Feminist scholars have long been concerned with privileged women’s activism and engagement with feminist politics and how acts of resistance from privileged subjects might best be understood. In the current moment, we are seeing a reinvigoration of interest in feminist activism particularly from young women, but not necessarily focusing on young women who are positioned as privileged. Simultaneously, there is attention in the sociology of elite schooling to the question of social justice politics in privileged spaces. In this article, we (...) contribute to both of these scholarly conversations by reporting on the feminist activism of three young women attending an elite school in Australia. We argue that these young women’s activism/feminist politics need to be understood as a complex entanglement of resistance and reproduction with regard to gender, race and class, and that drawing on recent theorisations influenced by post-humanism in feminist educational research produces fresh insights into researching gender/race/class reproduction by young women in elite educational settings. (shrink)

We argue that dominant white cultural views and public health co-produce race as a technology that charts the path of viral transmission away from the white bodies to form a trajectory for an otherwise aimless disease. This epistemological project is one enmeshed in popular culture, medical practice, and biopolitics. COVID-19 and the related Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement work together to make visible the narrative technologies. This project contributes to understanding race and public health as co-constituted in ways that shape (...) imaginative possibilities, material and agential realties, and health outcomes in light of COVID-19. Our argument is novel in naming race a technology of American public health and taking up Coeckelbergh and Reijers’ call for a normative theory of narrative technology. We extend Coeckelbergh and Reijers’ narrative technologies to include race, a narrative artifact, co-produced by biology, public health, and individual actors. (shrink)

This paper shows how solidarity is one of the founding principles in Thomas More's Utopia. In the fictional republic of Utopia described in Book II, solidarity has a political and a moral function. The principle is at the center of the communal organization of Utopian society, exemplified in a number of practices such as the sharing of farm work, the management of surplus crops, or the democratic elections of the governor and the priests. Not only does solidarity benefit the individual (...) Utopian, but it is a prerequisite to ensure the prosperity of the island of Utopia and its moral preeminence over its neighboring countries. However, a limit to this principle is drawn when the republic of Utopia faces specific social difficulties, and also deals with the rest of the world. In order for the principle of solidarity to function perfectly, it is necessary to apply it exclusively within the island or the republic would be at risk. War is not out of the question then, and compassion does not apply to all human beings. This conception of solidarity, summed up as “Utopia first!,” could be dubbed a Machiavellian strategy, devised to ensure the durability of the republic. We will show how some of the recommendations of Realpolitik made by Machiavelli in The Prince correspond to the Utopian policy enforced to protect their commonwealth. (shrink)

Issu d’un colloque qui a réuni en 2009 de nombreux chercheuses et chercheurs en sciences humaines (anthropologie, sociologie, histoire, philosophie, droit…), ce livre s’empare d’un sujet assez peu étudié jusqu’ici dans l’histoire des guerres : les viols. Dès l’introduction, Raphaëlle Branche et Fabrice Virgili soulignent qu’il n’est pas facile de nommer l’acte du viol (qui peut se classer dans un vaste répertoire de violences sexuelles) ni de le comptabiliser en raison des lacunes persistante...

Christine Planté nous a habitués à des généalogies inattendues et à des regroupements familiaux insolites, sa « petite sœur de Balzac », dans la lignée de la sœur de Shakespeare chère à Virginia Woolf, en est un exemple bien connu. Avec George Sand fils de Jean-Jacques, elle nous entraîne dans une histoire de filiation qui, cette fois, n’est pas de son invention mais s’inscrit dans l’histoire littéraire du xixe siècle et dans l’histoire personnelle de George Sand. Celle-ci s’est elle-même qua...

Digital Cognitive Technologies is an interdisciplinary book which assesses the socio-technical stakes of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), which are at the core of the Knowledge Society. This book addresses eight major issues, analyzed by authors writing from a Human and Social Science and a Science and Technology perspective. The contributions seek to explore whether and how ICTs are changing our perception of time, space, social structures and networks, document writing and dissemination, sense-making and interpretation, cooperation, politics, and the dynamics (...) of collective activity (socio-informatics). (shrink)

