bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Development of a Portable Device for Measuring Curling and Warping in Concrete Pavements
Authors: Yang Shuo , Ceylan Halil , Kim Sunghwan , Gopalakrishnan Kasthurirangan , Steffes Robert F.
Published: January 2025

Temperature and moisture variations across the depth of the Portland Cement Concrete (PCC) pavements result in a unique deflection behavior which has been recognized as curling and warping of the pavements since mid-1920s. The repeated slab curvature changes due to curling and warping, when combined with traffic loading, can accelerate fatigue failures including top-down and bottom-up transverse, longitudinal, and corner cracking. It is of paramount importance to measure the magnitude of curling and warping taking place in concrete pavements in order to develop performance measures and critical threshold magnitudes as well as gain a better understanding of their relationship to diurnal and seasonal temperature/moisture changes and pavement performance. Although several approaches have been proposed for this purpose for in-service pavements, they have certain limitations which inhibit their use for routine inspection for quality control and quality assurance. The primary objective of this study is to develop an economical and simple device for measuring curling and warping in pavements with accuracy comparable to the existing methodologies. Technical requirements are identified to establish assessment criteria for the proposed device. The detailed development and evaluation results for this device are presented and discussed with a focus on achieving reliable measurements in a cost-effective manner
20-year Performance of SPS-2 Sections in North Dakota and Wisconsin
Authors: Gedafa Daba S.
Published: January 2025

The Long Term Pavement Performance (LTPP) Specific Pavement Studies (SPS-2) experiment was designed to study the structural factors, such as drainage, base type, concrete strength, slab thickness, and lane width for rigid pavements. The SPS-2 experiment sections in North Dakota and Wisconsin, constructed in 1994, are jointed, dowelled plain concrete pavement. SPS-2 sections in North Dakota and Wisconsin are considered as sister sections since they were built in the same year. The experiment consisted of six and eight supplemental sections in North Dakota and Wisconsin, respectively in addition to 12 standard SPS-2 sections. These sections have been monitored by the LTPP program since construction. Performance monitoring included measurements for ride quality (International Roughness Index, IRI), faulting, cracking, and load transfer efficiency based on surface deflections. The main objective of the study is to compare 20- year performance of SPS-2 sections in North Dakota and Wisconsin. Performance parameters analyzed in this study included IRI, faulting, load transfer efficiency, cracking, spalling, scaling, and pumping. The results show that the sections have performed well to date. Most of the sections are smooth, crack free, and have negligible faulting. Thinner sections (203 mm) over dense graded aggregate base and lean concrete base are the smoothest in North Dakota and Wisconsin, respectively. Thinner sections (203 mm) over lean concrete base and permeable asphalt treated base are the roughest in North Dakota and Wisconsin, respectively. The effect of base type on the smoothness of thicker sections is not clear. Thinner sections (203 mm) are smoother than thicker sections for the same base type in general except a Wisconsin section with thicker slab (279 mm) and a higher flexural strength (6.2 MPa) over permeable asphalt treated base.
Effect of Base Type on the Transverse Cracking of Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements-A Study of LTPP SPS-2 Sections
Authors: Mu Feng , Mack James
Published: January 2025

A previous sensitivity study indicated a tendency of Pavement ME to predict more transverse cracking for Jointed Plain Concrete Pavements (JPCP) with aggregate bases than those with stabilized bases. Such a tendency contradicts the experience of some engineers who have successfully used aggregate bases to achieve robust and enduring JPCPs. The controversy triggered an in-depth investigation of the JPCP models by comparing them to an independent 3-D finite element model, which showed that Pavement ME under predicted the environmental stress for JPCPs with stabilized bases and also neglected the benefit of aggregate bases in accommodating the deformation of the surface layer and thus reducing its stress. However, this investigation was solely based on numerical modeling and not validated by any field evidences. This study further examines the issue based on an analysis of SPS-2 JPCP field experiments of the long-term pavement performance (LTPP) database. While the SPS-2 sections were designed to investigate the effect of various factors such as base type, thickness, climate, and so forth on the structural performance of the JPCP, this study is focused on the comparison of different base types, namely dense graded aggregate base (DGAB), permeable asphalt treated base (PATB) and lean concrete base (LCB). The interplay between base type and the other factors is also discussed.
Longitudinal Cracking in Alternate Jointed Plain Concrete Panel Widths in Wisconsin
Authors: Owusu-Ababio Sam , Schmitt Robert L.
Published: January 2025

