VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
The last Romantics: Kipling and Yeats, a comparative biography 1865-1906

My thesis examines Kipling and Yeats within the structure of a ‘comparative biography’. My premise is that reading these two near-exact contemporaries alongside one another yields remarkable discursive echoes. My method consists in identifying these mutual echoes in their poetry and political rhetoric, and charting them against synchronicities in their lives. By reading one author against another in a fashion that might be considered canonically incongruous, I seek to throw light on unacknowledged links running across the cultural nexus of the period.
I find these echoes particularly intriguing since Kipling and Yeats were for most of their careers irreconcilable political enemies. Yeats in his political ascendance frequently played to the gallery by denouncing Kipling, while the latter hardly varnished his opinion of Irish poetry and Irish nationalism. However, a cross-reading of the two poets’ bardic ambitions, heroic tropes and interpretations of history reveals that they frequently partake of a common discourse to achieve their opposed political ends. After supplementing this analysis with a biographical perspective, we can perceive that these discourses originate in their late 19th century artistic upbringing, and in the closely linked social circles which they inhabited in fin-de-siècle London. It is their very mutuality during the 1890s which imparts rancour to their twentieth-century attitudes, after the Boer War had ideologically sundered them.
Throughout, the thesis conceives them as figures transiting through both space and period. They had to reject but also adapt their Victorian inheritance in order to carry forward the Romantic poetic. Simultaneously, they undertook a physical transition between the colonial or semi-colonial societies of their birth and the metropolitan arena of their celebrity and influence. I see them as hybrid personalities and as romantic intellects, bringing imaginative fire from the colonial margins to satisfy the orientalist curiosity, and to soothe the fin-de-siècle anxieties, of the imperial centre. Although these peregrinations lead to a juggling of identities and poetic masks, in this dynamic lay both their success as authors and their influence as political and prophetic figures.

Advisor: Boehmer, E
The crystal chemistry and hydrogen storage properties of light metal borohydrides

This work examines various light metal borohydrides, particularly those formed from group II metals, with the aim of understanding their fundamental physical properties and improving their hydrogen storage ability. The structure of a new phase (γ) of Mg(BH4)2 is reported and the decomposition is fully characterized in a combination of diffraction and thermogravimetric studies. The bulk properties of γ-Mg(BH4)2 are compared to those of an SiO2 isostructure and probed by various neutron scattering techniques. Negative thermal expansion is observed at low temperatures and the material absorbs up to 1.5 moles of hydrogen gas to form one of the most gravimetrically hydrogen-dense materials ever reported. The structural evolution of Ca(BH4)2 under different synthetic conditions and external influences (e.g. temperature) is studied up until the material decomposes. The effects of various additives on group II metal borohydrides are also examined and the influence of each is justified by observing subtle structural changes in the mixed system via in situ synchrotron X-ray powder diffraction and 11B NMR measurements.

Keywords: borohydride
crystallography
hydrogen storage
Advisor: Edwards, P
David, W
The Platonism of Walter Pater

After graduating from the Literae Humaniores course, which after the mid-nineteenth century came to revolve around Plato’s Republic, Walter Pater’s (1839-1894) professional duties spanning thirty years at Oxford were those of a philosophy teacher and lecturer of Plato. This thesis examines Pater’s deep engagement with Platonism in his work, from his earliest known piece, “Diaphaneitè” (1864), to his final book, Plato and Platonism (1893), treating both his criticism and fiction, including his studies on myth.
Plato is an ideal philosopher, critic, and artist to Pater, exemplifying a literary craftsman who blends genres with the highest authority. Platonism is a point of contact with several of Pater’s contemporaries, such as Arnold and Wilde, from which we can take new measure of their critical relationships regarding aestheticism and Decadence. Pater’s idea of aesthetic education takes Platonism for its model, which heightens one’s awareness of reality in the recognition of form and matter.
Platonism also provides a framework for critical encounters with figures across history, such as Wordsworth, Michelangelo and Pico della Mirandola in The Renaissance (1873), Marcus Aurelius and Apuleius in Marius the Epicurean (1885), and Montaigne and Giordano Bruno in Gaston de Latour (1896). In the manner Platonism holds that soul or mind is the essence of a person, Pater’s criticism, evident even in his fiction, seeks the mind of the author, so that his writing enacts Platonic love.
Through close reading, we highlight his many references to Plato, identify Platonic subjects and themes, and explore etymological nuances in the very selection of his words, which often reveals a Platonic tendency of refinement towards immateriality, from seen to unseen beauty. As a teacher and an author Pater helped shape Oxonian Platonism, and through his writing we examine how Platonism informs his philosophy of aesthetics, history, myth, epistemology, ethics, language, and style.