Mutations in the C. elegans maternal-effect gene clk-1 are highly pleiotropic, affecting the duration of diverse developmental and behavioral processes. They result in an average slowing of embryonic and post-embryonic development, adult rhythmic behaviors, reproduction, and aging.(1) CLK-1 is a highly conserved mitochondrial protein,(2,3) but even severe clk-1 mutations affect mitochondrial respiration only slightly.(3) Here, we review the evidence supporting the regulatory role of clk-1 in physiological timing. We also discuss possible models for the action of CLK-1, in particular, one (...) proposing that CLK-1 is involved in the coordination of mitochondrial and nuclear function. BioEssays 22:48–56, 2000. ©2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Living together peacefully in a world of differences asks for a practice of respecting the irreducible difference of the other. Acknowledging this `not-me' of the other subject generates an in-between: a space/time between subjects that cannot be transgressed other than by violence. Following Irigaray, I argue that this `in-between' comes about through the passion of wonder, a being touched in the flesh in the encounter with the other, which opens the subject to him/herself and to the other. To perceive this (...) touch asks for a life-style directed at keeping open and sensitizing the sensibilities of the senses, so that the subject's aesthesis or awareness for the perceptions of the sensible flesh and of its reactions to the other is heightened. Key-element in this aesthetics is the practice of breathing. It enables the subject to remain rooted in him/or herself and open to the other: generating and respecting the in-between between them. (shrink)

"L'usage substantivé du mot 'soi' est intriguant. Le pronom tonique 'soi' ne pose pas de problème particulier dans les expressions comme 'prendre soin de soi', 'compter sur soi' ou 'être hors de soi'. Mais parler d'un 'soi', c'est aller au-delà de la réalité grammaticale et supposer une identité personnelle à travers la diversité des expériences. Or, l'idée de soi et la croyance en l'identité personnelle ont été mises en question par David Hume, dont les arguments résonnent toujours dans la philosophie (...) contemporaine. Le but de ce livre est double : montrer, en historiens de la philosophie, de quelle façon le philosophe britannique a répondu à ces problèmes, et évaluer la fécondité de ces résultats pour les sciences de l'esprit."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This essay provides a framework of concepts and principles suitable for systematic discussion of issues surrounding expertise. Expertise creates inequality. Its multiple benefits and the creativity of technology lead to a society replete with expertises. The basic binds of expertise derive from the desire of non-experts to be able to both enjoy what expertise offers and insure that it is exercised in the social interest. This involves trusting the exercise of expertise, involuntarily or voluntarily. A healthy society provides various means (...) to move trust from involuntary to voluntary. The social means for achieving this are laid out. The purpose of this short essay is to briefly lay out a conceptual framework within which to construct, clarify, evaluate and apply expertises. It is not to promote some particular notion of expertise over others, or to review the vast literatures, such as that on trust in science, that make up the domain. A few notes on one work towards this essay’s close may indicate what a major, and expert, process this would be. (shrink)

Much of our knowledge about the nineteenth-century natural history boom resides with the collectors themselves and their collections. We know much less about the conduct of the global trade that made collecting possible. That such a trade occurred in the face of significant obstacles of distance, variable prices, inadequate information, and diverse agents makes our knowledge deficit the more significant. William John Macleay, based in Sydney, built his significant natural history collection by trading locally as well as across the globe. (...) Our study of Macleay measures his complete set of trading transactions at a time of rapid expansion of his collection. It analyses how he chose between different forms of exchange and agreed fair value in order to complete long-distance specimen trading. (shrink)

The proposed national PrEP program would serve people who are uninsured as well as those enrolled in Medicaid. In this article, the authors propose a set of recommendations for the proposed program’s implementers as well as state Medicaid agencies and Medicaid managed care organizations to ensure PrEP access for people enrolled in Medicaid, addressing gaps without undermining the important role of the Medicaid program in covering and promoting PrEP.