This paper presents the results of comparative analyses of longitudinal cracking occurring in wider concrete panels (>12ft) in Wisconsin. The analysis revealed that approximately 60% of 1,008 segments involved in the study experienced longitudinal cracking. For the same pavement thickness and joint spacing, panel widths of 12ft and 14ft that exhibited higher amounts of longitudinal cracking than the larger 15-ft panel, received corresponding higher levels of truck traffic than the 15-ft panel. Pavement segments with thickness of 9in at a joint spacing of 20ft experienced higher amounts of longitudinal cracking in 14ft and 15ft wide panels than in 12ft wide panels. For a 9-in pavement thickness at a joint spacing of 16ft, the best performance may be attained by using 12ft wide panels. For a 14-ft wide panel with 9-in or 10-in thickness, the best performance may be attained using a 15-ft joint spacing. In addition, models developed showed that longitudinal cracking variations in 10-in 14-ft wide panels at 16-ft or 20-ft joint spacing is dictated by the Annual Average Daily Traffic, while percent trucks is the foremost factor that explains variations in longitudinal cracking for 12-ft and 15-ft wide panels at specific joint spacing and thickness values.
Crack Behavior in Asphalt Composite CRCP with Basalt Fiber Reinforcement
Authors: Zhang Yating , Huang Zhiyi , Roesler Jeffrey
Published: January 2025

Basalt fiber-reinforced polymer (BFRP) bars are corrosion-resistant and have potential to be used in continuously reinforced concrete pavements (CRCP). In this paper, the layout of an asphalt composite CRCP test section with BFRP bars at 0.5% is presented. This 8m wide by 250m long, two lane test section has been constructed on G330 National Road in Zhejiang Province, China. A number of instruments, such as temperature sensors and strain gages, were installed to monitor the performance of the test section. An analytical model is introduced to predict the crack behavior of CRCP with BFRP bars compared to conventional CRCP with steel reinforcement. According to the observation before placement of the 10cm asphalt layer, the crack spacing ranged from 3.5m to 5m with crack widths of 1.3mm to 1.4mm, which agreed reasonably well with the predicted values from the analytical model. For similar crack widths as steel-reinforced CRCP, a higher reinforcement ratio is required.
Development of a Roller-Compacted Concrete (RCC) Fatigue Curve with a Reliability Component from Published RCC Beam Fatigue Data
Authors: Rodden Robert , Voigt Gerald , Ferrebee Eric , Gieraltowski Andrew
Published: January 2025

The roller-compacted concrete (RCC) fatigue curve most commonly used in design and referenced in literature at current was developed approximately 30 years ago and is based on a limited set of 23 beams from 4 RCC mixtures. Since this first RCC fatigue curve was published, two additional studies have published RCC fatigue test results for 118 additional beam specimens from 8 RCC mixtures, but these two studies did not present an updated RCC fatigue curve for design. All of the 141 published RCC beam fatigue data points were utilized in a Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and with an advanced model fitting software to develop an RCC fatigue curve with a reliability component. Comparison of this RCC fatigue model to that published in 1987 suggests that the newer model is useful in removing some of the overconservatism built into the 1987 RCC fatigue curve.
IMPROVEMENT IN IRI VALUES OF CONCRETE PAVEMENTS CONSTRUCTED IN ARGENTINA WITH SLIP-FORM PAVERS
Authors: Dalimier Marcelo , Torrent Roberto
Published: January 2025

Measurements of the International Roughness Index (IRI) were conducted on eight pavement sections, corresponding to two highways and one airport runway, constructed in the period 1995-1999 in Argentina. All three pavements were built using slip-form pavers. Different sections of the pavements were built by different contractors, using different logistics and machinery. The IRI was measured using an Inertial Profilometer T6500 K.J. Law, corresponding to Class 1 according to ASTM E 950-98. The results obtained in the different sections vary widely according to the technology applied in each of them. The average IRI of the sections ranged from values near 4 m/km to values below 2 m/km. Linking the IRI values registered in each section with the technology applied in them, showed that the best results were obtained where appropriate logistics (e.g. higher concrete production rates) and the use of heavy pavers (CMI, GOMACO and Wirtgen) were employed. Another important conclusion is that the IRI values obtained decreased chronologically, reflecting the importance of experience and know-how transfer from one job to the next. The main conclusion of this study is that, with modern and powerful pavers, appropriate logistics of concrete production and delivery, and personnel, trained and experienced at all levels, is possible nowadays to build in Argentina concrete roads of evenness comparable to that of high-quality asphalt roads.Measurements of the International Roughness Index (IRI) were conducted on eight pavement sections, corresponding to two highways and one airport runway, constructed in the period 1995-1999 in Argentina. All three pavements were built using slip-form pavers. Different sections of the pavements were built by different contractors, using different logistics and machinery. The IRI was measured using an Inertial Profilometer T6500 K.J. Law, corresponding to Class 1 according to ASTM E 950-98. The results obtained in the different sections vary widely according to the technology applied in each of them. The average IRI of the sections ranged from values near 4 m/km to values below 2 m/km. Linking the IRI values registered in each section with the technology applied in them, showed that the best results were obtained where appropriate logistics (e.g. higher concrete production rates) and the use of heavy pavers (CMI, GOMACO and Wirtgen) were employed. Another important conclusion is that the IRI values obtained decreased chronologically, reflecting the importance of experience and know-how transfer from one job to the next. The main conclusion of this study is that, with modern and powerful pavers, appropriate logistics of concrete production and delivery, and personnel, trained and experienced at all levels, is possible nowadays to build in Argentina concrete roads of evenness comparable to that of high-quality asphalt roads.
CRCP IN VIRGINIA LESSONS LEARNED
Authors: Elfino Mohamed , Ozyildirim Celik , Steele Richard
Published: January 2025

