#this is why there needs to be solidarity between stem and humanities fields

[theamazingannie]

Every time I see people talking about the class averages for STEM class tests, all I can think is that this is the reason we don’t have a cure for cancer

[damnesdelamer]

Recommended reading for leftists

Introduction and disclaimer:

I believe, in leftist praxis (especially online), the sharing of resources, including information, must be foremost. I have often been asked for reading recommendations by comrades; and while I am by no means an expert in leftist theory, I am a lifelong Marxist, and painfully overeducated. This list is far from comprehensive, and each author is worth exploring beyond the individual texts I suggest here. Further, none of these need to be read in full to derive benefit; read what selections from each interest you, and the more you read the better. Many of these texts cannot truly be called leftist either, but I believe all can equip us to confront capitalist hegemony and our place within it. And if one comrade derives the smallest value or insight herefrom, we will all be better for it. After all... La raison tonne en son cratère. Alone we are naught, together may we be all. Solidarity forever.

***

(I have split these into categories for ease of navigation, but there is plenty of overlap. Links included where available.)

Classics of socialist theory

~

Capital (vol.1) by Karl Marx Marx’s critique of political economy forms the single most significant and vital source for understanding capitalism, both in our present and throughout history. Do not let its breadth daunt you; in general I feel it’s better to read a little theory than none, but nowhere is this truer than with regards to Capital. Better to read 20 pages of Capital than 150 pages of most other leftist literature. This is not a book you need to ‘finish’ in order to benefit from, but rather (like all of Marx’s work) the backbone of theory which you will return to throughout your life. Read a chapter, leave it, read on, read again. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Capital-Volume-I.pdf

The Prison Notebooks by Antonio Gramsci In our current epoch of global neoliberal capitalism, Gramsci’s explanation of hegemony is more valuable than much of the economic or outright revolutionary analyses of many otherwise vital theory. Particularly following the coup attempt and election in America, as well as Brexit and abusive government responses to Covid, but the state violence around the world and the advent of fascism reasserts Gramsci as being as pertinent and prophetic now as amidst the first rise of fascism. https://abahlali.org/files/gramsci.pdf

Imperialism: The Highest Stage Of Capitalism by V.I. Lenin Like Marx, for many Lenin’s work is the backbone of socialist theory, particularly in pragmatic terms. In much of his writing Lenin focuses on the practical processes of revolutionary transition from capitalism to communism via socialism and proletarian leadership (sometimes divisively among leftists). Imperialism is perhaps most valuable today for addressing the need for internationalist proletarian support and solidarity in the face of global capitalist hegemony, arguably stronger today than in Lenin’s lifetime. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/imperialism.pdf

Socialism: Utopian And Scientific by Friedrich Engels Marx’s partner offers a substantial insight into the material reality of socialism in the post-industrial age, offering further practical guidance and theory to Marx and Engels’ already robust body of work. This highlights the empirical rigour of classical Marxist theory, intended as a popular text accessible to proletarian readers, in order to condense and to some extent explain the density of Capital. Perhaps even more valuable now than at the time it was first published. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm

In Defense Of Marxism by Leon Trotsky It has been over a decade since I have read any Trotsky, but this seems like a very good source to get to grips with both classical Marxist thought and to confront contemporary detractors. In many ways, Trotsky can be seen as an uncorrupt symbol of the Leninist dream, and in others his exile might illustrate the dangers of Leninism (Stalinism) when corrupt, so who better to defend the virtues of the system many see as his demise? https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/idom/dm/dom.pdf

The Conquest Of Bread by Pyotr Kropotkin Krapotkin forms the classical backbone of anarchist theory, and emerges from similar material conditions as Marxism. In many ways, ‘the Bread book’ forms a dual attack (on capitalism and authoritarianism of the state) and defence (of the basic rights and needs of every human), the text can be seen as foundational to defining anarchism both in overlap and starkly in contrast with Marxist communism. This is a seminal and eminent text on self-determination, and like Marx, will benefit the reader regardless of orthodox alignment. https://libcom.org/files/Peter%20Kropotkin%20-%20The%20Conquest%20of%20Bread_0.pdf

Leftism of the 20th Century and beyond

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Freedom Is A Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, And The Foundations Of A Movement by Angela Davis This is something of a placeholder for Davis, as everything she has ever put to paper is profoundly valuable to international(ist) struggles against capitalism and it’s highest stage. Indeed, the emphasis on the relationship between American and Israeli racialised state violence highlights the struggles Davis has continually engaged since the late 1960s, that of a united front against imperialist oppression, white supremacists, patriarchal capitalist exploitation, and the carceral state. https://www.docdroid.net/rfDRFWv/freedom-is-a-constant-struggle-pdf#page=6

Postmodernism, Or, The Cultural Logic Of Late Capitalism by Frederic Jameson A frequent criticism of Marxism is the false claim that it is decreasingly relevant. Here, Jameson presents a compelling update of Marxist theory which addresses the hegemonic nature of mass media in the postmodern epoch (how befitting a tumblr post listing leftist literature). Despite being published in the early ‘90s, this analysis of late capitalism becomes all the more pertinent in the age of social media and ‘influencers’ etc., and illustrates just how immortal a science ours really is. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/SOC757/um/61816962/Jameson_The_cultural_logic.pdf

The Ecology Of Freedom: The Emergence And Dissolution Of Hierarchy by Murray Bookchin I have not read this in depth, and take issue with some of Bookchin’s ideas, but this seems like a very good jumping off point to engage with ecosocialism or red-green theory. Regardless of any schism between Marxist and anarchist thought, the importance of uniting together to stem the unsustainable growth of industrialised capitalism cannot be denied. Climate change is unquestionably a threat faced by us all, but which will disproportionately impact the most disenfranchised on the planet. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-the-ecology-of-freedom.pdf

Why Marx Was Right by Terry Eagleton I’ve only read excerpts of this; I know Eagleton better for his extensive work on Marxist literary criticism, postmodernity, and postcolonial literature, so I’m including this work of his as a means of introducing and engaging directly with Marxism itself, rather than the synthesis of diverse fields of analysis. But Eagleton generally does a very good job of parsing often incredibly dense concepts in an accessible way, so I trust him to explain something so obvious and self-evident as why Marx was right. https://filosoficabiblioteca.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/EAGLETON-Terry-Why-Marx-Was-Right.pdf

By Any Means Necessary by Malcolm X Malcolm X is one of the pre-eminent voices of the revolutionary black power movement, and among the greatest contributors to black/American leftist thought. This is a collection of his speeches and writings, in which he eloquently and charismaticly conveys both his righteous outrage and optimism for the future. Malcolm X’s explicitly Marxist and decolonial rhetoric is often downplayed since his assassination, but even the title and slogan is borrowed from Frantz Fanon.

Feminism and gender theory

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Sister Outsider: Essays And Speeches by Audre Lorde The primary thrust of this collection is the inclusion of ‘The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House’, probably Lorde‘s most well known work, but all the contents are eminently worthwhile. Lorde addresses race, capitalist oppression, solidarity, sexuality and gender, in a rigourously rhetorical yet practical way that calls us to empower one another in the face of oppression. Lorde’s poetry is also great. http://images.xhbtr.com/v2/pdfs/1082/Sister_Outsider_Essays_and_Speeches_by_Audre_Lorde.pdf

Feminism Is For Everybody by bell hooks A seminal addition to Third Wave Feminist theory, emphasising the reality that the aim of feminism is to confront and dismantle patriarchal systems which oppress - you guessed it - everybody. This book approaches feminism through the lens of race and capitalism, feeding into the discourse on intersectionality which many of us now take as a central element of 21st Century feminism. https://excoradfeminisms.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/bell_hooks-feminism_is_for_everybody.pdf

Gender Trouble: Feminism And The Subversion Of Identity by Judith Butler Butler and her work form probably the single most significant (especially white) contribution to Third Wave Feminism, as well as queer theory. This may be a somewhat dense, academic work, but the primary hurdle is in deconstructing our existing perceptions of gender and identity, which we are certainly better equipped to do today specifically thanks to Butler. Vitally important stuff for dismantling hegemonic patriarchy. https://selforganizedseminar.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/butler-gender_trouble.pdf

Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink Or Blue by Leslie Feinberg Feinberg is perhaps the foundational voice in trans theory, best known for Stone Butch Blues, but this text seems like a good point to view hir push into mainstream acceptance where ze previously aligned hirself and trans groups more with gay and lesbian subcultures. A central element here is the accessibility and deconstruction of hegemonic gender and expression, but what this really expresses is a call for solidarity and support among marginalised classes, in a fight for our mutual visibility and survival, in the greatest of Marxist feminist traditions.

The Haraway Reader by Donna Haraway Haraway is perhaps better known as a post-humanist than a Marxist feminist, but in all honesty, I am not sure these can be disentangled so easily. My highest recommendation is the essay ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century‘, but it is in many ways concerned more with aesthetics and media criticism than anything practical, and Haraway’s engagement with technology has only become more significant, with the proliferation of smartphones and wifi, to understanding our bodies and ourselves as instruments of resistance. https://monoskop.org/images/5/56/Haraway_Donna_The_Haraway_Reader_2003.pdf

Postcolonialism

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The Wretched Of The Earth by Frantz Fanon Perhaps my highest recommendation, this will give you better insight into late stage (postcolonial) capitalism than perhaps anything else. Fanon was a psychologist, and his analyses help us parse the internal workings of both the capitalist and racialised minds. I don’t see this work recommended nearly enough, largely because Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks is a better source for race theory, but The Wretched Of The Earth is the best choice for understanding revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and decolonial ideas. http://abahlali.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Frantz-Fanon-The-Wretched-of-the-Earth-1965.pdf

Orientalism by Edward Said This is probably the best introduction to postcolonial theory, particularly because it focuses on colonial/imperialist abuses in media and art. Said’s later work Culture And Imperialism may actually be a better source for strictly leftist analysis, but this is the groundwork for understanding the field, and will help readers confront and interpret everything from Western military interventionism to racist motifs in Disney films. https://www.eaford.org/site/assets/files/1631/said_edward1977_orientalism.pdf

Decolonisation Is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang In direct response to Fanon’s call to decolonise (the mind), Tuck and Yang present a compelling assertion that the abstraction of decolonisation paves the way for settler claims of innocence rather than practical rapatriation of land and rights. The relatively short article centres and problematises ongoing complicity in the agenda of settler-colonial hegemony and the material conditions of indigenous groups in the postcolonial epoch. Important stuff for anti-imperialist work and solidarity. https://clas.osu.edu/sites/clas.osu.edu/files/Tuck%20and%20Yang%202012%20Decolonization%20is%20not%20a%20metaphor.pdf

The Coloniser And The Colonised by Albert Memmi Often read in tandem with Fanon, as both are concerned with trauma, violence, and dehumanisation. But further, Memmi addresses both the harm inflicted on the colonised body and the colonisers’ own culture and mind, while also exploring the impetus of practical resistance and dismantling imperialist control structures. This is also of great import to confronting detractors, offering the concrete precedent of Algerian decolonisation. https://cominsitu.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/albert-memmi-the-colonizer-and-the-colonized-1.pdf

Can The Subaltern Speak? by Gayatri Spivak This relatively short (though dense) essay will ideally help us to confront the real struggles of many of the most disenfranchised people on earth, removing us from questions of bourgeois wage-slavery and focusing on the right to education and freedom from sexual assault, not to mention the legacy of colonial genocide. http://abahlali.org/files/Can_the_subaltern_speak.pdf 

Wider cultural studies

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No Logo by Naomi Klein I have some qualms with Klein, but she nevertheless makes important points regarding the systemic nature of neoliberal global capitalism and hegemony. No Logo addresses consumerism at a macro scale, emphasising the importance of what may be seen as internationalist solidarity and support and calling out corporate scapegoating on consumer markets. I understand that This Changes Everything is perhaps even better for addressing the unreasonable expectations of indefinite and unsustainable growth under capitalist systems, but I haven’t read it and therefore cannot recommend; regardless, this is a good starting point. https://archive.org/stream/fp_Naomi_Klein-No_Logo/Naomi_Klein-No_Logo_djvu.txt

The Black Atlantic: Modernity And Double Consciousness by Paul Gilroy This is an important source for understanding the development of diasporic (particularly black) identities in the wake of the Middle Passage between African and America, but more generally as well. This work can be related to parallel phenomena of racialised violence, genocide, and forced migration more widely, but it is especially useful for engaging with the legacy of slavery, the cultural development of blackness, and forms of everyday resistance. https://dl1.cuni.cz/pluginfile.php/756417/mod_resource/content/1/Gilroy%20Black%20Atlantic.pdf

Imagined Communities: Reflections On The Origin And Spread Of Nationalism by Benedict Anderson This text is important in understanding the nature of both high colonialism and fascism, perhaps now more than ever. Anderson examines the political manipulation and agenda of cultural production, that is the propagandised, artificial act of nation building. This analyses the development of nation states as the norm of political unity in historiographical terms, as symptomatic of old school European imperialism. Today we may see this reflected in Brexit or MAGA, but lebensraum and zionism are just as evident in the analysis. https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/jaro2016/SOC757/um/6181696/Benedict_Anderson_Imagined_Communities.pdf

Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison by Michel Foucault Honestly, I am not sure if this should be on this list; I would certainly not call it leftist. That said, it is a very important source to inform our perceptions of the nature of institutional power and abuse. It is also unquestionable that many of the pre-eminent left-leaning scholars of the past fifty years have been heavily influenced, willing or not, by Foucault and his post-structuralist ilk. A worthwhile read, especially for queer readers, but take with a liberal (zing!) helping of salt. https://monoskop.org/images/4/43/Foucault_Michel_Discipline_and_Punish_The_Birth_of_the_Prison_1977_1995.pdf

Trouble In Paradise: From The End Of History To The End Of Capitalism by Slavoj Žižek Probably just don’t read this, it amounts to self-torture. Okay but seriously, I wanted to include Žižek (perhaps against my better judgement), but he is probably best seen as a lesson in recognising theorists as fallible, requiring our criticism rather than being followed blindly. I like Žižek, but take him as a kind of clown provocateur who may lead us to explore interesting ideas. He makes good points, but he also... Doesn’t... Watch a couple youtube videos and decide if you can stomach him before diving in.

Additional highly recommended authors (with whom I am not familiar enough to give meaningful descriptions or specific recommended texts) (let me know if you find anything of significant value from among these, as I am likely unaware!):

Theodor Adorno (of the Frankfurt School, which also included Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin, all of whom I’d likewise recommend but with whom I have only passing familiarity) was a sociologist and musicologist whose aesthetic analyses are incredibly rich and insightful, and heavily influential on 20th Century Marxist theory.

Sara Ahmed is a significant voice in Third Wave Feminist criticism, engaging with queer theory, postcoloniality, intersectionality, and identity politics, of particular interest to international praxis.

Mikhail Bakhtin was a critic and scholar whose theories on semiotics, language, and literature heavily guided the development of structuralist thought as well as later Marxist philosophy.

Mikhail Bakunin is perhaps the closest thing to anarchist orthodoxy. Consistently involved with revolutionary action, he is known as a staunch critic of Marxist rhetoric, and a seminal influence on anti-authoritarian movements.

Silvia Federici is a Marxist feminist who has contributed significant work regarding women’s unpaid labour and the capitalist subversion of the commons in historiographical contexts.

Mark Fisher was a leftist critic whose writing on music, film, and pop culture was intimately engaged with postmodernity, structuralist thought, and most importantly Marxist aesthetics.

Che Guevara was a major contributor to revolutionary efforts internationally, most notably and successfully in Cuba. His writing is robustly pragmatic as well as eloquent, and offers practical insight to leftist action.

Hồ Chí Minh was a revolutionary communist leader of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and a significant contributor to revolutionary communist theory and anti-imperialist practice.

C.L.R. James is a significant voice in 20th Century (especially black) Marxist theory, engaging with and criticising Trotskyist principles and the role of ethnic minorities in revolutionary and democratic political movements.

Joel Kovel was a researcher known as the founder of ecosocialism. His work spans a wide array of subjects, but generally tends to return to deconstructing capitalism in its highest stage.

György Lukács was a critic who contributed heavily to the Western Marxism of the Frankfurt School and engaged with aesthetics and traditions of Marx’s philosophical ideology in contrast with Soviet policy of the time.

Rosa Luxemburg was a revolutionary socialist organiser, publisher, and economist, directly engaged in practical leftist activity internationally for a significant part of the early 20th Century.

Mao Zedong was a revolutionary communist, founder and Chairman of the People’s Republic of China, and a prolific contributor to Marxism-Leninism(-Maoism), which he adapted to the material conditions outside the Western imperial core.

Huey P. Newton was the co-founder of the Black Panther Party and a vital force in the spread and accessibility of communist thought and practical internationalism, not to mention black revolutionary tactics.

Léopold Sédar Senghor was a poet-turned-politician who served as Senegal’s first president and established the basis for African socialism. Also central to postcolonial theory, and a leader of the Négritude movement.

***

I hope this list may be useful. (I would also be interested to see the recommendations of others!) Happy reading, comrades. We have nothing to lose but our chains.

[polaristranslations]

Shinobu Mustard Episode 1

001

This spring, Harimaze Kie was a first year that had just enrolled in Naoetsu Private High School and a part of the girls' basketball club, and naturally, she was extremely regretting both of those decisions. She was regretting having enrolled in the university-focused Naoetsu High that had a high standard score, and she was regretting having joined the girls' basketball club that was too Spartan for a school that was supposed to be university-focused.

After all, the Naoetsu High girls' basketball club had previously had a super high-school level superstar, and the team had actually competed on a national level. But, as mentioned above, that senior had already retired, and what remained for the next generation to inherit was simply an intense training regimen.

A sports club with intense training, even though they weren't good.

That was the worst.

It was an ancient style of training that was influenced by images of a golden age—a bloated self-projection of, "we're both human beings, so I should be able to reach her level".

In the first place, this superstar senior had ultimately sustained an injury to her left arm and opted for an early retirement, so a Spartan training regimen was really meaningless, or rather, it could even prove to be backfiring on the team... So why was the club still forcing its members to do bunny hops?

Having said that, she wasn't exactly willing to quit the club of her own accord. If the coach or the captain were to give her the cruel verdict of, "You have no talent so you should just quit," then she'd happily resign with that as the reason. But unfortunately—and perhaps this was also a remnant of the era in which a superstar was a member—the Spartan girls' basketball club had a strong sense of solidarity.

And a strong sense of solidarity meant a heavy sense of collective responsibility.

If quitting of her own accord could end up influencing her teammates in some way, then it was hard to even bring up the subject... If she even said a word of "wanting to quit", then it would stop being just her problem alone.

Even though it was a tradition that couldn't be right, she didn't want to be the cause of putting it to an end... She wanted the evil tradition to come to its natural end, praying that it wasn't made out to be her fault. Stemming from the collective responsibility was a desire to shift the responsibility onto someone else. And probably, the other teammates were also continuing to endure the hard training with similar motives, their hands tied by similar ropes, all being foolish together.

And with that, it was today as well that Harimaze Kie had unwillingly participated in club activities right up until she was allowed to leave, dragging her two legs that ached with unending muscular pain down the dark evening path as she'd done for the past few months.

Her teammates all left in different directions, and obviously the time she left from school didn't coincide with her friends from class (in fact, her club activities had been so intense that she'd fallen out of contact with her friends from class), so she was returning home alone in a way that couldn't possibly be considered safe. She was even wondering if some bad guy wouldn't just come up and attack her already.

Even though she'd be able to triumphantly quit the club if she were to get badly hurt.

Even as she realized her thoughts had gone in too serious a direction, she could no longer control her thoughts anymore... She had become utterly exhausted from taking over the awful legacy that had meaninglessly remained, even as she knew it was backfiring.

Even her grades continued to decline.

It was true that practice was stopped before exams, but she'd found it hard to escape from the unspoken pressure of "training on your own" and "training in secret", and so her first midterm exams had resulted in awful scores that would been unthinkable for her in middle school. And at this rate, her rank for the final exams was sure to fall in the triple digits.

Well, not all of it could be blamed on club activities.

The students that had gathered at this private, university-focused school had simply had grades so excellent it made her embarrassed for having evaluated herself as a prodigy just a few months before... She'd gotten depressed, thinking things like, "Won't I end up becoming the first dropout since Naoetsu High was founded?"

Ah, that's why I want to be attacked.

Someone attack me. Beat me up.

Turn my life into chaos.

It could become an excuse for me to quit the club, and I might even get exempted from final exams... Then I can study while in the hospital and catch up on what I've fallen behind on. That's right, even if I wasn't a prodigy, I should be diligent enough to do that.

I can still redo everything.

Was this way of thinking just escapism?

(Escapism... Did that mean escaping from reality? Or did it mean managing to escape to reality?)

To throw away her hopes and dreams, and focus on reality.

In a sense, that was also a form of escapism... But in any case, there was no bad guy that conveniently appeared to strike her head in on Harimaze Kie's way home. No matter how many times, how many days she prayed.

Ah, then it's fine even if it isn't some bad guy.

It's fine if I get run over by a car at some corner, and it's fine if an airplane crashed onto my exact location... If it can make it easier for me, then anything's fine.

Even if it isn't reality... Even if it's a fantasy.

Like.

Yes, even something like a monstrous apparition—

"This is something I think every time I come to this country, but... There isn't a phrase that makes me less thankful than 'Thanks for the meal'... And saying 'It was delicious' is practically the opposite of delicious."

As she came near a three-way intersection, and as she walked—no, as she painfully dragged her legs while looking at her smartphone to make it even easier for a bad guy to attack her from behind, Harimaze Kie was, very openly, approached from the front.

And, as if a self-introduction was a form of etiquette that could never be forgotten—

"I'm the great Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster. The death-prepared, death-inevitable, death-certain vampire."

