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Since 2000 there has been a boom in playwriting in the German-speaking world. This is shaped by a creative tension between two forms of theatre-texts. On the one hand the postdramatic text that exists in a theatre marked by a parataxis of all theatrical elements, as outlined by Hans-Thies Lehmann and Gerda Poschmann; on the other, the ‘dramatic drama’ as identified by Birgit Haas that engages with dramatic representation whilst still questioning the reality being represented on the stage. In this contribution I explore these strands of contemporary playwriting in two texts written since 2000: Lukas Bärfuss’ Die sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern (2003) and Katja Brunner’s von den beinen zu kurz (2012). My analysis examines how both playwrights question dramatic conventions of form and character and the implications this has for audience efforts to discern meaning in the plays.

This essay focuses primarily on Fury (2014) and to a lesser extent on Saving Private Ryan (1998), two popular war films. I suggest cognitive mechanisms that make the actions of main characters biologically plausible and intelligible. The principal ones have to do with social status and especially prestige, which is based on certain kinds of competence, especially in heroic leaders. Prestige is understood to be co-created by leaders and followers together. Heroism is understood to be depicted in these films as effective leadership in extreme circumstances so as to solve collective action problems. Heroic qualities are signaled (honestly) by means of wounds and scars. These signals are received and understood (both in the films and in their viewers) by means of social learning and social comparison judgments that track prestige. Group cohesion is also explored, especially in Fury, in terms of shared emotions, mimicry, rituals, and commitment to a common task. Hatred of morally defined out-groups is also seen at work. I conclude that these films posit warfare as one of a small number of “biologically possible arrangements” that accomplish a rare concatenation of fitness promoting goals. Some consideration is also given to what makes consilience between empirical science and cinematic imagination possible.

Indifference has its roots in fetal and neonatal aversive experience, which is based in the brainstem and limbic systems. The striatum, in particular, is a primary substrate for both reward and aversion and their associated behaviors. Aversion belongs also to the earliest form of parent-child interactions, accounts of which often wrongly privilege interpersonal synchrony and its affiliative power. What empirical investigations have uncovered, however, is a pattern more dominated by disconnection and asynchrony. What matters more to development is the capacity for child and caretaker jointly to detect and repair ruptures in their social bond. One of the most powerful regulatory behaviors open to the child in these contexts is gaze aversion. Out of early cycles of rupture and repair goes the emergence of reconciliation, which turns into forgiveness at an early age. I explore some of the ethology of reconciliation, which is found widely in the animal world. Forgiveness is explored in terms of its affective, cognitive, and motivational dimensions, as also is the disengagement of infant from caretaker. Indifference also has these dimensions and constitutes a form of psychological distancing. Here Harry Frankfurts analysis of care is brought to bear. I specify the adaptive value of both forgiveness and indifference and finally argue that overlooking indifference as an alternative to both forgiveness and revenge risks substantial damage to human flourishing.

In the present study, we have taken the novel approach of using an in vitro model representative of tamoxifen-withdrawal subsequent to clinical relapse to achieve a greater understanding of the mechanisms that serve to maintain the resistant-cell phenotype, independent of any agonistic impact of tamoxifen, to identify potential novel therapeutic approaches for this disease state. Following tamoxifen withdrawal, tamoxifen-resistant MCF-7 cells conserved both drug resistance and an increased basal rate of proliferation in an oestrogen deprived environment, despite reduced epidermal growth-factor receptor expression and reduced sensitivity to gefitinib challenge. Although tamoxifen-withdrawn cells retained ER expression, a sub-set of ER-responsive genes, including pS2 and progesterone receptor (PgR), were down-regulated by promoter DNA methylation, as confirmed by clonal bisulphite sequencing experiments. Following promoter demethylation with 5-Azacytidine (5-Aza), the co-addition of oestradiol (E2) restored gene expression in these cells. In addition, 5-Aza/E2 co-treatment induced a significant anti-proliferative effect in the tamoxifen-withdrawn cells, in-contrast to either agent used alone. Microarray analysis was undertaken to identify genes specifically up regulated by this co-treatment. Several anti-proliferative gene candidates were identified and their promoters were confirmed as more heavily methylated in the tamoxifen resistant vs sensitive cells. One such gene candidate, growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15), was carried forward for functional analysis. The addition of 5-Aza/E2 was sufficient to de-methylate and activate GDF15 expression in the tamoxifen resistant cell-lines, whilst in parallel, treatment with recombinant GDF15 protein decreased cell survival. These data provide evidence to support a novel concept that long-term tamoxifen exposure induces epigenetic silencing of a cohort of oestrogen-responsive genes whose function is associated with negative proliferation control. Furthermore, reactivation of such genes using epigenetic drugs could provide a potential therapeutic avenue for the management of tamoxifen-resistant breast cancer.