This paper presents the lessons learned from the performance of continuously reinforced concrete pavement (CRCP) in Virginia. The approach was to identify the most critical distresses, establish the failure mechanism, and implement the best practice for extended service life with minimal maintenance. Distress included map cracking, localized areas of broken concrete, punchouts, longitudinal cracking, and sags. The failure mechanism of each distress was established using pavement condition surveys, forensic investigations, coring, and shoulder trenching. The experience gained was translated into changes to include using 4.2-m (14-ft) truck lanes, thicker pavement, a higher percentage of reinforcing steel, steel placed on chairs, transverse steel, larger size aggregate, a lower water/cementitious material ratio, mineral admixtures, adequate consolidation, and dense asphalt drainage layer, supported by an effective edgedrain system. These changes were complemented by an emphasis on quality construction and a smoother ride. These changes were implemented on our most recent project with very promising results.
AN EVALUATION OF RETROFIT LOAD TRANSFER MATERIALS AND DOWEL BAR CONFIGURATIONS
Authors: Rettner David L. , Snyder Mark B.
Published: January 2025

The Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) constructed experimental test sections of retrofit load transfer across transverse cracks in concrete pavement on U. S. Highway 52 near Zumbrota, Minnesota. The test sections were constructed in September of 1994 to evaluate retrofit load transfer and the effects of different dowel lengths and configurations, and patching materials on performance. The retrofit dowels improved the load transfer efficiency (LTE) of the worst cracks from 23% to more than 80%. After 6 years, the LTE has remained above 80% for all of the test sections, there have been no visible failures of the repairs and very little additional faulting has occurred in any of the configurations, although several repairs exhibited plastic shrinkage cracks and bond failures along the vertical faces of the slots.
Feasibility Study for the Use of Precast Portland Cement Concrete Panels for Rehabilitation of Airfield Pavements
Authors: Speir Richard H. , Tayabji Shiraz D. , Rada Gonzalo R. , Sun Chen Yue , Murrell Scott
Published: January 2025

The use of conventional practices for long-term rehabilitation of existing asphalt or concrete pavements on active airfield surfaces is not always practical given the short timeframe available for construction and the need for high early strength to allow for immediate use by aircraft traffic. This study, sponsored by The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANY/NJ), investigated the use of precast portland cement concrete (PCC) panels as a cost effective alternative for rehabilitation and possible new construction of these critical facilities. PANY/NJ operates Kennedy International, Newark International, LaGuardia and Teterboro airports. From an historical perspective, research and application of this procedure in practical situations are limited. It was therefore necessary to conduct a feasibility study to assess if the engineering, construction, and performance requirements for the use of precast PCC panels could be met by currently available technology. The first step in the process was a review of the state of the practice to determine the extent to which the process was feasible. Based on the review and 7th International Conference on Concrete Pavements – Orlando, Florida, USA – September 9-13, 2001 discussions between the project team and PANY/NJ staff, two alternative schemes were selected for detailed evaluation. The first scheme involved use of slabs designed using a conventional design approach. In this method, use of plain jointed panels, 3.8 by 3.8 m to 7.6 by 7.6 m, and thickness ranging from 30.5 to 40.6 cm. was investigated for airfield applications. The second scheme involved use of post-tensioning to tie together multiple slab panels, to provide an effective slab size of about 7.6 m by 7.6 m. Post-tensioning of the slab panels allows use of thinner slabs. In evaluating these two schemes, the following critical limiting factors were considered to determine their feasibility: 1. Aircraft loading 2. Panel dimensions (transporting, site assembly, and placement considerations) 3. Existing pavement removal and site preparation 4. Use of interface treatment (sand bedding, stone dust, grout) 5. Load transfer at joints 6. Construction sequencing, including installation of light system 7. Allowable panel geometric tolerances and final surface grade tolerances This paper presents the results of the feasibility study and provides the preliminary design details for the two schemes selected for applications at PANY/NJ airfields. A trial installation is planned at New York’s La Guardia Airport during the fall 2001.
THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION OF CROSS TENSIONED CONCRETE PAVEMENT
Authors: Vefa Akpinar Muhammet , Hancock Jeffrey , Hossain Mustaque , Gist Andrew J.
Published: January 2025

The deterioration of Portland Cement Concrete Pavement (PCCP) is most often due to poorly performing transverse joints and cracks. This problem could be solved by eliminating the majority of transverse joints and constricting the cracking capability of the pavement by applying an external force to the pavement in the form of post-tensioning. The post-tension strands can be arranged diagonally resulting in Cross Tensioned Concrete Pavement (CTCP). Finite element analyses results show that the maximum tensile stress at the crossing of the strands near the pavement edge is much lower than the recommended allowable stress. The tensile stress between the opposing bearing plates is also reasonable. The proposed design also resulted in maximum compressive stresses and displacements as per design expectation. Thus, the proposed CTCP design appears to be a feasible design solution for longer lasting concrete pavement.
THE OHIO HPCP JOINT SEALANT EXPERIMENT
Authors: Ioannides Anastasios M. , Sander Jason A. , Minkarah Issam A.
Published: January 2025