Her hope had been granted. Or perhaps, her despair had been granted.

Thinking that, Harimaze Kie raised her head.

002

It had been a while since I'd been to a hospital.

However, it wasn't that I, Araragi Koyomi, was particularly afraid of syringes, nor did I have a fear of lab coats—in fact, I actually loved them. This is just between you and me, but there'd been one time that I'd made my girlfriend wear a lab coat... We'd roleplayed using a mechanical pencil as a syringe.

Regardless (as much as it made me fall into some frustrations), the reason I'd stayed away from hospitals regardless of anything was that, during spring break when I was still a 17-year-old high schooler, I'd had my blood sucked by the gold-haired and gold-eyed, iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, beautiful enough to send chills down my spine, and spent about 2 weeks as a vampire. And, because of the aftereffects, I had become completely free of injuries and diseases.

I was in such good health that I was almost tired of it.

Or rather, if I found myself getting examined at a hospital, then my aberrant regeneration abilities or superior eyesight could come to light, and I could end up being used as a sample for human experimentation... As a result, I'd even come up with an excuse to skip out on the physical examinations that occurred when entering college.

For the sake of my rose-colored campus life, there was no end to the caution I'd need to take... Regardless, the reason I came to the Naoetsu General Hospital this time was because I'd been personally called there by an adult that I owed more to than even my own parents.

By Gaen Izuko-san.

"So, what do you think, Koyomin? About this patient," said Gaen-san.

In a room on the fifth floor of the fourth ward, she spoke almost as if a doctor would—as if she were asking for my opinion. But I was in the science department and not the medical department, and if we were saying that, then not even Gaen-san was a doctor, either. Although, if it was her, it wouldn't be surprising if she had multiple doctor's licenses... Of course, while I had no intention of pretending to be a doctor at this point, after being prompted, I decided to give the bedridden "patient" a look.

Actually, because the single room wasn't all that big, that "patient" had already been in my field of vision since I'd entered, but it was just hard for me to look directly—I'd averted my eyes on reflex.

It felt like I'd seen something I wasn't supposed to.

The "patient" that was lying on the bed was,

"...A mummy."

While it had been made to wear a patient gown for hospital use, at the very least, it did not seem like a living being—or so it seemed.

"This is a mummy, isn't it? A human one, at that."

When I was a high schooler, there'd been a time that I witnessed something like a mummified monkey, but from the physique, and from the hair that was still left on the head, even if they'd gotten completely dried up, I could tell for certain that this mummy was a human.

Even if they weren't a living human.

They were certainly a dead human.

"No, no, this isn't even a dead human, Koyomin."

"...Um, Gaen-san. Isn't it about time for you to stop calling me 'Koyomin'? I'm already a college student now."

"A college freshman is practically the same as a newborn baby, you know. It was the same for me. I would say, goo goo ga ga."

She was totally unapproachable.

Well, it was a waste of breath. Considering this woman of unknown age, even once I became a fully-fledged adult, she would probably still affectionately call me "Koyomin"... But anyway, what did she mean by, "this isn't even a dead human"?

"It's alive. Still. Even in this state."

Gaen-san spoke without a moment's hesitation—it was a composed, not overly dramatic way of speaking very much like a specialist, or rather, very much like the administrator of specialists.

However, as someone who wasn't even close to being a specialist, it was a line I couldn't overlook.

This mummy was still alive? Really?

I would've guessed this was some kind of sokushinbutsu, some kind of mummified monk, that had been brought from some temple... Although, thinking about it, it would be in bad taste even for Gaen-san to lay someone like that to rest in the bed of a hospital.

"Its heart is still beating, and it's still breathing. Its bodily functions are almost disturbingly normal. Though there's certainly no consciousness, it's not dead yet... If you think it's a lie, you can check for yourself."

"Check for myself..."

Being told that, I nervously reached out a hand to feel the sleeping mummy's heartbeat—but just before I touched it, I was rebuked with a, "Hold on, Koyomin".

"That's a girl, you know. Touching her chest is off-limits. You could at least take the lady's arm to get a pulse like a gentleman."

A girl? Considering it had gotten all dried up, it was impossible to tell the gender of the mummy—however, regardless of whether or not she was a lady, I couldn't ignore the fact that she was a girl.

"...Then, if you'll excuse me."

I touched the left wrist of the mummy. Since she was a mummy, I was worried that she'd crumble into bits if I touched her, so I'd tried to be as gentle as possible, but that dried-up skin was still surprisingly resilient.

And I certainly felt a pulse. Thump, thump, thump.

"I'll just say this right now, but there's not actually any blood flowing—though her heart is still beating, there's no blood circulating."

It's just air circulating—said Gaen-san.

"Just air in a hollow body. Like it's completely empty."

"......"

As I listened to Gaen-san speak, unsure whether the line was supposed to be a joke or a fact, I pushed aside the mummy's hair to carefully check the girl's neck—and, as expected.

Two small holes had been pierced into her neck.

As if she'd been bitten by a snake.

Or, as if she'd been taken in by an oni.

"......"

"Harimaze Kie is the name of that mummy. A female student of the school you used to go to, Naoetsu High... But since she's a freshman that started this year, I don't think she's an acquaintance of yours."

"...Was she attacked by a vampire?"

Though I'd internally gotten flustered at the name of my alma mater suddenly showing up, I confirmed with Gaen-san something that didn't need to be said. It was so obvious that it definitely could've been left unsaid, but even so, I couldn't go without asking.

I gradually began to understand why I'd been called here.

"It seems so. On the way back from club activities, it seems she ran into one with a bang."

"Even though it'd been peaceful."

That was all I could say.

I had no intention of pretending that I understood anything.

However, everything started when I was attacked by a vampire during that spring break—the turmoil that ensued should have been brought to an end with my graduation ceremony, but to think that, just a few months later, a case like this would occur.

Well, it was possible that incidents like this occurred frequently across the world that I just didn't know about—if not for that, then Gaen-san, "the onee-san that knew everything", would be out of a job.

It was a terrible business opportunity.

It was a very niche livelihood—or rather, a niche death-lihood.

"So you're saying, this girl... Harimaze-chan? Did Harimaze-chan turn into a vampire?"

"Well, it seems that she failed to turn into a vampire."

Gaen-san shrugged.

"This is a fairly common occurrence. Successes like your case, Koyomin, are actually rarer. Although, with what happened, from the side of the vampire that sucked your blood, it was a huge failure for her."

Saying that, Gaen-san lowered her eyes to the linoleum that was characteristic of hospitals... That is, to my shadow on the floor.

Of course, there was no response from my shadow.

We were in broad daylight.

"Even though she's still alive, she's just barely not dead... Just a mummy with all its blood sucked out. Not on the verge of death, but still more dead than alive. Is that it..."

Even I could've become like this at that time... However, while a part of me was trembling, another part of me was relieved.

I had no intention of saying that it was fortunate that Harimaze-chan had her blood sucked by a vampire and turned into a mummy where it wasn't clear whether she was alive or not—but, as long as she was still alive, there was still hope.

And because of that, just like there had been for me, there must be a way to turn her back into a human—so the fact that her vampire transformation had failed was a blessing in disguise.

In my case, I had no choice but to do something about it by myself through my own efforts and self-education, but in this case, the omniscient specialist Gaen-san was presiding over it... I wasn't exactly optimistic, but there had to be a way to help this girl out.

"'Help her', huh? Didn't my very own Hawaiian-shirt guy say something about that?"

"...I've already completely forgotten what your Hawaiian-shirt guy has said, but Gaen-san, it's not something you say, isn't it? You don't say anything like, 'You can't help her. People can only help themselves.'"

"It seems like you remember it, though."

Gaen-san gave a sarcastic laugh.

"Of course, I'm here to help this girl, Harimaze-chan. However, Koyomin. If you simply think that a homebody like me being out here from the beginning is 'dependable', then that would be troublesome for me," she said.

What did she say?

"Huh? What does that mean? If you're saying you can't be depended on, Gaen-san, then who else is there that we can depend on?"

"That's a very nice thing to say, but before I explain, let's change locations."

"Change locations? To where?"

"We'll be making our rounds. Since it doesn't seem like you hate playing doctor, Koyomin, let me introduce you to the next patient."

003

It was a mystery how Gaen-san, who was neither a doctor nor a staff member of this hospital, was able to walk around as if she owned the place, but after seeing that a similar-looking mummy had been laid down in the bed of the next room over, I decided to come to the conclusion that the director of this hospital was the one who made the request to this specialist.

With these patients who had had all the fluids sucked out of their bodies and yet for some reason were still alive, if two were brought in in quick succession, it wasn't exactly something that modern medicine could do anything about... It had to be the work of the occult.

"This girl is called Honnou Aburi-chan. Another student of Naoetsu High—however, she's a second-year, so it's possible for even Koyomin to know her."

Unfortunately.

During my high school days, I wasn't exactly the sort that interacted much with my juniors.

Or rather, I hadn't even gotten accustomed to school enough to remember the names of students in other years... If she was currently a second-year, that meant that when I was a third-year, she was a first-year.

It was possible that I'd at least seen her face before, but because she was a mummy, and because she'd been made to wear a patient gown, I had no way of identifying her by her appearance... If I had to be completely honest, I couldn't even distinguish her from the mummy in the previous room.

"Harimaze-chan's mummy, that had been lying on the road, was discovered by a passerby the day before yesterday. Honnou-chan, who'd been found as a mummy at home in her own futon, was discovered last night by her mother."

"One person a day? That's quite a fast pace."

"It's not necessarily one person a day. There could be more that just simply haven't been discovered yet. Right now, it may just seem like only female students from Naoetsu High are being targeted, but there's a possibility this is only two out of a hundred victims."

Two out of a hundred. And that wasn't totally an exaggeration.

As for the vampire I personally knew, she boasted that she could stay alive even if she only drank the blood of a single person every few months, but on the other hand, she still had an appetite where she could suck the blood of all of humanity if she lost self-control.

However, in this case, I suppose I had to consider things based on Gaen-san's conjectures... There was some unidentified vampire targeting female students of Naoetsu High.

Unidentified... No.

The vampire I personally knew.

"Um, Gaen-san. Could it be possible that you're suspecting Shinobu? It's true that she'd been the subject of a rumor among the female students of Naoetsu High once before—"

"No, no, I've never once thought that to be the case. I only just realized when you asked me. It's not for that reason that I called you out, Koyomin, when you're enjoying your college life. I was just hoping to cooperate with you, as you know the lay of the land. So that we can prevent a 3rd victim, or perhaps a 101st victim."

Of course, you aren't a stranger to helping out a girl that you have absolutely no relation to—said Gaen-san, as if she were making fun of my personal history. Although I had nothing to say in response... It was because I got so desperate to help those I saw within range or within reach that I would end up troubling those who weren't within range and weren't within reach.

But, what should I do now?

After suddenly being shown not one, but two mummies in quick succession, and hearing that they were mummies of high school girls, I would inevitably be driven by a sense of moral obligation to help them, but fundamentally, a request made by Gaen-san wasn't something I could accept so readily.

For an adult that I couldn't know the true nature of, in a sense, she was scarier than a vampire.

Seeing that I stayed quiet instead of giving an immediate response, Gaen-san spoke.

"To be honest, the state of the board is such that I'd like to depend on Koyomin, too. A dependable Koyomin," she said. "It's a situation where someone like me, who likes working behind-the-scenes, had to be dispatched, you see. And if that's not enough, I can even say this... Right now, I'm taking measures to call that Yozuru back here."

"Eh... Kagenui-san?"

Perhaps I shouldn't be too surprised at that. However, I was still more than surprised—I was more surprised than I'd been after seeing two mummies in quick succession. At the very least, my reaction to Gaen-san's statement had to be more than what she'd anticipated.

To call that Yozuru back here.

Certainly, Kagenui-san, Kagenui Yozuru-san, was an onmyouji that specialized in immortal oddities, although it was hard to say that she was a respectable specialist. If anything, she was the specialist in this world that strayed furthest from the correct path—once, in my high school days, when I'd worked with together Gaen-san on a job, even in spite of the fact that an immortal oddity had been involved, Gaen-san had stubbornly refused to rely on Kagenui-san.

That meant that Gaen-san was predicting that this current situation was worse than that time.

In that case, was this something I couldn't ignore? It's not like I particularly had any love for my alma mater (in fact, when I'd still been attending school, I'd absolutely hated it), I'd feel guilty about pretending that I was unrelated to it.

Plus, though I had had almost no interaction with students of other years, it wasn't like there was absolutely no one I knew among my underclassmen... If I imagined one of them becoming the victim of a vampire and turning into a mummy, I couldn't exactly keep calm.

"...However, the practical issue is, if Kagenui-san is going to come, then I don't think that really gives me a chance to act. Or rather, I'd probably just become a hindrance to her. Maybe if I were still a high schooler with stronger aftereffects of my vampirism, but due to various reasons, I've gotten a lot more subdued after entering college."

"That's true. Though you were such an enthusiastic boy back then, it makes me feel lonely to see you all subdued like this."

Yeah, yeah.

"However, Yozuru isn't exactly nimble enough in her footwork to come as soon as she's called. As you're well aware, there are some special circumstances for her. No matter how much she hurries, it'll still take a few days until she arrives at this town... And those few days could very well be crucial to the number of victims."

I see.

If we went that far, then I was now a college student with more than enough time on his hands. If we were speaking of nimbleness in footwork, then I was even better than when I was in high school. Even today, I'd voluntarily skipped my algebra course to respond to Gaen-san's summons.

To tell the truth, there were a lot of circumstances with Kagenui-san that made me feel that it was simply difficult to face her right now, but in that case, it was possible that we could end this oddity phenomenon before she arrived at this town.

And, needless to say, doing that was preferable for Gaen-san, as well.

"Oh yeah. If Kagenui-san's coming here, then I'll have to let Ononoki-chan know, as well... Or rather, Gaen-san, aren't you going to inform Ononoki-chan about this?"

"Well, she herself is in the middle of work on a different case. But it's a secret from you, Koyomin."

"?"

I wonder what it is.

It seemed that Ononoki-chan had recently been hanging out with Sengoku a lot, but if that was the case, then it was hard for me to probe into it... Especially after being specifically told that it was a secret.

"It's important to not sweat the small stuff. If anything, this is just foreshadowing for the next installment. Nonetheless, I have no intention of pressuring you to work with me like I'd done before. If you can state in minute detail a legitimate reason as to why you'd like to flatly refuse getting involved with an incident that could possibly be traumatic, then I'll quickly drop the matter. If that happens, I'll call Kaiki."

"Leave it to me!"

No matter how I saw it, it didn't make sense for Gaen-san to think that that con man would make his entry for a phenomenon of this type, but if she brought out that name anyway, then I didn't really have a choice in the matter.

If it was to keep him as far from this town as possible, I'd do anything.

Con men were prohibited from entering this town.

"Well, con men are prohibited from most towns. Of course, I won't have you be working for free. In exchange for the considerable risk you're about to take, Koyomin, this friendly onee-san will be sure to offer the right amount of compensation."

A considerable risk, you say?

Well, it was quite likely that I would end up facing off against a vampire, and it wasn't like I could nonchalantly linger in safe zones... Not to mention, if I was going to get involved in a case estimated to be more dangerous than the revival of Shishirui Seishirou, I would need to be prepared for that much.

However, if you asked me whether or not I wanted compensation that corresponded to that level of risk, then honestly speaking, I didn't really want it... Frankly, receiving anything from Gaen-san was scary.

The deeper our relations or obligations get, the further into the depths I'd fall.

Being called out each and every time like this was almost like not being able to graduate from high school no matter how much time passed—but as I thought about it like that, Gaen-san spoke as if she'd accurately guessed the contents of my mind.

"If you decide to cooperate in the resolution of this oddity phenomenon, Koyomin... Until you graduate from college, that is, for the next four years or so, I won't appear in front of you again, and I won't even try to contact you. I swear it. You'll be able to go ahead with your bright and happy campus life, free from oddities and specialists," she said.

"For... For real?"

"Yes, for real. You'll never catch me in a lie or in twintails."

If it was Gaen-san in twintails, then I felt like I'd do anything to see that form, but this was a proposal that was even more attractive than that... Well, in another point of view it almost sounded like she was declaring that she'd cut ties with me, and if she swore that much it could even be a bit lonely (which sounded a bit selfish, even for me). But if it meant I could cleanly wash my hands of a life where I would be spoken to with an air of condescension whenever the chance arose, then there was no better compensation for me.

Well, it wasn't exactly clear how credible an oath made by the senior of that con man really was (it was even possible she'd done her hair up in twintails before), but, well, regardless of whether that promise was there, this certainly wasn't a situation that I could ignore.

All my reservations had been cleared up.

In the first place, for Gaen-san, I wasn't exactly a card that was easy to use. And it wasn't the same as with Kagenui-san. It was a problem of being too nimble in footwork. When it came to not moving within Gaen-san's predictions or directions, high school third-year Araragi Koyomi had been especially bad, if I do say so myself—now that I was remembering it, I had better repent for my behavior back then.

If an incident that forced Gaen-san's hand into using this worthless card was occurring in my hometown, then I absolutely couldn't just overlook this... That's right.

Sometimes, it was fine to help out people I didn't know.

"Understood. I'll do my best to work with you, to the extent that it doesn't interfere with my schoolwork—however, I don't want to cause trouble for my family, so I'd like for you be considerate in that respect."

"Ah. Of course, I can do something about that. I'd be well aware of the relationship between Yozuru and Tsukihi-chan even if I wasn't an onee-san that knew everything—oh!"

Just as Gaen-san managed to successfully gain my cooperation, her cell phone began playing a ringtone—well, considering we were inside a hospital, the thing that received a call could be her PHS, her Personal Handy-phone System, instead. She was an onee-san that carried a large number, with various kinds, of telecommunications equipment.

"Hello? Yeah. Yeah. ...Yeah."

As she spoke on the phone, Gaen-san's tone grew lower with every nod.

She was fundamentally an onee-san with a carefree style that didn't suit seriousness at all, but it seemed that the radio waves had managed to deliver information that could make this onee-san stop smiling.

"I have some unfortunate news, Koyomin," said Gaen-san after hanging up. "A third victim was discovered. Once again, a female student from Naoetsu High."

004

If you asked what would be the most striking difference, or perhaps transformation, between the Araragi Koyomi that attended Naoetsu Private High School and the Araragi Koyomi that attended Manase National University, then the most appropriate answer would be the method he took to go to school. Though I'd fundamentally spent my high school days going to school on a bicycle and otherwise on foot, when it came to college, my hands instead gripped the steering wheel of a car.

It was a Volkswagen New Beetle. It was after grueling hours of hard work at my part-time job that I managed to procure a used one in good condition, and I'd further restored it on my own—well, saying so would make a really good impression, but actually, it was a new car that was gifted to me by my parents to celebrate my high school graduation.

I was really being pampered.

Surprisingly enough, the fact that I so easily accepted that amount of pampering without resisting as part of my rebellious phase could actually be considered the biggest difference, or transformation... But putting that aside, after exiting the hospital, I had Gaen-san sit in the back seat of that New Beetle and headed towards the scene of the oddity phenomenon.

If you were wondering why I had her sit in the back seat, it was because a child seat had been affixed to the passenger seat—my passenger seat was reserved for a certain young girl.

"By appearance, isn't Shinobu-chan about 8 years old...? Though it's not even comparable to her in her complete mode, isn't she old enough to not need a child seat?"

"That feeling of having a slightly older kid fit tightly in a child seat is what I like."

"Mm... That's something you'd be better off not telling other people, Koyomin. Even me, an onee-san who knows everything, would have preferred not knowing that."

As we lightly exchanged such witty banter, we headed for our destination, which, as expected, was the school road to Naoetsu High—it wasn't a place that was too far off from the hospital, so we arrived fairly quickly.

Because it was immediately following the discovery of the mummy, I had thought there would be a crowd of onlookers that had formed or police officers that had rushed in, but the area was surprisingly unpopular... Even if it wasn't the time when people were going to school, could a normal road like this really be so deserted?

It had made me a bit suspicious, but it turned out that that was a result of Gaen-san's arrangements.

A way of keeping people out through some sort of barrier, the domain of specialists.

It should have been obvious from the beginning, but I wasn't the only person at Gaen-san's beck and call at this case—Gaen-san's forte was working in a team, and it could be seen as a good outcome that the search party had already managed to discover another victim that had been mummified in the same way as the two that had already been carried to the hospital.

Already. And yet, too late.

It couldn't really be said that finding the third victim was a good thing.

"I know you have some anxiety around strangers, Koyomin, so I had the search party leave the area, too. So you can perform your on-site inspection at a leisurely pace," said Gaen-san.

I was happy for that concern, but my stranger anxiety wasn't that extreme.

Well, from Gaen-san's perspective, she probably didn't want to introduce a temporary member like me to her subordinates, or her "real cooperators"—I could understand that.

Since my education wasn't very good.

"Even so, there's a limit to putting up a paranormal barrier in a residential area in the middle of the day, so let's move quickly. I expect this to have a strong visual impact, Koyomin, so make sure you prepare yourself mentally for that."

And Gaen-san exited from the back seat of the New Beetle... After being shown not one, but two mummified high school girls in quick succession, why was she telling me this now? That was what I'd been wondering as I followed her out, but immediately, I realized the importance of that advice.

Where the third victim had been discovered was, to be precise, inside some kind of shack that I didn't really understand, built on the other side of the guardrail alongside the school road.

Well, it had probably originally been some sort of wooden structure made for some purpose, but now, it could only be seen as some unidentifiable pile of wood... Though I'd said she was inside, it could at best be seen as some sort of awning, and with this many gaps in the woodwork, it likely would be able to keep out neither rain nor wind.

And, at the dried-up mummy inside it, I was rendered speechless.

