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1

Kelly, Alison. "A method to the madness? Quantitative research reviewing." Research in Education 35, no. 1 (May 1986): 25–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/003452378603500104.

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Quantitative research reviewing, or meta-analysis, is increasingly popular in the USA, but has made little impact in Britain. Proponents of this technique claim that it can overcome the subjectivity inherent in traditional research reviews and synthesise large numbers of findings in a way which reveals their underlying trends. This paper discusses the claims and criticisms of meta-analysis. It suggests that quantitative reviewing is not a supplement to narrative reviewing, but fulfills rather different functions. It may also be more suited to the climate of educational research in America than in Britain. Nevertheless it is an important development which British researchers should not ignore. A new technique is transforming educational research in America — and incidentally generating a new optimism both in the power of educational research and in the effectiveness of schools to bring about change. The technique is metaanalysis. Essentially, it is a quantitative method of reviewing and summarising the findings of research on any particular topic. It started in the late 1970's, and a few ripples crossed the Atlantic with reports of a synthesis of research on the relationship between class size and achievement. This confirmed what teachers had always maintained but educational researchers had disputed — that better results were obtained with smaller classes (Glass and Smith, 1979; Smith and Glass, 1980). Since then, little has been heard of meta-analysis in this country, but it has expanded rapidly in the USA. Virtually every topic of established interest has been reviewed in this way, ranging from the efficacy of new science curricula (Shyman-sky et al., 1983) to that of open education (Giaconia and Hedges, 1977), and from the effect of socio-economic status (SES) on achievement (White, 1982) to that of graded homework (Paschal et al., 1985). Part of the reason for this surge of interest is that in general the quantitative reviewers conclude that the results are larger and less contradictory than was thought on the basis of the traditional narrative review. Based largely on the results of these meta-analyses, writers such as Bloom (1984) and Walberg (1984) have developed theories of educational productivity in which they argue that alterable variables, whether in schools or in homes, are the major component of school achievement. This viewpoint contrasts strongly with the socio-economic determinism which was dominant throughout the 1970's. I have recently become acquainted with meta-analysis, both through reading completed reviews and through undertaking to write one myself. In this paper I will examine the rationale underlying this development in educational research and assess how the theory stands up in practice. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of the approach are discussed, with particular reference to the possibility of quantitative reviews becoming as widespread in Britain as they are in the USA. I will not attempt to describe the methodology in any detail as a number of textbooks are now available (Glass et al., 1981; Cooper, 1984; Rosenthal, 1984; Hedges and Olkin, 1985). Fitzgibbon (1984) has recently provided an introduction for British readers.
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2

KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 81, no. 3-4 (January 1, 2008): 271–341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002485.

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Sally Price & Richard Price; Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension (J. Michael Dash)J. Lorand Matory; Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Stephan Palmié)Dianne M. Stewart; Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (Betty Wood)Toyin Falola & Matt D. Childs (eds.); The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World (Kim D. Butler)Silvio Torres-Saillant; An Intellectual History of the Caribbean (Anthony P. Maingot)J.H. Elliott; Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (Aaron Spencer Fogleman)Elizabeth Mancke & Carole Shammmmas (eds.); The Creation of the British Atlantic World (Peter A. Coclanis)Adam Hochschild; Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Cassssandra Pybus)Walter Johnson (ed.); The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas (Gregory E. O’Malley)P.C. Emmer; The Dutch Slave Trade, 1500-1850 (Victor Enthoven)Philip Beidler & Gary Taylor (eds.); Writing Race Across the Atlantic World, Medieval to Modern (Eric Kimball)Felix Driver & Luciana Martins (eds.); Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire (Peter Redfield)Elizabeth A. Bohls & Ian Duncan (eds.); Travel Writing, 1700-1830: An Anthology (Carl Thompson)Alison Donnell; Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature: Critical Moments in Anglophone Literary History (Sue N. Greene)Luís Madureira; Cannibal Modernities: Postcoloniality and the Avant-garde in Caribbean and Brazilian Literature (Lúcia Sá)Zilkia Janer; Puerto Rican Nation-Building Literature: Impossible Romance (Jossianna Arroyo)Sherrie L. Baver & Barbara Deutsch Lynch (eds.); Beyond Sun and Sand: Caribbean Environmentalisms (Rivke Jaffe)Joyce Moore Turner, with the assistance of W. Burghardt Turner; Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance (Gert Oostindie)Lisa D. McGill; Constructing Black Selves: Caribbean American Narratives and the Second Generation (Mary Chamberlain)Mark Q. Sawyer; Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba (Alejandra Bronfman)Franklin W. Knight & Teresita Martínez-Vergne (eds.); Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context (R. Charles Price)Luis A. Figueroa; Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (Astrid Cubano Iguina)Rosa E. Carrasquillo; Our Landless Patria: Marginal Citizenship and Race in Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1880-1910 (Ileana M. Rodriguez-Silva) Michael Largey; Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism (Julian Gerstin)Donna P. Hope; Inna di Dancehall: Popular Culture and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica (Daniel Neely)Gloria Wekker; The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora (W. van Wetering)Claire Lefebvre; Issues in the Study of Pidgin and Creole Languages (Salikoko S. Mufwene)
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3

KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 81, no. 3-4 (January 1, 2007): 271–341. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/22134360-90002485.