This Paper describes the design and construction of the Ohio U.S. 50 test pavement, a project intended to evaluate concrete pavement performance in connection with various sealant types and joint configurations in the Wet-Freeze climatic zone. Unsealed transverse joints are also included in the experimental factorial. Monitoring activities are discussed and the sealant performance to date is summarized. It is reported that significant mid-slab cracking has been observed in the test pavement, but that this distress appears unrelated to the performance of the sealant treatments. The latter retain an overall effectiveness between 40 and 75% in the eastbound lanes after two years of service, with compression seals outperforming silicone and hot-pour sealants.
EVALUATION OF A LIGHTWEIGHT PROFILER FOR MEASUREMENT OF PCC PAVEMENT ROUGHNESS IN FLORIDA
Authors: Choubane Bouzid , McNamara Ronald L.
Published: January 2025

Road smoothness/roughness is gaining growing importance as an indicator of a pavement condition, both in terms of performance, and as a major determinant of road user costs. Therefore, attaining acceptable surface smoothness on newly constructed pavements is becoming a major concern to highway agencies. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) currently specifies the use of a California-type profilograph for acceptance purposes of the final surface finish on Portland cement concrete (PCC) pavements. However, testing using such a device is slow, tedious, and labor intensive. It is Florida’s intent to automate the process of ride acceptance. Thus, FDOT initiated a field study to assess the feasibility of implementing the use of laser-based lightweight profilers for such a purpose. If a lightweight profiler is to be considered for ride acceptance in Florida, it is essential to assess its level of correlation with the currently specified profilograph device. Profile Index values were acquired using both a lightweight profiler and a California-type profilograph concurrently on a large number of concrete pavement sections for comparative purposes. In addition, the lightweight profiler testing repeatability and the effects of its testing speed gradients on roughness measurements were also considered. This paper presents a description of the testing program, the data collection effort as well as the subsequent analyses and findings.
A NEW APPROACH TO NON-DESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION OF PAVEMENT STRUCTURES USING THE ROLLING DYNAMIC DEFLECTOMETER
Authors: Rozycki Dan K. , Wilde W. James , Rasmussen Robert O.
Published: January 2025

This paper describes the use of the Rolling Dynamic Deflectometer (RDD) at two different sites as an example of non-destructive evaluation (NDE) of pavement structures for a qualitative analysis of the continuous deflection profile. A comparison of sections with different deflection profiles allowed engineers to identify relative differences in support conditions for the portland cement concrete slabs, cut and fill sections associated with the initial construction, and other discontinuities in the pavement structure. Additional research recommended for future locations includes tying the continuous deflection profile to discrete measurements taken by coring and performing laboratory tests as well as falling weight deflectometer (FWD) measurements and backcalculation to characterize the materials in the pavement. Other future uses of the RDD are also recommended.
Al-Tārīkhiyya al-Māddiyya (Historical Materialism): Sadik Jalal al-Azm (1934–2016)
Authors: al-Salimi Abdulrahman
Published: January 2025

This chapter delves into the philosophy of Al-Tārīkhiyya al-Māddiyya, or Historical Materialism, as articulated by Sadik Jalal al-Azm. Al-Azm applies the principles of historical materialism to the Arab context, analyzing the social, economic, and political forces that shape history. The chapter discusses how al-Azm’s work critiques traditional and religious interpretations of history, advocating for a materialist approach that emphasizes the role of class struggle and economic factors in historical development. His philosophy is positioned as a radical critique of existing social structures, offering a Marxist perspective on Arab history and society.
Poe’s Comedy: Carnival and Gothic Laughter
Authors: Jones Timothy
Published: January 2025

This chapter explores Poe’s use of gothic laughter and shows how many of his tales use comic techniques for ends which blur the horrifying with the humorous. This is a mode of writing that can be described as carnivalesque. Poe frequently depicts a laughter that is spectacularly mean-spirited and suggests self- undoing, or the destruction of another figure. This laughter is suggestive of broader qualities associated with the gothic as a genre – terror, awe, wonder, nastiness and a cynical kind of campness. While some of Poe’s lesser-known tales are clearly intended as comic, that comedy is often grotesque or violent. Moreover, the tales that are most characteristic of Poe, and on which his reputation rests, often feature comic techniques used to horrifying ends – especially pranking and slapstick. This becomes a productive confusion, so that laughter in and perhaps generated by Poe has a particularly gothic affect, and this affect is a key part of Poe’s reception and legacy in popular culture.Tales discussed include ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘Hop-Frog’, ‘King Pest’, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, ‘Some Words with a Mummy’, ‘King Pest: A Tale Containing an Allegory’ and ‘A Predicament’.
The Indian English Periodical Target : Popularity and Nostalgia
Authors: Laskar Rizia Begum
Published: January 2025