Comparing the mummy that had been made to wear a patient gown and been laid down on a hospital bed, with the mummy that had been found in this mysterious incomprehensible shack wearing a high school uniform and collapsed on her side as if she had just dropped dead, the visual difference was striking.

Her shoes had fallen off, her clothes were a mess, and her bag had been thrown to the side.

Those details insistently nagged at me that this was the actual reality of things... Even if it was an oddity phenomenon, it was a reality that couldn't be passed off as fantasy.

There was no distinction between reality and delusion.

I was starting to regret having entered a domain that amateurs shouldn't lay a hand on—if it hadn't been Gaen-san that I'd made a promise with, I would probably turn tail and run.

However, it wasn't good to have my whole body tremble in fear.

In fact, it almost made me want to put on airs like a specialist... I tried to act as composed as possible and began to approach the mummy.

"This one also looks like a failure from a vampire transformation," I said, saying something I'd just learned as if I'd known it all along.

As I'd done earlier in the hospital, I took her wrist to feel for a pulse—and then.

"Koyomin, look out!"

It was unusual to hear Gaen-san shout, but it was no wonder she did.

When I'd squatted down near the mummy, she sprang up as if a spring had been installed in her back, and reached her arm out towards me—no, not her arm, but her finger.

And not her finger, but her nail.

The mummy tried to scratch me—tried to tear me to shreds.

"Wh-whoa! Ah..."

Being held down by a high school girl could be considered exciting and pleasurable depending on the circumstances, but if the conditions were that it had to take place inside an ominous shack and the high school girl had to be a mummy, then it definitely wasn't something I could feel happy about—though I'd carelessly approached the mummy to take her pulse, I'd ended up grabbing both of her arms for different reasons—for self-defense reasons.

I was able to somehow defend myself against the girl's ten unpainted nails, but I couldn't do anything about her fangs—by grabbing both her wrists, that also had the effect of sealing my own arms from being used.

And if the mummy, while holding me down, tried to come and bite into me, it wasn't like I could try and bite into her to defend myself.

Though I'd managed to perform all kinds of different kisses in my life, a mummified girl was way out of my strike zone—but ultimately, it was the work of a specialist that sealed the lips of the mummy that came onto me so passionately, and more importantly, the fangs that glinted within those lips.

Rather than sealing them, it was more like Gaen-san unleashed it—and what she unleashed was a cloth-like curtain that had covered the window of the shack.

And with that, the rays of the sun entered indoors, shining like a spotlight onto the mummy, and stopping her movements—like the opposite of a doll that moved using solar cells, as a result of bathing in the sun, the mummy ceased functioning.

As if her soul had been taken from her—if that was even possible—she collapsed onto me. That in itself was pretty frightening, but it seemed I'd just barely managed to escape from the predicament I'd carelessly stumbled into.

Although, considering that Gaen-san had cleaned up the predicament of this amateur college student with the most minimal of actions, perhaps it could hardly be considered a predicament... I see, even if the transformation had failed, the mummy was still a vampire, and was weak to sunlight.

Come to think of it, the hospital rooms where the mummies had been lying had also had the curtains open... And there were probably various other measures in place in that hospital room to seal the mummies' movements.

Even if they had no consciousness, even if the transformation had failed, a vampire was a vampire.

Even drawing near was dangerous.

"So... Sorry, Gaen-san. For acting on my own accord."

Rather than acting on my own accord, this was the result of me acting pretentious.

It was surprising how little I'd grown... Though I didn't know if getting my blood sucked by a mummy that had failed to become a vampire would turn me into a vampire, this had come dangerously close to eerily reproducing the events of that spring break when I was a 17-year-old.

Feeling ashamed of myself, I crawled out from underneath the mummy... But to that, Gaen-san said, "No, it's a great achievement, Koyomin," with some sort of consolation that I didn't understand.

An achievement?

"The name of this girl is Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan. A first-year of Naoetsu High. Because of how tall she is, I'd thought she was a third-year, but it seems kids these days are growing very well."

Without showing any more concern for me, Gaen-san had taken the bag that had been off to the side and looked through her student handbook and wallet and other belongings to obtain the victim's personal information—the first mummy had been a first-year, the second mummy had been a second-year, so the third would be a third-year... But there was no such clever progression.

"Um... Gaen-san. What do you mean by it being an achievement?"

"When Kuchimoto-chan went after you to try and scratch you, Koyomin, she dropped the set of flash cards that were in her hand, you see—you're not a high schooler anymore, Koyomin, but you remember what vocabulary flash cards are, right? The pieces of paper that you use to memorize English words."

Without turning to face me, she promptly tossed me those flash cards—of course I remembered. They were a huge help when I'd been taking entrance exams.

I caught them—it seemed Kuchimoto-chan wasn't particularly studious, as the flash cards were almost brand new. Among those flash cards, only the first one had been used, and what had been handwritten on the surface in red pen wasn't even an English word.

"B777Q".

"...? What is this?"

"I wonder. By the way, there was a pen that seems like it could've written that among the writing materials right next to it—the cap of the pen wasn't even on. It was as if, when being attacked by a vampire, Kuchimoto-chan panicked and grabbed whatever she could to try and memorize that vocabulary word."

Gaen-san spoke carefreely as she fiddled with a smartphone with a strap on it, likely the high school girl's—unfortunately, it seemed a lock had been placed on it, which meant the contents of the phone could not be analyzed by even a specialist proficient with telecommunications equipment.

But anyway, the flash cards.

She tried to memorize vocabulary at that point... There's no way.

If anything...

"By the way, it seems Kuchimoto-san was an avid reader, which is admirable for this day and age. There was a work by Ellery Queen in her bag. You know, that Ellery Queen, famous for her 'Challenges to the Reader'."

And that Ellery Queen was famous for her dying messages as well—although, Kuchimoto-san had failed in a vampire transformation, so she was neither dead nor murdered, so the term dying message wasn't exactly accurate—but, "B777Q".

"It's a code that would elate that mystery maniac Ougi-chan. Although it would be impossible to go and depend on her now."

"Indeed. And she is still a student of Naoetsu High. She may even pull us further into the dark... At least during her stay of execution, I'd like to have her stay quiet."

During her stay of execution, huh? It had a nice ring to it.

Although it didn't particularly seem like she was going to stay quiet, there was no way I should further stimulate her curiosity—although, if more students of Naoetsu High were going to become victims, then that dark girl would very likely start acting on her own.

I was at a loss. If I were still in high school, I'd be able to depend on Hanekawa without hesitation, but... No, wait.

"Gaen-san. Will you please give Koyomin a chance to redeem himself?"

"Hm? What's that?"

"This dying message... Well, maybe we should be calling it a living message, but I think I have an idea about how to solve it. Please allow me to hold onto these flash cards for a bit."

"If you're going to say that much, then I don't mind. Living message, huh? How clever. It's common to make a joke that turns 'dying message' into 'dining message', but going for 'living' is fresh. And discovering that bit of evidence so early on is all thanks to Koyomin, after all—meanwhile, I'll be in charge of this."

Gaen-san had so disappointingly left the task to me that it felt less like she was giving me a chance to redeem myself and more like she'd discovered an even more important clue in her investigation—Gaen-san's line of sight was still resting on Kuchimoto-san's smartphone.

To be precise, what the specialist's keen eyes were looking at was not the locked smartphone itself.

It was the item that was literally connected to it, the strap.

"...Is there something wrong with the strap, Gaen-san?"

To an amateur like me, it looked like nothing but an ordinary strap. It had two accessories in the shape of the alphabet letter "K" dangling from it—without even needing to think about it, they were most likely the initials for the name "KYOUMI KUCHIMOTO".

Even if you locked your cell phone, if you left that personal information dangling out in the open, then it felt pretty meaningless...

"Of course, with just this, it would just be cute accessories that you could see anywhere. But if the second victim known as Honnou Aburi had a similar strap attached to her smartphone, wouldn't the story change?"

"Eh? ...A similar one?"

"Accessories with her initials. For Honnou Aburi-chan, it would be 'A H'... The lettering was the same. Of course, it could just be a coincidence. It could be a simple trend that this onee-san past her prime is unaware of."

The smartphone of the first victim, Harimaze-chan, wasn't decorated with any accessories at all, too—said Gaen-san, making a prudent excuse, before continuing with a "However".

"However, if the victims have something in common besides just being female students of Naoetsu High—there's a possibility that that missing link can tie back to the identity of that unidentifiable vampire as well."

005

Gaen-san called an ambulance to transport the third mummy, Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan, to Naoetsu General Hospital, as the previous two mummies had been. And afterwards, I drove my New Beetle and headed for Manase University.

It wasn't anything like the admirable attitude of a college student to at least attend his afternoon lectures—it was to follow up on the idea I'd had with regards to solving the living message that had been left.

Conveniently, the 5th period course for today was the cryptography course I'd been thinking of—and undoubtedly, Meniko was sure to attend.

Hamukai Meniko.

She was a new friend I'd made in college. Considering she'd become a friend of mine, she was as usual a bit of an oddball, but what was important was that Hamukai Meniko was my first friend in a while to be completely unrelated to monstrous apparitions or evil spirits, urban legends or oddity stories—to be honest, just this made enrolling in university worthwhile.

I was glad I worked so hard to study.

Anyway, when I arrived at Manase University and entered the cryptography lecture hall in a bit of a late fashion, as usual, there was some good news and bad news.

The bad news: class had been canceled.

This was something that happened in college, after all.

However, the good news—there was a single person sitting in the lecture hall, neither reading a book nor playing with her smartphone nor draped over her desk asleep. And the one that was sitting while staring vacantly off into space was the student I was looking for.

"Yo, Meniko."

"Ah. Araragi-chan. Hola. Class is canceled, you know?"

"Hola. Seems like it, huh. But then, what are you even doing here?"

"Because I planned on spending my time here—I guess?"

As if she was wondering for the first time as to why she was sitting in a lecture hall for a canceled class, she responded as if she were playing dumb.

Thinking about it, it had been something like this when I first spoke to her, too—I'd come late to a class that had gotten canceled, and I'd ended up meeting Meniko, who was sitting in the classroom not doing anything.

In short, Meniko was decidedly bad at making changes to a schedule that she'd decided upon—even if a class was canceled, if she decided that she was going to spend that hour in that classroom, she'd move according to that schedule.

She was definitely an oddball. Although not as odd as I was.

But it was thanks to that that I could find her like this—because her personality was like this, it was pretty difficult to make plans over text as a result.

"There's something I want you to take a look at."

Finding it fortunate that the classroom had no one else in it, I took a seat next to Meniko and got straight to the point.

"All ri~ight. I'll look at anythi~ing. If it's a reque~est from Araragi-chan."

"It's about this flash card."

Since it was my first friend in a while with no involvement with oddities, I took special care not to get Meniko tangled up in my various oddity-related affairs, as I'd done with Oikura, while trying to maintain friendly relations with her, but in this case, it probably wouldn't be a problem—or rather, there were certainly many kinds of people in college, and among them, a female college student like this, with such a leisurely atmosphere, that it almost seemed like she was living in a different flow of time, and her hobby was deciphering codes, even when she wasn't a mystery maniac—she was quite an eccentric one.

She'd enrolled as a mathematics student as a result of her code maniac growing intense, and she was a promising ray of light among the first-years, valued highly by even the professor in charge of this cryptography course, although it had been canceled today.

And she was aiming to get a job in the police department's cyber security division or something... So, if I couldn't rely on Hanekawa or Ougi-chan, then I couldn't think of anyone else better than Meniko to ask for help—of course, I didn't reveal the fact that this was, not a dying message, but a living message left behind by a mummy that had failed to become a vampire.

I absolutely wouldn't introduce her to Gaen-san, either.

If I wanted to protect my precious friendships, I had to draw the line there.

"'B777Q'... Hmm?"

It seemed she'd been intrigued by it. It was hard to tell by her facial expression, but fundamentally, if there was something Meniko didn't find interesting, she'd ignore it as if she didn't even see it.

If you took in the fact that she'd so carelessly promised to "look at anything", then her words didn't match up with her actions at all, so it was good that I got her to look at it.

"Flash cards, hu~uh? How nosta~algic. Hm? There's something written on the back, too."

"Huh? The back?"

When I flipped through the cards back in that shack, I had judged that the rest of them had been completely blank, but right, since it they were flash cards, there was a space to write on the back, as well...

I definitely wasn't cut out for the role of a detective.

There were too many things I overlooked.

Nonetheless, when I inspected both sides of the flash cards dropped by Kuchimoto-san that I'd thought to be blank, both the fronts and the backs of almost all of them turned out to blank after all, without anything strange appearing—however, as Meniko had pointed out, on the other side of the very first card with "B777Q" written on it, the numbers "231" had been written in a manner even messier than on the front—"231"?

"B777Q" and "231"?

Absolutely nothing seemed to click for me—but what about the code maniac?

"Yeah. I have no idea."

"So you have no idea, either?"

"Yep. I have no idea. Why Araragi-chan, who's so much smarter than me, couldn't solve such an easy code like this—I have no idea."

So basically, did that mean she solved it?

006

I told Meniko that I could treat her to tea or something as thanks, but she politely declined, saying she had the next lecture to attend—well, that was the case for me as well, but unlike Meniko, I was flexible. The fact that I was not in the least reluctant to skip out on lectures was the same as in my high school days.

And, more simply, I had no time to waste.

Because it was an oddity phenomenon that involved a vampire, I needed to do as much as I could before the sun set—it's good to have a shelter against every storm.

After all, I'd even nearly been torn to shreds by mummies standing on the boundary line of life and death, unclear whether they were living or dead.

If I was going to have to confront the vampire itself—well, since I was under Gaen-san's management, it probably wouldn't develop into a battle, but it would still be better if I could resolve things before Kagenui-san arrived.

As such, I followed my navigation and traveled from Manase University to the Naoetsu General Hospital using the shortest paths possible. After arriving, I called the number of Gaen-san's PHS that I'd gotten from her when we'd parted ways, and had her tell me where Kuchimoto-chan's hospital room was—I'd foolishly wondered if, now that a third victim had appeared, it would be better to put them all in one large room for the sake of convenience, but it seemed Gaen-san wanted to keep them separate.

Well, if those related to the female students (mainly their families) ended up sharing strange information, it could cause a huge uproar—it was probably better to deal with each one of them as its own separate case, with "cause unknown", under the pretense of confidentiality, so as to keep this terrifying supernatural phenomenon behind closed doors and not cause a panic.

Of course, there had to be limits to that, but...

"Hey, Koyomin. You got back pretty quick, didn'tcha?"

Next to Kuchimoto-san, who'd been changed into a patient gown and laid on the bed like the two before her, Gaen-san, who was placing some sort of charm (vampire-sealing?), turned to look at me.

"Did you solve the code? I'd be happy if you said you did. Something a little inconvenient happened on my end, so I'd love to hear some good news."

"Huh. It's pretty unusual for something inconvenient to happen for you while I wasn't there."

"Totally."

Though she wouldn't offer any details, it seemed something truly inconvenient had indeed happened—although, unfortunately, I hadn't been able to return with good news that could make up for that.

Thanks to Meniko, the code I'd been assigned had indeed been solved, but that didn't change the fact that I had no idea what it meant—of course, this was just an amateur's judgment.

Perhaps, if I presented Meniko's solution (decryption) to Gaen-san, a specialist, it would be something immediately recognizable for her.

"My friend, who's planning on majoring in cryptography, solved it in 10 seconds. It was actually a bit too quick to be satisfying, but it was a code that a high schooler thought of, after all."

But it wasn't a code that couldn't be solved.

I put the flash cards on the shelf by the bed and tried to make my explanation brief.

"'B777Q'. If we take it apart, it's made up of a 'B' and a 'Q' with three sevens in between them, but what characteristics do the 'B' and 'Q' have in common?—although, I shouldn't need to start showing off like that in front of you, Gaen-san."

"No, it's fun. Keep going like that."

Even if you encouraged me...

Well, I was happy that she was going along with my self-redemption, now that I noticed it. It seemed she had some good points, when I actually could speak to her like this.

"Well, to sum it up, for the capital letters 'B' and 'Q' that look completely different when written in uppercase, they end up becoming the same shape, but rotated, when written in lowercase as 'b' and 'q'—and, if we think of them having the same shape, then there's a pair of Arabic numerals that also have the same shape."

"That's true. I'm well-aware of it from playing Uno."

"Um, it doesn't matter whether you know about it from playing Uno or not."

It was "6" and "9".

And, as you can see, "6" and "9" more or less had the same shape as "b" and "q"—in other words, after substituting them, we could come up with the equation that "B777Q" equals "67779".

"B777Q" = "67779".

"Oho. I see, I'm following you so far. But what does the number '67779' mean exactly? Do you have an interpretation for that?"

"Though she's aspiring to major in cryptography, that friend, like me, is a mathematics student, so when she sees a number lined up like this, she's the kind of person that thinks of prime factorization first, you see."

"What an annoying kind of person."

"Indeed. However, without even needing to do prime factorization, it should be clear as day that we can split '67779' into three prime numbers. That is, '67/7/79'."

"How is that even clear as day? Something like that is fainter than looking at a ghost."

Gaen-san shrugged her shoulders as if she was astounded.

Even an onee-san that knew everything couldn't know this as thoroughly as a code maniac and a prime number maniac could.

"So? How do you interpret '67/7/79' next?"

Of course, without even needing me to explain what prime numbers were, Gaen-san sought out the next step of the decryption—she was certainly good at using people.

"Well, we had a step where we converted the alphabet into Arabic numerals, right? So it's an orthodox method of doing the opposite now and turning the Arabic numerals back to letters of the alphabet."

"Hm... So is it 'S/D/V'?"

She was sharp.

Yes... "67" was the 19th prime number when you counted from "2". Similarly, "7" was the 4th prime number, and "79" was the 22nd prime number.

"67/7/79" = "S/D/V".

"If she managed to figure that out in 10 seconds, then I can't look down on college students these days, huh. Well, I don't have any complaints so far, but I still don't understand what 'S/D/V' is supposed to mean. You still have more, right?"

"Yes... I'm sure you probably realized this, Gaen-san, but for every piece of a flash card, there's always a backside... In the same handwriting as the front side, the numbers '231' were written."

"I hadn't realized it, though. Don't overestimate this onee-san too much, because I'd hate to disappoint you youngsters. '231'? Since it's obviously divisible by '3', it's naturally not a prime number. Although, among the titles of Maurice Leblanc's works, I think there was something like '313'."

"Since it had been specifically written on the back side, we should take this not as another code, but a sub-key to use as a hint... That is, it could be pointing out the order."

"The order? So, we should take the three letters pointed at by the code on the front side, and put them in the order of '2-3-1', like an anagram? So basically, 'S/D/V' becomes 'D/V/S'..."

"S/D/V" = "D/V/S".

It was likely that, in order to give off an air of perfection, the code had been rearranged to show the three sevens, "777", and this was an operation to put everything back.

Even I thought that "B777Q" looked better than "77QB7".

Putting it all together...

"B777Q" = "b777q" = "67779" = "67/7/79" = "S/D/V" = "D/V/S".

That was it—I was happy that I was being overestimated with her saying "Araragi-chan, who's so much smarter than me", but really, Meniko, arriving at something like this was impossible for me.

However, for a code maniac like Meniko, her decryption only went as far as this—just because "S/D/V" was "D/V/S", it still didn't change the fact that it was completely meaningless.

We could only decipher up to here for now.

However, if Gaen-san continued to say, "I still don't understand. You still have more, right?", then I'd have to throw my hands up—but the onee-san that knew everything stayed silent.

"......"

Without pressing further, and without even stating her own thoughts, she put a hand to her mouth, quietly behaving as if she were deep in thought.

Was there an interpretation that a specialist could make, as I had hoped? Could "D/V/S" be some sort of specialized term used by specialists... For example, something like "Dracula vampire soulless"...

But, as if chiding me for thinking something so stupid, Gaen-san said, "This is indeed an abbreviation, but these are initials, Koyomin. For example—the initials of a name like, 'Deathtopia Virtuoso Suicidemaster'."

"D/V/S" = "DEATHTOPIA VIRTUOSO SUICIDEMASTER".

007

It was an awfully specific name to use just as an example, but it seemed as Gaen-san had no intention of explaining any further, as she said, "Thanks, Koyomin. It seems like we might have something to go off of now," cutting short the conversation with her gratitude. "Give your friend my thanks, as well."

"Ah, yes..."

If the leader wrapped it up like this with that much force, I couldn't exactly go against it... Well, the fact that Gaen-san wasn't explaining it could mean that it was better off for me not to know. At least, for now...

In any case, for now we could put aside the deciphering of the living message that the third mummy, Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan, left behind... As for me, I was more curious about Gaen-san's gloomy face that she'd shown when I entered the room.

Something inconvenient happened. That was what she'd said.

That's why she wanted some good news.

Even though she had said thanks, it didn't necessarily dispel the gloom from Gaen-san's expression, so I wondered if what I had brought was not good news but bad news. However, I couldn't just pretend to ignore whatever inconvenient thing happened while I'd been out.

"It might have been a bit of an exaggeration to call it inconvenient. Or rather, if it's like this, then I should say I'm glad I called you in in advance, Koyomin... In a way, this is fate. Well, because of the cell phone straps, I was wondering if there was another point in common between the victims aside from just them attending the same school, so I did a little invasion of the girls' privacy."

"When you put it like that, it makes it really hard to understand what exactly you're a specialist of, Gaen-san."

"As a result, I uncovered a completely unforeseen fact. All three of them were a part of the same club."

"The same club?"

Ah, then even if they were in different years, it would still make sense for them to be connected by having the same kind of strap... Although, I'd never been a part of a club, so I'd hardly associated with anyone who wasn't in my year.

Then, it wasn't just Kuchimoto-chan and Honnou-chan, but even the first mummy, Harimaze-chan, that were connected by a common missing link—but what was inconvenient about that?