Based on recent insight into the thalamocortical system and its role in perception and conscious experience, a unified pathophysiological framework for hallucinations in neurological and psychiatric conditions is proposed, which integrates previously unrelated neurobiological and psychological findings. Gamma-frequency rhythms of discharge activity from thalamic and cortical neurons are facilitated by cholinergic arousal and resonate in networks of thalamocortical circuits, thereby transiently forming assemblies of coherent gamma oscillations under constraints of afferent sensory input and prefrontal attentional mechanisms. If perception is based (...) on synchronisation of intrinsic gamma activity in the thalamocortical system, then sensory input to specific thalamic nuclei may merely play a constraining role. Hallucinations can be regarded as underconstrained perceptions that arise when the impact of sensory input on activation of thalamocortical circuits and synchronisation of thalamocortical gamma activity is reduced. In conditions that are accompanied by hallucinations, factors such as cortical hyperexcitability, cortical attentional mechanisms, hyperarousal, increased noise in specific thalamic nuclei, and random sensory input to specific thalamic nuclei may, to a varying degree, contribute to underconstrained activation of thalamocortical circuits. The reticular thalamic nucleus plays an important role in suppressing random activity of relay cells in specific thalamic nuclei, and its dysfunction may be implicated in the biological vulnerability to hallucinations in schizophrenia. Combined with general activation during cholinergic arousal, this leads to excessive disinhibition in specific thalamic nuclei, which may allow cortical attentional mechanisms to recruit thalamic relay cells into resonant assemblies of gamma oscillations, regardless of their actual sensory input, thereby producing an underconstrained perceptual experience. Key Words: Charles Bonnet syndrome; gamma oscillations; hallucinations; late paraphrenia; Lewy body dementia; perception; schizophrenia; thalamocortical system. (shrink)

Interpersonal coordination is a key factor in team performance. In interactive team sports, the limited predictability of a constantly changing context makes coordination challenging. Approaches that highlight the support provided by environmental information and theories of shared mental models provide potential explanations of how interpersonal coordination can nonetheless be established. In this article, we first outline the main assumptions of these approaches and consider criticisms that have been raised with regard to each. The aim of this article is to define (...) a theoretical perspective that integrates the coordination mechanisms of the two approaches. In doing so, we borrow from a theoretical outline of group action. According to this outline, group action based on a priori shared mental models is an example of how interpersonal coordination is established from the top down. Interpersonal coordination in reaction to the perception of affordances represents the bottom-up component of group action. Both components are inextricably involved in the coordination of interactive sports teams. We further elaborate on the theoretical outline to integrate a third, constructivist approach. Integrating this third approach helps to explain interpersonal coordination in game situations for which no shared mental models are established and game situations that remain ambiguous in terms of perceived affordances. The article describes how hierarchical, sequential and complex dimensions of action organization are important aspects of this constructivist perspective and how mental models may be involved. A basketball example is used to illustrate how top-down, bottom-up and constructivist processes may be simultaneously involved in enabling interpersonal coordination. Finally, we present the implications for research and practice. (shrink)

Norman's identification of a ventral system embodying a constructivist theory of perception is rejected in favor of an ecological theory of perception and perceptual learning. We summarize research showing that a key motivation for the ventral-constructivist connection, percept-percept coupling, confuses perceptual and post-perceptual processes.

In 1991, the myotonic dystrophy gene was cloned by researchers from Cardiff, London, and elsewhere overseas. This article examines the relationships between the different research groups. It shows that the scientific collaboration on the myotonic dystrophy research was not a constant, stable feature of scientific progress but a process whereby the relationships among the scientists altered over time according to the stage of the research. This process was mediated by vested interests, by personalities, by the power differentials of the groups, (...) by the resources of the groups, by subcollaborations, and by interactions with those outside the main research network. The collaboration can be seen as a continuum, ranging from full cooperation with all parties to selected revelations to specific parties to intense competition. These cooperative and competitive relationships are seen primarily from the perspective of one research group, with whom intensive field research was conducted. (shrink)

Prompted by the development of the Theory of Challenge and Threat States in Athletes (Jones et al, 2009), recent years has witnessed a considerable increase in research examining challenge and threat in sport. This manuscript provides a critical review of the literature examining challenge and threat in sport, tracing its historical development and some of the current empirical ambiguities. In an attempt to reconcile some of these ambiguities, and utilising neurobiological evidence associated with approach- and avoidance-motivation (cf. Elliot & Covington, (...) 2001), this paper draws upon the Evaluative Space Model (ESM: Cacioppo et al., 1997) and considers the implications for understanding challenge and threat in sport. For example, rather than see challenge and threat as opposite ends of a single bipolar continuum, the ESM implies that individuals could be (1) challenged, (2) threatened, (3) challenged and threatened, or (4) neither challenged or threatened by a particular stimulus. From this perspective it could be argued that the appraisal of some sport situations as both challenging and threatening could be advantageous, whereas the current literature seems to imply that the appraisal of stress as a threat is maladaptive for performance. In drawing upon the ESM, we outline the Evaluative Space Approach to Challenge and Threat and provide several testable hypotheses for advancing understanding of challenge and threat (in sport). We also outline a number of cardiovascular and experiential measures that can be used to examine these hypotheses. In sum, this paper provides a significant theoretical, empirical and practical contribution to our understanding of challenge and threat (in sport). (shrink)

