This practical book provides the detailed methodology and expert guidance required for measuring and manipulating cytosolic ion concentrations. In addition, the strengths, weaknesses, and pitfalls of various techniques are presented. It is an invaluable source for those needing an objective evaluation of current methodologies and for those contemplating setting up such procedures.
Key Features
* A one-source reference for measuring and manipulating intracellular ions and for comparing and evaluating current methodologies
* Includes overviews of
* Optical probes and reagents
* Fabrication and use of ion-selective microelectrodes
* Use of NMR spectroscopy
* Ionophores

This volume, the third in a series of catalogues of Pre-Columbian art at Dumbarton Oaks, presents the outstanding collection of Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, and Classic Veracruz sculpture, jewelry, and painting. Four leading scholars present essays on the ancient art and archaeology of Mexico's Central Highlands, Southwestern Highlands, and Gulf Lowlands as well as extensive catalogue entries of over one hundred objects of jade, shell, fine ceramics, wood, and other materials. The catalogue is richly illustrated with color plates, comparative illustrations, and diagrams presented as black-and-white figures. This catalogue will be an important and enduring reference for scholars and students, as well as an attractive volume for admirers of Pre-Columbian art.

Unpacking Queer Politics argues that the strong lesbian feminist movement of the 1970s, which was able to articulate a philosophy and practice that distinguished lesbian politics from gay male politics, was submerged in the 1990s beneath a gay male agenda called queer politics.

The new politics repudiated lesbian feminist ideas and celebrated 'manhood' as a goal for gay men. Practices which construct this 'manhood', such as sadomasochism, cutting and piercing, female-to-male transsexual surgery, and which are promoted in queer politics, need to be understood as forms of self-harm which result from the oppression of lesbians and gay men. The political agenda of queer politics is damaging to the interests of lesbians, women in general, and to marginalized and vulnerable constituencies of gay men.

The book concludes by arguing that precisely the commitment to equality in relationships and sex that has been so important to lesbian feminists, and so excoriated in much of queer theory, should form the basis of a social transformation. In this way lesbians should be seen as the vanguard of social change.

Growing interest in the ideas of the German legal and political theorist Carl Schmitt have sparked an interest in the thinkers and ideas that influenced him. Chief among those influences stands the 19th-century Spanish and conservative thinker Juan Donoso Cortes (1809-1853). Donoso stands in a unique place in the ideological trajectory of conservative, counter-revolutionary thought that started with the reaction of Joseph de Maistre and Louis de Bonald against the French Revolution and culminated in the rise of fascism in the early twentieth century. As the philosophical successor of de Maistre, Donoso kept de Maistre's ideas on authority and infallibility alive in the midst of the ideological and political controversies and the revolutionary tumult of Europe in the mid-19th century. Donoso's theories on infallibility played a crucial role in the definition of papal infallibility during the First Vatican Council in 1870. His theory on dictatorship changed the focus of continental conservative thought away from emphasizing the restoration of a hierarchically ordered civilization through the restoration of the monarchical ancient regime to the establishment of order and hierarchy by any necessary and effective means. This theory and his critique of parliamentarianism were especially reflected in the Franco regime in Spain and in the political and legal theories of Carl Schmitt.

All the speeches and writings of Cortes that influenced Schmitt are contained in this volume. These major theoretical works appear in English for the first time. Only the Speech on Dictatorship has appeared in English to date. Johnson's Introduction provides extensive commentary on the works and theories developed in them by showing the historical and philosophical context from which they emerged and by pointing out their significance in the development of the counter-revolutionary ideological trajectory leading from de Maistre to fascism. Until now, Donoso has been studied by a small group of mostly conservative and Catholic scholars. This translation makes his ideas more readily available for study by students and scholars of political theory.

The wide expanse of Dickens' novel on the riches and hardships of the Industrial Revolution is triumphantly brought to life in his skillful adaptation of Hard Times for a cast of four. The nineteen or so main speaking parts are portrayed by two actors and two actresses, each of whom also takes a share of the passages of direct narration; the various interior and exterior settings can be simply but effectively suggested with a minimum of props and furniture.2 women, 2 men