Wasn't that a good thing?

It seemed much more concrete than the information I'd gone all the way to my college to bother a friend for, and it seemed like a much better clue that would take us a step closer to the resolution of the incident...

"And that club happens to be the girls' basketball club."

"Ah."

I understood. I understood very well.

Because, even though Gaen-san had almost nothing to be afraid of, specializing in all sorts of monstrous apparitions, she happened to have a single weakness, an organization that reminded her of her older sister... The Naoetsu High girls' basketball club.

Gaen Tooe.

That was the name of Gaen-san's sister, the onee-san's sister, and that onee-san's sister's daughter's name was Kanbaru Suruga—currently a third-year high school girl at Naoetsu High, and the former captain of the girls' basketball club.

She was one of the few juniors I'd interacted with—more precisely, she was the junior of my girlfriend, but, anyway, the keyword "mummy" was something that really had a bad affinity with Kanbaru.

And even if that weren't the case, the Naoetsu High girls' basketball club was rather unique... It was on quite a different level for a club that was in that uptight university-focused school.

Even if there were no oddities, it was still an odd organization.

If all three victims were members of the girls' basketball club, then it seemed impossible to just pass off as a coincidence... Although it was also dangerous to assume that that was the source of the incident.

Though I didn't remember when, a specialist had once said this.

Oddities have their own appropriate reasons—indeed.

Even the vampire that sucked out my blood during my spring break as a 17-year-old had inevitably had her own reason for doing so.

And if it happened that this case was also inevitable...

"We'd have to keep digging into it, right? Um, so basically... It would be better if I was the one to do that, right?"

"Right. I shouldn't get any more involved with Suruga, after all."

That was probably what she'd meant by when she said she was glad she'd called me in in advance... Once before, during an incident that wasn't just oddity-related, but also vampire-related, Gaen-san had needed to make use of Kanbaru's "left arm", and had operated under a fake name to do so.

She'd needed to do that much, because it was that taboo for her to step on her sister's shadow.

Though she was someone that was fuzzier than Oshino, she was strict about at least that much.

"Not to mention, Suruga has lost her 'left arm' now—or should we say she 'recovered' it? Really, Kaiki did something so unnecessary. Because of that, I lost another one of my successors."

"...Thinking about what happened before, I feel the same way in not wanting to get her involved. But, well."

I looked towards the bed... The third girl to be mummified, Kuchimoto Kyoumi.

After seeing her dried-up form once again, I knew I couldn't say that.

"In the first place, since it's been a while since Kanbaru retired from the basketball club, so it could be doubtful whether or not she has any useful information."

"Even so, I'd like you to do it. Since she's sociable like her mother, there's no way she wouldn't know even a single one of her juniors—if possible, I'd like to get a list of all the club's members."

"Understood."

And, though I accepted it, I couldn't reject the feelings of reluctance that followed. Because no matter how much caution I took, if I came to her with a weird approach, then Kanbaru would be sure to recklessly poke her nose into these affairs... At the very least, I didn't want a repeat of the events of the previous incident.

I checked the watch on my right wrist, confirming that it was currently in the middle of 6th period at the high school—at this rate, it should be possible to meet up with Kanbaru before the sun set.

Unlike Meniko, since Kanbaru was preparing for entrance exams, it was probably better to set things up over text beforehand... Or should I just handle everything by calling her? Although, considering the circumstances, I did want to meet up and talk to her directly...

"Also, I may as well let you know what I've ascertained after going through her belongings, Koyomin. From the on-site inspection, I had come to the conclusion that this girl had to have been attacked by the vampire this morning, but it turns out that she'd become a victim as early as dawn of yesterday."

"Yesterday? Um, then... She was the third person to be discovered, but Kuchimoto-san was actually the second victim?"

"Yep. That's how it is. She'd been missing for almost an entire day—that's what I learned after contacting her family. Putting it all together, Naoetsu High first-year Harimaze Kie-chan was attacked in the evening of the day before yesterday—and, before daybreak, the vampire attacked another Naoetsu High first-year, Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan. It's still unclear whether the vampire sucked her blood in that shack or the vampire sucked her blood and then moved her to that shack, but regardless, it was done in the night—as a vampire does, it took a break during the day after the sun rose, and when night fell again, it bit into the neck of the Naoetsu High second-year, Honnou Aburi-chan, in her own home."

The permutation had changed, but, if anything, it broke down the hypothesis, high-paced as it was, that one victim was formed per day—by now, it wasn't exactly good news to hear.

This vampire was quite a glutton.

"Speaking of which, didn't vampires need permission to enter the houses or rooms of others? The second... that is, the third victim, Honnou-chan—wasn't she discovered in the futon of her own room?"

"There are variations to that idea, so I can only say that it depends on the circumstances. There are times when that's the case, and there are times when it isn't—however, if the culprit was some extremely handsome man with a well-proportioned body and an annual income of 500 million yen, like Shishirui Seishirou, then there's probably no high school girl that would not let someone like him enter their room."

Well, I wasn't sure about Shishirui Seishirou's annual income being 500 million yen, but, well, that was indeed a truth, or perhaps divine providence... It was also possible that, as was conjectured with Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan's case, the unidentified vampire sucked the blood of the girl in an alleyway, turned her into a mummy, and then carried her into her room after that... Although I had no idea why it would do something like that.

"Of course, there might be even more victims, so I'll keep an eye out in this town for more dried-up mummies, not just limited to the female students of Naoetsu High—really, it feels more like searching for an ancient civilization, instead of just an oddity story. It's fortunate for now that the search range is just within this town, but depending on the situation, we may need to expand it even further."

"...Would it help if we asked Hachikuji for assistance?"

If we were talking about this town, then that lost child had become this town's god, so she'd probably be aware of troubles that were occurring in town... It was possible that she knew something.

"Hmm. I wonder about that. There's certainly a high possibility for that, but since she's become a god, that means by now that she's firmly on the side of the oddities."

"I see."

I wouldn't exactly be able to deal with depending on my old friend and putting her in a dilemma between humans and oddities.

Even gods had their own positions to keep in mind—if I appealed to her using my friendship and ended up toppling her from the seat of a god, that lost child could end up falling straight to hell without getting lost on the way.

After all, the road to the Kitashirahebi Shrine had become a throughway to hell.

And that was something that—well, it didn't really pain me to say it.

"Well, in any case, I'll set up plans to meet up with Kanbaru for now. And while I'm at it, I'll go and clean up her room really quick."

"That's a pretty incredible task to just do while you're at it. My niece is really causing trouble for you."

Although she wasn't as bad as you.

Well, I suppose it ran in the family.

"What will you do now, Gaen-san?"

"Though I feel bad because you and the search party are all working hard, I'm going to borrow an open bed in the hospital and take a nap—since I'm going to have to be active at night. No matter how young I dress myself up as, at this age, pulling an all-nighter is rough."

Well, that made sense.

As long as vampires were nocturnal, you'd have no choice but to adjust your biological clock to deal with their movements—even sleeping was part of the job.

Incidentally, a benefit of my aftereffects was that I didn't need to plan my sleep schedule like Gaen-san—it didn't put too much strain on me if I lost one or two nights of sleep. My vampire constitution had been modestly useful during my exam period.

"Oh yeah, by the way, Gaen-san. What should I tell Shinobu about this case? There's no doubt she'll wake up once night falls, after all."

Like with Kanbaru, during the case of Shishirui Seishirou, Oshino Shinobu had also been put to work, but I couldn't say that that weak-minded little girl had been totally useful.

If anything, she'd totally gotten in our way.

Well, I could sympathize with her situation, so I couldn't one-sidedly criticize her for her actions, and I had no intention of doing so, but if this was going to revive her feelings of remorse from that time, then perhaps we'd be better off excluding her from this case from the beginning.

After being sealed in my shadow, she had become not quite a half-vampire and more of a half-slave, but she wasn’t the kind of person that worked the way I wanted her to.

"After all, since they're both vampires, it could end up being someone she knows. That in itself would put her in a dilemma."

"For sure. It could be someone she knows. That would put her in a dilemma," repeated Gaen-san, nodding suggestively. "Well, we can think about that while she's sleeping. For now, focus on getting as much information as you can before tonight."

"Understood."

008

As I stepped on the accelerator on the way to Kanbaru's house, I pondered the possibility that the note that had been jotted down on that flash card was not actually a living message.

"B777Q" = "D/V/S".

It seemed Gaen-san had come up with some sort of hypothesis, and I believed Meniko's decryption had been right—however, for a code left behind just before the victim was transformed into a mummy, I felt that it was a little too elaborate.

Because, even if the cryptography was correct, this wasn't a mystery novel... Perhaps Ougi-chan would be convinced by it, but if you were being attacked by a vampire, or some other bad guy, would you really have the luxury of considering what the 22nd prime number was, or thinking that putting the three sevens together as "777" looked better?

No matter how much of a hard worker she was at school...

To be honest, even for me, who I could only recognize as having made it into college through his math skills alone, counting the prime numbers wasn't something I could easily do in my head, especially when I was driving like this... And if I were in a panic from being attacked, I was sure it would be close to impossible.

Well, it would be possible if it were Hanekawa, or even Meniko... Perhaps we could leave open the possibility that Kuchimoto Kyoumi-chan was one of those rarely seen child prodigies, but looking at those blank flash cards, it was hard to see her as anything but a studious honors student...

Especially if she was a member of the girls' basketball club known for its intense training... It was the same for Kanbaru, but that club had a system where you wouldn't be able to keep up if you didn't do your duties.

In that case, perhaps it wasn't a living message, or even a dying message—wasn't it more appropriate to deduce that this was actually the "signature" of the "culprit" vampire?

Signature, a declaration of crime, a proclamation of war, a self-expression.

It didn't matter what you called it, but it supported the theory of it being "initials" like Gaen-san mentioned briefly, or maybe even carelessly—it wasn't that the victim left behind the initials of the "culprit", but that the "culprit" left behind their own initials in the hands of the victim?

As if—making themselves known.

...If that was the case, the first (for now) victim, Harimaze Kie-chan, or the second (to be discovered) victim, Honnou Aburi-chan, could have something hidden among their personal belonging that involved such a self-inflated signature.

Should I let Gaen-san know about that? No, if it was a possibility on a level that I could come up with, then there was no way that Gaen-san didn't already hit upon it... And even if she hadn't, it wasn't a hypothesis worth waking her up, when she was trying to recharge herself for the coming night.

For now, I would focus on my own duty.

And as I pondered, the New Beetle arrived at the Japanese mansion where Kanbaru lived... I hadn't completely gotten free of the appeal of bicycles, but in the end, cars were on a completely different level in terms of mobility—I barely had the time to guess at deductions while I was traveling.

As if working as parking attendants, my junior stood outside the open gates, still in uniform on the way back from school—but, oh? It wasn't just one junior that was there.

Next to Kanbaru stood another female student, naturally wearing a Naoetsu High uniform as well—by the color of her necktie, she was a third-year, but who was she?

"Let me introduce you, Araragi-senpai. This is my friend from when I was in the basketball club, Higasa. After I retired, she took over as captain."

In a somewhat rushed greeting, Kanbaru introduced her classmate and friend to me when I left my car—her friend, who had been the captain of the girls' basketball club until very recently. I see, so when I let her know about the general idea of my business over the phone, she'd made some arrangements.

What a capable junior. I was unworthy of her.

"It's nice to meet you, Araragi-senpai. My name is Higasa Seiu. I've heard rumors about you for some time now."

"Haha. I'm sure they weren't any good rumors, right?"

"Ahahahahahahahahaha."

I was laughed at in an almost unnatural way. It seemed they weren't good rumors.

"Come inside, Araragi-senpai. No point in standing around here. Grandpa and Grandma are out on a trip, so they'll be away until the day after tomorrow, but even I can at least make tea for you."

"Eh. Um, but, your room..."

"It's fi~ine. I already know about it."

Though I'd been in a panic, Higasa-chan spoke up as if in total understanding—it seemed my capable junior had a capable friend. I felt a bit of relief at learning that Kanbaru had a friend among her peers that could tolerate such a chaotic room—but, anyway, I didn't want to overstay my welcome.

The problem in Kanbaru's left arm had been resolved, and it seemed she was lively and in high spirits, so let's quickly finish up my business here and take my leave—before she found out that I was playing around with her aunt.

"Here, have some tea, Araragi-senpai. I haven't put anything suspicious in it, so drink up without any worries."

"You don't need to add that remark!"

"Ahahahahahahahahaha."

Perhaps she was just someone who simply got drunk on laughter, but it seemed Higasa-chan didn't particularly mind sitting with and relaxing with a senior she'd just met, in this room whose mess seemed almost like a lie—as expected of Kanbaru's friend, she sure was easy-going.

"No, no, I'm actually very shy. Unlike Ruga, who's so boorish."

Although she certainly didn't seem like it.

Also, so Kanbaru was called "Ruga" by her friends...

For a moment, I'd been about to lean into the description of my cute junior as boorish, but in terms of our relationships, Higasa-chan was much closer to Kanbaru than I was, so it would be weird to condemn her evaluation.

"However, Araragi-senpai, you feel like someone I've known for a long time, so it doesn't really feel like we've just met for the first time."

"Really, what kind of rumors are floating around about me...?"

She was speaking as if I was someone like Lieutenant Columbo.

"You were the only delinquent among Naoetsu High's graduates, after all."

So that wasn't just Hanekawa's own misunderstanding?

Aw man.

"Although, just from hearing the rumors, it makes me quiver with fear. I'm so awestruck, so please forgive me if I end up being discourteous in any way out of my nervousness. Oh yeah, and I want to brag to all my friends, so could I please have your number?"

She didn't even hesitate.

Attached to the cell phone that was cheekily yet amiably presented to me was a strap with the letters "S H" as accessories... Hmm, it seemed that she had still left it on even after retiring.

What about Kanbaru?

Ah, that's right, her getting a cell phone was something that happened after she met me—it ended up being like that.

"So... About the girls' basketball club."

"Yes, yes. I have the data prepared right here."

From her school bag, Higasa-chan deftly pulled out a file that looked rather thick—it looked almost like a class's attendance record, but considering the context, it was most likely a register for the club.

"Since I joined the club, it's always been Higasa that kept records of all our activities, you see. If it were me, I wouldn't have even thought to make a list like that, and even if I did, I probably would have lost it somewhere," said Kanbaru.

Indeed, seeing the wretched state of this room that I had cleaned just the other day, I could see that she wasn't just being modest to praise her friend.

Though Higasa-chan had retired after she'd become a third-year, she'd still been present during the recruitment for the club in April, as she seemed to be completely aware of the affairs of the current second-years and the current first-years—however, when I reflexively reached out, she suddenly raised her hands in a banzai and kept the register out of my reach.

Like a basketball player trying to prevent a steal—or not.

"What is it? Nobody said, 'put your hands up!', Higasa-chan."

"Yeah. We-ell, Araragi-senpai. I shouldn't even need to say this, but this is the personal information of a hundred high school girls, after all," said Higasa-chan with a smile, holding the register in the air.

A hundred?

I turned to Kanbaru—and she nodded.

Wow, so the girls' basketball club had a hundred members.

A hundred members just from the first- and second-years... So were there at least fifty from each year? With a concrete number being defined, it put me at even more of a loss than when we had hypothesized an unspecified large number of victims.

Gaen-san had said something like "two out of a hundred", but that should have been just an example...

Well, for a sports club that competed on a national level, it could even be considered a fewer number of people than usual...

"To be exact, it's not fifty from each year. There are 76 second-years and 24 first-years, for a total of one hundred," said Higasa-chan. "So, even if this was something I made personally, if word got out that I leaked something like this, it wouldn't exactly end well for me."

"Right. Yeah, that's true."

I couldn't do anything but agree—I knew that, as someone who'd already graduated, and as someone who'd been part of the go-home club with absolutely no relation to the girls' basketball club, it was from the beginning a rather selfish request to ask for a hundred girls' worth of names, addresses, and contact information.

"Yes. If that happened, my blood will be spilled."

She was probably joking, but just today I'd laid eyes on three mummies with the blood sucked completely out of them, so I couldn't exactly go, "Ahahahahahahahahaha".

"Yes. It's not something to laugh about. It's not just their names and addresses and contact information—it even has their height and weight and three sizes and whether or not they have a partner."

"I'm sorry to take up more of your time, but Higasa-chan, would you mind blacking out those parts for me?"

"Even though it wouldn't end well for me, if I handed these records over to that Araragi-senpai infamous for being a hentai..."

"Infamous for being a hentai?"

"No. I said Araragi-hentai, infamous for being a senpai."

If that was what you said, that sounded even more cruel.

Should I go to Naoetsu High starting now to try and fix my bad reputation?

"Higasa. Being a hentai is my territory. And don't act all buddy-buddy and have fun with Araragi-senpai."

From off to the side, "Ruga" demonstrated the narrowness of her dignity.

Really, I couldn't feel any star power from her at all... And yet, they still called her the legendary ace of the basketball club.

However, if her intention was to protect the personal information of her members as an ex-captain, then Higasa-chan surely would not have even bothered to bring the register to this mansion on Kanbaru's request in the first place.

"I see. Understood, Higasa-chan. If I want to get that register, then you're saying I have to defeat you in a game of street basketball, right?"

"Um, no, that's not what I'm saying."

So it wasn't that? But I'd already taken off my jacket.

"Rather than that, the reason I'm risking becoming a bloody mess to lend you this top-secret register, Araragi-senpai, is in the hopes that maybe you'll be able to break down the current state of the Naoetsu High girls' basketball club."

"...? The current state of the club?"

"Higasa. If you ask that much from Araragi-hentai..."

While I was tilting my head at the rather unsettling wording, Kanbaru rebuked her friend—you're also calling me Araragi-hentai, aren't you.

You absolutely can't lend out the personal information of a hundred high school girls to someone like that!

"No, no. Even you feel some responsibility for it, though, don't you, Ruga? For the girlsbas right now. Perhaps even more than me."

"That's... Ah, Araragi-hentai. 'Girlsbas' is just a shortened form of 'girls' basketball club', and, most assuredly, does not mean the girls' bath."

"Could it actually be you that's spreading around my bad reputation, Kanbaru-kouhai?"

In any case, it seemed that, even between the two ex-captains, they didn't share the same opinion. And hearing that much, I wasn't the kind of Araragi-hentai that would back down so easily.

Not to mention, if there was some sort of trouble in the girls' basketball club right now, then, surprisingly enough, it could have some connection to the cause of the current serial mummification incident.

"Let me know what's going on. After all, I didn't come here to ask for help without doing anything in return. If there's something bothering you, I'll do my best to help."

"I'm very happy you feel that way, but it's enough to have you come over to clean my room every week or so, Araragi-senpai."

"Isn't that actually more than enough, Ruga...?" said Higasa-chan, scowling as if saying, don't say things that will make it harder for me to rely on Araragi-senpai. She then turned to me and said, "It's kinda in big trouble, the girlsbas after we retired," in an informal tone.

Really, what part of you was shy?

"It's not really a matter of there being any specific reason, but the atmosphere feels awful... When I visited the gym to try and be senpai-like and have them let off some exam stress, it almost felt like I put more stress on them instead."

Perhaps it was because of that that this girl was joking around in order to not make the atmosphere around here heavy as well—if so, she had a pretty good personality... Kanbaru had been acting as if she was embarrassed by her friend's behavior, but really, what you should be ashamed of is the state this room is in.

"Does it have to do with them getting weaker? Like, they fell out of the golden age that had the two of you in it."

I probably should have chosen my words better for that, but as someone with a small vocabulary, I couldn't think of another way to express it—they got weaker.

Although, well, that could just be inevitable, in a sense.

In a sense, Kanbaru was just too extraordinary.

To be even called a superstar, she was a student that was far more out-of-place than I was at Naoetsu High, a private school that was university-focused...

"That's true. Since I just worked really hard at my studies to chase after Senjougahara-senpai who I yearned for so much."

"Incidentally, I'm a sports-minded girl who can study without even needing to work hard at it."

Higasa-chan boastfully puffed out her chest, still keeping both her arms raised.

Well, there were those sorts of people, too.

"But I don't think it's because they got weaker. If anything, I'd say that would be even better for them... But, the atmosphere turned bad."

"The atmosphere—"

"The girls' basketball club stopped being a club that's bright and fun with a sense of solidarity," explained Kanbaru, almost unwillingly, in a way that was very much unlike her. "They lost their sense of solidarity—and all that was left was a sense of collective responsibility. And, to be specific..."

Kanbaru Suruga paused, then continued.

"Out of the hundred members listed in that register, five of them have gone missing."

009

According to Higasa-chan, saying that they'd "gone missing" was a bit of an exaggerated take from my rash junior, but to sum it up, among the first- and second-years, there were five members who couldn't be contacted.

Surprisingly enough, I was already familiar with three out of the five names they gave—although it wasn't that surprising.

Harimaze Kie. Honnou Aburi. Kuchimoto Kyoumi.

I could understand up to that point.

Thanks to Gaen-san's deft manipulation of information, and perhaps even an embargo of information, the various mummified girls were being treated as having a "strange disease", so their matters weren't publicized—as such, the three of them were seen from the outside as absent for some vague reason, the actual circumstances imperceptible.

"Gone missing".

Up to that point, it was a pre-established harmony, in a sense, so it wasn't worth getting shocked or taken aback—the problem would be the fact that two more names were included in the group of "missing" girls.

It was a fact that I didn't want to face.

It was a bit premature to assume that both of them had already fallen victim to a vampire, but even if that wasn't the case, five students going "missing" was more than enough to be a huge incident, wasn't it?-although, that was just what I thought as someone who'd already graduated, but, thinking back to when I'd still been enrolled, I had to conclude that that wasn't necessarily true.

