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Joseph Conrad's 'Karain: A Memory' (1897) is not often cited as a landmark of literary modernism. Conrad's Malay story appeared during the year in which The Nigger of the 'Narcissus' announced his arrival as an author with modernist ambitions. It also belongs to the same Blackwood's period of his early career that produced arguably his most celebrated work, 'Heart of Darkness'. Whereas these stories consensually exemplify Conrad's modernism, 'Karain' tends to be construed as an early working-through of the contemporary popular influences that shaped his literary output. Yet, in a significant sense, it also dramatizes the colonial encounter that defined some of the conceptual contours of modernism. This essay explores the story's composition, early transmission and reception, its self-conscious engagement with its popular cultural lineage, and Conrad's parallel emergence as a writer of 'challenging' fiction. Its aim is not merely to recuperate 'Karain' as a work of early modernism, nor simply to re-evaluate Conrad's story as a rehearsal, in terms of its interrogative relationship with imperialism, for some of his more overtly anti-colonialist fiction. Rather, its wider focus is on how Conrad's story reflects upon the nature of empire and modernism as mutually sustaining enterprises, and, counter to the view of other modernist authors such as T. S. Eliot, how colonial fiction and modernist writing are not antithetical but rather interrelated literary practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backgound: Species of the Leishmania Viannia (L. V.) subgenus harbor the double-stranded Leishmania RNA virus 1 (LRV-1), previously identified in isolates from Brazil and Peru. Higher levels of LRV-1 in metastasizing strains of L. V. guyanensis have been documented in both human and murine models, and correlated to disease severity.Methods: Expression of proinflammatory biomarkers, including interleukin (IL) 1β, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), CXCL10, CCL5, IL-6, and superoxide dismutase, in human macrophages infected with 3 ATCC and 5 clinical isolates of L. V. braziliensis, L. V. guyanensis, and L. V. panamensis for 24 and 48 hours were measured by commercial enzyme immunoassay. Analyses were performed at 24 and 48 hours, stratified by LRV-1 status and species.Results: LRV-1-positive L. V. braziliensis demonstrated significantly lower expression levels of TNF-α (P = .01), IL-1β (P = .0015), IL-6 (P = .001), and CXCL10 (P = .0004) compared with LRV-1-negative L. V. braziliensis. No differences were observed in strains of L. V. panamensis by LRV-1 status.Conclusions: Compared to LRV-1-negative L. V. braziliensis, LRV-1-positive strains of L. V. braziliensis produced a predominant Th2-biased immune response, correlated in humans to poorer immunologic control of infection and more severe disease, including mucosal leishmaniasis. Effects of LRV-1 on the pathogenesis of American tegumentary leishmaniasis may be species specific. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Amoebic keratitis is a potentially blinding eye infection caused by ubiquitous, free-living, environmental acanthamoebae, which are known to harbor bacterial endosymbionts. A Chlamydia-like endosymbiont has previously enhanced Acanthamoeba virulence in vitro. We investigated the potential effect of Acanthamoeba-endosymbiont coinfection in a human corneal tissue model representing clinical amoebic keratitis infection.Methods: Environmental and corneal Acanthamoeba isolates from the American Type Culture Collection were screened for endosymbionts by amplifying and sequencing bacterial 16S as well as Chlamydiales-specific DNA. Each Acanthamoeba isolate was used to infect EpiCorneal cells, a 3-dimensional human corneal tissue model. EpiCorneal cells were then treated with azithromycin, doxycycline, or control medium to determine whether antibiotics targeting common classes of bacterial endosymbionts attenuated Acanthamoeba virulence, as indicated by decreased observed cytopathic effect and inflammatory biomarker production.Results: A novel endosymbiont closely related to Mycobacterium spp. was identified in Acanthamoeba polyphaga 50495. Infection of EpiCorneal cells with Acanthamoeba castellanii 50493 and A. polyphaga 50372 led to increased production of inflammatory cytokines and cytopathic effects visible under microscopy. These increases were attenuated by azithromycin and doxycycline.Conclusions: Our findings suggest that azithromycin and doxycycline may be effective adjuvants to standard antiacanthamoebal chemotherapy by potentially abrogating virulence-enhancing properties of bacterial endosymbionts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on ‘The Planter of Malata’, the first of four tales from Joseph Conrad’s 1915 collection of short fiction, Within the Tides. Despite the weight of scholarship devoted to Conrad, this Australian-set story has yet to receive much, comparatively speaking, in the way of critical investigation. Conrad’s story is, I argue, of interest to cultural historians and literary critics alike. After briefly placing it in the context of Conrad’s personal contact with Australia during his sea years, I consider the story against a broader debate then taking place, concerning the political vision of a ‘White Australia’. I explore how Conrad’s story is attentive to an historical shift in European perceptions of Australia, from being regarded as inimical to European settlement during its early phases, to attempts during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century to cultivate Australia as a space solely for whites, as adumbrated in the ‘White Australia’ legislation that followed Federation in 1901. Although generally dismissed as a dry-run for Conrad’s 1915 novel Victory, and judged a critical failure by the standards set by his earlier fiction, in terms of the historical issues to which it is attuned ‘The Planter of Malata’ stands on its own as a work of considerable richness. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]