Keywords: Plato
Walter Pater
nineteenth-century Oxford
aesthetics
Platonism
Advisor: Evangelista, S
Human population structure and demographic history using genetic markers

The evolutionary history of the human species has generated complex patterns of population structure and linkage disequilibrium (non-random associations of alleles at different loci or LD). The understanding of these patterns is crucial to two of the most important challenges facing biomedical science today: the identification of disease predisposing genes and prediction of variable drug reactions. The genetic variation revealed by these endeavours can also illuminate the underlying population historical processes. Here, I illustrate each of these applications: first, by assessing the demographic context of cultural change in the British Isles. Y chromosome variation indicates that the Viking age invasions left a significant paternal legacy (at least in Orkney), while the Neolithic and Iron Age cultural transitions did not. In contrast, mitochondrial DNA and X chromosome variation indicate that one or more of these pre-Anglo-Saxon revolutions had a major effect on the maternal genetic heritage of the British Isles. Second, I provide conclusive evidence that diverse demographic histories produce strikingly different patterns of association. Elevated LD extends an order of magnitude further in the Lemba, a Bantu-Semitic hybrid population, than in the putative parental populations. A significant relationship between allele-frequency differentials in the parental populations and the Lemba LD demonstrates that it is admixture-generated. Third, I demonstrate that the genetic structure inferred in a heterogeneous sample using neutral markers (a) shows ethnic labels to be inaccurate descriptions of human population structure, and (b) predicts drug metabolising profiles, defined by the distribution of drug metabolising enzyme variants. Thus the trade-off between therapeutic response and adverse drug reactions will differ between different sub-clusters. Assessment of genetic structure during drug trials is therefore, like the empirical evaluation of each population’s pattern of LD, a necessity.

Keywords: population structure
Y chromosome
Genetic history
Linkage disequilibrium
Orkney
Neolithic
admixture
Lemba
Norse Viking
drug metabolising enzymes
Palaeolithic
Advisor: Goldstein, D
Specific and non-specific suppression of renal allograft rejection in the rat

In this thesis certain clinically relevant aspects of specific and non-specific suppression of renal allograft rejection were examined in a rat renal allograft model.
The potentiation of the partial immunosuppressive effect of passive enhancement was found to be possible with suboptimal doses of antilymphocyte serum or cyclophosphamide but not azathioprine and prednisolone. Moreover, the use of high doses of azathioprine with enhancing serum resulted in significantly shorter survival times than those seen with enhancing serum alone. It was concluded that potentiation of enhancement required a significant but suboptimal level of non-specific immunosuppression with the appropriate agent to be applied during the induction of enhancement.
The administration of antidonor antiserum to rat kidney allograft recipients does not usually result in damage to the graft but it is likely to occur in human allograft recipients. The enhancing capacity of the noncomplement- fixing, F(ab')2 fraction of enhancing antibody was investigated and found to be 100 x less effective than whole antibody in the induction of enhancement. However, F(ab')2 was found to be capable of blocking antibody-mediated damage to allografts caused by whole antibody and guinea-pig complement, without blocking the latter's specific immunosuppressive effect. Red cell absorption of enhancing serum to produce a putative, "anti-Ia-like" serum, resulted in the loss of the serum's ability to produce immediate antibody-mediated damage to a renal allograft without removing its ability to enhance. Both strategies could, with appropriate modifications, be applied to clinical practice.
Antilymphocyte serum and cyclophosphamide, which were thought to have relatively selective actions on cellular and humoral immunity respectively, were found to have no such selectivity in the suppression of renal allograft rejection. When used in combination their effects were found to be additive but not synergistic.

Advisor: Morris, P
The ecology of lacertids at Gibraltar

Behavioural and ecological studies on southern European reptiles have been few. Knowledge even of the distribution and habitat requirements of the herpetofauna of southern Iberia is limited.
The reptile fauna of Gibraltar was studied in relation to the history of the habitats, and compared to that of the region. Habitats, climate, and relevant aspects of microclimate are described.
Work-centred on the Iberian Wall Lizard Podarcis hispanica which where possible was compared to Psammodromus algirus with which it sometimes occurred.
Data were collected from lizards captured in the field and kept in captivity, which were used in experiments, and from transect and continuous observations in the wild. Morphology, use of microhabitat, height and substrate preferences, annual activity, emergence, temperature relations, metabolism and behaviour were investigated. Where possible, comparison was made between lizard size classes and sexes.
The observational and experimental data suggest that Gibraltar P. hispanica are well adapted to their environment. Using a variety of thermoregulatory methods they can maintain fairly uniform body temperature throughout the year.
They appear to change their distribution in the habitat seasonally in response to the need for food and shelter. Activity is most severely restricted during the hottest part of the day in summer and in overcast weather.
It is suggested that P. hispanica is an opportunistic feeder consuming a variety of small invertebrates during bouts of foraging which vary in length and frequency according to time of year.
Lizards are tolerant of each other outside the breeding season, when males become aggresive towards each other and females and juveniles show more appeasement behaviour.
The results for P. hispanica are discussed in relation to existing work on other lizards, especially lacertids from more northerly locations in Europe.