I'd already mentioned that I'd skipped class in high school a lot, but it wouldn't exactly be right to say that, at this university-focused school where people "going missing" was rare, everyone but me was an honors student.

If you wondered what happened to the students that couldn't keep up in class, that weren't suited to the school tradition of having the top standard score, that ended up falling behind... Well, in short, you'd say they—"went away".

They'd transfer, or they'd drop out.

Or, like Oikura Sodachi, they'd shut themselves in their own home—they "went away".

What Higasa-chan had said was certainly right, and a "delinquent that graduated from Naoetsu High" like me was certainly rare.

It had to be an exaggeration to say that I was the "only" one, but most of them didn't make it to graduation.

They'd go away—they'd disappear.

As if they'd never been there in the first place—so, at Naoetsu High, becoming "unable to see" a student was not an especially unusual affair.

What the school was turning a blind eye to was not the students that fell behind themselves, but the idea that the school even had students that fell behind to begin with. That was the reality—the real problem.

Well, it wasn't just Naoetsu High. All private schools probably wanted to avoid scandals like that...

But, in terms of the trouble occurring in the girls' basketball club this time, what was different about it was that it wasn't trouble that stemmed from the intensity of class or exams, but trouble that stemmed from training and teamwork.

"Ruga herself will probably deny this, but to be perfectly clear, Naoetsu High's girlsbas was a club made around Kanbaru Suruga, because of Kanbaru Suruga, for Kanbaru Suruga, after all... Even from when I joined, I proactively worked to lead the club in direction, as well," said Higasa-chan. "I don't think doing that in itself was wrong, and it was because of that that we could make it to Nationals, after all. The problem was that, even after Ruga hurt her left arm and had to retire, that arrangement ended up being passed down as is... At least when I was captain, I did my best to fool the club to somehow keep things going, but after retiring in April, it fell apart all in one go."

A goal that was too far, training that was too hard, peer pressure that couldn't be escaped...

Not a sense of solidarity, but a sense of collective responsibility.

"Sports isn't something people should be suffering through, so if it's that harsh, then I feel like they'd be better off resigning, though."

Since the club was formed around her existence, it was hard to deny it completely, but Kanbaru, who was usually a straightforward person, spoke instead with a weak tone of voice.

"Even if they did want to resign, they probably don't want to be the first to do so."

"That's something I can't understand."

"Well, of course you can't, Ruga." And, as if exasperated, or maybe to sidestep the subject, Higasa-chan said, "There were kids that did resign, of course. Not that they sent in with an official notification of their resignation, since they resigned after getting hurt during practice."

Higasa-chan made it sound like they got hurt on purpose to resign... And I couldn't say that I didn't understand how they felt.

Although I couldn't say it was exactly the same, when I'd been studying for exams, I'd been tempted by the idea of hurting myself in order to avoid tackling a problem set for hours on end—of course, because of my vampire constitution, it didn't actually go well, but I could only say that there had been something wrong with me at the time.

In other words, there was something wrong here.

With the girls' basketball club right now.

Because they'd lost the support of the Kanbaru era—or rather, they'd lost the core.

"So, we knew we needed to do something about it, so we had a meeting of the OG third-years and debated over what to do, and, well, it's not like we didn't try to put some of our countermeasures in action, but it was like they backfired, since over the past few days, more and more members have stopped coming to school—and because it looks like there are no problems on the surface, it feels even worse than it should be. Even the ones that are having a hard time feel a sense of fulfillment or get filled with euphoria when they reach a stopping point, so they get stuck in place. And if someone carelessly complains about something, everyone else gets together and enjoys criticizing that person."

"It's hard for us to change that structure from where we are, Araragi-senpai. Or rather, it's because our generation is the one that made that structure in the first place, so what they're doing is almost exactly the same as what we're doing."

"Yeah. The difference is just how they feel about it. ...Um, it's possible that maybe we were wrong to set that up in the first place. Our advisor, who'd lived in an age of corporal punishment and a prevalent pecking order, had given us the opinion that 'it might not fit the current generation, but it was still good in its own way', and we didn't want to ignore that. Well, from the day I joined to the day I retired, I'm pretty sure I had fun every day, right?"

Well, who knows.

It was true that it was hard to deny a process before seeing the results, but the undeniable reality was that, even if they said and did the same things, if the people doing those things changed, then the impression would also change—however, in that case, I could understand how Kanbaru and Higasa-chan felt, about how it would be hard to guide their juniors that were just imitating them.

"The school itself is keeping us from saying anything, so we were basically at our wits' end when you approached us, Araragi-senpai. I almost thought this was a godsend."

They must have really been at their wits' end if they thought being approached by a pervert was a godsend, but anyway.

It was true that the timing was good.

Considering the current era, if it weren't for this timing, I doubted Higasa-chan would've even told me about the register's existence—however, I still couldn't say if this was inevitable or just a coincidence.

If the trouble in the girls' basketball club had a direct connection to the vampire turmoil occurring in this town—for Higasa-chan, she probably would never have guessed that I was already busy trying to resolve that trouble.

"...Hmm."

However, I still stopped to think.

I stopped to compare things with my experiences from last year... or not. What I was actually remembering were the words of my classmate, Hanekawa.

At the time, she had certainly been having some trouble, even though she didn't show it. And Hanekawa Tsubasa, whose worries had driven her up to the wall, had thought, during her spring break as a 17-year-old, that she "wanted to meet a vampire".

It was an earnest desire [setsubou].

It was despair [zetsubou].

To meet an incomprehensible monster that could burst through the immovable walls of reality, of real problems, in a single blow—even after graduating from high school, the Hanekawa that had spread her wings overseas was like that.

In that case, was it really so farfetched to infer that the students troubled over their club and worried about their school life thought, in the same way, that "it would be so much easier if a vampire came an attacked me"...?

And if that strong, earnest desire—or perhaps, that strong despair—was the missing link that connected the victims.

I couldn't afford to not determine the whereabouts of the remaining two names that had gone missing—especially if they hadn't been mummified yet, but no, even if they did already have their blood sucked.

"I got it, Higasa-chan. I don't really think a blockhead like me can do anything about the delicate problems that girls face—but if you can lend me that register, I promise I'll do my best to make sure that no more members go missing among your juniors, at the very least."

"Just you promising that is enough for me."

And though I knew that my words wouldn't give any peace of mind, Higasa-chan still said that and lowered her arms that had been raised all this time, handing over the register to me.

"By the way, Araragi-senpai, do you have a girlfriend?"

010

Nervously wondering about what would have happened if I had said that I didn't, and feeling embarrassed at myself for allowing myself to be teased by a high school girl that I'd met for the first time, I once again headed back to the Naoetsu General Hospital.

I'd ended up feeling a lot gloomier as a graduate of Naoetsu High, but just from the results, I'd managed to obtain the member list of the girls' basketball club fairly easily, so I assumed Gaen-san would still be in the middle of her nap in preparation for the night, and I started thinking about how I might be praised for my quick work, but when I arrived, the specialist was already awake.

Didn't she only sleep for about 30 minutes?

Even though she'd said that pulling an all-nighter was rough, was this woman also a short sleeper, like other eminent figures were...? In any case, I returned to the first hospital room I'd visited that day, containing the mummy of Harimaze Kie-chan, first-year of Naoetsu High and a member of the girls' basketball club, and relayed the information to Gaen-san in much the same way as a carrier pigeon would.

"I see. You're really living out your youth, huh?"

Those were her first words.

Well, for Gaen-san, who was from a completely different era, and had never even attended Naoetsu High, that may be how it seemed.

As someone who'd known firsthand of Kanbaru Suruga flourishing as a versatile superstar, it honestly pained me just hearing about the state of affairs in the current girls' basketball club, but it was useless to try and have those feelings be shared by an unrelated third party.

It was surely the same as how, for a fresh-faced college first-year like me, the concepts of employment or marriage were something I still couldn't understand.

"That's a little upsetting to hear. Even this onee-san had a period where she was in her youth, you know? A youth spent with Oshino and Kaiki and Kagenui... And a youth spent with my sister. Indeed, just as how youth is written with the kanji for 'blue' and 'spring', it was a springtime that turned me blue with shock."

"...I'm very sorry about that."

However, it was absolutely true that I couldn't picture Gaen-san and company in their teenage years... Especially not a teenage version of Kanbaru's mother, Gaen Tooe-san.

"From what you're saying, Koyomin, so far, there's no evidence to conclude that this has anything to do with the girls' mummification, but there is equally no evidence to dismiss it as irrelevant, either. So the members of the girls' basketball team were feeling depressed, wondering why they had to sacrifice their studies and devote themselves to grueling practices, when the seniors that would aim that high were already gone—and perhaps the vampire was attracted by the darkness in their hearts. That hypothesis does have a certain degree of plausibility."

"Oddities have a fitting reason to their existence—right?"

"Well, let this onee-san that knows everything tell you that the period of time that Suruga was a member of the team wasn't necessarily a healthy and beautiful adolescence, either. Putting aside the other girls, it wasn't as if that niece of mine got faster for a positive reason."

Indeed.

The superstar hadn't been a superstar from the moment she was born. Rather, circumstances made it so that she had to become a superstar.

Because she made a wish to a monkey.

"Even if she was freed from that monkey, it doesn't mean she's been freed from the worries of her adolescence. Well, it's the fate of upperclassmen to be bothered by their underclassmen. We'll just have to roll with it in order to uphold the cheap promise you made, Koyomin."

First off, why don't we focus on searching for the remaining two "missing" members of the club?—said Gaen-san, deciding on our plan of action after riffling through the register I gave her.

"Of course, we'll also be confirming the locations of the remaining members, too. Kanguu Misago-chan and Kiseki Souwa-chan—both second-years."

"Hypothetically, if those two have already had a run-in with the vampire, then out of the five victims, there would be three second-years and two first-years."

Not that I could draw any conclusions from that, and I might have been getting ahead of myself considering their mummies hadn't been discovered yet.

But I didn't want to turn away from unpleasant possibilities just because the pessimism would bum me out—I wanted to think of everything I could, so that I could deal with the worst-case scenario.

3:2... That was the ratio of the club members.

"Oh yeah. Gaen-san. I only thought of this afterwards, but do you think it's possible that the living message that Kuchimoto-chan left behind on that flash card was actually the vampire's signature?"

"I'd say it's very possible."

It seemed that it was a possibility that she'd already considered, as she responded to my question in an instant—the initials, huh?

"D/V/S".

"However, there was nothing of the sort in the belongings of either Harimaze Kie-chan here or Honnou Aburi-chan in the next room. Of course, there were no living messages either. But if the 'B777Q' on the flash card is actually a signature, it would make more sense if a similar code was left with every mummy."

That was true... But for her to have already verified that—did this person really take a nap while I was gone?

"In Kuchimoto-chan's case, instead of being on a public street or in a private house, she was in an abandoned shack. Maybe the vampire felt that they could work leisurely without worrying about being seen?"

As I said that, I couldn't help but feel uneasy.

Without worrying about being seen? Work leisurely?

A vampire worrying about being seen sounded like some sort of slapstick comedy... In that case, it would make more sense that they had left a code behind with the mummies of Harimaze-chan and Honnou-chan, a code that didn't seem like a code.

"There are a couple more things that don't make sense, Koyomin. If you explain this as a vampire leaving their signature in much the same way an artist signs their name on a work of art, it's pretty hair-raising and very appropriate for an oddity story—but in that case, don't you think they would have added it to a work that they'd be more proud of?"

At least, they wouldn't be doing it on a failure... —said Gaen-san, looking up from the register and towards the mummy on the bed.

I see.

As an ordinary person, my thoughts came to a standstill when I lay my eyes upon such a gruesome mummy, but in the end, a mummy like this was something that had "failed" to become a vampire—no matter how much they longed to be in the limelight, there was surely no artist that would sign their name on a failed work.

Then, should I simply assume that it was just a living message left behind by Kuchimoto-chan?

"I did do a handwriting analysis. I compared the writing in red pen on the flash card with the writing in her notebook that I found in her bag—however, I couldn't come to a definite conclusion. There didn't seem to be any matches in the handwriting, but if they were scribbling it down while being attacked by a vampire, it would make sense for it to be messy."

"That's true... Well, in the end, whether it's a living message or a signature, it doesn't really matter."

"Although, from our perspective as the pursuers, a vampire that longs to be in the limelight is much easier to find, so that would be helpful. But anyway, as the commander, I'd like to give you a command to follow, Koyomin."

"Ah. Yes. What is it?"

The sun was about to set. Time was running out.

We were entering the world of the night.

It seemed that, after the reconnaissance and discussion, it was finally time to come up with a practical response to this oddity phenomenon—thanks to talking with Kanbaru and Higasa-chan, my motivation to solve the case had increased as much as my mood had decreased, but now, what did I need to do?

"I was really unsure about whether or not I should ask this of you... But it seems I'll have to after all. Koyomin. This is only something you can do."

Gaen-san spoke with a serious expression.

"I'd like you to hold Shinobu-chan back for tonight."

[steadyreadycollective]

ACCOUNTABILITY DEMAND OF WOODY BATTAGLIA

This is an open letter to demand Rochester, NY comedian and organizer Woody Battaglia [ETA: legal name, Ron Wood] be held accountable for numerous incidents of sexual harassment and assault. The following photos depict conversations and testimonies from survivors. We stand in solidarity with these women, who span the age ranges of 25-35 years old, come from various class backgrounds and include BIPOC women. While not all of them are part of the local comedy scene in Rochester, NY, the majority of them are or were in the past.      Due to the obvious patterns of predation by Battaglia, as well as his standing in the comedy community as a show organizer,  we anticipate more survivors coming forward once these accounts have been read.    The oldest incident reported happened in 2013.     [NOTE: Dissociative disorders are common responses to a traumatic event.]  

Predation and sexual exploitation is a common tactic among men in leadership positions because power often distorts perception. These men overestimate someone’s friendliness as sexual attraction which creates a dangerous pattern of entitlement. Here is testimony from a woman who experienced Battaglia’s abuse of power in response to her avoiding his prolonged, unwanted sexual advances:   

Here is another example of unwanted sexual advances from March, 2019: 

A third person explained how Battaglia groomed her at the beginning of her career in an egregious attempt to normalize his sexual advances :   

In a scene that is notoriously male-dominated, Woody Battaglia made numerous women feel sexualized, fetishized and unsafe. Sadly, this behavior escalated.    CW: The following is an account of sexual assault.   

There have been a few attempts at holding Battaglia accountable for his actions, but he usually gaslights survivors and/or their advocates:

  Battaglia’s few apologies have been empty and without any notes of true remorse or motions towards rehabilitation.    Often, people are unwilling or unable to recognize themselves as assault victims, thus lacking the ability to hold their assailants accountable. Predatory people rely on many things, including social hierarchies, shame, embarrassment and the culture of victim-blaming that happens when survivors come forward. Fear of an unfair legal system as well as police ridicule are also major contributing factors to this culture of silence. 

  We have reason to believe Battaglia is aware that numerous women have come together to exchange stories of his serial sexual harassment, assaults, gaslighting and professional retaliation. Almost three hours ago, he sent his usual attempt at an apology to a woman where he incentivized her silence by offering free professional development:    

We are extremely grateful for all of the women who came forward and bravely used their voices to help put an end to Woody Battaglia’s devastating behaviors. This problem is not unique, especially within creative industries where men are often given positions of power and act as gatekeepers. These are not occupational hazards. These are CRIMES.     As stated previously, we have no doubt more survivors will come forward. We will support any attempts made by them towards healing, safety, recovery and accountability.    WE DEMAND:    1. Wood Battaglia be immediately removed from any roles of leadership within the comedy community and beyond.    2. Woody Battaglia provide any people willing to work with him a concrete plan to make amends, rehabilitate and honor the autonomy of his victims.    3. Men within the local comedy community make larger, more impactful efforts to speak up for women, femme and non-binary performers. INVEST IN US. PROTECT US. DEFEND US. FOREVER.     If you are a survivor in need of help, please go to https://restoresas.org/    You are not alone.           _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _    [We’ve decided to consolidate the updates so they are also in this original post]      UPDATE 1:   We have been informed by survivors that they wish to include Battaglia’s legal name, Ron Wood, in the initial post so we have amended it to reflect those changes. Two more survivors have come forward publicly and one of them has allowed us to re-post her response from last night to this page in hopes of submitting further evidence of Battaglia’s serial predation and, more importantly, to document an incident that dates earlier than 2013, as previously reported. The following incident is from 2012 :  

We continue to be in awe of the bravery these women have shown. Coming forward with these testimonies is such a vulnerable and costly action, even when protected by anonymity. Though the solidarity of survivor-kinship can feel validating, these women are still hurting and are likely experiencing new levels of harm by reading the accounts of others.   It is our duty to affirm the anger and sorrow of these women, and all survivors, everywhere. The strength they have shown is not only admirable, but life-saving. In order to achieve true liberation for all, we must actively invest in the uplifting of community members’ voices, especially those historically silenced. We have the power to strengthen our communities from the inside. We don’t need saviors. Men: take action. Step up. Call your brothers in and have the hard conversations. Follow through. This work is a daily grind. Ask yourselves if you’ve done the actual work, or if you’re being performative. Remember, saying nothing also says something. To disengage from this conversation is to employ systems that continue to replicate the violences of oppression and, specifically, rape culture.   No more. We’ve had enough.         _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _       UPDATE 2:    We wish to thank the local Rochester comedy scene and worldwide comedy scenes and unaffiliated individuals who’ve expressed public support of the women who’ve come forward and their lead advocate (a local comedian who has fielded and submitted all of the provided screenshots to us.) This is an extraordinary show of solidarity that gives us hope. The following screenshot is from 2013, submitted by Emily Champion, a former employee of the (now closed) Acanthus Cafe on East Avenue. She worked there for approximately nine months while Battaglia hosted an open mic series.   As the open mic series was coming to its end, Battaglia sent the following inappropriate sexual advance to Champion (note the full month of non-communication between them) :  

Each testimonial thus far has shown unwelcome verbal and physical sexual attention or instances of sexual misconduct and assault. The majority of women speaking up have noted their “subordinate” positions - Battaglia was in a role of power, abusing his social standing and their trust, causing them to fear social or professional retribution.   In our experience with offenders within artistic communities, job insecurity and unreliable wages can be contributing factors in a person’s growing resentment of their “unappreciated” leadership roles. Over time, these people develop an inadequate sense of superiority and entitlement, justifying inappropriate sexual demands from people they believe “owe” them. Due to the voluntary nature of hosting and organizing, many victims lack proper channels to report sexual harassment or assault, leading to further exploitation.

For Those Struggling with The Allegations Against Battaglia

We understand and support you, too. Rape culture’s entire foundation is built on a myriad of the worst emotions / responses: confusion, shame, embarrassment, uncertainty, shock, fear and silence.  Your close proximity to a predatory person does not make you complicit but it might require you examine whether you can actively assist in any prolonged rehabilitation and accountability efforts.   Often, the immediate response to allegations of sexual misconduct or abuse are to ostracize or make threats to the offender. Everyone responds differently to news of sexual harassment and assault, but the healthiest response is to be supportive of survivors and not commit unlawful acts of retaliation. Yes, it is possible to believe the survivors and remain in healthy contact with the accused. Yes, it is possible to recognize the offender’s humanity and well-being while holding them accountable for their actions and assisting their rehabilitation if you choose.

Allow yourself space. Set boundaries. Seek a professional to support your own physical and mental health.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  

NOTE:  Incidents like these are why we renounce performative activism: public displays of “woke-ness” (via political memes or declarations made on social media) are by no means indicative of how a person acts in their personal or private life. These displays are sometimes used to thwart recognition of problematic behaviors.  

No community is immune to enabling predators. A way to be in direct opposition to this epidemic, which stems from power structures, is by explicitly opposing hierarchies within your community. Do not allow gatekeepers to happen (if there is A Leader of your scene, ask yourselves how they got there and why they've held their position if it’s been longer than a two year span.)   Anyone actively working to liberate the most marginalized members of their scene will make efforts to elevate their roles, providing access to leadership positions and community empowerment. Good luck, Rochester. There’s so much work to be done. We’re rooting for you.

[docandprof]

Are You Really Ready to Read This Much?

Guten Tag!

Moves have been made, am I right?! You are a big boy now! I know you last talked about how stressed life has been with so many unknowns floating around and being a source of disturbance in your life. As we move onto the next phase of life, our days become the work we do, the places we call home, and the people we spend time with and hold close. Any disruption of one of these aspects alone can wear and tear on a person and stretch them thin. But having almost all of those in flux, I can’t even imagine the internal stress you felt. But I know that you have started to piece some semblance of normalcy and establish a life for yourself. I cannot wait to see how you settle into a job that gives you experience in the field you ACTUALLY want to explore and make a home for yourself. It seems that half of our friends are experiencing the post-grad limbo of job hunting (unfortunately during a pandemic), while the other half of us are finding a little niche in the world to call our own, however temporary or beginner level it is. So from one bambi boy finding his legs in the wilderness of life to another, WELCOME TO THE GRIND! It feels pretty nice to just focus in on your job and not worry about what other million billion things for other classes and jobs and clubs you have to get done and in an excellent manner. So take a load off and grab a beer, it is time to reap the rewards of your hard work for the past years.

