Cell interactions in the nervous system are frequently mediated by surface proteins that are attached to the membrane by a glycosyl phosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor. In this study, we have characterized the expression of such proteins on glial cells. We have detected a major GPI-anchored protein on astrocytes and Schwann cells, with a molecular weight of 140 kD. When Schwann cells were treated with forskolin to promote a myelinating phenotype, expression of this 140-kD protein dramatically decreased, whereas another GPI-anchored protein of 80 kD was strongly induced; expression of other integral membrane proteins were likewise dramatically altered. The size and pattern of expression of the 140-kD protein suggested that it might correspond to the Ran-2 antigen, a glial lineage marker. This notion was confirmed by immunoprecipitating this 140-kD protein with the Ran-2 monoclonal antibody. The Ran-2 antigen is expressed over the entire Schwann cell surface in a punctate fashion; it is removed by phosphatidylinositol phospholipase C treatment, thereby confirming that it is GPI-anchored. When Schwann cells are cocultured with neurons, the Ran-2 antigen initially concentrates at sites of Schwann cell contact with neurons, suggesting that it may play a role in early Schwann cell-neuron interactions; it is then downregulated. Protein sequencing of the Ran-2 antigen immunopurified from rat brain membranes showed complete identity over two extended segments with the copper binding protein ceruloplasmin. These findings indicate that astrocytes and Schwann cells express a novel GPI-anchored form of ceruloplasmin and suggest that this GPI form plays a role in axonal-glial interactions.

Cell interactions in the nervous system are frequently mediated by surface proteins that are attached to the membrane by a glycosyl phosphatidylinositol (GPI) anchor. In this study, we have characterized the expression of such proteins on glial cells. We have detected a major GPI-anchored protein on astrocytes and Schwann cells, with a molecular weight of 140 kD. When Schwann cells were treated with forskolin to promote a myelinating phenotype, expression of this 140-kD protein dramatically decreased, whereas another GPI-anchored protein of 80 kD was strongly induced; expression of other integral membrane proteins were likewise dramatically altered. The size and pattern of expression of the 140-kD protein suggested that it might correspond to the Ran-2 antigen, a glial lineage marker. This notion was confirmed by immunoprecipitating this 140-kD protein with the Ran-2 monoclonal antibody. The Ran-2 antigen is expressed over the entire Schwann cell surface in a punctate fashion; it is removed by phosphatidylinositol phospholipase C treatment, thereby confirming that it is GPI-anchored. When Schwann cells are cocultured with neurons, the Ran-2 antigen initially concentrates at sites of Schwann cell contact with neurons, suggesting that it may play a role in early Schwann cell-neuron interactions; it is then downregulated. Protein sequencing of the Ran-2 antigen immunopurified from rat brain membranes showed complete identity over two extended segments with the copper binding protein ceruloplasmin. These findings indicate that astrocytes and Schwann cells express a novel GPI-anchored form of ceruloplasmin and suggest that this GPI form plays a role in axonal-glial interactions.

Female characters frequently appear as animals in the unstable universe of James Joyce's a Finnegans Wake. What Kimberly Devlin terms "the male tendency to reduce women to the level of the beast" is manifest in Finnegans Wake on a large scale. From the hen pecking at a dung heap which we suppose is a manifestation of matriarch Anna Livia Plurabelle, to the often lascivious pig imagery (reminiscent of Bloom's experience with brothel-keeper Bella in the "Circe" episode of Ulysses) associated with juvenile seductress Issy, the lines between animal and human are frequently blurred when it comes to representing the feminine in the Wake. As scholars such as Devlin have highlighted, such constellations of images have their roots in blatantly misogynistic iconographies. Indeed, the reinscription of female characters into bestial roles in the Wake echoes a religious history of the dehumanisation of women. Yet, while this gendered representational tendency has been noted in Joycean and, more recently, wider modernist studies, its deployment and impact as a cultural and literary trope has not yet been interpreted according to the sociohistorical and cultural contexts which shaped the composition of Finnegans Wake. In particular, the culturally-specific sexual politics of Free State Ireland (1922)(1923)(1924)(1925)(1926)(1927)(1928)(1929)(1930)(1931)(1932)(1933)(1934)(1935)(1936)(1937), against which Joyce arguably pushes throughout the entirety of the Wake, offer a suggestive lens through which to view the text's interconnected representations of the feminine and the bestial. This article suggests that, in Finnegans Wake, the nonhuman is a mode through which Joyce explores the fraught sexual politics of early twentieth-century Ireland. Specifically, the bestial feminine becomes an avenue to inspect, expose, and satirise prevalent contemporary fears over female sexual licentiousness and national moral decline. Historicising the text's grappling with themes of carnality and baseness, the article discusses the ways in which the woman-as-animal is deployed in Finnegans Wake as a grotesque symbol of an unbridled and threatening female sexuality-an extreme embodiment of 1920s and 1930s Ireland's worst fears surrounding the perceived degeneration of Irish women's modesty. Unearthing the Wake's social contexts in order to interpret its sexual politics, this article ultimately asks whether the trope of the woman-as-animal stages a complete resistance against the conservatism of early twentieth-century Ireland's sexual politics, or whether Joyce's invocation of a historically misogynistic and patriarchal construction risks reinforcing the dehumanisation of women, moving the text's sexual politics further away from the liberatory.

The growing field of working-class studies provides a valuable narrative of the experiences of working-class academics, illustrates commonalities among such experiences and provides a space for dismantling the structural class-based disenfranchisement which proves detrimental to working-class scholars’ careers. Recent articles in The Journal of Working-class Studies have identified and named the specific experiences of alienation faced by working-class scholars, which include issues of financial disenfranchisement, issues of taste, accent, and ‘respectability’ (Attfield 2016), issues of ‘passing’, the imposter syndrome, and feelings of class betrayal (Warnock 2016). However, as Nicola Wilson (2016) and others have noted, ‘working-class is a fluid category and grouping’. For many scholars living in or emerging from a background of poverty, the term ‘working-class’ is limited. The term ‘welfare-class’ more appropriately describes the experience of some poor and welfare-reliant scholars. Considering the welfareclass as a distinct category within the working or poor classes, this article documents some of the specific experiences of alienation which pertain to being welfare-class in academia by focusing on the lived experiences of the authors, two academics at postgraduate and postdoctoral level. The article aims to contribute to the representation of poor and welfare-class academics among the growing body of autobiographical and autoethnographic knowledge (Warnock 2016) in working-class studies.

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