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Sally Price & Richard Price; Romare Bearden: The Caribbean Dimension (J. Michael Dash)J. Lorand Matory; Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (Stephan Palmié)Dianne M. Stewart; Three Eyes for the Journey: African Dimensions of the Jamaican Religious Experience (Betty Wood)Toyin Falola & Matt D. Childs (eds.); The Yoruba Diaspora in the Atlantic World (Kim D. Butler)Silvio Torres-Saillant; An Intellectual History of the Caribbean (Anthony P. Maingot)J.H. Elliott; Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (Aaron Spencer Fogleman)Elizabeth Mancke & Carole Shammmmas (eds.); The Creation of the British Atlantic World (Peter A. Coclanis)Adam Hochschild; Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (Cassssandra Pybus)Walter Johnson (ed.); The Chattel Principle: Internal Slave Trades in the Americas (Gregory E. O’Malley)P.C. Emmer; The Dutch Slave Trade, 1500-1850 (Victor Enthoven)Philip Beidler & Gary Taylor (eds.); Writing Race Across the Atlantic World, Medieval to Modern (Eric Kimball)Felix Driver & Luciana Martins (eds.); Tropical Visions in an Age of Empire (Peter Redfield)Elizabeth A. Bohls & Ian Duncan (eds.); Travel Writing, 1700-1830: An Anthology (Carl Thompson)Alison Donnell; Twentieth-Century Caribbean Literature: Critical Moments in Anglophone Literary History (Sue N. Greene)Luís Madureira; Cannibal Modernities: Postcoloniality and the Avant-garde in Caribbean and Brazilian Literature (Lúcia Sá)Zilkia Janer; Puerto Rican Nation-Building Literature: Impossible Romance (Jossianna Arroyo)Sherrie L. Baver & Barbara Deutsch Lynch (eds.); Beyond Sun and Sand: Caribbean Environmentalisms (Rivke Jaffe)Joyce Moore Turner, with the assistance of W. Burghardt Turner; Caribbean Crusaders and the Harlem Renaissance (Gert Oostindie)Lisa D. McGill; Constructing Black Selves: Caribbean American Narratives and the Second Generation (Mary Chamberlain)Mark Q. Sawyer; Racial Politics in Post-Revolutionary Cuba (Alejandra Bronfman)Franklin W. Knight & Teresita Martínez-Vergne (eds.); Contemporary Caribbean Cultures and Societies in a Global Context (R. Charles Price)Luis A. Figueroa; Sugar, Slavery, and Freedom in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (Astrid Cubano Iguina)Rosa E. Carrasquillo; Our Landless Patria: Marginal Citizenship and Race in Caguas, Puerto Rico, 1880-1910 (Ileana M. Rodriguez-Silva) Michael Largey; Vodou Nation: Haitian Art Music and Cultural Nationalism (Julian Gerstin)Donna P. Hope; Inna di Dancehall: Popular Culture and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica (Daniel Neely)Gloria Wekker; The Politics of Passion: Women’s Sexual Culture in the Afro-Surinamese Diaspora (W. van Wetering)Claire Lefebvre; Issues in the Study of Pidgin and Creole Languages (Salikoko S. Mufwene)
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4

Ahmad, Waqar. "Islam in a Changing Europe." American Journal of Islam and Society 10, no. 2 (July 1, 1993): 275–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.35632/ajis.v10i2.2517.