As you enter into the working grind, which you already know, I find it incredibly valuable to have some form of release and escape. Maybe this is the best time to figure out what that is and practice doing it because of the forced solidarity giving us the time at home to messed around. I know that should never be a problem for you to find some form of entertainment, as you are constantly reading or playing some game. I guess it helps that you work in the gaming industry and, being that games are kinda your life, playing them and experiencing them will always be a point of interest. So let me know what it is that you find to transport away from all the hustle and bustle. I would love to see what gets the juices flowing for you. Personally, outside of our DnD sessions, I have found a good source of release in my roommates as we joint-play games together. Our focus has been on these games with great narratives and characters, harkening more to cinematic experiences than a standard run and gun or rpg. For example, we are currently freeing a third world country from a dictator in Far Cry 3. Although a 1st person open world shooter at first sight, the story, visuals, and ability to choose your own story path are what drew us in and keep us coming back. I also just love the experience of playing a game with other people, as it strengthens the enjoyment of a normal game by allowing for a shared experience of a piece of art. Next on our list is The Last of Us, followed by part II. I am SUPER looking forward to seeing one of our favorite people’s character go through a pretty crazy situation. Lemme know of any other game recommendations that you have that remotely sound like what I have been describing.

And finally, the reason why this post has taken so long. I have been wrestling with the words and ideas that have been swirling around inside of me for the past couple months. I feel a mixture of embarrassment, anger, frustration, grief, and shock when I think about this. Most of all, I feel pain. So pardon me for however this comes out, as I still have yet to even fully put my own feelings into words that I feel describe what is going on. I want to pause here to take a beat to breath and also assure you that whatever comes next is not nearly as bad what you may be thinking now as you read. A lot of this stems from being blindsided by the whole circumstance, but I guess I should just get on with saying it. Last pause, as everything that we write in here is private, I want to emphasize how extremely private this is and would really appreciate your discretion. I just need someone to tell, and as I have made a vow to be more vulnerable with you, this is something I find very important. So as things in the world have gotten crazy, the craziness and destruction impact more than just the outside world, but those close to us. A few weeks after we graduated, my mom got news from work that she was going on furlough for an indefinite amount of time, and her position would be re-evaluated at the end of July, hoping that things would start settling back to normal. So for a few months, my mom was kind of in limbo, but she used that time to get a lot of priorities in order. She got pretty involved in church with the band and started singing more again, something that she hadn’t done in quite a few years. She also started helping with a charity my godparents started and found a lot of comfort helping out those with less in her time of uncertainty. But we thought all of this would be temporary, after all, she has been with the company for over 30 years and has been more than loyal. But at the beginning of July, she got a call from her boss saying they were gonna have to let her go. I know people lose jobs all the time, and even more so in today’s climate, but you never see it happening to your family and those that you love so dearly. When she called me to let me know, I could hear her holding back tears, trying to be strong. I was honestly at a loss for words when she told me. I felt enraged at the company for doing this to my mom. I was worried about what would happen to my parents’ plans for their own future, as my mom was kinda the bread winner for the family, which comes with having one parent owning and operating a small business all by himself. But mainly I just felt as if I had shattered into a million pieces that were flung into the wind. I love no person more in this world than my mom. She, no matter how much I didn’t want to hear it, taught me right from wrong, pushed me to reach for MY dreams, sacrificed WAY more of herself than any person should for another human. She is both the strongest and kindest person I have and ever will meet, yet there I was, on the phone with her during a really dark time in her life, and she was holding back tears still trying to be strong for me. I feel helpless in a situation like this! I am barely making enough money to look out for myself, let alone do anything to help my parents out! I know I can say nice, encouraging words, but I want to fix things and make everything good for them, for her. Without my parents, I would be nothing. So to see them go through this trial has really kind of messed me up inside for a couple months now. My mom has thought about going back to school because she never finished her degree, but schooling is NOT cheap. She is 53 now, she should be thinking about retirement in a few years and life outside of work right now, not going back to school just to make ends meet. I applaud her for how well she has taken this and how she continues to persevere in the face of opposition. I cried like a baby after I got off the phone with her that day in July. My parents are my rock in this life and I ache to see them in pain. I am lucky to have a brother that is certified in talking through bad experiences. He has been a big help. If there is a bright spot from all this, our family has grown a lot closer during these past few months, which hurts just a little bit more that I can’t go see my family and give my mom a hug. I miss them so much. The other positive is now my mom is free to pursue a work-life that she can choose. For too long she was doing this job to provide for us boys, but now she can do what has been on her heart. Luckily, she has a great support system around her that is in constant prayer for her and my dad. She got a call from their lead pastor a week ago, where they have a position they thought would be perfect for her coordinating the various community outreach programs the church is involved with. She never expressed interest in the position or sought out anything of the likes, she just popped into their mind and she has a meeting with the board of the church coming up. So there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I know this is probably by far the longest post I have written, but I needed to talk with someone about it. Again, I ask for discretion as we haven’t told many people about it. I am not sure who, if any of our friends’ parents know, as this is not my place to be telling others. As you are my confidant, I trust you with anything that I say and know that you will be there to support. So if others are to know, it should be and will be on my parents’ terms. Sorry for the heavy dump I just took here, but I appreciate you listening. I also hate to end on such a negative note, but it doesn’t feel right to end any other way. I will leave you with this, love those close to you and give your family an extra long hug when you see them next. Who knows what will happen between now and the next time.

With much love,

A

[bluewatsons]

Julie Kent et al., Gender dynamics in the donation field: human tissue donation for research, therapy and feeding, 41 Sociol Health Illn 567 (2019)

Abstract

This paper examines how gender dynamics shape human tissue donation for research and for human health. Drawing on research investigating the donation of different types of bodily tissues including blood, plasma, breastmilk, cord blood, foetal tissue and placentae we consider how and why women and men are viewed as different kinds of donors. We situate these donation practices within a broader understanding of gender difference to explain why any sociology of donation needs to take account of gender. In so doing we explore how tissue derived from the bodies of women acquires value in distinctive ways and for distinctive purposes and reasons. Within these gendered bioeconomies of donation, the supply and demand for tissue is structured by social understandings of maternity, parental responsibility, and risk, which in turn affect the experiences of donors.

Introduction

The donation of human tissue is often associated with notions of altruism, with giving without expectation of immediate return, and with care. For example, since early discussions of blood donation and the ‘gift relationship’ (Titmuss 1970), blood services reliant on voluntary unpaid donation have been understood as building social solidarity and as tied to citizenship and community belonging. The presumption that donation builds social solidarity and expresses the ‘care’ of members of a society towards each other shapes donation practice in multiple ways, from appeals by national donation systems to increase donor participation rates to the handling and processing of donated materials. Yet the gendered aspects of donation often remain under‐acknowledged even in critical literatures on donation.

In this article our focus is on how examining donation through the analytical lens of gender is important for understanding the ethical valuations and notions of risk associated with donation and with donated materials. Gender is also an important analytical framework for understanding moral hierarchies in which some donors and donations are viewed as ‘good’ and therefore desirable but others are viewed as less desirable. Despite general appeals to the ‘gift’ and to universal notions of altruism in which donation is open to all and gifts are equally valued, we argue that donation is a deeply gendered practice. To demonstrate this, we examine how gendered expectations and norms surrounding the donation of aborted foetal tissue, placental tissue, umbilical cord blood, breastmilk and blood shape the value of these donated tissues (we use this term to include cellular materials, organs, fluids, and gametes). By ‘value’ we refer not only to how donated materials may acquire ‘exchange value’ within human tissue markets (where they exist) but also how they have ‘biovalue,’ which refers to the ‘surplus value of vitality and instrumental knowledge that can be placed at the disposal of the human subject’ (Waldby 2000, 19, see also Waldby and Mitchell 2006). In this sense, we understand value as the multiple social, cultural and ethical assessments attached to human tissues. This framework of value as more than market‐ or exchange‐based, permits us to examine how different presumptions of ‘risk’ may be attached to donated materials. A sensitivity to the multiple meanings of value also allows us to assess how ethical valuations of tissues as ‘just waste’ or as ‘precious resource’ shape how donors are understood to be attached to, or detached from, their bodily materials. We suggest that a sociology of donation requires exploring, as we do in this essay, how the subjects, relations and practices of donation are gendered. It also requires developing analytical tools for understanding gender dynamics in the donation field.

As our discussion below highlights, the gender dynamics of donation shape expectations regarding the interest of donors in their donated material. These dynamics may differ depending on the uses of such materials for distinct purposes: research, therapy or feeding. Human tissue collection and use for research operates within a legal and ethical framework that needs to be understood as distinct from, but connected to, tissue collection for transplantation or transfusion. In the EU, regulations governing the therapeutic use of donated tissue exclude the use of tissue for research (Kent and ter Meulen 2011). However, donors in some circumstances may be encouraged to consider their donation as beneficial for both research and for therapy (Busby 2010). Biological materials provided during clinical care may, in some contexts, be transformed into research resources (Pulley et al. 2008). Research on gamete donation demonstrates how tissues such as sperm and eggs collected initially for fertility therapy may later be donated for research (Waldby and Mitchell 2006). These examples make clear that the trajectories of donated tissues are complex. The gender dynamics of donation may differ depending on the use of donated tissues or may change as tissues are transferred from one use to another. Indeed, the tissues we discuss in this article are used for more than one purpose: peripheral blood and umbilical cord blood are used therapeutically in transfusion but also in research (Newcomb et al. 2007). Foetal and placental tissue are used in both research and for therapeutic transplantation: foetal tissue is used to treat diabetes and Parkinson's disease (Barker et al. 2013, Fine 1994) while placental tissue is an established source of grafts for treating ophthalmologic disorders (Silini et al. 2015). Placental tissue is also the focus of current experimental treatments for a range of skin conditions (Nevala‐Plagemann et al. 2015). Finally, breastmilk is primarily used for infant feeding but is also collected for research (often using unused milk donated to breastmilk banks), for example in studies of environmental toxin exposure (Hooper and She 2003) and of breast cancer (Shenker 2015, see also the Breastmilk Epigenetic Cohort Study (BECS), and UMass Breastmilk Lab (http://www.breastmilkresearch.org/donate-breastmilk-for-research/). Blood is donated by both men and women; the other tissues are donated by women.

While recognising that there are multiple ways in which these donated materials may be used, our discussion focuses on how gender shapes the initial dynamics of donation of a range of tissues for specific uses. In the field of therapeutic applications, drawing on our research we consider how gendered notions of ‘risk’ construct women as blood donors and are features of the cord blood economy. We discuss the research use of aborted foetal tissue in stem cell science and of placental tissue in a research biobank, highlighting how gendered understandings of maternity shape the social and ethical value attributed to these tissues. Finally, we consider breastmilk donation for infant feeding (we do not discuss here other exchanges of breast milk for adults seeking nutritional supplements or for other reasons) and how maternal donation of breast milk is only visible when breast milk moves between unrelated mothers and infants. As we shall see when a birth mother feeds her own child this is not seen as ‘donation’ even though milk flows from her body to the infant. This work therefore provides an opportunity for analysis of how gender is performed in each of these sites. We discuss extant literatures on donation of these tissues, as well as our own empirical research, to support our argument that donation is a gendered practice. To structure our discussion, we address three specific questions in relation to the gender dynamics of donation:

Why is gender important in developing a sociology of donation?

How might comparisons of findings from our research on different types of bodily tissue illuminate gender dynamics in this area?

Why is it important to think about concepts of risk, safety and benefit, in relation to human tissue donation, as gendered?

A gendered sociology of donation

Gender as an analytical concept is often used to elucidate how societies make distinctions between the roles, social expectations, behaviours, and bodily performances of men and women. For us it is important to think about how gender constructs both the experience of donation, the valuation of donated materials and the relations between donors and recipients. Extending the emphasis on altruism and care as key presumptions made regarding donors and donation, we might suggest that if women are assumed stereotypically to be more ‘caring’ than men, then could it also be assumed that women in general are more likely to donate? Researchers seeking to answer this question often compare blood or organ donation rates for men and women. For example, a study of blood donation in the US noted that in the 1970s and 1980s, more men donated blood than women. However, during the 1990s the proportion of women donating blood began to increase (Gillespie and Hillyer 2002). In the UK, ‘in 2013, a significantly higher proportion of blood donors were females (54.1% vs. 45.9%; p < 0.001)’ (PHE 2014). In a study of attitudes towards organ donation in the UK, we see that ‘women aged 35‐54 years are significantly more committed to donating their organs than any other demographic. Two‐thirds say they are definitely willing to donate all of, or some of, their organs’ (Optimisa Research 2013). For living kidney donation, more donors are women (53%), while the majority of recipients are men (57%) (NHSBT 2016). Academic literature comparing donation rates of men and women suggests that in general, and across comparative country contexts, more women donate organs than men, and more men are recipients of donated organs than women (Puoti et al. 2016, Steinman 2006). Data from the UK National Health Service on cadaver organ donation and transplant in 2015–2016 indicates that 51% of organ donors after brain death and 61% of organ donors after circulatory death are men. Cadaver organ donation is of course influenced by the decisions of relatives of the deceased, although the nature of how gender dynamics figure into the relationship of the deceased to family decision‐making is still underexplored in the scholarly literature (Martinez et al. 2001).

The data on demographic characteristics of donation reveal disparities between the proportion of women and men donating specific tissues. These findings regarding organ and blood donation for therapeutic use suggests that gender differences matter but whether, and how they matter is uncertain. It is also unclear whether the gender dynamics of organ donation are relevant to donation of other tissues, or for non‐therapeutic uses. What is needed in order to analyse this descriptive data is research on how donors view donation, and on the extent to which social and cultural dynamics – such as gender – inform their views on, and participation in, donation (Lipworth et al. 2011).

In her 2009 article Rene Almeling asks, ‘Does the social process of assigning value to the human body vary based on the sex and gender of the body being commodified?’ (2009: 39). Almeling addresses this question by comparing egg and sperm markets in the US and concludes that ‘the differential expectations of and compensation for egg and sperm donors are generated by gendered assumptions about women and men, including their differential “investment” in reproduction’ (2009: 45). In her study, women egg donors recruited to donation programmes were expected to be altruistic, while sperm donors were expected to be donating for money. Almeling's research is illuminating because she highlights how the sale of human eggs and sperm, and their respective values as commodities in US gamete markets, draws on gender stereotypes and asymmetries between two types of transactions, despite both being part of a commercial market. Her comparative approach enables her to think through how, in the context of the commercial market for gametes, different business models and pricing structures developed for these exchanges. In the recruitment of egg donors, having the ‘right motivation’ to donate means demonstrating altruistic motivations – the narratives of ‘giving and helping’ others were emphasised in recruitment drives. In contrast, strategies for recruiting and marketing by sperm banks emphasised financial incentives as men were thought to be motivated by money to donate sperm (Almeling 2011). Building on existing gender analysis of gamete donation (see Franklin 2013, Spallone 1989, Strathern 1991), Almeling's analysis highlights how both the economic and cultural valuations of sperm and eggs are intertwined and are structured by gender differences.

Other studies of gamete donation, especially egg donation, have highlighted how gender and other social and economic inequalities shape patterns of donation. For example, the cross‐border travel of eggs to wealthier women from those from poorer backgrounds (Nahman 2013) suggests that financial incentives can shape donation experiences for some groups of women. Indeed, it has been argued that women should have property rights to their ova and entitlement to payments, even though in some contexts ethical frameworks prohibit this (Dickenson 2007). Meanwhile, other donation schemes structure payment as ‘compensation’ in an effort to foreground narratives of ‘giving and helping’ rather than ‘selling’ eggs (Haimes et al. 2012, Waldby et al. 2013). ‘Egg sharing’ draws on a narrative of gifting to, and caring for, others – enough to ‘share’ one's eggs. This framing has been drawn on to recruit egg donors to stem cell research programmes by eliding ‘donation’ for treatment with ‘donation’ for research (Roberts and Throsby 2008). Indeed, any sociology of donation needs to take account of such distinctions for, as we will discuss, donating tissues for research (or to a biobank) constitutes different relationships than donating for therapy or feeding.

In recent discussions about donating blood for research purposes, those who are already blood donors for therapeutic use indicate they may be less willing to also donate blood for research (Cohn 2016). Motivations to become blood donors (commonly to ‘help others’) thus do not so straightforwardly transfer to donating blood for research purposes. However, Gill Haddow's (2009) research on the creation of a Scottish population biobank affirmed that gendered understandings of women as ‘kin‐keepers’ shaped the recruitment of donors to the biobank. Women were likely to recruit other family members to become donors, affirming gender norms that ascribe to women more responsibility for the care of members of their family. These examples suggest that although gender dynamics are critical for understanding the differences between men and women's donation of materials such as gametes, organs and blood, a gender‐sensitive analysis is also necessary for understanding how different ethical valuations shape the donation of ‘women's tissues’ such as placenta, foetal tissue and breastmilk. In this sense, donation is a social practice informed by presumptions about the body, kinship, community, and exchange that are inextricable from how gendered notions of maternity, femininity, and relations with others – as well as gender difference – are made. As we will discuss below, the donation of foetal tissue, placenta and umbilical cord blood makes women donors’ connections to an ‘other’ important. The relational status of these tissues means that women's connections to others are considered matters of regulatory, social and economic significance in ways that are both different from donations of other tissues as well as donations from men's bodies. We highlight however that these differences are not simply ‘biological’ but profoundly shaped by gendered expectations surrounding motherhood and maternal responsibility.

Gender dynamics of blood, cord blood, placenta, foetal tissue and breastmilk donation

We focus in the following sections of the paper on five different tissues: peripheral blood, umbilical cord blood, placental tissue, foetal tissue, and breastmilk, to identify how gender operates at both the point of procurement and use. We synthesise research in these areas thus enriching sociological understanding of donation across diverse sites, between different social groups and for different types of use.

Blood and cord blood donation for transfusion and transplantation

Our previous research investigating blood economies highlights how gender relations structure recruitment of both blood and plasma donors. For many blood services the preferred blood donor is young, white, heterosexual and male. In some countries women are actively discouraged as blood donors or excluded from blood donation (Chattopadhyay 2006, Mumtaz et al. 2012). Despite commonly held beliefs that voluntary, unremunerated national blood services were founded on a social contract that binds communities together through appeals to universality and social citizenship, blood donation is a highly politicised issue. Within transfusion science we found that ‘gendered bodies are both naturalised and made invisible in a discourse which relies heavily on universalising myths that seek to value blood and plasma donation as a social and public good, and ties donation to citizenship and solidarity’ purporting that all donations are valued equally (Kent and Farrell 2015). Rather, through the practices of categorising, sorting, screening, testing and matching, transfusion science (like transplantation science) produces difference. In so doing biocultural categories of racial and ethnic difference (Kierans and Cooper 2011) and gender difference (Kent and Farrell 2015) are produced. These categorisations and associated risk management strategies (discussed below) in turn construct ‘moral hierarchies’ which exclude some social groups, that is some bodies are seen as ‘good’ sources of donated material and these donors as virtuous, while others are ‘undesirable’ and less virtuous (for example because they engage in same‐sex relationships).

In a previous study, it was suggested that the experience of blood donation was also gendered, that for male donors it was ‘just a product’ while for women blood donation formed a relationship with the recipient (Waldby et al. 2004). However, in the plasma products industry, male plasma has historically been more highly sought after and valued because it is perceived as a less ‘risky’ product than plasma from women. Two examples demonstrate how gender operates as an organising principle in blood and plasma processing. First, in the UK since 2003, a policy of ‘male donor preference’ has been adopted meaning that all women's plasma obtained through blood donation is usually discarded (i.e. unless there is a shortage of male plasma) because it is associated with a potentially higher incidence of Transfusion Related Acute Lung Injury (TRALI) attributed to high levels of antibodies following pregnancy. The reproductive potential of women's bodies impacts on how they are understood as blood and plasma donors: women are identified as potentially being or having been pregnant at the point of donation and thus at risk of adversely affecting the recipients of their donated plasma. Women are thus constructed as more risky bodies and the maternal body as representing a threat to blood and plasma product safety (Kent and Farrell 2015).

Second, in the prevention of Haemolytic Disease of the Foetus and Newborn (HDFN), a plasma product, Anti‐D, derived from male plasma is administered to pregnant women who are blood group Rh negative regardless of whether they need it, exposing them unnecessarily to the potential risks of contamination that accompany receiving any blood product. Women are given anti‐D when they do not need it because there are institutional priorities saying it is too difficult to distinguish between women who need it and women who do not. Women are put at risk because it is more ‘efficient’ to give this blood product to all women, regardless of whether they need it (which could be determined by foetal genotyping) (Kent and Farrell 2015, Kent et al. 2014). Gendered notions of mothers’ responsibilities to broader population health imperatives thus configure their bodies as more exposed to risk.

We argue that this distinction made between men and women's plasma, the presumptions that women's donations carry more risk because of their potential to be or to have been pregnant, and exposure of pregnant women to greater risk, means that ‘plasma technologies and products are inscribed with gender’ (Kent and Farrell 2015). These examples highlight how men and women are regarded as different kinds of donors, and indeed recipients, of biological materials. They also highlight how different valuations of blood and plasma are derived from these differences: women's ability to become pregnant, regardless of their sexual or health histories, shapes the perceived therapeutic value of their tissues and situates their bodies as more risk‐laden than men's, while being pregnant exposes them to risks that go under‐acknowledged (and indeed could be eliminated, see Kent et al. 2014). These gender differences, in which bodies are presumed to be more, or less risky, are produced through practices within transfusion science and the plasma products industry. Indeed ‘gendered bodies are produced through the discursive and material practices within national blood services’ (Kent and Farrell 2015). What these examples also highlight is that crucially ‘transfusion science draws on a set of rationalities about the immune system which have emerged within a specifically gendered historical context’ (Kent and Farrell 2015). Theories about the ‘connections’ between the maternal and foetal body and the consequence of these underpin understandings of both blood and plasma donation and transfusion. They also shape the value attached to materials from different bodies. In these examples, male blood and plasma is construed as having higher therapeutic as well as market value and is made more readily available for commodification.

