A New Reading of an Old Text in Eastern Europe: John Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle
Abstract Although rich in artistry and depth, Steinbeck’s novel In Dubious Battle (1936) has been judged less as a novel and more as a sociological event or a propagandistic political tract. At least contemporary critics are inclined to treat the book as a legitimate work of art, to be approached from a variety of the usual aesthetic and theoretical angles. However, no matter which lens In Dubious Battle is viewed through, it is certainly a mistake to attribute the novel’s enduring appeal and value to its depiction of a migrant apple pickers’ strike typical of the 1930s. In its concern with the human dilemmas regarding the nature of power, personal freedom, and degree of responsibility and commitment, it is as powerful today as it was when it was written.
The Aesthetic Dimension of American-Romanian Comparative Literary Studies
This essay is part of a larger project on the relevance of the aesthetic model for modern and contemporary Eastern Europe compared with its place in Western European and North American cultures. The first part briefly surveys recent positions on the topic that are symptomatic of the aesthetic debate in all these areas of the world. For the East European perspective I consider the Romanian philosophers Gabriel Liiceanu and Constantin Noica, whose struggle to preserve high standards of education and culture in the 1980s made them symbolic figures of Romanian anticommunist "resistance through the aesthetic." To update this perspective, I later supplement Liiceanu's and Noica's outlook with that of younger critics who after the anticommunist revolution of 1989 placed the concept under serious scrutiny. Their move from an aesthetic-oriented criticism to a more politically committed one is part of the revision of the contemporary Romanian literary canon, and interestingly it parallels what has happened in American criticism over the last decade. To capture this uncanny resemblance I discuss Harold Bloom's, George Levine's, and J. Hillis Miller's positions, which focus on the implications of the decline of the aesthetic model in contemporary American criticism. Their "reclaiming of the aesthetic," combined with Liiceanu's and Noica's position, makes a compelling case about the virtues and weaknesses of this model since it appeared in the eighteenth century. Part two ofmy essay focuses on yet another group involved with the theoretical meanderings of the aesthetic. Matei Calinescu, Virgil Nemoianu, and Mihai Spariosu are three Romanian-American comparatists who have studied the relevance of the aesthetic model both in Romania and then in the United States during the 1980s. Consequently, they have had a unique opportunity to compare the advantages and the shortcomings of the formalist readings and Utopian potentialities associated with the aesthetic model at a moment when it was in full swing in both places. My analysis focuses ultimately on the precise ways that Calinescu, Nemoianu, and Spariosu manage to bridge the gap between the Utopian East European aesthetic model of social improvement and the text-oriented analysis dominant in the U.S. By closely investigating the former's blind spots, their approaches explore the intrinsic connections between literary texts and society with a newly devised set of concepts such as liminality, the principle of the secondary, and the creative potential of fictional worlds. All these ideas ultimately amount to strategies
Cross talk between redox signalling and metabolic activity of osteoblasts and fibroblasts in the presence of hydroxyapatite-based biomaterials influences bone regeneration
Regeneration of bone tissue defects that result from metabolic disorders, including periodontal diseases, can be supported by biomaterials based on hydroxyapatite. Despite of good biocompatibility of biomaterials they can cause oxidative stress and inflammatory processes as a result of mechanical interaction with surrounding tissues. Because osteoblasts are responsible for bone regeneration process in which gingival fibroblasts may also participate, the aim of the work was to investigate the influence of hydroxyapatite-based biomaterials (allogeneic and xenogeneic) and biomaterials combined with enamel matrix derivative (Emdogain) on osteoblast and fibroblast redox balance in the context of osteoblast proliferation and differentiation.
The results showed that examined substitutes were not cytotoxic in vitro, but affected redox balance of osteoblasts and fibroblasts (ROS level increase and GSH level decrease) which led to oxidative stress (MDA and protein carbonyl groups level increase) resulting in an increase of the Nrf2 and NFκB expression. The consequence of these changes was partial inhibition of proliferation and osteoblast differentiation. Emdogain alone and combined with biomaterials decreased ROS generation and increased GSH level in both osteoblasts and fibroblasts leading to reduction of transcription factors expression especially proinflammatory NFκB, which promoted osteoblast differentiation and mineralization process.