Jāmī's Salāmān va Absāl: Political Statements and Mystical Advice Addressed to the Āq Qoyūnlū Court of Sultān Ya‘qūb (d. 896/1490)

This article explores Salāmān va Absāl, one of seven poems which comprise Jāmī's collection of long masnavīs, known collectively as the Haft aurang. The work, which gained some renown outside Iran due to the English version of Edward FitzGerald, has nevertheless received little attention in modern scholarship. The few investigations of Salāmān va Absāl, moreover, have dwelled on its narrative, which tells the story of the carnal attraction of a prince for his wet-nurse, and never situated the work in its historical context or examined its political content. In addition, the allegorical symbolism of the tale, especially its depiction of key stages of the Sufi path, such as the act of repentance, has not been discussed in terms of representing a work of mystical advice. With these concerns in mind, the present article discusses the possibility that the political elements in Salāmān va Absāl complement the advice it gives on becoming a Sufi. Seen from this perspective, it would appear that Salāmān va Absāl correlates the notion of the just ruler to the Sufi concept of the “Perfect Man” to the extent that Jāmī presents the Sufi-king as the ideal medieval Islamic ruler. By implication, the work advises its royal patron, Sultān Ya‘qūb, to repent and embark upon the Sufi path, doing so, Jāmī intimates, would lead Ya‘qūb to realize his rank as God's “true” vicegerent.     

The political economy of socialism: A Marxist social theory

Talmon's treatment of nationalism varies in his different writings. This study will try to characterize his views as expressed in his final work, The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution. Through most of the book Talmon's preference for dealing with the vision of revolution, its prophets and bearers is very conspicuous. Their total devotion to restructuring and refashioning the whole world in accordance with the socialist ideology fascinated Talmon before it provoked him into analyzing it to death. Nationalism, on the other hand, appears at best as a natural feeling of loyalty and at worst as a hateful, aggressive, and racist obsession. One of his outstanding interests in that book is in the internal debate among socialists about nationalism as a value and as a strategy, and in the tremendous prominence of Jews in this process. It is only towards the end of the book that Talmon presents his main thesis, the confrontation between the two totalitarian ideologies, Bolshevism and Fascism as deriving from socialism and nationalism, and embodying two kinds of determinism, economic and biological. Nationalism appears as an irrational phantasy, which had developed throughout the nineteenth century to its pivotal culmination in Nazism. This highly problematic thesis, though brilliantly expressed by captivating metaphors, should I think be explained and revised.     

The Struggle to Breathe: Living at Life Expectancy with Cystic Fibrosis

The first sizeable cohort of people living with cystic fibrosis(CF) has now reached adulthood. Gradual improvements in thediagnosis and treatment of the disease have increased life expectancyto approximately 32 years. Members of this cohort have livedall their lives near, at, or slightly beyond life expectancy.The authors tell the story of Lori Morris-Hughes, a 36-yearold who balances the demands of work and family life with life-longterminal illness. Whereas many accounts of medical advancementwrite the lived experiences of the ill out of history, Morris-Hughes'sillness narrative provides an account of the ways in which thetemporal and social conditions of existence are problematicfor those who live during times of increased life expectancy.Oral history is a particularly appropriate method of researchin the field of illness narrative.     

Tuberculosis among Iron Age individuals from Tyva,South Siberia: palaeopathological and biomolecular findings

The study focuses on the evidence for tuberculosis apparent in an Iron Age population recovered from the cemetery of Aymyrlyg, Tyva (Tuva), South Siberia. A recent wholly molecular study of five of the cases confirmed the presence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) complex DNA in four of the individuals. In all cases the disease was caused by strains of Mycobacterium bovis rather than Mycobacterium tuberculosis and represents the first positive identification of the bovine form of the disease in archaeological human remains. Details of the palaeopathological characteristics of the cases are provided in the current paper, while the molecular observations are extended to include a quantitative evaluation of the surviving mycobacterial DNA using real-time PCR. The observation that bovine tuberculosis was the pathogen responsible is discussed in terms of current understanding of the evolution of the MTB complex as well as the implications for future ancient DNA studies in this area.     

The politics of rebirth in Colm Tóibín's ‘Three Friends’ and ‘A Long Winter’

This paper explores the compatibility of Catholic and homosexual identities. Because the language of Catholicism is so deeply entrenched in the popular imagination, I aim to show that not only does it provide a vocabulary for oppression but also for change. For the contemporary Irish novelist, the latter means conferring new meaning onto formerly oppressive language. In ‘Three Friends’ and ‘A Long Winter’, two short stories from Tóibín's Mothers and Sons (2007), the protagonists undergo a ‘baptism’ that signals their emergence into a new world, one tolerant of homosexual desire. Fergus, in the ocean, and Miquel, in the bathtub, experience moments at once erotic and cleansing. I outline their participation in the traditional world – the time before their bathing rites – in contradistinction to a re-imagined, modern, ‘queer’ world. I argue that Tóibín appropriates a Catholic, and therefore heteronormative, rite in a way that includes homosexuals. Thus, he reworks an oppressive framework in order to allow for the formerly excluded to participate and celebrate their non-heteronormativity, or queerness.