Daniel Gold

A Novel Arabidopsis Acetyltransferase Interacts with the Geminivirus Movement Protein NSP

Protein acetylation is important in regulating DNA-templated processes specifically and protein–protein interactions more generally in eukaryotes. The geminivirus movement protein NSP is essential for virus movement, shuttling the viral DNA genome between the nucleus and the cytoplasm. We have identified a novel Arabidopsis protein, AtNSI, that interacts with NSP. AtNSI is highly conserved among widely divergent plants. Biochemical studies show that its interaction with NSP is direct and that AtNSI acetylates histones, but not NSP, in vitro. Rather, AtNSI specifically acetylates the viral coat protein. AtNSI is a nuclear protein but does not act as a transcriptional coactivator in vitro, which distinguishes it from known eukaryotic histone acetyltransferases. Its overexpression enhances the efficiency of infection by Cabbage leaf curl virus. These findings suggest a role for protein acetylation in coordinating replication of the viral DNA genome with its export from the nucleus.

Aesthetics and Analysis in Writing on Religion: Modern Fascinations

This book addresses a fundamental dilemma in religious studies. Exploring the tension between humanistic and social scientific approaches to thinking and writing about religion, Daniel Gold develops a line of argument that begins with the aesthetics of academic writing in the field. He shows that successful writers on religion employ characteristic aesthetic strategies in communicating their visions of human truths. Gold examines these strategies with regard to epistemology and to the study of religion as a collective endeavor.

The Sufi shrines of Gwalior City: Communal sensibilities and the accessible exotic under Hindu rule

O rashly, as if asserting its claims on the place, the unpretentious shrine to Mir Badshah abuts the side of an imposing bank building in the main bazaar of Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, a predominantly Hindu city of about nine hundred thousand?the former capital of an important princely state.1 Mir Badshah seems to have been a local Muslim saint of the nineteenth century, but he has left little historical record, either written or oral. Nevertheless, despite the historical ephemerality of the saint himself, his shrine is very active?visited by local merchants before they open their shops, crowded during weekly performances of the rhythmic Sufi devotional music called qawwali, and taking over much of the bazaar during a five-day annual festival with invited qawwals of national reputation. And crucially for the shrines success?since only 6 or 7 percent of Gwaliors population is Muslim?the vast majority of its visitors are Hindu.

Rational action and uncontrolled violence: Explaining Hindu communalism

The assertion of Hindu identity in contemporary India takes two characteristic forms: organized movements notable for their effective action; and uncontrolled mob violence. Understanding this apparent paradox entails both general religio-historical explanation and culturally specific interpretation. From a general perspective, organized movements and mob violence each offers a means of identifying with the same religious object—in this case, the Hindu nation, newly valorized in urban India. But the specific relationship between the two can be interpreted through themes of control and violence in Shaivite myth.

Making Places for Vivekananda in Gwalior: Local Leadership, National Concerns, and Global Vision

Three institutions invoking the legacy of the turn-of-the-twentieth-century Hindu reformer Swami Vivekananda coexist in greater Gwalior, an urban area of over one million residents in Central India. All three have ties to broader India-wide organizations: Gwalior’s Ramakrishna Ashram to the Belur-based Ramakrishna Math, which was started by Vivekananda; the Vivekananda Kendra, a local branch of a national organization of the same name based in Kanyakumari; and the Vivekananda Needam, once the local branch of the Kendra but now embarked on an independent existence. All three centers have their own charismatic leaders.