Donation of umbilical cord blood affords another site for exploring how donor relations are gendered. Cord blood is construed as the mother's tissue within the UK regulatory context and can be donated for use in the treatment of blood disorders, such as leukaemia, sickle cell disease and thalassaemia. Since the 1990s, it has become widely used in place of bone marrow transplants. It is estimated that since 1998, 20% of stem cell transplants carried out to treat blood disorders have been from umbilical cord blood, and in Japan, the proportion is closer to 50% (Gluckman 2009). In the UK, public cord blood banks were established in areas where a high proportion of the population of pregnant women were from Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups since it is these groups for whom a bone marrow match was more likely to be difficult to obtain. Or rather, the claim that there is unmet need amongst BME groups took on the status of fact in the shaping of governance arrangements for the sector (Williams 2015). As part of a strategy to improve the availability of cord blood for transplantation, these groups have been targeted for recruitment.

However, it has been suggested that the expansion of cord blood banking services and awareness of the therapeutic uses of cord blood mean that other women who are not targeted for public cord blood bank donation articulate what Machin et al. (2012) call a ‘right to donate.’ Women's expectations about cord blood donation appeared to outstrip the infrastructure for collection by public banks. Some women, believing that they should have a right to donate to the public bank, not least because it might benefit their family at a future date, were critical of the under‐resourcing of public cord blood banks. This rights‐based approach to donation was understood in terms of the benefits a donor's family might receive and as discriminatory if collection and storage wasn't possible for all who wanted it. In this example, the ‘rights’ of the women donors were constructed in terms of ‘the potential future health needs of donors, their children and their family’ (Machin et al. 2012,: 301) and draw on gendered understandings of mothers’ responsibilities to act as gatekeepers for their family's health and to make ‘wise choices’ on behalf of their children (Fannin 2011, 2013).

The privatisation of cord blood banking arguably contributes to women's attitudes in the study described above. We suggested previously that commercial or ‘private’ cord banks are promoting a kind of ‘hoarding’ of biological materials by encouraging parents to withdraw their donation from public circulation. Instead, an individualised form of saving for the future ‐ protecting one's family from potential unknown risks as a kind of insurance ‐ is the basis of ‘donation’ and storage (Fannin 2013). In this way, banking is viewed as a way for mothers to invest in the future and in so doing act as responsible parents in ways that cohere with other gendered expectations surrounding motherhood. Interestingly in this analysis, responsibility rather than rights is the basis of actions. As Haw (2016) suggests, an ideology of ‘intensive mothering’, in which mothers devote considerable financial resources and time to their child's intellectual, social and physical development, is reinforced by private cord blood banks and women do a great deal of work to donate (see also Hays 1996). Women donors must conform to regulatory requirements in the initial collection of cord blood, and Haw notes that this burden of work is often underestimated by women themselves and not acknowledged by cord blood companies. Gendered assumptions about women's willingness to assume responsibility for their child's present and future health make this burden invisible. This kind of donation ‘[expands] the temporal frame of health concerns mothers are responsible for managing (i.e. the future health of their unborn child) and the way in which these health conditions are managed (i.e. by having a biological treatment if and when it is needed)’ (Haw 2016: 47‐48). Donation is also reconfigured as a process of proxy generational giving and receiving. The mother/parents decide(s) to store or retain the cord blood on behalf of their child and family. In commercial banking, these relational aspects of donation are central but are restricted to personal and kinship ties in contrast to the wider community. Claims for a universal cord blood collection system thus mobilise both public health benefits and private interests. Women seek to donate cord blood in the expectation that the state will provide a ‘match’ for their families, combining expectations of the state's responsibility and rights, altruism and personal benefit (Machin et al. 2012).

This discussion highlights the gendered aspects of donation practices surrounding peripheral blood and cord blood stem cells. In all of these sites, a woman's status as mother, or as potential mother, shapes donation experiences and expectations about the ‘right to donate’ and about the assumption of responsibilities to donate or store tissues. Reproduction (rather than production) defines these relationships, and gendered notions of donors as (potential) mothers and of maternal responsibility profoundly shape the process of donation. As in Almeling's discussion above, it is women's connections to others that crucially influence how donation is understood, whereas for men, donation is also about their market provision and participation.

Placenta and aborted foetal tissue in bioscience research and biobanking

Placental tissue and aborted foetal tissue are ‘products of conception’: tissues produced specifically from pregnancy. Products of conception are like ova in the sense that they are considered part of women's bodies, but at the same time unlike ova because they are not genetically identical to the mother (and indeed can be genetically male). Aborted foetal tissue has been collected and used in stem cell science, for experimental transplantations to treat degenerative brain disease and for the study of embryology, for many years. Foetal tissue travels from the abortion clinic to the stem cell laboratory and is transformed from ‘waste’ or a ‘corpse’ into a bio‐resource generating new types of bio‐objects (Kent 2008). Similarly, placental tissue collected at birth is usually viewed as ‘waste’ that can be transformed into a research tool and scientific object.

While embryo donors who undergo IVF treatment are constructed as helping others (other women or scientists), that is, as being donors motivated more by altruism, women donors of foetal tissue were seen as ‘different types of donor’ from donors of embryos. In our research on foetal tissue donation, women donating foetal tissue were more likely to be represented as ‘unthinking’ with no long‐term commitment to research or abortion care (i.e. medical science and practice). Women seeking pregnancy termination often did so in difficult circumstances and were thought to ‘just want to get the abortion over.’ Consent procedures were based on assumptions that women terminating pregnancies should not be given specific information about the research use of foetal tissue in case it influenced their decision to have an abortion, and that when asking for consent the women were unlikely to want to know details of what might happen to the foetus as it would be too distressing for them. For women themselves it was important that the foetus no longer continued to live after the termination. While it has been a legal requirement in the UK to separate the decision to have an abortion from the decision about whether to donate the tissue, the method of abortion could be modified to suit the needs of the research if the woman consented (Kent 2008, Pfeffer 2008).

Analysis of how women's reproductive labour is tied to notions of wastefulness (Ariss 2003) leads to a view that ‘women who terminate a pregnancy are especially “wasteful” and by inference morally suspect’ (Kent 2008). Constructed as waste tissue, the dead foetus becomes available for re‐use and latent bio‐value is released. And, by donating foetal tissue for research, women thought some good could come from the difficult experience of abortion. Tissue donation offers the potential to ‘do good’, to redeem oneself. It could also assist with grieving. The ambiguous legal and moral status of a foetus contributed to a situation where at times it was the woman who was regarded as the ‘donor’, while at others the foetus itself was viewed as an organ donor. A woman's decision to donate an aborted foetus was both likened to donating an organ and as very different, because she first had to decide whether to end her pregnancy. The ethical sensitivities surrounding both pregnancy termination and donation of an aborted foetus for research use were intertwined. Indeed, moral valuations of women who have abortion translated to valuations of donated foetal tissue as more likely to be ‘contaminated’ (Kent 2008).

Comparison and contrast between aborted foetal tissue donation and placental tissue donation reveals how gender dynamics shape donation of these tissues that are both derived from pregnancy. Like the ambiguities surrounding the identity of the ‘donor’ of foetal tissue (mother or foetus), the nature of the placenta's formation during pregnancy creates ambiguities in the regulatory, medical and donor conceptions of it. The placenta is commonly presented in medical literature as genotypically foetal tissue, however the placenta is composed of both maternal and foetal tissue: although the umbilical cord and membranes are foetal, the placental bed includes maternal and foetal tissues in close proximity. In the UK, the Human Tissue Act (2004) includes the placenta as a ‘relevant material’ and describes the placenta and its membranes as one of the ‘non‐foetal products of conception’ along with amniotic fluid and the umbilical cord. For the purposes of the Act, placental tissue is considered the mother's tissue. The Human Tissue Authority makes a distinction, however, between the procedures that should be put in place for the disposal of term placentas and the procedures that hospitals should carry out for the disposal of the remains of pregnancy, including placental tissue, that may be the products of pregnancy loss or termination (Human Tissue Authority 2015). Given the perceived accessibility of term placental material – placentas collected at full‐term birth – few studies have been carried out on perceptions of the demand or supply of this material for research. The donation of the placenta is presented in some contexts as free of the ethical controversies that surround the donation of other materials derived from pregnancy, such as embryonic or foetal material, and thus term placental material is valued in part for the perceived lack of ethical controversy surrounding its donation and use. Like umbilical cord blood, donation of placentas to biobanks for storage for future personal use is also advertised by commercial banking companies in the US (see https://www.lifebankusa.com).

Very few studies have been carried out with donors of placental material or scientists regarding their perceptions of the placenta (Fannin and Kent 2015, Yoshizawa 2013). A study of one UK biobank established over twenty years ago found that the placenta collection was viewed as ‘a unique archive of the connection between the mother and the child during pregnancy’, as a kind of ‘connective tissue’, ‘a distinctive kind of bio‐banked material precisely because it is more than foetal material’ (Fannin and Kent 2015). Its scientific value related to what it could tell researchers about a child's future health and the ‘foetal environment’ in utero. For women donors, its meaning related to the experience of childbirth and it was understood as a biographical object. The birth rather than the placenta was significant for them and women were described as more interested in the baby than what happened to the placenta. Ambivalence about the ownership of the placenta, as belonging to the mother, child or shared, meant that permission to ‘retain’ the placenta rather than to ‘donate’ the placenta was sought when they were first collected in the early 1990s.

Survey and interview research with postpartum women in a Brazilian maternity hospital suggests that women are supportive of requests for their consent to donate placental material for research use, but would like more information about how the placenta might be used and what happens to it after birth: ‘Disinterest in seeing the placenta at birth, and a lack of spiritual valuation, does not mean women are indifferent to the organ or its final fate. These women do not actively participate in the discarding of the placenta, despite what scientists and clinicians may claim’ (Yoshizawa et al. 2015: 81). In another study, 25 women were interviewed about their views regarding placental donation for a placental perfusion study; the authors found that most women viewed the placenta as ‘waste’ and ‘felt there were no unethical aspects at all’ to the donation of placental material for research (Halkoaho et al. 2010: 689). The few studies carried out suggest that women donating placental material consider the placenta to have already ‘done its job’ during pregnancy (Fannin and Kent 2015).

Donors to biobanks are increasingly the targets of messages surrounding the ‘wise use’ of materials that would otherwise ‘go to waste’ (Tupasela 2011), and increasingly placental tissue has been attributed speculative value in these terms. Analysis of the discursive framing of biological materials derived from pregnancy as in need of ‘efficient’ use suggests that the gendered construction of the responsible mother now includes her role as a wise saver of potentially valuable biological materials for her family's benefit. Comparing foetal tissue and term placental tissue donation reveals some similarities, and striking differences, in how these materials from pregnancy are valued. First, despite foetal tissue and placental tissue both being the products of conception, the circumstances of their collection are distinct: for foetal tissue donation, tissues are collected at the termination of a pregnancy; for term placental tissue donation, tissues are collected at the culmination of a pregnancy. In both cases the perceived wastefulness of reproductive tissues is the basis for efficiency gains secured via donation. However, ‘socially responsible’ mothers donating placental tissue for the potential benefit of (their) child's health occupy different social positions and relations from those of women donating foetal tissue for stem cell science after an abortion. In donating placenta, mothers express the connection with their child and with a contribution deemed valuable because it represents this connection. In the case of placental biobanks, this contribution also constitutes their participation in a community of donors (Fannin and Kent 2015). Whereas for women who have elected to abort their pregnancy – separation from the foetus is key and despite the high numbers of women undergoing abortion, their social position can be characterised by marginalisation. In these circumstances donation construed as a means of recompense is very different. Underpinning both experiences, however, are highly gendered meanings and valuations of motherhood, pregnancy, childbirth and abortion in which term placental material is deemed to originate from a ‘desired’ pregnancy while aborted foetal tissue is from an ‘undesirable’ pregnancy. In this case, understanding how pregnancy is laden with moral and social values surrounding motherhood is critical to understanding how the donation of foetal and placental tissue is shaped by gender dynamics.

Breastmilk for infant feeding

The fifth site where we explore donation is human breastmilk for infant feeding. Our aim is to contrast donation for feeding with research and transplantation use. Human breastmilk is produced from biologically female bodies to feed human babies; men also have mammary tissue and milk ducts and some, through stimulation, have produced milk although this is rare and of unknown nutritional benefit. Breastmilk is also sold online and used for purposes other than feeding babies (Steele et al. 2015). Our focus here, however, is on the use of breastmilk for nutritional purposes and on the donation of breastmilk through milk banking and milk sharing.

In many countries, since the early 20th century, formal ‘milk banks’ have collected and distributed donor milk to babies who were premature or whose own mothers could not feed them or were unwell. Many of these banks, worldwide, closed in the early to mid‐1980s in relation to fears around contamination with HIV and other blood‐borne viruses (Swanson 2014). In the UK, a resurgence of milk banking has taken place, supported by the UK Association for Milk Banking (UKAMB 2014). Clinical Guidelines from the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE 2010) support the operation of donor milk banks, providing guidance on how milk is tested, transported, treated, stored, labelled, and tracked; who should and should not donate milk; how donors should be screened and who should receive donated milk. Much of the history of milk banking demonstrates the importance of the ‘mother‐to‐mother’ aspects of donation; the appeal to women's generosity and references to ‘the milk of human kindness’ emphasise the relational aspects of donation. However, women's milk has also been seen in other ways; Akre et al. (2011) note that there has always been suspicion around women's milk from early concerns about wet nurses (morals, lifestyle, diet) to present day fears about disease transmission (concerns which are magnified by using the Internet to facilitate exchange). Swanson (2014) notes several ways in which the early development of milk banking (particularly in the US) drew on specific constructs of femininity, a ‘gendered vision of caring’ and a language of ‘intimate relationships and uncompensated caring’ (2014: 168). Donating breastmilk is perceived as a ‘maternal gift’; attempts in the US in the 1980s to charge for breastmilk were interpreted by donating women as ‘commodifying motherhood’ (2014: 182).

Historically, women have informally ‘cross‐nursed’ (Shaw 2007) the babies of other women, often relatives or friends, or have sold their milk through ‘wet nursing’ arrangements. Despite the resurgence of milk banking in many countries women in the twenty‐first century sometimes seek breastmilk for infants who are not eligible for banked milk. They may refer to the WHO guidance which suggests that best alternatives to a mother's own milk are milk from a wet nurse, or from a human‐milk bank, with the last option ‘a breastmilk substitute [formula milk] fed with a cup’ (WHO 2003:10).

‘Milk sharing’ – the ‘commerce free practice in which a donor gives expressed breast milk directly to a recipient family for infant feeding or breastfeeds a recipient infant’ (Palmquist and Doehler 2015: 1) has rapidly increased in recent years as the use of the Internet and social media enables women to make ‘milky matches’ (Cassidy 2012). It is variously known as peer‐to‐peer milk sharing, ‘informal’ milk sharing and private arrangement milk sharing (PAMS); the language of ‘sharing’ seems to be used as much as that of ‘donation’. Milk sharing via the Internet has moved ‘from private practice to public pursuit’ (Akre et al. 2011: 1), with breastmilk a ‘mobile biosubstance…able to travel on its own apart from the lactating body’ (Boyer 2010: 5) in novel ways. In the past, a mother had to know another who was lactating, and who was prepared to donate to or feed their baby; now via the Internet women can connect with each other to donate or receive milk. Although Internet peer‐to‐peer sharing is often portrayed as anonymous, the research to date contradicts this; most donors seek information about recipients and vice versa, form relationships and know about the families and babies they are donating to, influencing their motivation (Gribble 2013, Palmquist and Doehler 2015).

Milk sharing in this way has been the subject of little research outside the US (Palmquist and Doehler 2015) but some public health bodies have strongly advised against it (in the US, Canada and France), focusing on ideas of ‘danger’ and ‘risk’. Although not from a regulatory body, these were repeated in the UK context in a British Medical Journal editorial (Steele et al. 2015). Breastmilk is seen as risky per se ‐ milk donated to milk banks is seen as a biohazard; as noted, women donating milk are subject to a range of tests and restrictions, all suggesting risks to be mediated. Milk banks sometimes use language implying that a mother's milk might even be a risk to her own child by suggesting that milk which has not been processed by the milk bank is not safe (Palmquist 2015). Informal milk donation is particularly controversial as it highlights the dichotomy between ‘breastmilk‐as‐medicine’ and ‘breastfeeding‐as‐pollutant’ (Palmquist 2015: 30).

A small body of research has attempted to quantify the potential risks of donation (Keim et al. 2013), although not always distinguishing between milk that is sold and milk that is donated. Recent research has looked at risk in commerce‐free, milk sharing scenarios (Perrin et al. forthcoming). Potential risks include disease transmission, microbial contamination (related to poor storage and handling) and those from medication or substance use. Some assumptions in the assessments of risk have been challenged (Geraghty et al. 2011, Gribble and Hausman 2012), with on‐going research in the US assessing how women think about, make sense of and mediate the risks in the absence of evidence‐based healthcare guidance (Palmquist and Doehler 2014). Internet sites facilitating milk sharing offer advice on informed choice, donor screening, safe handling and home pasteurisation (see http://www.eatsonfeets.org). These ‘Four Pillars of Safe Breastmilk Sharing’ are drawn on in the American Academy of Nursing on Policy's (2016) ‘Position statement’ for health professionals. No similar advice has been offered to mothers or health professionals in the UK.

There are several ways of viewing the rise in peer‐to‐peer milk sharing, its connection with formalised milk banking and its purpose here as an illustration of a gendered form of donation. Milk sharing is a specifically gendered activity; in the same way that in the early to mid‐twentieth century women rallied together to provide breastmilk to needy babies (Swanson 2014), contemporary women can be seen to be working together to tackle an issue: ‘well‐informed and highly motivated women have begun extending control over the availability and use of human milk’ (Akre et al. 2011: 1).

Societal expectations that the exchange of this fluid is hidden and leakages discreetly managed reinforce its status as ‘matter out of place’ (Dowling and Pontin 2017, Dowling et al. 2012) and relate to other societal meanings associated with women's bodily fluids. Breastmilk is expected to pass discreetly from mother to baby and is disturbing when it does not (Zizzo 2011). The history of milk banking demonstrates a gradual medicalisation and dehumanisation of an activity shared by women (Swanson 2014); the rise in milk sharing using the Internet can be interpreted as women challenging the medical establishment. Their actions cannot be regulated in any meaningful way, and so mothers have control (Akre et al. 2011), with echoes of the long history of mother‐to‐mother support in relation to breastfeeding as illustrated by the organisation La Leche League (Bobel 2001).

Milk banks depersonalise breastmilk, making it more acceptable and removing its negative cultural associations. The process leads from a woman expressing milk from her breasts to the ‘product’ in a milk bank – called PDHM (Pasteurised Donor Human Milk) or BDM (Banked Donor Milk). The process of medicalisation, in which breastmilk becomes a prescribed therapy for neonates, is one in which the women who produce the milk are gradually ‘eradicated’ (Hassan 2010 in Palmquist 2015). Breastmilk separated from its human origins has been shown to be more acceptable to many parents; for some mothers this has the effect of removing the association that it came from another woman: ‘it just makes it…like part of the hospital…You know, not…from somebody’ (Zizzo 2011: 7). However, some women prefer peer‐to‐peer sharing because they dislike the depersonalisation – ‘I hated the idea of my sending my milk somewhere and having it treated like a specimen instead of the life force it is’ (Gribble 2013: 453).

Milk ‘donation’ is usually understood as the transfer of human milk from a lactating woman to someone other than her own infant. Feeding one's own infant is normalised to the extent that this is not construed as a ‘donation’; this is a fundamental part of the act of care associated with mothering. Social expectations that mothers should feed their child if possible underplays the act of ‘donation’ here and appears to gloss over the exchange of bodily fluid taking place. Breastmilk as product and breastfeeding as practice clearly have different meanings (Zizzo 2011). It surely tells us something about the gendering of donation practice that mother's milk for the benefit of one's own child draws on assumptions of self and ‘non‐self’ embodied in the mother/child relationship. Only when made available for wider circulation, via a sharing arrangement or milk bank does the ‘donation’ come into view. Breastfeeding is not clearly delineated from maternity; milk donation in all its forms is seen to be transgressive and controversial, going ‘beyond the confines of biogenetic and gestational motherhood’ (Shaw 2007: 440).

In this example, the commodification of milk as a bioresource seems to loop back to a donation. Unlike cord blood which is separated from the infant, regarded as ‘waste’ and donated by the mother, human breastmilk is not viewed as waste rather it is viewed as belonging to the mother and her baby. Its ‘proper’ use is to feed that baby; moral questions only arise when, and where, it may be distributed outside that relationship. Where those distribution networks are ‘private’, with sharing amongst friendship groups or personalised social contacts this seems to acknowledge the social importance and potential health benefits attached to feeding with human breastmilk. Distribution online and via social media is construed as representing greater potential risks and regulatory challenges. Meanwhile milk banks recruit women donors through techniques that for example suggest that they can ‘give something back’:

“Many of the women who donate milk are giving something back because they were helped themselves but you can donate even if your child has not needed help.” http://www.northwesthmb.org.uk/donate/

Participating in milk bank donation works through notions of ‘giving back,’ reciprocation and gratitude for a gift received. Here the gendered dynamics of sympathy and reciprocity are at work: a child will directly benefit from this gift, not the donor herself. This draws on more than just helping another person (the stranger paradigm of the gift of donation) but on helping another child, or one could say, extending one's maternal ‘gift’ to another woman's child or to another mother and child.

Conclusion: gendered concepts of maternity, responsibility and risk

In five different sites, we highlight how donation practices are shaped by gendered dynamics of motherhood, maternal responsibility, and risk. Tissues generated by pregnancy – foetal tissue, umbilical cord blood, placenta and breastmilk – are understood as co‐produced, that is produced through relations of both maternal and foetal bodies, that complicate their definition as tissues ‘belonging’ to one person. This in turn challenges presumptions of self and other and shapes understandings of donation. The specific social dynamics shaping the donation and valuation of these materials cannot be ascribed solely to their ‘biological’ difference from materials donated by men. Recognising that certain bodily tissues and fluids such as aborted foetal tissue, placental tissue, umbilical cord blood and breastmilk are produced by pregnant and birthing bodies, we argue that the dynamics of donation and the valuation of these materials are shaped by gendered concepts of maternity/parenting, responsibility and risk. In this way, we bring together insights from donation for different purposes – research, transplantation and feeding – in order to illustrate how gender dynamics shape the value of these donated materials.