Advisor: Coe, M
Physiological studies of visual perception

The problem of investigating the neural basis of higher cognitive function is receiving considerable attention with the increasing availability of functional neuroimaging. The aim of this thesis was to investigate how participants perceive a bistable, rotating structure from motion (SFM) cylinder, looking in particular at which areas of the brain are responsible for generating the internal switch that causes a perceptual change. Another aim was to discover how participants with autism, a neurodevelopmental condition thought to affect higher functioning, might differ in their perception of a similar stimulus. This thesis aimed to assess the interplay of bottom-up and top-down processing and the affect autism might have on the perception of multiple rotating SFM cylinders. Quantitative data were collected using Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and psychophysical testing. Participants viewed a continually rotating bistable SFM cylinder, giving responses in the form of a button press, whilst functional imaging was recorded using MEG. They were either presented; an ambiguous SFM cylinder in which participants were able to report perceptual switches, or a stable SFM 3D cylinder in which participants could report stimulus induced switches when the disparity of the stimulus was reversed. The results of this study showed a statistically significant increase in left frontal cortex activity 1180ms prior to the behavioural response to perceptual switches (p<0.05 when comparing perceptual switches to stimulus induced switches). When testing participants with autism, a behavioural psychophysics set up was used and participants indicated the direction of rotation of a continuously rotating SFM cylinder. Participants with autism showed borderline statistically significant reduced perceptual durations when viewing a constantly rotating bistable SFM cylinder (p<0.10). The increase in activity in the left frontal area was interpreted as evidence of the internal switch responsible for the perceptual change participants reported and could be the neuronal signature for the top-down control of perceptual switches. The reduced perceptual durations seen in participants with autism could be due to a weaker involvement of top-down control leading to a less stable perception, with local instability taking a greater role, however more participants would be required in order to get statistically significant results. Further work is required to localise the brain area of increased activity preceding intrinsic switches, incorporating an increased number of participants. In order to assess how brain function is altered in the autism spectrum, perceptual switching should be investigated in the participants with autism using a neuroimaging methodology.

Keywords: MEG
bistable
internal switch
structure from motion
magnetoencephalography
ambiguous
autism
Advisor: Krug, K
Parker, A
Is the prevention and/or cure of autism a morally legitimate quest?

The thesis explores the ethical questions underlying important contemporary debates about how society should respond to autism; whether autism is 'disease', 'disability' or 'difference', and whether it requires 'treatment' or 'acceptance'. Part 1 comprises a historical overview of how knowledge about autism has evolved through the perspective of contrasting stakeholders – clinicians and researchers, parents, professionals, the neuro-diversity movement. It reviews the main areas of academic ethical discussion to date with regard to autism, and proposes a new analytic framework – structured in terms of six 'categories of intervention': from pre-conceptual measures to post-birth interventions targeted towards infants and adults, and from individuals through to wider societal measures. Part 2 then conducts an ethical analysis using this framework. Examples are offered at each stage of intervention, along with a discussion of the ethical questions posed at each one.
Part 3 reflects on the questions to which Part 2 has given rise, addressing the way ethical positions on how to respond to autism rely on wider views about quality of life and wellbeing; parental virtues; the impact of local decisions on wider states of affairs (the Big Conundrum); and views on "where autism sits" in comparison with other conditions (the Analogy Challenge). It is argued that to conflate autism and suffering is to fail to do justice to extreme variations among autistic people, and disguises the extent to which external barriers may be the main obstacles to flourishing for autistic people and their families. The real-life conditions in which autistic people and their families struggle for recognition and support are therefore held to be of crucial significance for making both global and localised ethical judgements. It is therefore concluded that cure and/or prevention are not morally defensible as global targets for autism as a whole, but should be clearly distinguished from the ethical importance of supportive and therapeutic interventions to address particular problems that autistic individuals may have. The implications, for research and practice, are spelled out, with particular emphasis on the need for further dialogue among all stakeholders.

