bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
What’s So Funny About Humours? Melancholy, Comedy and Revisionist Philosophy
Authors: Bernard J. F.
Published: May 2019

The introductory chapter addresses both the prevalence of melancholy within Shakespearean comedy as well as the extensive revisions of relevant philosophical discourses that the genre undertakes. It initially charts out the history of the dual melancholic traditions that emerge out of Antiquity (and traces their revisions through the Middle Ages before providing an account of their development in Renaissance treatises that conflate medical and literary aspirations. In doing so, the chapter draws out the various principles that will inform Shakespearean comedy’s depiction of melancholy. The chapter then offers a survey of Shakespearean comic criticism that draws attention to its shortcomings in lieu of a sustained melancholic treatment. The chapter concludes with a preliminary outlining of modern, psychoanalytical engagements with melancholy and its related concepts that highlights the upshot of Shakespeare’s transformation of melancholy.
Melancholic Ambience at the Comic Close
Authors: Bernard J. F.
Published: May 2019

The chapter underscores the powerful emotional ambiguity that characterises the final moments of As You Like It and Twelfth Night. This alteration introduces a new understanding of melancholy that revolves around ideas of mood, time and setting. No longer tied to physical characterisations but grounded instead in the languor elicited by the inevitable passage of time, melancholy impresses itself into the very fabric of the plays it occupies. It finds particular resonance within the various musical interludes they contain, as well as in the several allusions to the bittersweet temporal perception that characters express. In both plays, the sense of a comic ending is seriously problematised by the growing sense of wistfulness that develops. Despite the promise of a return to court, the multiple loose ends in As You Like It undercut the otherwise joyful resolution. Similarly, a strong sense of this more spectral melancholy, embodied in Feste’s closing ballad, sweeps through the final act, coating it in a wistful longing for times past. The powerful emotional ambiguity of these final moments underscores the symbiotic revisions of melancholy and comedy into a melancomic theatrical and philosophical affect.
British Women’s Media Narratives of Gender and Collective Memory
Authors: Motrescu-Mayes Annamaria , Nicholson Heather Norris
Published: May 2019

This chapter engages with theoretical and historical perspectives on gender, post-colonialism and new media with the aim to trace the visual literacy defined by several examples of British women amateur film and media practice. This literacy appears to inform new understandings of amateur/new media making and to elucidate how gender-driven visual narratives of gender, race and national identities function today within global online networks. It explores issues of belonging, home-and-abroad mind frames, and of colonial and post-colonial identity-building within postcolonial and feminist theories. The theoretical discourse is anchored in detailed analyses of the amateur film made by Eileen Healey of the all-women tragic mountaineering expedition up the Chy Oyu summit in 1959, and of several exceptional scenes filmed in colour by Rosie Newman during the London Blitz, including British military drills during the Second World War and portraits of British colonial subjects and sites. Finally, it identifies the ways in which some documentary filmmakers have recently re-framed and re-contextualized similar footage, such as Beatrice Blackwood’s and Ursula Graham Bower’s colonial amateur (ethnographic) films, either as visual ‘fillers’ for new perspectives on the history of the British Empire, or as cinematic documents relevant to new practices in visual anthropology studies
Akomfrah’s Foreigner
Authors: Harvey James
Published: May 2019

In John Akomfrah’s essay-film, The Nine Muses (2010), the aesthetic paradigms of politics and art are broached so evenly that it is as possible to speak of a ‘cinema of politics’ as it is to speak of a ‘politics of cinema’ – both concepts are equalised, so that each is constitutive of the other. A bricolage of extraordinary intertextuality, Akomfrah’s film is equally concerned with the socio-historical problem of migrant subjectivity and the politico-aesthetic distribution of hierarchies relating to forms and technologies of art. The thematic concern for migration becomes a formal ‘foreignness’, creating a reconfigurative possibility for cinema and its adjacent art forms. Following Rancière’s utopian framing of the wandering ‘foreigner’ (1990: 3), I claim that Akomfrah film ‘persists in the curiosity of his gaze, displaces his angle of vision, reworks the first way of putting together words and images, undoes the certainties of place’ (1990: 3). The foreigner is an urgent political concept at a time of consensus and especially crucial in regards to public responses to mass migration from the Middle East to Europe.
Conclusion: Contemporary Political Art Cinema
Authors: Harvey James
Published: May 2019

By way of conclusion, I once again bring to the foreground debates on art cinema, in order to answer three questions directly: where precisely do political redistributions exist in the films discussed? How do these redistributions relate specifically to consensus politics? Third, how does the discourse of art cinema itself occupy a particular space of political potential? To answer each question, I revisit key points made in each chapter in order to elaborate on how art cinema proposes confrontations with, and developments from, Rancière’s claim that ‘there is no politics of cinema’.
The Late-Victorian Little Magazine
Authors: Claes Koenraad
Published: May 2019