As an erstwhile colony of the British Empire, English language in India has a significant role to play in the development of the collective psyche. The decades of the 1970s and 1980s saw a surge in schools imparting education primarily through the English language. This created a niche for children who can read and write the English language. It is in this lacuna that an English children’s periodical named Target first made its appearance in 1979 and continued up to 1995. Pre-globalization Indian kids found a reflection of their urban middle-class identity in the periodical. This paper will look into the reasons for the popularity of Target and the nostalgia of a generation of children who grew up on it.
The Portrayal of Japanese Girls in British Girls’ Magazines between the 1880s and 1910s
Authors: Muta Yukiko
Published: January 2025

This study explores the portrayal of Japanese girls in British girls’ magazines from the 1880s to the 1910s, reflecting evolving British perceptions of Japan and Japonisme. Early on, magazines like the Girl’s Own Paper focused on Japanese art, viewing it through an imperialistic lens that saw Japan as both exotic and in need of Western ‘civilization’. As Japan began to Westernize, magazines like Atalanta in the 1890s presented a more conflicted view, appreciating the progress while lamenting the loss of traditional culture. By the 1900s, the Girl’s Realm provided a more nuanced portrayal, embracing cultural otherness and showcasing Japan’s unique customs and the lives of Japanese girls, including those who were Western-educated. The magazines increasingly depicted Japan with more accuracy and depth, moving from exoticism to a more complex understanding.
‘Inspire the Communist Rebel Spirit in the Young People of our Class’: An Overview of Communist Children’s Periodicals in Britain, 1917–1929
Authors: Rosen Jane
Published: January 2025

Inspired by the successful revolutions in Russia in 1917 and the development of the first workers’ state, the British socialist and communist movements produced a series of periodicals aimed at children. This essay extends the academic work on working-class and radical publications for children as well as the publications of the Socialist Sunday School movement and the Proletarian Schools by laying an historical and bibliographic foundation that will inform future academic work in both periodical and childhood studies. Moving away from the traditional idea of the child as a passive receiver of socialist education as personified in the Socialist Sunday School movement’s journal Young Socialist, this essay discusses Communist children’s periodicals of the time, analysing their role in producing child activists. It examines the encouragement of youth to take part in the revolutionary and working-class struggle, looking at the ways the movement cultivated them as writers and editors in attempts to actively include children in the production of the periodicals.
Neocolonialism’s Subjects: Complicity and Resistance in Ousmane Sembène’s Xala and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born
Authors: Jilani Sarah
Published: January 2025

This chapter examines how Ousmane Sembène’s Xala (1975) and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1969) approach the question of subjectivity under their respective national circumstances, which see crony capitalism masquerading as African socialism. Proposing that the central allegory of the film and the novel – the national Senegalese and Ghanaian elites respectively as complicit against and/or unable to spearhead decolonisation – yield a structural analysis of the relationship between subjectivity and arrested decolonisation, I trace how Sembène and Armah explore this relation via different but related aesthetic and political themes. The chapter proposes that in both Xala and Beautyful Ones, the loss of the illusion that independence would bring decolonisation provokes a search for the causes and extent of the present decay; what emerges is that subjectivities themselves are at stake (being shaped as they are in both narratives by the material structures of neocolonial capital). Their re-constitution under these conditions, determined by both the former imperial power and an increasingly U.S.-centric economic world order, signals lasting repercussions for post-independence West African societies.
Emplacing the Self: Environment and Labour in Kamala Markandaya’s Nectar in a Sieve and Souleymane Cissé’s Work
Authors: Jilani Sarah
Published: January 2025

Set nearly two decades after the respective independences of India and Mali, Kamala Markandaya’s 1958 novel Nectar in a Sieve and Malian director Souleymane Cissé’s 1978 film Work situate their narratives within, respectively, rural and urban conditions that evidence how the promise of decolonisation has now morphed into postcolonial state-led developmentalist agendas that utilise the discourse of national self-sufficiency for the aggressive industrialisation of rural environments and the erosion of labour rights in urban environments. This chapter considers how these two narratives bring post-independence transformations in environment to bear on subjectivity. What drives characterisation and conflict in both Markandaya’s novel and Cissé’s film, I argue, is what Arijit Sen and Lisa Silverman describe (2014) as embodied placemaking – understanding of, and engaging with, physical place as a material product of human experience and memory of past events, alongside broad and local economic forces. These everyday forms of engagement have the potential to (though not always successfully) resist, circumvent or confront power that seeks the ‘realisation of space’ for neocolonial ends in both stories. Together, they prove place and its relationship to subjectivity crucial in shaping the possibilities for agency.
1639–1643: Baghdad
Authors: Güngörürler Selim
Published: January 2025

Chapter 2 discusses the Ottoman reconquest of Baghdad in 1638 and the subsequent Peace of Zuhab in 1639, which shaped Ottoman-Safavid relations for the next decades. The Ottoman victory under Murad IV, following the siege of Baghdad, ended the war and set the balance of power. Diplomatic exchanges, particularly through ambassadors and envoys, became essential in formalizing the peace and securing control over contested borderlands. The Ottomans also began consolidating Baghdad militarily and administratively, while the Safavids sought to maintain their presence through diplomatic channels. These events laid the foundation for future frontier consolidation and the evolving dynamics between the two powers.
Pilgrimages to the Past in Jesmyn Ward and Toni Morrison
Authors: Narcisi Lara
Published: January 2025