Keywords: reproductive selection
autism interventions
Disability
social model
Advisor: Parker, M
Repatriation and the production of kinship and memory: anthropological perspectives on the repatriation of Haida ancestral remains

An ethnographic approach is used to produce a nuanced investigation of the efforts of the Haida First Nation in British Columbia, Canada, to repatriate the human remains of their ancestors from collections around the world. The result is a contextualisation of Haida repatriation within values and structures of kinship—a position that stands in contrast to the frequent use of political or legalistic frameworks to understand repatriation issues. Incorporating Haida sensibilities toward kinship relations is necessary as analyses based in colonial or post-colonial encounters fail to account for the full range of motivating factors, which include the Haida value of yahgudangang (‘to pay respect’ and ‘to be fit for respect’) and the agency of ancestors after death. Furthermore, it is argued that kinship is the predominant structure through which Haidas experience identity, history and memory. Repatriation is therefore approached as a collective space in which kinship and memories are created, as well as a collective space in which remembering occurs. In order to understand how the individual elements comprising the repatriation process reflect and foster the construction of kinship, the expectations and obligations that exist within matrilineages and between moieties are traced, as is their material manifestation in objects, as well as tangible and ephemeral property. The sharing of embodied experiences between generations as a consequence of Haidas’ participation in the process of repatriation is shown to augment collective memory and family histories. The ways in which repatriation is incorporated within individual and collective narratives are explored as a further means of understanding the dynamic between the production of kinship, memory and identity. Avenues for expanding the current findings on repatriation, the connections between memory and kinship, and Northwest Coast scholarship more generally are presented.

Keywords: material culture
kinship
memory
Northwest Coast
repatriation
Advisor: Peers, L
Shape-shifters: Romantic-era representations of the child in the Wollstonecraft-Godwin family circle

This thesis is a study of the representations of childhood in the works of the family circle of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin and their intellectual inheritors, Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. It argues that their literary representations of the child, as a group, form an index of their political resistance to the dominant cultures of their era. The thesis situates these representations of childhood against the backdrop of the Romantic-era cultural celebration of childhood as established in works by historians and critics such as Philippe Ariés and James McGavran, Jr. It argues that the new sentimental category of the child established in the writings of Rousseau and Wordsworth, paradoxically, tends to marginalise the child from the socially powerful world of adults, even while establishing the child’s new specificity. This ethical impasse is resolved by the Wollstonecraft-Godwin family circle through its literary representations of the child, where the child becomes a shifting metaphor for all socially oppressed groups. Moreover, the adult author invites the child to participate in the world of adult power, eschewing a totalising adult perspective that erases the child’s specific concerns. This thesis tracks the development of the versions of the child in the works of the Wollstonecraft-Godwin family circle, from their early, discursive, political works such as Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Godwin’s Political Justice, where they represent their late-eighteenth century ideals of political emancipation through the education of the child, to more imaginative versions of the child in their later works. I locate a moment in each writer’s career at which the adult-child divide observed in their early works collapses: their doubts about rationalist epistemology crystallise, and they switch to open-ended modes of discourse in literary genres such as novels, which allow more freedom for the coded expression of radical political ideas through the representations of the child. In their later works, especially in Godwin’s radical publications for children, the adult-child hierarchy is dissolved: the child becomes a complex metaphor, representing the varied political concerns of disempowered adults and children. The discussion concludes with a sketch of the imaginative appropriation and transformation of the Wollstonecraft-Godwin representations by the Shelleys. Mary Shelley, and to a lesser extent, Percy Bysshe Shelley, adapt the radicalism of their predecessors’ literary representations of the child to suit their own altered socio-political contexts.

Keywords: children's literature
Wollstonecraft
childhood
Godwin
Shelley
Romanticism
Advisor: Stafford, F
McDonagh, J
The judicial reaction in south-eastern France, 1794-1800

The thesis investigates and analyses the hitherto neglected phenomenon of political reaction within the judiciary of south-eastern France during the period between the Thermidorian Reaction and the advent of the Consulate. The character, objectives and effects of the 'reaction judiciaire1 are studied through a series of different perspectives. The first task is to highlight the discrepancy between the concepts of the social and political effects of a revamped judicial system formulated during the Year III and the corrupt abuse of judicial power by reactionary provincial judges. Indeed, the study constantly seeks to explore the conceptual as well as the practical damage inflicted on the Directorial regime by the supposed trustees of the post-Terrorist republican settlement. Emphasis is placed upon the collaboration between the southern judges and the counter-revolutionary elements within the local community, especially in the discussion of the origins of the judicial reaction. The changes of technique and of objective which the judiciary experienced are explored in full. It is described from its beginnings as a weapon of retribution for the aggrieved local community against the former agents of the Terror to its role in the subversion of regional jacobinism to its support for the period of unchecked counter-revolution during the Year V and finally to its function as a 'rearguard' defender of arrested counter- revolutionaries during the period of the Second Directory. In addition, due consideration is given to the motivation of individual judges who operated the reaction.
It is hoped that the thesis has provided a model for the study of the causes, techniques and aims of political reaction from within an independent state power. Furthermore, it is hoped that the work is seminal in its suggestion that judicial reaction and its many ramifications had both a direct and indirect bearing upon the fall of the Directory.