Fed up with the commercial and moral restrictions of the mainstream press of the late Victorian era, the diverse avant-garde groups of authors and artists of the Aesthetic Movement developed a new genre of periodicals in which to propagate their principles and circulate their work. Such periodicals are known as ‘little magazines’ for their small-scale production and their circulation among limited audiences, and during the late Victorian period they were often conceptualized as integrated design project or ‘Total Works of Art’ in order to visually and materially represent the ideals of their producers. Little magazines like the Pre-Raphaelite Germ, the Arts & Crafts Hobby Horse and the Decadent Yellow Book launched the careers of innovative authors and artists and provided a site for debate between minor contributors and visiting grandees from Matthew Arnold to Oscar Wilde. This book offers detailed discussions of the background to thirteen little magazines of the Victorian Fin de Siècle, situating these within the periodical press of their day and providing interpretations of representative content items. In doing so, it outlines the earliest history of this enduring publication genre, and of the Aesthetic Movement that developed along with it.
Introduction
Authors: Claes Koenraad
Published: May 2019

In the late Victorian era, as in every period, the realm of the aesthetic was affirmed and kept within bounds by bordering non-artistic phenomena (moral, political, commercial) considered as setting off its limits, and on which it must not encroach. What unites the diverse artists and authors currently grouped under the heading of ‘Aestheticism’ is that they sought to integrate these surroundings into their aesthetic project as well. This led to the development of expansive art projects that are commonly known as ‘Total Works of Art’, influencing even seemingly ephemeral print media such as little magazines. Late-Victorian little magazines in different ways strove towards an integration of form and content and thereby to become periodical Total Works of Art that would not be contaminated by the worldly interests that they purported to defy. However, the dichotomy between art and commerce on which it relies is ultimately untenable.
Selling the Yellow Nineties: the Yellow Book and the Savoy
Authors: Claes Koenraad
Published: May 2019

This chapter discusses at length two of the best-publicised periodicals the 1890s, whose relationship reveals much about the reception in wider late-Victorian print culture of the conceptual integration of form and content that increasingly became associated with the little magazine genre. The slyly marketed Yellow Book (1894–97) is arguably the most notorious yet also the most ingeniously commercialist little magazine of all time, and it styled itself a ‘book’ for good reason. By emulating the appearance of a book, its editors and publisher John Lane at the Bodley Head hoped to safeguard their publication against the ephemerality and relative lack of prestige of periodical texts. The magazine drew a number of large advertisers and sold remarkably well until it was implicated in the Wilde trial in 1895. Its characteristic appearance had at that point become so recognisable that the magazine, as well as its rivals at the Savoy (1896) founded by the Yellow Book’s ousted alleged ‘Decadent’ ringleaders Arthur Symons and Aubrey Beardsley, felt that they needed to rethink their design aesthetic. Some material characteristics associated with the little magazine had become iconic and associated with transgressive content.
Introduction
Authors: McCallum John
Published: May 2019

The church that emerged from the Protestant Reformation of 1559–60 influenced the lives of Scots in countless ways. One of the most striking and novel ways in which it made its presence felt was through its kirk sessions. These new parish courts came to represent the local face and authority of the church, and we have come to learn a great deal about their impact on ordinary people’s religion and personal lives – not least through their punishment of ‘ungodly’ behaviour, and the inculcation and mediation of new religious ideology. This book is about an aspect of the church’s role in Scottish communities which is much less familiar. The kirk sessions were also the principal providers of poor relief. This mission reflected some of the foundational aspirations and rhetoric of the Reformation’s leaders, but more than that, it became a duty which they undertook over the long term with much consistency, effort, and resilience. This relief has not been studied in any depth, especially for the first phase after the official and legal establishment of Protestantism in 1560 up until the mid-seventeenth century....
Urban Beginnings and Developments, c. 1560–c. 1610
Authors: McCallum John
Published: May 2019

This chapter explores the earliest evidence for post-Reformation poor relief, in the urban kirk sessions which led the way in Scotland’s parochial Reformations. The chapter argues that substantial, diligent and well-organised relief systems were established in Scottish towns during the years and decades after 1560, variations in speed and formality notwithstanding. A strong system was common by the early seventeenth century, and the chapter also challenges the view that this system was undermined by its formal status as ‘voluntary’ rather than compulsory. It was certainly not the case that the church stepped in to provide informal relief once the statutory option had failed.
The Mechanics of Relief
Authors: McCallum John
Published: May 2019

This chapter analyses the key features of the relief system whose establishment and extent was traced in the previous chapters. It focuses on the fundraising mechanisms used by kirk sessions as well as their approach to the distribution of resources. It also provides a detailed analysis of the people involved: although deacons were theoretically in charge of relief there was some flexibility, and the treasurer was shown to have a particularly important role (as did the minister). The chapter demonstrates the seriousness and organisation with which sessions approached relief, and argues that they were careful and sometimes innovative in acquiring resources for relief, and flexible and responsive in distributing them to the needy.
Conclusion
Authors: Hobbs Simon
Published: May 2019