This chapter offers a comparative analysis of Jesmyn Ward’s, Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) and Toni Morrison’s, Song of Solomon (1977). It focusses on the journeys of their Black male protagonists and considers their depictions of rebellion and compassion in the wake of slavery. Sing, Unburied, Sing, follows the pilgrimage of a young Black man to uncover his grandfather’s past and rewrite his own future. It simultaneously offers the reader a pilgrimage back to Morrison’s earlier novel, which similarly uses a physical journey to reveal a psychological one. Ward’s novel, like Morrison’s, uses the characters’ personal epiphanies to consider the broader legacies of slavery in the American South. However, Ward’s vision of what this journey implies for Black masculinity diverges in particular ways. Through thirteen-year-old Jojo’s reluctant travels to the darkly spiritual ground of Parchman prison, and subsequent return with the ghost of a boy who unlocks his grandfather’s secret past, the novel explores police brutality, poverty, addiction, and the prison industrial complex. Though like Song of Solomon in its vision of a spiritual journey South that uncovers buried traumas, Ward’s sympathetic protagonist and uplifting ending suggest ways in which the cycles of violence that entrap Morrison’s men, might be broken.
The Spirit of Aristophanes
Authors: English Mary C. , Dixon Dustin W.
Published: January 2025

This book is a wide-ranging collection of essays that explores classical Greek tragedy and comedy, Roman comedy, mime, philosophy, Latin epic, Latin epigram and the ancient novel. The volume begins on the plays of Aristophanes. While scholarly criticism has tended to overlook Aristophanic comedy as a touchstone of literary merit, the first chapters locate several qualities of ancient literature in his plays, and other chapters trace their dynamics through the work of other fifth-century dramatists and later Greek and Latin literature. The chapters give special attention to issues of performance, intellectual and cultural context, textual criticism, gender and sexuality, literary history and fragmentary literature.
Literature, Media and the ‘Advertising System’
Authors: Salmon Richard
Published: January 2025

In Thomas Carlyle’s well-known disquisition on the “Condition of England,” Past and Present (1843), the emerging print medium of advertisement becomes central to the perception and diagnosis of wider social problems. Alluding to the contemporary advertising campaign for a popular (quack) medicinal product, Carlyle acknowledges that he has “no Morrison's Pill for curing the maladies of Society” but suggests that “[t]he clearer my Inner Light may shine, through the less turbid media; the fewer Phantasms it may produce.” Carlyle identifies advertising (or “puffery” as it was known in the early to mid-nineteenth century) as a “turbid” medium which distorts perceptions of reality, producing phantasmagorical illusions. However, while advertising seems to embody the hyperbolic claims of the capitalist print marketplace that Carlyle critiqued, it was also harnessed in support of radical social protest movements, such as Chartism. For example, advertisements for Parr’s Life Pills and Chartist shoe-blacking featured extensively in the Radical press. This chapter will explore the tangled relationship between advertising as a (relatively) new print media of the 1830s and 1840s and the more familiar political and ideological discourse of the period, drawing on a range of literary and periodical texts.
The Media System of Charitable Visiting
Authors: Maurer Sara L.
Published: January 2025

It wasn’t until the publication of the first volume of Thomas Chalmers’s The Christian and Civic Economy of Large Towns in 1819 that a model of charitable visiting came to be seen as a useful and widely reproducible practice. The visitor’s face-to-face encounters with the poor are intended to bring the personality of the church and pastor to those in need. In turn, visitors were expected to have a careful, readerly relationship to those they encountered in their visits, paying them the same respectful attention they would a devotional text. It is these media-like roots that spawn the multimedia interactions explored in the second part of this chapter. The printed forms and pre-established protocols of charitable visiting were designed to eliminate individual idiosyncrasies from charitable visiting. At the same time, visitors were depicted as intensive readers of the homes they visited. This vision of a charitable worker as someone making voluntary, attentive returns to limited spaces in order to seek understanding put the practice at odds with the impersonality of a modern bureaucracy. Visiting literature imagined the charity routine as a sign of devotion and care rather than as underwriting a mechanical efficiency.
Woolf and Capitalism: Introduction
Authors: Jones Clara
Published: January 2025

This introduction sets out the structure, scope and coverage of the collection as well as the critical debates it emerges out of in Woolf and Modernist studies. It also provides an historical overview of the capitalist moment Woolf lived and worked through. This period witnessed challenges to the capitalist status quo: ‘the end of laissez-faire’ (Keynes 1926) and Liberal political dominance; the rise of Labour as a social movement and its instatement as a parliamentary party; the emergence of class as a defining and galvanising political category and the appearance of a wholesale alternative in the form of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. But this was also a moment of capitalism’s retrenchment with the development of consumer capitalism and the commercialisation of everyday life. World historical crises including two world wars and the stock market crash of 1929 were also crises in capitalism, and they were read as such by the writers, economists and thinkers that witnessed them, not least Woolf herself. This introduction focuses on Woolf’s interlocutors in her engagements with capitalism, as well as spotlighting moments of specifically feminist resistance to its economic regime across her writing career.
Untangling Critical Legal Studies
Authors: Stewart James Gilchrist
Published: January 2025