The phenomenology of shame, as well as its adaptive character, is explored from a modern biological point of view. Against this backdrop, an analysis of shamelessness is outlined. Jane Austen’s interest in shamelessness is one instance of her general concern with psychological issues, and pervades her mature novels. Here the focus is on her early exploration in the short epistolary novella Lady Susan. Lady Susan Vernon turns out to be a paradigmatic case of a Machiavellian personality and thus provides an explanatory matrix for shamelessness. Austen also occasions exploration of societal inability to cope well with such personalities. An informational view of culture is provided to help explain the convergence of Austen’s analysis with contemporary empirical psychology.

Recent science fiction films portray autonomous social robots as able to fulfill parental roles with human offspring and thus display a form of \"alloparenting.\" Alloparenting is widespread in the animal world, and involves care of the young by individuals not themselves their biological parents. Such parenting by proxy affords substantial fitness benefits to the young and also to those who alloparent them, and is almost certainly an adaptive form of behavior. Review of developments in current robotic technology suggest very strongly that actual robots may well be capable of alloparenting in the near future. The paper goes on to suggest a view of human culture (as information) and its evolution that can explain how fictional treatments of robots and scientific robotics might converge on such a hypothesis. Robotic alloparenting, finally, is presented as an extension of basic human capacities for cooperative and intelligent tool use, albeit by means of a non-biological platform.

Since founding his production company The International Institute of Political Murder in 2007, Swiss-born director Milo Rau has produced critically acclaimed and award-winning theater. Rau’s dramaturgy centers on the effort to engage with the real, to uncover the hidden patterns and processes that underpin contemporary reality, and in turn to open these up to future engagement. In Die Zürcher Prozesse (2013), Rau facilitated a trial in which the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche was charged with infringing the Swiss constitution. In this analysis, I consider what implications the theatrical framework has in an event that purports to “put reality on trial”. Drawing on theories of citation proposed by John Langshaw Austin and Jacques Derrida, I examine the role of performativity in the production to demonstrate how the theatrical frame creates a rich citational interplay that destabilizes the relationship between the production and reality. In turn, this raises questions about the nature of contemporary life – an issue that lies at the heart of Rau’s dramaturgical practices.

Since moving to Switzerland from Germany in 2006, Angelika Overath has increasingly engaged with the minority language Romansh in her writing. In her bilingual Romansh-German poetry collections, Overath employs processes of self-translation to negotiate a multilingual linguistic identity in literature. In this article I demonstrate how Overath's poetry can be understood in terms of a translation of the self through an exploration of linguistic and literary creativity. In doing so I demonstrate how Overath simultaneously subverts linguistic expectations and power structures through her engagement with Romansh and the production of bilingual poetry.

Since moving to Switzerland from Germany in 2006, Angelika Overath has increasingly engaged with the minority language Romansh in her writing. In her bilingual Romansh-German poetry collections, Overath employs processes of self-translation to negotiate a multilingual linguistic identity in literature. In this article I demonstrate how Overath's poetry can be understood in terms of a translation of the self through an exploration of linguistic and literary creativity. In doing so I demonstrate how Overath simultaneously subverts linguistic expectations and power structures through her engagement with Romansh and the production of bilingual poetry.