The conclusion presents the key findings of the book. Noting the complexity of the paratexts considered throughout the work, the conclusion claims that extremity is not merely a gimmick, but part of a larger transfer of ideas that breach the traditional boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow culture. Further to this point, the chapter highlights the manner in which exploitation distributors are increasingly adopting highbrow marketing tactics over lowbrow ballyhoo. This challenges the longstanding opinion that extremity is a gimmick, as it calls into question the actual value of that material, even in a space where it has been historically deemed most effective. The chapter then looks beyond European cinema, examining the shift of extreme cinema into the mainstream consciousness, and the impact this has on extremity’s paratextuality. Finally, the conclusion considers the future of tangible home entertainment products within an increasingly digitalised world. Questioning whether DVD and Blu-ray is an outdated format, the chapter concludes that disc-based media will continue to stay relevant to certain demographics (such as fan communities) while noting the ways the paratextual methodology employed throughout the book can be adapted to study streaming platforms.
Those Other Victorians: Cosmopolitanism and Empire in Jane Campion’s The Portrait of a Lady
Authors: Hollyfield Jerod Ra'Del
Published: May 2019

Jane Campion’s adaptation of Henry James’ 1881 novel The Portrait of a Lady met with mixed reception upon its release in 1996. While scholars continue to view the film in a postcolonial context, little attention has been paid to its examinations of settler colonial identity in the wake of the 1992 Mabo decision that served as the first official acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights in Australia. Hailing from New Zealand, but working in Sydney, Campion has often meditated on her own transnational settler status in films such as The Piano(1993) and Holy Smoke!(1999). As the first film Campion made afterMabo, The Portrait of a Lady engages in the process of “backtracking” through Australian history via comparative analysis of its settler colonial characters as they inherit fortunes and form family alliances throughout England and Italy. In addition, it serves as a unique example of a postcolonial adaptation of an American Victorian novel, opening a space for Campion to address the Americanization of Australia’s film industry as Hollywood productions increasingly shoot on location in the nation and Australian talent such as Nicole Kidman continue to transition to Hollywood.
Attaining fana in Paul Bowles’s Infinite Landscapes
Authors: Daw Sarah
Published: May 2019

Chapter One interrogates Paul Bowles’s presentation of the human relationship to Nature in his bestselling novel The Sheltering Sky (1949). In his autobiography Without Stopping (1972), Bowles describes a “secret connection between the world of nature and the consciousness of man” that is activated by the presence of the North African desert landscape. The chapter investigates the prevalence of such interactions between the human mind and the desert landscape across Bowles’s fiction and non-fiction writing, and demonstrates the degree to which Bowles’s exposure to Sufism shaped his literary depictions of an infinite, ecological Nature with the power to influence and annihilate the human. This chapter reads The Sheltering Sky (1949) alongside Bowles’s extensive non-fiction travel writing, in order to expose the influence of Sufism on the novel’s depictions of an infinite and annihilating desert landscape.
Conclusion: ‘Know that the earth will madonna the Bomb’
Authors: Daw Sarah
Published: May 2019

The book’s concluding chapter begins with an ecocritical reading Gregory Corso’s 1958 poem ‘Bomb’. The conclusion then reflects on the book’s contributions to the fields of Cold War literary criticism and ecocriticism. As part of the book’s re-evaluation of the significance of the Cold War period to contemporary ecocritical debate, this chapter also develops the book’s argument that Rachel Carson’s seminal work Silent Spring (1962) should be viewed as one of a growing number of American texts written after 1945 that present an interdependent, ecological vision of the human’s relationship to its environment.
Introduction
Authors: Marston Kendra
Published: May 2019

The introductory section opens with a discussion of Lars von Trier’s 2011 film Melancholia, examining this text’s significance as part of a broader cultural moment in which the depressive episodes of white women are used to provide commentary on the moral decay of the Western world. It situates the book’s analysis within the fields of postfeminist media studies and critical race and whiteness studies. The Hollywood manifestation of postfeminist melancholia is attributed to several factors, including a resurgence of interest in feminist politics, conflicts in US race relations, and the shifting image of the US internationally. It then argues for the examination of this cinematic figure’s relationship to a politics of white hegemony, briefly exploring Hollywood’s history of utilising stories involving ethnic appropriation as a means of assuaging national anxieties associated with earlier socio-political movements, such as the civil rights movement and sexual revolution.
Sofia Coppola’s Melancholic Aesthetic: Vanishing Femininity in an Object-oriented World
Authors: Marston Kendra
Published: May 2019

Chapter Six offers a close reading of Sofia Coppola’s first three feature films, arguing that these texts provide critiques of neoliberal postfeminist culture through the heroines’ experience of a melancholic existential inertia. It is an integral feature of these films, however, that protagonists racialised as white and socio-economically empowered are incapable of decentring their experience to see, hear or otherwise relate to subjects racialised as non-white—especially in so far as these subjects are positioned below them in status and class hierarchies. Coppola has managed to capitalise on a cultural mood of postfeminist melancholia in order to sell stories of white female burden not only through her cinematic endeavours but her fashionable collaborations also. Yet, her cinema also capitalises on the association of melancholia with specialness in offering romanticised portraits of protagonists confined not only by their society, but by their own propensity for introspective processes which prove both pleasurable and pointlessly apathetic.
Introduction
Authors: Glazzard Andrew
Published: May 2019

‘You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be instructive to compare results.’

Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of Four (1890)

‘A Case of Identity’ (1891) opens, like so many stories in the Sherlock Holmes saga, in 221B Baker Street, where Holmes and Dr Watson receive a new client who bears a problem that is also a story. Watson is both Holmes’s pupil in the science of detection and, crucially, the story’s narrator. Both roles give him the scope to observe and record the client, Miss Mary Sutherland: his description for the reader of her ‘preposterous hat’, ‘vacuous face’ and ‘general air of being fairly well to do, in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way’ (...
The Guardians of Securities
Authors: Glazzard Andrew
Published: May 2019

Wealth, or capital, tends to be represented in the earliest Holmes stories in the reassuringly familiar form of specie (coins and notes), or precious stones or metals. The Agra treasure in The Sign of Four, the French gold in ‘The Red-Headed League’, the Australian gold mines of ‘The Boscombe Valley Mystery’ (1891) and the American gold mine of Hatty Moran’s father in ‘The Noble Bachelor’, the 421 pennies and 270 half-pennies in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ (1891), the blue carbuncle, the counterfeit half-crowns in ‘The Engineer’s Thumb’, the fifty thousand pounds in notes loaned to the illustrious client in exchange for a priceless piece of jewellery in ‘The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet’ (1892) – all are examples of the most solid forms of capital. Even the opium den in ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ is named ‘The Bar of Gold’. Several of these stories belong to a tradition of narratives, stretching back to Chaucer’s tale of the Pardoner but including such favourites of Doyle’s as Collins’s The Moonstone and Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Gold Bug’ (1843), in which great wealth in material, tactile form motivates characters to perform extraordinary feats.
Nice, Amiable People!
Authors: Glazzard Andrew
Published: May 2019

The Sign of Four was Conan Doyle’s second attempt at rewriting Wilkie Collins’s landmark detective novel The Moonstone. His fi rst, published between A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, was The Mystery of Cloomber (1888), a short novel that Doyle later came to regard as mere apprentice work. It is certainly derivative: its setting in a coastal village in south-west Scotland is strongly redolent of Stevenson, with an atmosphere recalling that of some of Doyle’s favourites, such as ‘The Pavilion on the Links’ (1880). Technically, though, it follows Collins in its use of multiple narrators presenting their testimony, some of which takes the form of legalised witness statements and other official documents. But the influence of Collins is even more apparent in The Mystery of Cloomber’s characters, plot and orientalist tropes.
Loyalty
Authors: Parvini Neema
Published: May 2019

This chapter approaches the topic of loyalty in Shakespeare’s plays primarily through the lens of Antonio’s devotion to Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Celia’s to Rosalind in As You Like It. It argues that although these pairs of friends are differently gendered, they are structurally very similar, and marked by their total imbalance. Both Antonio and Celia demonstrate exceptional selflessness in their loyalty, despite the fact that neither Bassanio nor Rosalind come close to ever repaying their kindness. The chapter suggests that our difficulty in processing these disproportionate relationships is because they upset the moral foundation of fairness, but loyalty is not transactional. It seems, rather, that Shakespeare’s notion of friendship rested partly on the Christian (Thomist) virtue of charity. It also argues that when Shakespeare deals with loyalty, he focuses on individual relationships, as opposed to groups. In the language of modern psychological and sociological studies, this renders his friendships, and by extension his concept of loyalty, “feminine” even though the friendships he depicts are between both men and women.
Fairness
Authors: Parvini Neema
Published: May 2019

Fairness concerns itself with proportionality, not equality. It is a question of reciprocity – “just desserts”, what one deserves – rather than egalitarian distribution. This chapter focuses on how Shakespeare tends to depict feelings of unfairness as a key motivation for revenge and, if unchecked, a possible route to villainy, evil, and even societal collapse. This is because the desire for revenge fuels selfish or self-seeking behaviour – the antithesis of fairness – and thus unfairness begets unfairness. Human groups which lack any sense of fairness and in which individuals have become wholly selfish cannot flourish. I will focus chiefly on Richard III’s primary for motivation revenge, Hamlet’s refusal to kill Claudius when he is praying, the Duke’s pardon of Angelo in Measure for Measure, and Edmund’s motivations in King Lear.
Hijra, Hajj and Muslim Mobilities: Considering Coercion and Asymmetrical Power Dynamics in Histories of Islamic Cosmopolitanism
Authors: Feener R. Michael , Gedacht Joshua
Published: May 2019