Critical Legal Studies (CLS) is a broadly used term, with a variety of associated meanings. These meanings include the subject of this book, the CLS movement, as well as approaches critical to dominant legal theory, such as Critical Race Theory and Feminist Legal Theory. To map out these different theories, this chapter creates a family tree to clarify and qualify which Critical Legal Studies is which, presenting the argument that US-CLS is dead.
‘Bloody-hunting slaughtermen’: War Crimes and Unjust War in the History Plays
Authors: White Robert
Published: January 2025

The texts of Shakespeare’s history plays, especially since light on stage directions, give a wide latitude to directors and actors whether to represent causes and characters as honourable or reprehensible. Stage versions from the past have tended to use the plays in the name of pro-war patriotism, but modern performances show they can be plausibly presented as critical of war and its premises. In this slanting, the texts can be seen to give support, especially in the portrayal of Henry V and his arguable pursuit of war crimes, judged even in terms of medieval and classical law. By foregrounding so clearly the issue of the responsibility of wartime leaders which, as Williams and Bates persist in arguing, cannot be evaded or shifted, Shakespeare carefully distinguishes the different moral position of the foot-soldiers, whose fears, doubts, undoubted courage, loyalty, and (perhaps) misguided gullibility in a war of dubious legality are fully demonstrated.
‘Bind fast his corky arms’: Torture in King Lear
Authors: White Robert
Published: January 2025

This chapter briefly examines the centrality of war in King Lear and centres on one war crime in particular, the use of torture in interrogating Gloucester as a prisoner of war.
René Schneider: Removing the Main Obstacle to a Coup in Chile
Authors: Trenta Luca
Published: January 2025

The chapter covers the US government’s involvement in the Chilean Presidential elections of 1970. Having failed to prevent the socialist Salvador Allende from winning the elections, the White House and the CIA worked to prevent his confirmation as president by the Chilean parliament. This effort involved both bribes and the organization of a military coup. General Rene Schneider, Commander in Chief of the Chilean army, was understood as the key obstacle in the organization of a military coup. The CIA – under orders from the White House – worked with right-wing military officials and para-military group on a plan to kidnap Schneider, with full awareness that such plan was likely to lead to a bloodbath. Schneider was assassinated during a kidnap attempt, but a coup failed to materialise. Relying on archival material uncovered for the first time during the research for this book, the chapter also confirm the role of the White House and of Henry Kissinger in pushing the CIA and the Chilean military forward, thus exposing as false Kissinger’s claims to innocence.
Grave Police Music: Anti-Carceral Poetics
Authors: Roberts Luke
Published: January 2025

Following from the previous chapter’s discussion of poetry and police violence, this chapter focuses on the anti-prison poetry and activism of Bill Griffiths. Griffiths’s early work – including Cycles (1976) – is presented in the context of the formation of the activist organisation Preservation of the Rights of Prisoners (PROP). Drawing on work by Tom Pickard – who was briefly detained in HMP Brixton – and by John James about Irish Republican prisoners at Long Kesh, Griffiths is presented as part of a genealogy of ‘anti-carceral poetics’. The chapter goes on to discuss later work by Griffiths, including Star Fish Jail (1994), and his prose writings about the prison system.
North East Vernacular English Online
Authors: Pearce Michael
Published: January 2025

Drawing on thousands of naturalistic online interactions from Ready to Go (RTG), a popular football message board centred on North East England, North East Vernacular English Online describes dialect at the levels of morphology, syntax, lexis and – through a study of orthographic innovation – phonology, charting historical continuities as well as more recent developments. The book also examines metalinguistic commentary and debate on the website, revealing folk-attitudes and perceptions of linguistic variation. Informed by the latest research, but also building on the foundational scholarship of the English Dialect Society and the Survey of English Dialects, this volume will appeal to academics in the fields of sociolinguistics and dialectology, as well as undergraduates, post-graduates and general readers interested in the language and culture of England’s most distinctive region.
Introduction: Ready to Go
Authors: Pearce Michael
Published: January 2025

This chapter lays down the linguistic foundations on which the book is built, describing the data set and justifying its use as primary data. It demonstrates that despite being written, such interactions are nevertheless as naturalistic, informal, spontaneous and therefore ‘vernacular’ as the types of speech which have traditionally been seen as the ‘holy grail’ of the sociolinguistic enterprise. The chapter also discusses the generic and stylistic richness of RTG compared with the blander data routinely used in other kinds of sociodialectological research, which makes it a unique resource for understanding contemporary North East English.
Reading Espionage Fiction
Authors: Griffin Martin
Published: January 2025