Around the world, unhealthy diets are a leading cause of disease. Shifting population diets in a healthier direction will require downstream policy interventions. This means changing the composition of the processed food supply, particularly reducing salt, sugar and fat. Mandatory nutrient limits imposed by government are one way of achieving this. However, they have been criticized as a particularly intrusive regulatory option, interfering with both free markets and free choices. At the same time, voluntary industry reformulation has become an intervention (...) favoured by national governments, the World Health Organization and the food industry. This article uses a comparison of the two interventions—which share a common public health goal, albeit achieved through different regulatory means—as a basis to evaluate the ethical charges against mandatory nutrient limits. It makes three main findings: that both affect free dietary choice in very similar ways; that dominant public health ethics frameworks are not well equipped to compare mandatory and voluntary forms of regulation; and that food governance is inherently multisectoral, involving markets, governments and the public. Taking these findings into account, the article calls for a more nuanced ethical evaluation of food reformulation policies. (shrink)

Location Based Services (LBS) are information services that can be\naccessed with mobile phones. They rely on the system's knowledge of the\ngeographical position and the identifier of the phone being used, and\ntherefore on collecting data on an identified or identifiable user. In\nthis respect, the French data protection act stipulates that users agree\nto be supplied with an LBS service on a fully transparent basis and that\ntheir location data must be erased or made anonymous once the service\nhas been provided. In some cases, location-based (...) services are provided\non the user's own request, but in other cases, the individual concerned\nis unaware of the fact that third parties know where s/he is. This\ncreates potential for surveillance and misuse on the part of both police\nand businesses. What is at stake here is not only the right of\nindividuals to freedom of movement and to privacy but also, and more\nperniciously, citizens' autonomy with regard to information and\ndecision-making. (shrink)

Cet article se propose de réfléchir à la manière d'écrire l'histoire contemporaine des sexualités, en se concentrant sur le xxe siècle, et à partir de quelques productions francophones ou anglophones significatives. Il ne s'agit pas d'un bilan historiographique exhaustif, mais de comparer les outils méthodologiques et les problématiques déployés. L'articulation des questions de genre et de sexualité sera par exemple au cœur de ce parcours historiographique. Après avoir pointé les principales différences entre une historiographie anglo-américaine très riche, axée sur une (...) véritable réflexion épistémologique, et une historiographie française plus lacunaire et descriptive (en dehors de quelques domaines bien balisés : la prostitution, la contraception et l'avortement, les violences sexuelles), on évaluera les conditions d'un possible rattrapage français. (shrink)

This article discusses the conceptualisation, organisation and philosophical orientation of academic history culture in UK higher education. It problematises the extent to which a dominant history culture in UK universities implies and uncritically reproduces normative understandings about the subject; about its epistemological standing, sociopolitical functions, and the presumed cultural value of the discipline practices that students learn to perform. We suggest that current conceptions of history degree curricula are overly thin and organised around a dominant managerialist discourse of skills, personal (...) development and learning outcomes. In a historicised world, in which history-focused behaviour has a crucial, ideological, affirmatory role, and in which historical narratives have a privileged cognitive function, we argue that it is critical for university history students to be able to deconstruct the processes by which history legitimises itself, and reinforces matrices of power in our societies. The positioning of history in higher education as a form of technocratic managerialism closes down spaces in which students can explore the potential of historical practices as a means of engaging with issues of current sociopolitical and ethical concern. We ask in this article, is this what we want an academic history culture to do? (shrink)

In french and english speaking countries, the articulation between epistemological beliefs, conceptions of teaching and learning and pedagogical practices of secondary school teachers in the natural sciences and humanities has been little studied (Araújo-Oliveira, 2012 ; Bartos et Lederman, 2014 ; Wanlin et al., 2019). Yet, while teachers display predominantly constructivist beliefs about teaching and learning, their teaching practices remain rather passive (OECD, 2019). Like in Therriault et al. (2018-2023), this article explores the characteristics of epistemological beliefs, conceptions of teaching (...) and learning, and teaching practices among a population of 112 secondary school teachers (beginners, intermediate and experienced) in the humanities and natural sciences in French-speaking Belgium. In a second step, we explore the articulations between these three theoretical constructs either from statistical analyses or from a more interpretative perspective. Quantitative analysis of the data (PCA, factorial ANOVA, correlations and Chi-square) show that teachers’ epistemological beliefs are rather refined, that there is an effect of professional seniority on these beliefs and that there is a link between refined epistemological beliefs and traditional conceptions of teaching and learning. Finally, teachers’ self-reported practices appear to be insensitive to the discipline being taught. (shrink)