This introduction lays out the argument that an exploration of Muslim mobility and diversity across Asian history can help identify coercive dimensions that are often elided in dominant modern visions of ‘cosmopolitanism’. Starting with a discussion of the role that images of the premodern Muslim kingdom of al-Andalus in Spain have played in Muslim memory as a marker both of nostalgia and loss, the introduction then transitions to Asia. Specifically, the chapter traces how Islamic ideas of pilgrimage, migration, and learning shaped imaginaries of movement and of ‘opening’ frontier space defined as much by agonistic confrontation as by accommodation. These conceptual reflections build upon references to particular histories and historiographies of cosmopolitanism - including debates on the Indian Ocean, Sufism, religious ‘conscience’, and the global ‘umma’. Finally, this discussion sets the stage for the volume chapters to follow on coercion, asymmetrical power relations, and cosmopolitanism across diverse Asian Muslim societies.
Islamicate Cosmopolitanism from North Africa to Southeast Asia
Authors: Lawrence Bruce B.
Published: May 2019

Lawrence introduces the idea that ‘Islamicate cosmopolitans’ engage in moral introspection to fashion a genuine orientation of openness to religious-cum-cultural difference. Drawing from the work of Marshall Hodgson, Lawrence argues that these cosmopolitans carried a specific conscience, a conscience that precedes Islam yet was reshaped by the Quran and ethical reflection within Muslim empires. The chapter then explores two renowned pre-modern thinkers, the scientific polymath Abū Rayḥān al-Bīrūnī and the legal scholars Ibn Khaldūn, as exemplars of a universal ethos with an Islamicate accent. Yet, Lawrence also acknowledges how notions of cosmopolitan justice could nevertheless sustain coercion by directing Muslim commitment to state power through concepts such as the medieval ‘circle of justice’.
Variations of ‘Islamic Military Cosmopolitanism’: The Survival Strategies of Hui Muslims during the Modern Period
Authors: Nakanishi Tatsuya
Published: May 2019

Hui Muslims have devised various forms of ‘Islamic cosmopolitanism’ through Islamic legal responses to external domination. This chapter provides three case studies to examine how Hui Muslims have both survived as religiously observant and ethnically distinct Muslims among non-Muslim Chinese, while simultaneously remaining loyal citizens to a non-Islamic state. First, Ma Anyi in his 1905 work, Taḥqīq al-īmān, situated Chinese Muslims outside the territory that the global umma had to defend as a means to protect the personal security of Muslims under non-Islamic Qing rule. Wang Jingzhai (d. 1949) directed attention away from global umma discourses to argue for China to be considered as an Islamic country. Lastly, Hui writers in the journal Yuehua invoked the Muslim unity for a defensive jihād against the Japanese. Through these cases, this chapter shows how Islamic cosmopolitanism reflected majority pressures on minority communities and the friction between different religious values and legal orders.
On the Beach
Authors: Cunningham Valentine
Published: May 2019

This chapter offers a wide-ranging and evocative snapshot of literary seashores in the middle of the nineteenth century. Cunningham suggestively links edgeland doings and meanings, their positives and negatives: Victorian Doverianisms in the parenthesis between suicidal Gloucester and gay Auden; what happened at Tenby; natural historical reverence beside the sea; Small Game Hunting with Hammer and Chisel; microscopes and vivaria; depredations and poeticities. Key figures discussed include Philip Henry Gosse, George Eliot, G. H. Lewes (and Peter Carey), Matthew Arnold and Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Reflections on the Evolution of the Prophet’s Biographies in the East and West
Authors: Amin Hussein Ahmad
Published: May 2019

This chapter explores the concept of history of early Muslim historians and their attitude towards the Prophet’s biography (Sira). It discusses how evolving tastes and values affected their biographical writing. It also discusses when and why facts began to get blurred and invented incidents and miracles began to be ascribed to the Prophet, leading to the way in which the Prophet’s biography is dealt with in the twentieth century. The chapter further discusses how the Prophet’s biography was written in Europe during the Middle Ages and the influence that modern European trends of thought and contact with the West had on its writing. The chapter highlights Montgomery Watt’s Defence of Muhammad and critically engages with it. The chapter closes with Hussein Amin’s wish for a new, objective, unapologetic and truthful biography that is grounded in the Prophet’s own time and milieu, reflecting his contemporary ethical standards and values.
‘A Plain and Unassuming Style’: Thomasina Ross and Humboldt’s Travels (1852–1853)
Authors: Martin Alison E.
Published: May 2019

A comparison of Williams’s and Ross’s respective translations forms the central focus of this chapter. Ross’s abridged and modernised translation which appeared in three volumes (1852-53) in Henry Bohn’s Scientific Library series successfully eclipsed the badly received (and by then largely forgotten) Longman edition. Its relative brevity, greater linearity and far lower price made it more accessible to general readers. Yet Humboldt scholars have ignored it precisely because it is not considered as comprehensive or authoritative. While this chapter acknowledges the palimpsestic qualities of Ross’s version, which carries glimpses of Williams’s translation beneath the surface, it argues that Ross’s edition recast Humboldt, and Humboldtian writing, in new and striking ways. Ross omitted his repeated emphases on processes, rather than merely results, and on failure as key to experimentation. Above all her erasure of his emphasis on intellectual sociability was responsible for cultivating the lingering misperception of the Prussian as a lone genius.
The Poetry of Geography: The Ansichten der Natur in English Translation
Authors: Martin Alison E.
Published: May 2019

