Katharina Schramm

Bio: Katharina Schramm is an academic researcher from University of Bayreuth. The author has contributed to research in topics: Diaspora & Identity (social science). The author has an hindex of 16, co-authored 48 publications receiving 834 citations. Previous affiliations of Katharina Schramm include Free University of Berlin & Max Planck Society.

Technologies of Belonging : the Absent Presence of Race in Europe

Abstract: In many European countries, the explicit discussion of race as a biological phenomenon has long been avoided. This has not meant that race has become obsolete or irrelevant all together. Rather, it is a slippery object that keeps shifting and changing. To understand its slippery nature, we suggest that race in Europe is best viewed as an absent presence, something that oscillates between reality and nonreality, which appears on the surface and then hides underground. In this special issue, we explore how race has been configured in different practices and how race-based identities and technologies are entwined in various European settings.

Topologies of Race: Doing territory, population and identity in Europe

Abstract: Territorial borders just like other boundaries are involved in a politics of belonging, a politics of "us" and "them" Border management regimes are thus part of processes of othering In this article, we use the management of borders and populations in Europe as an empirical example to make a theoretical claim about race We introduce the notion of the phenotypic other to argue that race is a topological object, an object that is spatially and temporally folded in distributed technologies of governance To elaborate on these notions, we first examine a number of border management technologies through which both race and Europe are brought into being More specifically we focus on how various such technologies aimed at monitoring the movement of individuals together with the management of populations have come to play crucial roles in Europe Different border management regimes, we argue, do not only enact different versions of Europe but also different phenotypic others We then shift the focus from border regimes to internal practices of governance, examining forensic DNA databanks to unravel articulations of race in the traffic between databases and societies

How Glucosinolates Affect Generalist Lepidopteran Larvae: Growth, Development and Glucosinolate Metabolism.

Abstract: Multiple lepidopteran larvae feed successfully on plants containing glucosinolates despite the diverse array of toxic and deterrent breakdown products, such as isothiocyanates (ITCs), formed upon plant damage. While much is known about how specialist lepidopterans metabolize and tolerate glucosinolates, there is little information about the metabolic fate of these plant defense compounds in specialized herbivores. Employing 13C- and 14C-labeled 4-methylsulfinylbutyl glucosinolate (glucoraphanin), we identified and quantified the major detoxification products of glucosinolates and ITCs in selected specialized and generalist larvae. While specialists prevented glucosinolate hydrolysis or diverted hydrolysis to form nitriles, hydrolysis in generalists proceeded to toxic ITCs, of which a portion were conjugated to glutathione. However, a large amount of ITCs remained unmodified, which may have led to the observed negative effects on growth and development. The performance of two generalist-feeding caterpillars, Spodoptera littoralis (African cotton leafworm) and Mamestra brassicae (cabbage moth) on Arabidopsis thaliana Col-0 and various glucosinolate-deficient mutants was investigated from hatching until pupation. We found that glucosinolates negatively affected larval growth and development, but not survival, with aliphatic glucosinolates having stronger effects than indolic glucosinolates, and the combination of the two glucosinolate types being even more detrimental to growth and development. Curiously, last instar larvae grew better on wild type than on non-glucosinolate-containing plant lines, but this could not be attributed to a change in detoxification rate or feeding behavior. Glucosinolates thus appear to be effective defenses against generalist lepidopteran herbivores at least during most stages of larval development. Nevertheless, the reversal of negative effects in the oldest instar is intriguing, and further investigation of this phenomenon may shed light on how generalists adjust their physiology to feed on diets with many different types of plant defense compounds.