The implicit activities of the living body in sports (such as heart rate, involuntary gestures, stress, reflex, emotional regulation and interaction expressions) emerge in the consciousness of the lived body without our voluntary control. We demonstrate physiological emersion, and how, including in dramaturgical perception, physiological flows and processes collide with the image of a whole body. In this paper, we introduce corporeal non-property as the missing (?) link between phenomenology and neuroscience, renewed by research on the cerebral unconscious and the (...) perception of their lived body. Rather than mindfulness, physical activity obliges the subject to learn the unconscious and his motor skills from his living body: a new psychoanalysis of sport is thus established by studying what emerges from the activity of the living body up to the level of the conscious description of motor action. In this paper, we explain why that awareness occurs, and why it matters for the understanding of unconscious activity of the athlete’s living body. This is potentially interesting, although it needs, as a theory, to overcome the obvious reliance of the body on unconscious or habitual/automated physiological processes. But the incorporation of body techniques forms a habitus. (shrink)

Morally supererogatory acts are those that go above and beyond the call of duty. More specifically: they are acts that, on any individual occasion, are good to do and also both permissible to do and permissible to refrain from doing. We challenge the way in which discussions of supererogation typically consider our choices and actions in isolation. Instead we consider sequences of supererogatory acts and omissions and show that some such sequences are themselves problematic. This gives rise to the following (...) puzzle: what problem can we have with a sequences of actions if each individual act or omission is itself permissible? In this paper, we develop a response to this question, by exploring whether solutions analogous to those proposed in the rational choice literature are available in the case of supererogatory sequences. Our investigation leads us to the view that making sense of the supererogatory requires accepting that there are global moral norms that apply to sequences of acts alongside the local moral norms that apply to individual acts. (shrink)

Les situations de séparation conflictuelle entre parents peuvent provoquer une rupture du lien entre l’enfant et un de ses parents. L’espace de rencontre ( er ), en mettant en place des droits de visite encadrés, est alors le dernier recours de ces parents pour retisser un lien. Dans l’ er dont il est question dans cet article, les visites concernent principalement le père, la mère étant alors le parent gardien. Dans ce cadre ont été rencontrés des enfants qui affichaient une (...) volonté de rompre tout lien avec leur père, ce refus massif s’apparentant à un clivage de loyauté. Pour comprendre cette attitude, l’article interroge, à travers le cas de Marie, la dimension psychosociale de la fonction paternelle, la dimension intrapsychique et la dynamique relationnelle dans cette triade père-mère-enfant afin d’envisager le dispositif à mettre en place dans les situations de conflit de loyauté. (shrink)

Résumé Comme poète et comme romancière, Ingeborg Bachmann a tenté de confronter le langage à ses limites à la suite de Ludwig Wittgenstein. Sa lecture permet à Gargani de réfléchir philosophiquement au langage et à la connaissance et ainsi de découvrir l’utopie d’un « nouveau langage ».

This essay draws upon Gramsci’s understandings of law and of the philosophy of praxis to develop a critical analysis of international law in the constitution and potential revolutionary transformation of the contemporary global political economy. The analysis illustrates the analytical utility of Gramscian conceptions of historical bloc and hegemony in capturing the significance of international law as an effective historical force. It also extends these conceptions, theoretically, by arguing that the global political economy is undergoing a process of juridification in (...) which a commodified legal form provides the template for economic and political regulation. The commodity form theory of law is presented as the key to understanding the significance of international law under the culture of global capitalism. (shrink)

The necessity of reconsidering and rethinking the aesthetics of a literary genre is not a novelty. Now that the traditional distinction between argumentative theory patterns and narrative styles of thinking has blurred, the relationship between philosophy and literature raises a principal question: the definition of philosophy itself and of philosophical activity. Modern literature, and in particular the novel of the last century, embodies a polyphonic, complex cognitive enterprise which includes both original uses of language and sophisticated patterns of moral reflection. (...) Modern literature thus represents a new model of paradigmatic thinking for philosophical activity, and both philosophy and literature can be.. (shrink)