Viewing donation as a gendered practice is also important for understanding how concepts of risk, safety and benefit shape the donation field. Medical approaches to women's bodies, particularly in relation to fertility and pregnancy, tend to view women's bodies as particularly risky and their care as informed by calculations of risk (Lupton 1999, Weir 2006). For example, the production of antibodies during pregnancy, as we have seen in the discussion of the gendered donation of peripheral blood, is viewed as a key factor in why women's donations of blood are viewed as riskier than men's. At the same time, some pregnant women receive donated blood products, exposing them to unnecessary risks. The regulatory processes surrounding exposures to risks from donated material are here shaped by the presumption that protection of foetal bodies from potential harm is a risk mothers are willing to take, although as Kent et al. (2014) indicate, they are given no viable alternative by their national healthcare service. The regulatory process surrounding women's antenatal care thus reflects broader gendered dynamics in healthcare regulation, where risk is constructed through gender and mediated by institutional policy arrangements.

Gendered understandings of women's bodies as fluid or leaky also inform how donated tissues like foetal tissue, placenta and breastmilk are viewed as ‘matter out of place’ and thus more difficult to contain and regulate. The exchange of breastmilk outside of formal networks and without regulatory scrutiny is viewed as risk‐laden and difficult to control, as it could expose infants to risk from other mothers. Breastfeeding is also an illustrative example of how donation as a concept excludes the feeding of breastmilk by a mother to her own child. Only if the child of another mother receives breastmilk does the concept of ‘donation’ apply. The exclusion of a mother feeding her infant from the concept of donation underscores how donation is imagined on the model of the ‘stranger's gift’ and in doing so, relies on the presumption that maternal‐infant exchanges lie outside the frame of a proper exchange between donor/recipient. The implications of this are that some forms of donation are naturalised as part of mothering practice. The distinction between what is and is not defined as donation suggests that mothers and their infants occupy an ambiguous relation relative to self/other relations of donation.

Our discussion of placenta and foetal tissue demonstrates how dynamics of connectedness and separation shape tissue donation, and how donors’ perceptions of tissue donated from a terminated pregnancy differ from those following a pregnancy brought to term and culminating in a live birth. Foetal tissue and placental tissue are both products of pregnancy, but the views of donors about these tissues are different. These differences can only be appreciated through a gender‐sensitive understanding of pregnancy termination and the construction of maternal subjects in relation to the outcome of pregnancy. The pregnant and breastfeeding body are viewed as a particularly hybrid body more akin to the ‘not‐one‐but‐not‐two’ model of pregnancy articulated by legal theorist Isabel Karpin (1992). Tissues issuing from pregnancy identified as ‘waste’ and viewed as matter out of place may be repurposed through donation but the dynamics of donation will be determined in part by gendered assumptions of the pregnancy from which they originated.

Blood and breastmilk donation illustrate, in different ways, how the relationships said to structure donors’ willingness to donate and the assumptions underlying donation itself are gendered. Blood donation is viewed as integral to the construction of bonds of community within national populations and donating blood is imagined as a civic duty, particularly in times of political conflict or threats to the body politic through natural disaster. Yet donor motivations are informed by gendered presumptions about donation as an act that makes relations or provides a product. The processing of blood products is also informed by gendered presumptions about the different risks associated with women's and men's bodies. Turning to milk donation, in some contexts, milk donation is viewed as creating kinship relations. However, the regulatory processes governing the donation of milk are also shaped by gendered expectations regarding women's bodies as ‘leaky’ and ‘risky’ in ways that recall the gendered dynamics of plasma donation. The framing of donation as a wise use of tissues regarded as medical waste or as unwanted speaks to gendered assumptions surrounding care and of gendered notions of ‘responsibility’ towards others that position women donors in distinctive ways.

Gender also makes a difference to understanding who benefits and how from donation. Sociologists Melinda Cooper and Catherine Waldby (2014) argue that the benefits of the forms of embodied or ‘clinical’ labour carried out by oocyte donors and clinical trial participants are rarely considered beyond the relatively narrow, although not unimportant, consideration of donor/participant consent. The ethical dimension of who benefits from medical research involving human tissues, and how healthcare provision and medical research is embedded in and benefits from uneven global economic development and exploitative labour practices that value gendered forms of bodily labour less than other forms of productive labour, is often elided in considerations of research ethics. Their approach to redefining donor participation in research as a form of labour emphasises how gender difference matters, particularly when calls for donation take place through appeals to ‘women's sense of responsible custody’ (Cooper and Waldby 2014: 115).

Our comparison of donation for different purposes also highlights the importance of developing more nuanced analysis of donation. Donation for research, for therapy or for feeding is informed by different notions of giving and shaped by gendered norms and expectations surrounding citizenship, parental responsibility, and public benefit. Brought together in this paper, our research on diverse tissues donated for different purposes underscores how gender shapes the donation field. Despite general claims in the literature on donation to altruism, sharing, and universal concepts of ‘the gift’, this paper makes clear that such general appeals do not adequately reflect the social realities of donation, in which donating is intimately connected to gendered presumptions and norms. This is as relevant to tissue donated from both men and women's bodies (e.g. peripheral blood), as it is to tissues donated during pregnancy or at birth. A sociology of donation therefore needs to be sensitive to gender difference and to the gendered assumptions that shape the dynamics of donation.

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[kidsviral-blog]

How To Deal With 7 Horrible Interview Questions That Are Designed To Trip You Up

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/how-to-deal-with-7-horrible-interview-questions-that-are-designed-to-trip-you-up/

How To Deal With 7 Horrible Interview Questions That Are Designed To Trip You Up

I am totally convinced that Dante went ahead and forgot to include the circle of Hell reserved for perpetual job interviews.

And with the job market across multiple industries growing more saturated by the second, interviewers are getting crafty (read: cruel) when it comes to screening applicants.

Because so much weeding out has to happen (or because this world is a spinning ball of pain), they often ask questions that function as professional traps. Here’s how you can deal with the worst ones in the bunch.

1. “What’s your greatest weakness?”

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I want to find the hellhound who decided that this question was a great idea and make them rue the day they were born. Sadly, I can’t. Neither can you. All you can do is deal with the fact that this is now considered par for the course. Instead of sounding like an egomaniac and saying that you’re a perfectionist like every other miscreant on Earth, think of one example of when you screwed up at work, explain what happened, and then quickly elaborate on how you remedied the problem.

Oh, and don’t use a personal downfall as a scapegoat. According to Kathryn Dill of Forbes, “Odds are that your interviewer is not interested in the fact that you never make your bed.” And why would they be? “What they’re really looking for,” Dill continues, “are your weaknesses in the workplace and how you’ve overcome them.”

2. “Why should I hire you for this position?”

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You know how you’re supposed to focus on what you can do for the company and not the other way around in cover letters? The same logic applies here. Sure, that dream job is really going to beef up your resume, but employers don’t care about your LinkedIn headline. They care about what they’re going to get from you.

The short answer? Do your homework. Focus on key action words in the job listing. How can you perform those actions better than anyone else, given your experience? Have real-world examples ready. Did you totally revamp your company’s editorial schedule? Use that to illustrate your multitasking skills. Did you have a hand in projects outside your wheelhouse? That’s great if your potential employer is looking for someone who’s willing to work across departments. Don’t be like, “You should hire me because I love [something required of you for that job].” No one cares.

3. “Can you explain these gaps in your work history?”

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Listen. People get laid off. People fall on hard times and have to resign. You don’t have to fire back with a defensive answer, because it’s a valid (if not tricky) question. Let the interviewer know that you’ve been proactive between jobs. Unemployment is rough, so it shows initiative if you can say that you were helping a sick loved one, freelancing, or volunteering in the meantime. You know what they say about idle hands and all that. Keep yours busy and then use that to your advantage when this question rolls around.

4. “If you could change one thing about your last job, what would it be?”

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Repeat after me: Don’t burn bridges. Trash talking former employers or coworkers is never a good look. Why would someone want to hire you if you feel totally comfortable telling competitors that everything was awful and your boss was the worst? Instead of griping about people, pick something neutral.

In that vein, you should also probably choose something that you really couldn’t have changed even if you wanted to, since the next logical question would be, “Well, why didn’t you do something about it?” If you work in a STEM-related field, for example, you could air your grievances about how a new technological development would’ve made your life so much easier if it had been around back then. Saying the adult equivalent of “I’m a pissy baby and my boss was a meanie” isn’t going to do you any favors.

5. “Can you tell me more about yourself?”

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See that guy’s face in the photo above? That’s what your interviewer will look like when you start telling them about how much you love Yeats and toy poodles. This isn’t your Match.com profile. They don’t care about your Holden-esque coming-of-age story. According to Forbes, you should stick to four topics: early years, education, employment history, and recent career experience. This will give them a well-rounded sense of who you are as a professional, and if you don’t come across as someone who stomps down every person in your path, they’ll get a good idea of who you are as a human being, too.

6. “What would someone who doesn’t like you have to say about you?”

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Your old roommate might equate you to a pile of trash on fire. Don’t say that. Point out something about yourself that could be seen as negative if viewed through the wrong eyes. Are you picky? Good. That means you won’t let a terrible, inaccurate blog post hit their company’s front page. Impatient? You live for deadlines. See what I did there?

7. “Has a decision or idea you were passionate about ever been shut down by a supervisor? How did you handle it?”

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Basically, the interviewer wants to know that you won’t take a lighter to their hair if they ever do that to you. When you lay your story down, present it in a way that highlights the fact that you’re humble and can take direction.

Employers are sometimes out to get us, folks. That’s why we need to do our best to dance through their professional minefields like the damn ballerinas we are.

For more information, check this out. Do you have an interview horror story? Tell us about it in the comments below! Let’s find solidarity in each other’s misery or something.

Read more: http://www.viralnova.com/bad-interview-questions/

[archetypenull]

Agonistics ch3 - An Agonistic Approach to the Future of Europe

Saturday, December 30, 2017

In this chapter, Mouffe discusses the greatest example of a sort of unified but statified governance, the EU. She uses the he criticisms and challenges faced by the EU to further describe her agonistic model of governance. Finally, Mouffe begins to discuss the importance of regionalism in her model, and why it must play a part in this "new EU."

 First, some basics are outlined: the EU is in danger of falling apart, mainly due to challenges with the identities of its constituents; national identity is strengthened when the nation is perceived to be under threat; and the rationalistic conception of identity formation heretofore utilized to critique the EU lacks confrontation with the affectual aspects of identity formation. Mouffe is adamant here that communal identity development must be recognized as, at least in part, inherently affectual, and so any formulation of a unified governance based on the rationale of "greater unity," as a whole of the continent as one people, is impossible.* Not only does the hope for such a unified identity ignore the affectations of identity construction on a sociological scale, but also, perhaps more importantly, on a psychological scale.

 Mouffe quickly mentions Freud's contribution to this aspect, but I would hope to suggest that a reading of individual identity construction, especially in the early 21st century, is more a game of self-eroticization than that of a basic libidinous drive. The individual is gratified by the design, reinforcement, and the fantasy of their own identity, however it may have come to be. Some identities are based in fear, as is obvious in many forms of aggressive masculinity, but some are more neoliberal in nature, stemming from material accoutrements which, in and of themselves, have little to no meaning.

 Indeed, these are the two essential problems faced by the EU today: aggression and neoliberal forces. The first issue is usually dealt with rationally, but to little success. On the other hand, neoliberal forces are so deeply engrained in societal discourse, that few are able to imagine a world beyond their grasp. For both, however, Mouffe provides the solution of "A truly Gramscian 'intellectual and moral reform,'" "challenging the basic tenets of our current consumerist model" (63, 64). In this chapter, her deconstruction of this reform in respect to neoliberal forces is not fully developed. However, she does provide enough to mull over in respect to aggression.

 Mouffe supports the generation of a federation, within which states are sovereign, but deal with common issues not antagonistically, as the EU is haunted by today, but agonistically. How she proposes this is more nuanced than her explained desire to "combine solidarity and competition" (53). She seems to support trans-national regionalism, but explicitly refers to the continuation of national identities. I wonder if this is a stepping stone within her world order: to get nations to take part in an agonistic federation, allow them to govern sovereignly, but as the conflicts progress, more factions would arise, as they already are (Scotland, Catalonia, etc.), eventually forming sovereign regionalism. How far their sovereignty would go is another question: do these regions have economic regulations, must they abide by a human bill of rights?

 Readers at least get answers to the former as Mouffe begins to deconstruct the neoliberal hegemonic forces which rule all of Europe today. She is decidedly anti-free market, citing the usual downfalls of the system, and focusing on the necessity of domestically-focused economics, wherein the localized community benefits first, and fewer workers are taken advantage of on the grand scale allowed by neoliberal capitalist free markets. This, in turn, would help define regional identities, as well as aid in recognition of other regionalities and their respective value systems (via negotiations, both economically and politically). Within Mouffe's proposed "diversity of practices within a field of shared rules," the possibility of a shift away from EU consumership, towards EU citizenship is born.

 Towards this end, Mouffe suggests that the EU must abandon neoliberal capitalism and begin to work towards a new democratic socialism, taking the successful aspects from the past and applying them in novel ways, "integrating economic questions with social, environmental, and political ones," essentially rewriting the European social democracy for contemporary problems (60). Regionally specific, social democracy is the historic expression of new Europeanism, and would doubtless lead to the European citizenship Mouffe desires, depending on its implementation.

 And here we find the most difficult issue with Mouffe's proposal: how are the power dynamics within Europe to change? How can an entire continent shift from nationalism-born-out-of-colonialism-born-out-of-autocracy shift to a federation of states bound by a non-enforceable social democracy? And how are the gaps between the regional governments and the continental government to be handled? Simply granting regional sovereignty cannot be sufficient in gathering the European continent to a new social democratic table. Too many previous perceived wrongs need righted, and crises of late capitalism (proxy wars, waves of refugees, the need for global reparations) will not simply disappear. It is obvious that Mouffe's assertion that the ways of life of the global rich must change, but what can possibly initiate such a shift? The comfortably privileged will not willingly discard their luxuries.

   *And undemocratic, in the sense that it ignores the necessity derived from affect that drives political movements, such as Black Lives Matter, or, more specifically, the Ferguson protests in response to cop killings.

[nima-project]

May 24: The role of theatre in the establishment of Democracy lecture

The “Celebration” is a universal social phenomenon. Α celebration full of splendour and spectacle serves to showcase the will to live, the moral and spiritual appearance, the consciousness that supports this struggle that maintains, grounds, and evolves through the social convenience that we call a “Celebration”.

Everywhere and anywhere on the world, Celebration has taken many shapes and followed all of human activity. We have national, religious, even work related rituals that are mysterious and magical, orgasmic and terrible, all ending in a orgiastic feast. Myth is their common denominator.

Ever since humans began to exist in societies we’ve had primitive forms of celebrations. We see them in the cavemen of the stone age, not even fully human yet. Likewise, the remnants of rituals remain in today’s civilized societies. The Greek “anastenaria” (fire ritual that involves a barefoot dance on smouldering embers performed by nestinari, in Bulgarian language: “nestinarstvo”), to name but one small example, or carnival, May Day, all the celebrations centered on winemaking. However, by far the most representative of those kinds of celebrations and the prevailing one in all civilized people and different societies is Theatre.

Theatre is a celebration of Democracy. Born with the world’s first democratic city which was established in Athens after the victory in the Persian wars and, because of that first Theatre we are now happy to have the invaluable heritage of ancient theatres all over Greece like the Dionysian theatre in Athens, Epidaurus etc, but also plants surviving by the time of the Great Tragic Poets like Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and the comic Aristophanes.

Theatre is neither a school of philosophy, nor a music hall, it’s not a speculation nor a soiree noir, it’s not a nervous irritation, nor a mental lewdness, it’s neither outrageousness nor orgy. In the Theatre what is shown off is the cultural heritage, the metaphorical armory of a state, the social virtue of a people. The face of the age, such as it is, is presented and controlled by the presence of the common people. This is why Theatre and spectacles have always been the food for the people. Here the people watch, listen, judge. This spiritual diet -Theatre- along with all other means of education that it completes and overcomes in effectiveness can shape, cultivate, and educate the social conscience, clear the citizens from their selfish drive and make them worthy of the whole. Theatre affects a large number of adult citizens at the same time, a characteristic that prompted Aristophanes to call it “Grown up school”.  

The social role Theatre plays

…The plays performed present a high level struggle. With speech and counterspeech they try to convince us of something truly great, something that interests the entire city state and all its values. We see the trials, the judgement and catharsis of morals, of traditions, of the law of the city state and the entire system of civilization. In the time of Aeschylus -father of theatre- that struggle, and that judgment was done without any restrictions.  The appointed judges had their ears tuned to the voices of the people, and the citizens where the one who had the last word, with their approval or disapproval. Anyone who has watched a performance in an ancient theatre can attest to the feeling of awe caused by the grandeur of it all, the satisfaction brought by listening to a brave speech done well upon the stage, especially when that satisfaction is shared by the entire audience.

It is undeniable that in order for the Theatre to flourish it needs the presence of an audience of citizens, to watch and judge and controls, and as such it cannot exist under any other system of government but democracy. Today, when we unearth an ancient theatre we can say with certainty: here, then, stood a democratic nation. Democracy and tis byproduct, Theatre, was shared with other countries of the world and along with the traditions themselves passed the vocabulary. Democracy. Theatre. Drama. Tragedy. Comedy. Chorus. Orchestra. Scene. Those words and all their derivatives traveled everywhere and since then mean the same thing in any language.

But that amazing celebration of democracy is born and dies with it. It acts like a barometer of how democratic a regime is at certain times and places. Does the system flourish? Are the people in power, acting as creators? Do they shape the face of their culture? Then this is a golden age for theatre. Is democracy threatened? Are the people hunted? Pushed to the side? In the Middle Ages, the darkest time for democracy and the people, theatre is pushed to the sidelines, actors are burned to the stake for heresy and they’re not protected or granted any rights under law. Anyone could kill them like dogs on the side of the street until  the Renaissance which brings the dawn of a golden age, human nature is again winged and full of hope, and Theatre, headed by Shakespeare, finds its place and is again a mirror to its society.

Lack of theatrical education

Light theatre. This way of measuring worth: lightness. It sells in these days and brings in mind the old greek proverb “when there are little merchants in the streets there is a lot of poverty in the homes”. This merchandise, lightness (the lightness of song, of melody, or plays) has taken an undeserved spot right next to the worthy and worthless alike, and what's more, it gets praise and credit for it. But all of these light, easy shows are simply bad poetry and bad art. They are the small “values” that roam around because these are all the world can accept, while real values get buried away.

Modern Greece is a so called democratic nation, but that democracy has just as much to do with the democracy that gave birth to theatre as the National Theatre on Agiou Konstantinou street has to do with the Epidaurus theatre, or the Hilton with the Parthenon.

According to the spirit of that system, Theatre is the people’s celebration, when the people are in power, when the power comes from the voters and not their lords. The theatre has its throne. A throne of the glory of freedom and justice. There, brought before it to be judged, come Virtue and Vice, the spirit of hard work and the spirit of resistance, the fighting spirit and the spirit of conformity, of conservatism. There the People, sitting in their throne, dressed in all their glory, watch the game, judge and are judged in turn, their conscience cleared, the rules of society formed. The requisite is Democracy. Not a new or an old Democracy but Democracy in itself. Pure, self sufficient and real.

Questions/Themes for discussion stemming from the lecture

1. What is the relationship between the ancient Theatres and plays with the new?

2. What’s the relationship between the European youth and theatre today?

3. What themes do the plays put on today explore? Do they seem like gossip, something that will placate the passing fashion of each season, or do they truly work on exploring ideas that are worth it?

4. Do the great ideas behind modern plays have anything to do with the foundations of the European Union? (tolerance, understanding the other, teamwork and cooperation, intercultural dialogue, solidarity, justice, honesty, meritocracy, equality, respect for human rights…

5. What about ancient works? Based on your answer do you believe in the aesthetic and educational work that theatre does, how it strives towards the refinement of its audience, especially the young, and their introduction to the timeless values it discusses?

6. Imagine that next to every church and football field -things that even the smallest villages has these days- is a theatre, a place for the citizens to meet and watch a mental kind of game,a spectacle that would shape its political conscience. Is that a bridge between democracy and theatre? Give more examples.

7. Generally do you agree or disagree with the text and why?

Text by Vassilis Rotas (1889 – 1977), greek author, critic, and translator (his translation of Aristophanes’ “The Birds” is a classic, especially since it was used for the 1961 production of the comedy by Karolos Koun’s Theatre of the Arts). V. Rotas was a very important personality with a great number of works for theatre, poetry, and literature, starting from the time of the German occupation as an answer to the request of the revolutionaries for theatre. They ended up forming a troupe that included professional actors and amateur revolutionaries alike.

V. Rotas was not greatly influenced by the aesthetic trends of his time, although he was deeply moved by folklore and folk songs, as well as traditional fairytales and Karagiozis. That attitude supports his view that the creator, instigator, deciding force and receptor of everything were the people.

Another great influence to his work were the works of Shakespeare as well as ancient greek tragedies. In many of his plays he followed the form and “feel” of greek tragedies, Shakespeare’s histories, and shadow puppet theatre (Karagiozis).

The text came from an introduction to a seminar by the Marxist Research Centre on 28/2/1977, titled “Theatre and Democracy”.