The role of glucosinolates and the jasmonic acid pathway in resistance of Arabidopsis thaliana against molluscan herbivores

Abstract: Although slugs and snails play important roles in terrestrial ecosystems and cause considerable damage on a variety of crop plants, knowledge about the mechanisms of plant immunity to molluscs is limited. We found slugs to be natural herbivores of Arabidopsis thaliana and therefore investigated possible resistance mechanisms of this species against several molluscan herbivores. Treating wounded leaves with the mucus residue ('slime trail') of the Spanish slug Arion lusitanicus increased wound-induced jasmonate levels, suggesting the presence of defence elicitors in the mucus. Plants deficient in jasmonate biosynthesis and signalling suffered more damage by molluscan herbivores in the laboratory and in the field, demonstrating that JA-mediated defences protect A. thaliana against slugs and snails. Furthermore, experiments using A. thaliana mutants with altered levels of specific glucosinolate classes revealed the importance of aliphatic glucosinolates in defending leaves and reproductive structures against molluscs. The presence in mollusc faeces of known and novel metabolites arising from glutathione conjugation with glucosinolate hydrolysis products suggests that molluscan herbivores actively detoxify glucosinolates. Higher levels of aliphatic glucosinolates were found in plants during the night compared to the day, which correlated well with the nocturnal activity rhythms of slugs and snails. Our data highlight the function of well-known antiherbivore defence pathways in resistance against slugs and snails and suggest an important role for the diurnal regulation of defence metabolites against nocturnal molluscan herbivores.

Remembering violence: anthropological perspectives on intergenerational transmission

Abstract: Acknowledgements Chapter 1. Introduction: Remembering Violence Nicolas Argenti and Katharina Schramm Bodies of Memory Chapter 2. Rape and Remembrance in Guadeloupe Janine Klungel Chapter 3. Uncanny Memories, Violence and Indigenous Medicine in Southern Chile Dorthe Kristensen Performance Chapter 4. Memories of Initiation Violence: Remembered Pain and Religious Transmission among the Bulongic (Guinea, Conakry) David Berliner Chapter 5. Nationalizing Personal Trauma, Personalizing National Redemption: Performing Testimony at Auschwitz-Birkenau Jackie Feldman Landscapes, Memoryscapes and the Materiality of Objects Chapter 6. Memories of Slavery: Narrating History in Ritual Adelheid Pichler Chapter 7. In a Ruined Country: Place and the Memory of War Destruction in Argonne (France) Paola Filippucci Generations: Chasms and Bridges Chapter 8. Silent Legacies of Trauma: A Comparative Study of Cambodian Canadian and Israeli Holocaust Trauma Descendant Memory Work Carol Kidron Chapter 9. The Transmission of Traumatic Loss: A Case Study in Taiwan Stephan Feuchtwang Chapter 10. Afterword Rosalind Shaw

The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy and the Order of Knowledge

Abstract: What is the meaning of Africa and of being African? What is and what is not African philosophy? Is philosophy part of Africanism ? These are the kind of fundamental questions which this book addresses. North America: Indiana U Press

Postmodern Subjects, Postmodern BodiesThinking Fragments: Psychoanalysis, Feminism, and Postmodernism in the Contemporary WestYearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural PoliticsGender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Abstract: Preface (1999) Preface (1990) 1. Subjects of Sex/Gender/Desire I. 'Women' as the Subject of Feminism II. The Compulsory Order of Sex/Gender/Desire III. Gender: The Circular Ruins of Contemporary Debate IV. Theorizing the Binary, the Unitary and Beyond V. Identity, Sex and the Metaphysics of Substance VI. Language, Power and the Strategies of Displacement 2. Prohibition, Psychoanalysis, and the Production of the Heterosexual Matrix I. Structuralism's Critical Exchange II. Lacan, Riviere, and the Strategies of Masquerade III. Freud and the Melancholia of Gender IV. Gender Complexity and the Limits of Identification V. Reformulating Prohibition as Power 3. Subversive Bodily Acts I. The Body Politics of Julia Kristeva II. Foucault, Herculine, and the Politics of Sexual Discontinuity III. Monique Wittig - Bodily Disintegration and Fictive Sex IV. Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions Conclusion - From Parody to Politics