anatomical, physiological, developmental, and behavioral plasticity of the nervous system. The second mini symposia cover the changing concepts of the central visual system. The idea of the biological basis of the concept of motivation and its behavioral manifestations from both theoretical and experimental aspects is examined in the third mini symposia. The final mini symposia tackle the four aspects of studies on memory: amnesia (consolidation and retrieval), the role of catecholamines, the role of proteins, and the role of peptides. Anatomists, neurobiologists, neuroscientists, and students and researchers in the field of neuroscience will find the book invaluable.

In Mapping the Moving Image, Pasi Valiaho offers a compelling study of how the medium of film came to shape our experience and thinking of the world and ourselves. By locating the moving image in new ways of seeing and saying as manifest in the arts, science and philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century, the book redefines the cinema as one of the most important anthropological processes of modernity. Moving beyond the typical understanding of cinema based on optical and linguistic models, Mapping the Moving Image takes the notion of rhythm as its cue in conceptualizing the medium's morphogenetic potentialities to generate affectivity, behaviour, and logics of sense. It provides a clear picture of how the forms of early film, while mobilizing bodily gestures and demanding intimate, affective engagement from the viewer, emerged in relation to bio-political investments in the body. The book also charts from a fresh perspective how the new gestural dynamics and visuality of the moving image fed into our thinking of time, memory and the unconscious.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Explores Black women writers’ treatment of the ancestor figure. The Grasp That Reaches beyond the Grave investigates the treatment of the ancestor figure in Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters, Paule Marshall’s Praisesong for the Widow, Phyllis Alesia Perry’s Stigmata and A Sunday in June, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Tananarive Due’s The Between, and Julie Dash’s film, Daughters of the Dust in order to understand how they draw on African cosmology and the interrelationship of ancestors, elders, and children to promote healing within the African American community. Venetria K. Patton suggests that the experience of slavery with its concomitant view of black women as “natally dead” has impacted African American women writers’ emphasis on elders and ancestors as they seek means to counteract notions of black women as somehow disconnected from the progeny of their wombs. This misperception is in part addressed via a rich kinship system, which includes the living and the dead. Patton notes an uncanny connection between depictions of elder, ancestor, and child figures in these texts and Kongo cosmology. These references suggest that these works are examples of Africanisms or African retentions, which continue to impact African American culture. Venetria K. Patton is Associate Professor of English and Director of the African American Studies and Research Center at Purdue University. She is the author of Women in Chains: The Legacy of Slavery in Black Women’s Fiction, also published by SUNY Press, and coeditor (with Maureen Honey) of Double-Take: A Revisionist Harlem Renaissance Anthology.

Neuroscientists from various disciplines have given extraordinary attention to the role of neurotransmitters in the field of neuronal injury. This volume summarizes the original oral and poster contributions which were presented at the symposium, "The Role of Neurotransmitters in Brain Injury," in Key West, Florida, between June 7-9, 1991. This symposium was the official Satellite of Brain-91, the Fifteenth International Symposium on Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism, held in Miami the previous week. The two principal goals of the Key West satellite meeting were to document recent progress and, more importantly, to explore future directions for investigative studies of the role of neurotransmitters in brain injury. To achieve these goals we assembled participants from diverse scientific fields and specialties who brought their collective expertise to discussions on the importance of neurotransmitters in neuronal and vascular injury following brain ischemia, trauma, and epilepsy. Their contributions are reflected in this volume. An important section of this volume is devoted to the role of glutamate and glutamatergic receptors in the development of ischemic neuronal damage. Topics covered include the mechanisms of glutamate and other excitatory amino acids, and the role of underlying injury-induced release different glutamatergic receptors in brain injury, including the NMDA and the non-NMDA receptors. The involvement of other neurotransmitters in the process of ischemic brain injury is well established.

Indigenous North Americans have continuously made important contributions to the field of art in the U.S. and Canada, yet have been severely under-recognized and under-represented. Native artists work in diverse media, some of which are considered art (sculpture, painting, photography), while others have been considered craft (works on cloth, basketry, ceramics).Some artists feel strongly about working from a position as a Native artist, while others prefer to produce art not connected to a particular cultural tradition.