This chapter discusses the salient differences between the two different contemporaneous versions of Humboldt’s Ansichten der Natur: Elizabeth Sabine’s Aspects of Nature (Longman, 1849) and Otté and Henry Bohn’s Views of Nature (Bohn, 1850). Humboldt initially wrangled with Elizabeth Sabine and her husband Edward, President of the Royal Society, over the English title but did not interfere further in the translation of this hybrid essay collection that combined science and aesthetics. The descriptive landscape ‘tableaux’ posed various translational difficulties in the strong imaginative appeal they carried but also the philosophical concepts underpinning them, for which Humboldt had created his own terms. Bohn and Otté enhanced the visual interest of the landscape features in Humboldt’s narrative by appealing more directly to the categories of the sublime and picturesque playing up contrasts between fore- and background; Sabine was more explicit in strengthening the spiritual message conveyed through landscape description.
Scheming
Authors: Damer Seán
Published: May 2019

This book seeks to explain how the Corporation of Glasgow, in its large-scale council house-building programme in the inter- and post-war years, came to reproduce a hierarchical Victorian class structure. The three tiers of housing scheme which it constructed – Ordinary, Intermediate, and Slum-Clearance – effectively signified First, Second and Third Class. This came about because the Corporation uncritically reproduced the offensive and patriarchal attitudes of the Victorian bourgeoisie towards the working-class. The book shows how this worked out on the ground in Glasgow, and describes the attitudes of both authoritarian housing officials, and council tenants. This is the first time the voice of Glasgow’s council tenants has been heard. The conclusion is that local council housing policy was driven by unapologetic considerations of social class.
Mosspark: Homes Fit for Heroes?
Authors: Damer Seán
Published: May 2019

This chapter describes the development of the élite Mosspark housing scheme in detail. It shows that rather than being for ordinary working-class people, its tenants were hand-picked white-collar and professional people, often Corporation employees. It mirrored the Protestant and Freemasonic Ethics which characterised the Glasgow bourgeoisie. There were NO unskilled manual workers at all in this scheme, and only a sprinkling of skilled manual workers. Only the best-paid, skilled workers could afford the high rents. In political terms Mosspark was solidly right-wing.
Pythagorean Mysticism/Democritean Wisdom
Authors: Cordingley Anthony
Published: May 2019

This chapter elucidates the dialectic between Pythagorean-Platonic and Democritean ideas latent in the text. It measures the importance of Beckett’s perception of philosophy gained through his study of Wilhelm Windelband’s A History of Philosophy. Unearthing Beckett’s reaction to the nineteenth-century Kantian’s grand narrative of the progress of reason, this chapter maps out the poetics of appropriation that marks Beckett's quintessentially late modernist aesthetics. In no way can Beckett’s poetics edify the Tradition (à la Pound or Eliot), but neither can it simply deny, subvert, or pastiche it. To ask whether or not Beckett escapes into nihilism, to wonder if he finds a philosophically satisfactory solution to his rejection of a faith in reason, or to look for his synthesis of the Ancient dialectic he entertains is in each case to miss the point. Beckett's use of allusive discourse is demonstrated to be a vector through which he explores the mechanisms of listening and memory, creativity and imagination. This chapter therefore begins this book’s investigation of Beckett’s use of philosophy that defines his aesthetics as a limit point of modernism.
The Physical Cosmos: Aristotelian Dialectics
Authors: Cordingley Anthony
Published: May 2019

This chapter explores the impact of the dialectics of the Ancient world after Plato upon Beckett’s French novels and the peculiar set of relations between characters and their physical environment in How It Is. It accounts for the presence of Aristotelian ideas of cosmic order, syllogism, space and time. Beckett’s study of formal logic as a student at Trinity College, Dublin and his private study of philosophy in 1932 is examined in this light; particularly his “Philosophy Notes,” along with further sources for his knowledge. The Aristotelian world view of his “I” is shown to be confronted with a set of relations resembling those of the Ancient Greek Stoics. The materiality of spatio-temporal relations in How It Is and the metaphysical coordinates between the “I”, its cosmos and any transcendent other are interrogated. The dialectic between Aristotelian and Stoic physics and metaphysics in How It Is emerges as a conceptual framework for exploring many of the novel’s contradictions, as well as the many confusions and digressions of its narrator/narrated. Beckett’s creative transformation of this ancient dialectic is shown, furthermore, to lead him to formal innovations, such as the novel’s continuous present tense and its complex narrative structure.
From the Cradle to the Cave: A Comedy of Ethics from Plato to Christian Asceticism (via Rembrandt)
Authors: Cordingley Anthony
Published: May 2019

