This article introduces a symposium on teaching qualitative research methods to undergraduate students. Qualitative methods have an important role in both the discipline and the professional development of students but do not occupy a commensurate space in research pedagogy. This is due in part to the lack of resources for effectively teaching qualitative methods—a lack this symposium seeks to address. We identify four common themes in the four symposium contributions: (1) the importance of including the ethical and epistemological foundations of qualitative work; (2) the possibilities of teaching qualitative methods across the entire research cycle; (3) the importance of carefully structuring and designing active and experiential learning in research pedagogy; and (4) the unique opportunities of moving beyond the classroom in teaching qualitative research.

Drawing on the framework of intermediality, this article investigates Martin McDonagh’s decision to embed Robert Flaherty’s documentary Man of Aran within The Cripple of Inishmaan. Such an intertextual layering produces a dialogic encounter between theatre and cinema that dismantles Flaherty’s idealized vision of a harsh, primitive island existence in 1930s Ireland, substituting instead a sardonic, anti-romantic critique. McDonagh highlights the fractured familial relations, the peculiarities of the island community, and the absence of any natural harmony to construct a counter-perspective. This dramaturgical device of the ‘film-within-a-play’ operates ‘ekphrastically’, allowing the inserted text to breach the dramatic frame and open onto a liminal space – at once intermediary and unstable – between reality and representation. The article argues that this intermedial practice prompts spectators to interrogate both cinematic myth-making and theatrical narration, generating a hybrid aesthetic zone where stage and screen unsettle traditional dramatic forms and broaden the field of interpretation.

This article explores the historical antecedents and later developments of the ‘quick-change’ or so-called ‘protean’ performance genres enacted on the British stage by male and female artists of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Foundational in intent and chronological in approach, it foregrounds previously unknown or neglected performers, especially (though not exclusively) from Britain, whose respective contributions to these genres have seldom been recognized. Overall, the research highlights the rich complexity of these marginalized yet sophisticated performance practices that have been critically ignored within theatre historiography but which are still alive today.

Epistemological positioning is foundational to any analysis, yet pluralist epistemologies are taught unevenly in political science methods courses. This article draws attention to this crucial foundation and suggests that a basic grounding in positivist and interpretivist research paradigms would give students conceptual tools to adjudicate between competing claims and contradictory evidence in the empirical world—even as it would highlight comparative advantages of different approaches to knowledge production. Using an optical illusion as a heuristic guide, the article proposes a practical classroom exercise to illustrate the central differences between positivist and interpretivist approaches to political science and to elucidate how these differences play out in research design and inquiry.

While Kantian readers consider Hegel’s discussion of the significance of Kant’s account of apperception as the key to understanding what he means by the concept of the concept, the so-called metaphysical readers have warned against identifying these accounts too swiftly, urging instead that the concept is an onto-logical structure which needs to be conceived through the genuinely Hegelian notion of absolute negativity. In this paper, I reject the problematic underlying assumption shared by both interpretative strands that Hegel’s notion of self-negation sits uncomfortably with conceiving Hegel’s concept of the concept in terms of the unity of apperception. Contrary to both one-sided readings, I seek to preserve their insights by arguing first that Hegel’s conception of the concept, or thinking only thinking itself, and its absolute negativity, can be understood as the radicalization of Kant’s account of apperception, or self-relation of thinking, and its original emptiness. Second, I will show that the absolute negation provides the conceptual resources to understand how pure thinking can determine itself and thus give itself concrete conceptual content.

Festive culture is often analysed as a manifestation of spontaneity, creativity, popular culture, and humour, as well as an opportunity to express territorial identity. However, these rituals and their artistic expressions can also manifest hateful and contemptuous discourses toward national and cultural minorities, as observed in some European carnival celebrations. In the case of Valencia, from the Francoist dictatorship onwards, the festive culture was controlled by a political and social elite right and extreme right group, which instrumentalised the celebration as a political tool. Thus, these phenomena can be observed with the proliferation of hate speech against social and political minorities as Catalan and Valencian nationalists, depicting them as animals, traitors and enemies of Valencian and Spanish identity and exposing them in public space to shame them. This phenomenon was radicalised at the end of 2015 with the mobilisation of the Spanish right and far right to counter the left and nationalist government of the city, despite the Fallas’ adherence to UNESCO principles to promote understanding and dialogue between cultures and nationalities.