For centuries, heirloom rice varieties have been grown on the terraces of the Cordillera Mountains of Luzon, Philippines, terroirs known for their significant historical, cultural, and aesthetic values. However, heritage heirloom rice farming is gradually being abandoned, mainly because of its lower productivity and the struggle of the sector to create a sustainable niche market for heirloom rice by branding its cultural, social, and nutritional values. We propose several demand-side intervention strategies for the valorization of heirloom rice. To support the (...) development of a segmented marketing strategy for heritage farming, we provide evidence on urban consumers’ willingness to purchase heirloom rice. We interviewed 500 urban consumers from Metro Manila in July–August 2015, who placed a purchasing bid on a kilogram of heirloom rice. Consumers’ bids averaged PHP 72.61 kg−1, which is less than half its current market price. This explains why heirloom rice struggles to gain market share in urban markets in the Philippines. Given this bid price, we estimate a potential market size of PHP 20.3 billion that could be created for heirloom rice and tapped into by heritage farmers. Findings further indicate that women, business owners, and consumers who buy packaged rice and eat pigmented rice are willing to pay more for heirloom rice. Finally, our evidence suggests that proper information framing will be necessary to create demand and support the valorization of heirloom rice to preserve cultural heritage and in situ biodiversity of rice landraces in the Philippines. (shrink)

The commentators provide a wealth of additional neurobiological data that ought to be integrated in a comprehensive model. This response article, however, focuses on clarification of conceptual queries, thereby outlining the proposed theory of hallucinations more sharply, discussing its relationship with schizophrenia, and explaining why underconstrained thalamocortical activation may well be a candidate mechanism responsible for acute schizophrenic symptoms other than hallucinations.

Despite the fact that time, evolution, becoming and genealogy are central concepts in Deleuze's work, there has been no sustained study of his philosophy in relation to the question of history. This book aims to open up Deleuze's relevance to those working in history, the history of ideas, science studies, evolutionary psychology, history of philosophy and interdisciplinary projects inflected by historical problems.The essays in this volume cover all aspects of Deleuze's philosophy and its relation to history, ranging from the application (...) of Deleuze's philosophy to historical method, Deleuze's own use of the history of philosophy, his interpretations of other historical thinkers and the complex theories of time and evolution in his work.Contributors include: Paul Patton, Manuel DeLanda, John Protevi, Ian Buchanan, Tim Flanagan, James Williams, Eve Bischoff, Jay Lampert. (shrink)

Les huit contributions rassemblées dans cet ouvrage par l’historienne espagnole Cristina Borderías, professeure au département d’histoire contemporaine de l’université de Barcelone, sont le fruit d’un travail collectif mené par le groupe de recherche « Travail, Institutions et Genre » (TIG). À première vue, la thématique traitée ici n’est pas très novatrice tant il existe déjà, en Espagne et ailleurs, de publications portant sur la division sexuelle du travail au cours de l’histoire ; cependa...

In this paper back-and-forth structures are applied to the semantics of natural language. Back-and-forth structures consist of an event structure and an interval structure communicating via a relational link; transitions in the one structure correspond to transitions in the other. Such entities enable us to view temporal constructions (such as tense, aspect, and temporal connectives) as methods of moving systematically between information sources. We illustrate this with a treatment of the English present perfect, and progressive aspect, that draws on ideas (...) developed in Moens & Steedman (1988), and discuss the role of rich ontologies in formal semantics. (shrink)

Base pair mismatches in DNA arise from errors in DNA replication, recombination, and biochemical modification of bases. Mismatches are inherently transient. They are resolved passively by DNA replication, or actively by enzymatic removal and resynthesis of one of the bases. The first step in removal is recognition of strand discontinuity by one of the MutS proteins. Mismatches arising from errors in DNA replication are repaired in favor of the base on the template strand, but other mismatches trigger base excision or (...) nucleotide excision repair (NER), or non‐repair pathways such as hypermutation, cell cycle arrest, or apoptosis. We argue that MutL homologues play a key role in determining biologic outcome by recruiting and/or activating effector proteins in response to lesion recognition by MutS. We suggest that the process is regulated by conformational changes in MutL caused by cycles of ATP binding and hydrolysis, and by physiologic changes which influence effector availability. (shrink)