The metaphysical themes explored in previous chapters are amplified when Beckett is shown to engage explicitly with the ethics of Plato and Aristotle, as well as Greek and Roman Stoics. This chapter delves deep into Beckett’s comedy of ethics, examining his exploitation of Socratic method and ancient philosophies of education or paideia, morality and “natural order” to frame the journey of his “I” and the “I”’s recitation of his narrative as ethical acts. Beckett’s “I” contrasts these ideas with modes of Christian asceticism, filtering his conception of his own “flight into Egypt” through images in his mind that derive from the painting of religious motifs in Rembrandt, Elsheimer and others. Beckett’s ironic regard for his “I” is considered in terms of his ethics of laughter and his philosophically inflected notion of the risus purus (the laughter that laughs at itself), which emerges as a driving force in the novel’s ethical comedy.
The Platforms of Podcasting: Past and Present
Authors: Sullivan John
Published: May 2019

This article explores the role of digital platforms in podcasting (both past and present) and their impacts on the emergent podcast industry structure, content, and governance. Nieborg and Poell’s (2018) theoretical framework for understanding the impacts of platformization on culture is leveraged here to better understand the changes underway in podcasting. Like other forms of media, podcasting is being profoundly re-shaped by platformization, though these transformations are distinct from other media in several key ways. Because podcasting emerged as a technology at the beginning of the 21st Century before the advent of social media and the cloud, its decentralized architecture is structured around RSS, also known as “Really Simple Syndication.” When Apple added RSS aggregation into their iTunes Music Store in 2005, their market dominance in digital audio sales shaped early popular conceptions for the medium. I then outline how platformization is reshaping podcasting today by exploring how the three primary functions of media-related platform services – storage, discovery, and consumption – are shaping producers’ and audience experiences. Market imperatives for audience consumption data, as well as the structural features of platforms, are currently fueling industry consolidation. Even though podcasting is built upon the open architecture of RSS, commercial pressures and the desire of market players to capitalize on the “winner-take-all” features of platforms are shaping the trajectory of the medium’s current development.
Architectural Features That Make Music Bloom in Concert Halls
Authors: Lokki Tapio , Pätynen Jukka
Published: May 2019

The purpose of this paper is to spark discussions on the recent trends of designing vineyard and surround-type concert halls. We understand that these halls could be architecturally unique and many conductors like them, however, as outlined in this paper, they do not always serve the best for music acoustically. The motivation for visual proximity is easily understandable, but it should not overrule the acoustical conditions. We hope that this paper helps designers of new concert venues. We also hope to see more research and discussion on the acoustical qualities of these modern concert halls.
The Effect of Shallow Tillage on Soil Erosion in a Semi-Arid Vineyard
Authors: Novara Agata , Stallone Giovanni , Cerdà Artemio , Gristina Luciano
Published: May 2019

Soil erosion has been considered a threat for semi-arid lands due to the removal of solid materials by water and wind. Although water erosion is currently considered the most important process of soil degradation, a growing interest has been drawn to the impact of soil tillage. Although numerous studies on tillage erosion have been carried out on arable land using a moldboard plow, a chisel, and a tandem disc for different crops, there are no studies on the effect of shallow tillage on soil redistribution in vineyards. The aim of this work was to evaluate the soil tillage erosion rate in a vineyard using a 13C natural abundance tracer. A strip of soil (C3-C soil) was removed, mixed with C4-C tracer, and replaced. After the installation of the strip, tillage (upslope in one inter-row and downslope in the other inter-row) was performed with a cultivator and soil was collected along the slope with an interval of 0.2 m from the C4-C strip. Soil organic carbon and δ13C were measured and the total mass of translocated soil (T) soil was calculated. The net effect of tillage after two consecutive operations (downslope and upslope tillage) was a T of 49.3 ± 4.2 kg m−1. The estimated annual erosion rate due to tillage in the studied vineyard was 9.5 ± 1.2 Mg ha−1year−1. The contribution of the soil tillage erosion rate was compared with that of water erosion in the same vineyard, and we conclude that tillage is a threat to soil degradation.
Comparison of Intensity- and Polarization-based Contrast in Amyloid-beta Plaques as Observed by Optical Coherence Tomography
Authors: Gesperger Johanna , Lichtenegger Antonia , Roetzer Thomas , Augustin Marco , Harper Danielle J. , Eugui Pablo , Merkle Conrad W. , Hitzenberger Christoph K. , Woehrer Adelheid , Baumann Bernhard
Published: May 2019

One key hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the accumulation of extracellular amyloid-beta protein in cortical regions of the brain. For a definitive diagnosis of AD, post-mortem histological analysis, including sectioning and staining of different brain regions, is required. Here, we present optical coherence tomography (OCT) as a tissue-preserving imaging modality for the visualization of amyloid-beta plaques and compare their contrast in intensity- and polarization-sensitive (PS) OCT. Human brain samples of eleven patients diagnosed with AD were imaged. Three-dimensional PS-OCT datasets were acquired and plaques were manually segmented in 500 intensity and retardation cross-sections per patient using the freely available ITK-SNAP software. The image contrast of plaques was quantified. Histological staining of tissue sections from the same specimens was performed to compare OCT findings against the gold standard. Furthermore, the distribution of plaques was evaluated for intensity-based OCT, PS-OCT and the corresponding histological amyloid-beta staining. Only 5% of plaques were visible in both intensity and retardation segmentations, suggesting that different types of plaques may be visualized by the two OCT contrast channels. Our results indicate that multicontrast OCT imaging might be a promising approach for a tissue-preserving visualization of amyloid-beta plaques in AD.
Thermal Evaluation of Graphene Nanoplatelets Nanofluid in a Fast-Responding HP with the Potential Use in Solar Systems in Smart Cities
Authors: Sarafraz M. M. , Tlili Iskander , Tian Zhe , Bakouri Mohsen , Safaei Mohammad Reza , Goodarzi Marjan
Published: May 2019