Figs (Ficus spp.) are widely considered keystone resources in tropical ecosystems, yet mechanisms underlying their importance to primates are rarely assessed. We tested five hypotheses explaining the importance of figs for mantled howlers (Alouatta palliata) using a 10-year phenological dataset from southeastern Mexico. We monitored 57 trees representing figs and five other dietary species weekly from 2012 to 2021. The asynchrony hypothesis predicted lower intraspecific synchrony in figs, but we found no differences between figs and other species. The keystone hypothesis was strongly supported: this genus reduced weeks below critical thresholds by 59.5%, rescuing the community from scarcity in 72 weeks (14.7% of monitoring). During these events, figs contributed 20% of resources despite representing one-sixth of monitored taxa. The bet-hedging hypothesis predicted lower interannual variance in fig fruiting, but figs showed significantly higher variance than most species. The complementarity hypothesis predicted negative correlations between fig and non-fig phenology, yet we found positive correlations. The multiple cropping hypothesis predicted more fruiting cycles in figs than other species, but frequencies were equivalent (2.16 vs 2.13 cycles/year). Figs function as a keystone resource for mantled howlers not through unique phenological patterns but through reliable provisioning during critical scarcity periods, preventing resource bottlenecks that could otherwise limit the persistence of howler populations.

Schur functions are a basis of the symmetric function ring that represent Schubert cohomology classes for Grassmannians. Replacing the cohomology ring with K-theory yields a rich combinatorial theory of inhomogeneous deformations, where Schur functions are replaced by their K-analogs, the symmetric Grothendieck functions. We initiate a theory of the Kromatic symmetric function $\overline {X}_G$, a K-theoretic analog of the chromatic symmetric function $X_G$ of a graph G. The Kromatic symmetric function is a generating series for graph colorings in which vertices receive any nonempty set of colors such that neighboring color sets are disjoint. Our main result lifts a theorem of Gasharov (1996), showing that when G is a claw-free incomparability graph, $\overline {X}_G$ is a positive sum of symmetric Grothendieck functions. This suggests a topological interpretation of Gasharov’s theorem. Kromatic symmetric functions of path graphs are not positive in any of several K-analogs of the e-basis, demonstrating that the Stanley–Stembridge conjecture (1993) does not have such a lift to K-theory and so is unlikely to be amenable to a topological perspective. We define a vertex-weighted extension of $\overline {X}_G$ which admits a deletion–contraction relation. Finally, we give a K-analog for $\overline {X}_G$ of the monomial-basis expansion of $X_G$.

Dysregulation of fatty acids metabolism has been associated with the risk of osteoarthritis (OA), yet current evidence from epidemiological or genetic studies remains inconclusive. We aimed to investigate the phenotypic association and genetic architecture between total fatty acids, saturated fatty acids (SFA), MUFA, PUFA and OA. Leveraging individual-level data from the UK Biobank, combined with the hitherto largest genome-wide association studies of fatty acids (n 136 016) and OA (n 826 690) in European individuals, we implemented a comprehensive analytical framework. This included observational and genetic analyses, incorporating phenotypic associations, genetic correlations, cross-trait meta-analysis, enrichment analysis and Mendelian randomisation (MR). Observational analysis identified SFA as a risk factor, while MUFA and PUFA as protective factors for OA. Despite a lack of genome-wide genetic correlation, statistically significant local signals were detected within three specific genomic regions. Cross-trait meta-analysis identified sixty-eight pleiotropic loci shared between fatty acids and OA, of which nine were novel. Enrichment analysis revealed the shared genes were enriched in lipoprotein metabolism, immune response and inflammation regulation pathways. Two-sample MR provided evidence for a causal relationship of MUFA and PUFA on OA that survived false discovery rate correction. This study supports associations between circulating fatty acids and OA, with MUFA and PUFA exerting a protective role. Our findings provide new perspectives into OA prevention especially regarding the potential dietary interventions.

Dr. C. Norman Coleman initiated the establishment of a working group within the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to explore ways in which federal planning and guidance could better foster effective and efficient nuclear detonation response, with initial attention to cytokine use in the public health and medical response. Dr. Coleman recognized the difference between planning guidance (what to do) and a strategy (how to do it). He developed actionable strategies to improve our nation’s nuclear preparedness, including scarce resources triage protocols,1 cytokine and evacuation priorities,2 and the Exposure And Symptom Triage (EAST) tool.3 Despite his absence and in his spirit, this working group, nicknamed “The Solutions Lab,” is continuing the work on actionable strategies for nuclear preparedness.