Reading Espionage Fiction explores the ways in which the struggles and loyalties of political modernity have been portrayed in the espionage story over the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Reading works by authors such as Somerset Maugham, Helen MacInnes, John le Carré, Sam E. Greenlee, and Gerald Seymour as popular literature deserving of sustained attention, this study shows how these narratives have both created a modern genre and, at the same time, sought an escape from its limitations. The book takes up the importance of plot and character and argues that, in this branch of fiction, the personal has always and ever been political.
The Past as Prologue: Antifascism and the Prophetic Mode in Ambler and MacNeice
Authors: Griffin Martin
Published: January 2025

Chapter examines Eric Ambler’s novel A Coffin for Dimitrios (The Mask of Dimitrios in the UK) and Louis MacNeice’s long narrative poem Autumn Journal, both published in 1939, as examples of literature with an antifascist aesthetic. Both works also reveal an element of prophecy, as their certainty that war was coming was somewhat risky when neither author could really know the future. The fact that history proved them right gives both works an aura of poignancy and integrity.
Governing Migration in the Late Ottoman Empire
Authors: Fratantuono Ella
Published: January 2025

How do terms used to describe migration change over time? How do those changes reflect possibilities of inclusion and exclusion? Ella Fratantuono places the governance of migrants at the centre of Ottoman state-building across a 60-year period (1850–1910) to answer these questions. The book highlights the importance of migrant and refugee settlement within Ottoman reform. It traces the significance of the term muhacir (migrant) within Ottoman governance during the global era of mass migration, during which millions of migrants arrived in the empire, many fleeing from oppression, violence and war.
Rather than adopting the familiar distinction between coerced and non-coerced migration, the book explores how officials’ use of muhacir captures changing approaches to administering migrants and the Ottoman population. The book argues that attempts to govern migrants influenced the development of Ottoman social engineering, or attempts to transform and manipulate society in order to strengthen the state. The book places the Ottoman experience within a global history of migration management and sheds light on how six decades of governing migration contributed to the infrastructures and ideology essential to mass displacement in the empire’s last decade. In doing so, it enhances understanding of global and Middle East migration regimes and illuminates the emergence of refugee administration from a historical perspective.
Eco-Ability and Narrative Violence in Life & Times of Michael K
Authors: Wojtas Paweł
Published: January 2025

This chapter begins with a discussion of Life & Times of Michael K, focusing on how the titular protagonist’s disabilities, such as facial disfigurement and body emaciation, intertwine with ecological themes to reflect his elusive ontological status. Drawing on Alison Kafer’s concept of “cripped environmentalism” (2017), the analysis examines how Michael K’s disabilities are shaped by socioecological factors. The intersection of ecological and disability vocabularies deepens the exploration of the novel’s narrative structure. Michael K is considered as a victim of “testimonial injustice” (Fricker 2010) by other characters and narrators, alongside his agency in resisting narrative violence. The chapter also engages with Coetzee’s concept of the “poetics of failure,” addressing the crisis of narrativization in the novel as experienced by its narrators and focalisers, and exploring the implications of this concept in relation to disability.
Impossible Modalities, Ailing Selves: Illness, Metaphor and Selfhood in Age of Iron
Authors: Wojtas Paweł
Published: January 2025

This chapter focuses on the connection between the ethics of subjectivity and the contemplation of the ailing body in Age of Iron. Drawing on Søren Kierkegaard’s notion of the “sickness unto death,” it aims to demonstrate how the philosopher’s ethics of inwardness anticipates Coetzee’s portrayal of the narrator-protagonist’s suffering body. Additionally, it examines Coetzee’s use of cancer as a political metaphor, focusing on the implications of disability metaphorization in literary texts. Finally, this chapter explores how Coetzee’s subjective ethics challenge traditional tendencies to allegorise the ailing body.
Meaning-making in Trump’s anti-Biden political campaign commercials: Multimodal perspective
Authors: Krysanova Tetiana
Published: January 2025

This chapter examines the expanding role of video commercials in modern political campaigns and the growing interest in meaning-making through the synergy of multimodal resources. It focuses on Donald Trump’s 2020 election campaign commercials with a two-fold aim: theoretically, to explain the mechanism of multimodal meaning-making in political campaign advertising, and empirically, to define the combinability potential of each semiotic resource in the meaning-making process. This research draws on an integrated cognitive-pragmatic and cognitive-semiotic approach, incorporating conceptual integration, blended classical joint attention, and performativity theories. From a cognitive-pragmatic perspective, the chapter highlights the intersubjective interaction between politicians as filmmakers and the electorate as viewers in constructing ‘meaning-in-context,’ while a cognitive-semiotic framework emphasises the dynamic, enactive, and embodied nature of meaning-making. The chapter argues that Trump’s anti-Biden political campaign commercials function as short films aimed at persuading viewers to vote against Biden by eliciting emotions, primarily fear. The emotive meaning in these commercials is constructed through a combination of audial and visual modes, incorporating elements of verbal, non-verbal, and cinematic resources. This chapter demonstrates how the integration of multimodal resources is pivotal in shaping voter attitudes in the media environment.