An experimental study was undertaken to assess the heat-transfer coefficient (HTC) of graphene nanoplatelets-pentane nanofluid inside a gravity-assisted heat pipe (HP). Influence of various parameters comprising heat flux, mass fraction of the nanoparticles, installation angle and filling ratio (FR) of the working fluid on the HTC of the HP was investigated. Results showed that the HTC of the HP was strongly improved due to the presence of the graphene nanoplatelets. Also, by enhancing the heat flux, the HTC of the HP was improved. Two trade-off behaviors were identified. The first trade-off belonged to the available space in the evaporator and the heat-transfer coefficient of the system. Another trade-off was identified between the installation angle and the residence time of the working fluid inside the condenser unit. The installation angle and the FR of the HP were identified in which the HTC of the HP was the highest. The value of installation angle and filling ratio were 65° and 0.55, respectively. Likewise, the highest HTC was obtained at the largest mass fraction of the graphene nanoplatelets which was at wt. % = 0.3. The improvement in the HTC of the HP was ascribed to the Brownian motion and thermophoresis effects of the graphene nanoplatelets.
Climate Change-Induced Impacts on Smallholder Farmers in Selected Districts of Sidama, Southern Ethiopia
Authors: Matewos Tafesse
Published: May 2019

Different factors control the types of adaptive strategies and likelihoods of experiencing climate change-induced impacts by smallholder farmers. By using a mixed research method, this study examines the types and determinants of climate change-induced impacts on smallholder rural farmers in drought-prone low lands of Sidama, Southern Ethiopia. Randomly selected (401) households were surveyed on climate change-induced impacts. Longitudinal climatic data were also collected from the Ethiopian National Meteorological Agency to assess the trend of rainfall (RF), temperature and drought incidents. The analyses of the data revealed that RF and temperature had shown decreasing and increasing trends, respectively, during the three decades under consideration (1983–2014). These changes in RF and temperature exposed farmers to climate-related epidemics, drought, harvest loss, and hunger. The logit model results revealed that different factors control the likelihood of exposure to climate change-induced impacts. The findings revealed that literacy level, involving women in family decisions and farmers’ involvement in adaptation planning, reduces the likelihood of exposure to climate change-induced hunger. Therefore, there is a need to work on human capital of the farmers through expanding education, strengthening women’s participation in family decision-making, and by improving public participation in climate change adaptation undertakings to minimize climate change-induced impacts.
Artificial Noise Injection and Its Power Loading Methods for Secure Space-Time Line Coded Systems
Authors: Joung Jingon , Choi Jihoon , Jung Bang Chul , Yu Sungwook
Published: May 2019

In this paper, we consider a 2 × 2 space-time line coded (STLC) system having two-transmit and two-receive antennas. To improve the secrecy rate of the STLC system, in which an illegitimate receiver eavesdrops the information delivered from the STLC transmitter to the STLC receiver, we propose an artificial noise (AN) injection method. By exploiting the STLC structure, a novel AN for the STLC is designed and its optimal power loading factor is derived. Numerical results verify that the proposed secure STLC systems with the designed AN injection and the power control method can significantly improve the secrecy rate compared to the conventional STLC systems. It is observed that the proposed method is more effective if there is a significant gap between the main-channel and the eavesdropper-channel gains.
Impacts of Direct and Indirect Tax Reforms in Vietnam: A CGE Analysis
Authors: Bhattarai Keshab , Nguyen Dung Thi Kim , Nguyen Chan Van
Published: May 2019

The study applies a multi-sector multi-household static computable general equilibrium (CGE) tax model to assess the economy-wide impacts of taxes in Vietnam. It examines two tax reform scenarios based on the tax reform plan proposed by the Vietnam Ministry of Finance. The first scenario is increasing the value-added tax (VAT) rate to 12% from the current 10% rate. The second scenario relates to setting a competitive corporate income tax (CIT) rate to the lowest rate in ASEAN (Associations of South East Asian Nations) countries by reducing it from 20% to 17%. Correction of current tax distortions will have positive impacts on labour supply, utility, consumption, output, and welfare of households as they reallocate resources from more to less productive sectors of the economy. The CGE model allows for the finding of the macroeconomic and sectoral effects on prices and outputs, as well as on welfare of households. While this study contributes to the literature on the CGE model for the Vietnam economy, it is a small step for finding the optimal tax structure in Vietnam. It recommends that the Vietnam government should increase the standard VAT rate to 12% and reduce CIT rate to 17% to shift the tax burden from capitalists to consumers.