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The conference Islam in a Changing Europe was held amid growingconcern about the future of Islamic and other minority conununities inEurope. The organizers, Hafiz Mirza and David Weir (both at the ManagementCentre), Waqar Ahmad, Charles Husband, and Reg Walker (Departmentof Social and Economic Studies), regarded it as opportune forseveral reasons. First, the Gulf War, the tragic situation in Bosnia, and thecontinuing crises throughout Europe and the Middle East are grim buttimely reminders of the tensions pervading European and Islamic relations,despite strong political, social, and economic ties of mutual interest.The impact on European Muslims is of particular concern, as they are thelarge t minority in Europe and thus primary targets of the "new" racism.Second, this precarious position is further affected by the EuropeanCommunity's pursuit of a Single European Market and, ultimately, a unifiedpolity. The large Islamic communities in the EC, the geographicalproximity of the Islamic world, and the "demonization" of Islam in thewe tern media and political imagination rai e the specter of "Europeanness"being defined in contradistinction to "Islam." Rising fasci t attackson minority conununities throughout Europe are the harbinger of dimgersthat must be understood and addressed now. Moreover, these attacks aremerely the overt manifestations of underlying social change in Europe.The implications for Muslims in Europe need to be examined, as they arcpotentially more invidious because of their subtle and subliminal impact.Finally, and symbolically, in marked contrast to the triumphalist celebrationsin Spain and elsewhere, and a a warning that today's racist andfascist attacks on "non-Europeans" have deep-rooted historical antecedents,it is worth recalling that 1992 is also the five-hundredth anniversaryof the European invasion of the Americas, the expulsion of theJews from Spain, and the extinction of the Muslim kingdom of Granada.In sum, the organizers opined that the position of all minorities willbe thrown into harp relief by the European quest for identity as the majoritycultures of the EC (and further afield) seek to integrate. Islamwould perforce act as the "Other" for a variety of reasons. The focus onIslam was not intended to suggest that the consequences of ongoing276 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 102events in Europe for other minorities were insignificant, but that Islambeingon the front line, as it were-could be treated as a metaphor for theserious predicament of all minorities in a changing Europe. With the helpof a contribution of six thousand pounds sterling from CCETSW (theCentral Council for Education and Training in Social Work), the conferencewas convened to examine the many issues relating to "Islam in aChanging Europe" at both the conceptual and the concrete levels.The conference took place over three days. The fitst day looked atbroader conceptual and historical issues, including "The Other as Islam,""Muslim Communities of Europe," and "citizenship and Participation."FolIowing an initial address by Cllr. Mohammed Ajeeb (Deputy Leaderof Bradford Council), the discussion was initiated by five papers: YasminAlibhai-Brown, "Islam in a Changing Europe: Issues of Citizenship andParticipation"; Noshaba Hussain, "Islam in a Changing Europe: An AlternativePerspective"; Hafiz Mim, "Some Reflections on the EuropeanPerimeter"; Haleh Afshar, "Identity Ascribed and Adopted: The Dilemmaof Muslim Women in Europe"; and Ali Hussein, "Culture, Faith and PoliticalIdeology: Islam in an International Context."The second day was devoted to more concrete case studies: education(initiated by Moeen Yaseen's "Islam and the Educational Systems ofEurope," with David Weir acting as discussant); immigration (PaulGordon, "Islam as Europe's Other: Restrictive Immigration Policy as aResponse to the Muslim Presence," with S. I. Ananthakrishan as the discussant);gender and social policy (Sitara Khan, "Muslim Women inBritain: The Lessons of Experience"); and social welfare (Charles Husbandand Waqar Ahmad, "Religious Identity, Welfare and Citizenship:The Case of Muslims in Britain," with David Divine as the discussant).The final day examined practical strategies relating to specific areasof concern via a series of workshops, including ones on education (convener:Abdul Mabud); women (Noshaba Hussain); and participation(Mansur Ansari). In addition, to round off the conference, two views onMuslim futures were presented by Ishtiaq Ahmad and Zaki Badawi.The whole conference was characterized by a forthright openness.Participants disagreed explicitly and at length, and the invited speakerspresented analyses that were partisan and undiluted by euphemism. Yetwhile the discussions were robust and many different positions werevigorously asserted and defended, there was an exceptional lack of personalanimosity. There was a very real sense of dialogue between the participantsand a commitment to sharing both analyses and experience.The mixture of Islamic scholars, community activists, academics, andother interested individuals, as well as of Muslims and non-Muslims,proved to be an important ingredient in facilitating the successful exchangeof perspectives. What may be incapable of retrieval in the bookthat is planned to follow up the conference will be the atmosphere of ...
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5

Davies, Glenys. "S. Walker, Corpus signorum Imperii Romani. Great Britain. Vol 2. Fasc. 2. Catalogue of Roman Sarcophagi in the British Museum. London: British Museum, 1990. Pp. 120, 34 pls, 17 figs, 1 map. ISBN 0-7141-1289-5. £40.00. - F. Sinn, Katalog der Skulpturen; Vatikanische Museen, Museo Gregoriano Profano ex Lateranense I. 1. Die Grabdenkmäler: Reliefs, Altäre, Urnen (Monumenta artis romanae XVII). Mainz: von Zabern, 1991. Pp. 252, 112 pls, 7 figs, ISBN 3-8053-1057-9. DM 133." Journal of Roman Studies 83 (November 1993): 230. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/301019.

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6

KITLV, Redactie. "Book Reviews." New West Indian Guide / Nieuwe West-Indische Gids 69, no. 3-4 (January 1, 1995): 315–410. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/13822373-90002642.

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-Dennis Walder, Robert D. Hamner, Derek Walcott. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1993. xvi + 199 pp.''Critical perspectives on Derek Walcott. Washington DC: Three continents, 1993. xvii + 482 pp.-Yannick Tarrieu, Lilyan Kesteloot, Black writers in French: A literary history of Negritude. Translated by Ellen Conroy Kennedy. Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1991. xxxiii + 411 pp.-Renée Larrier, Carole Boyce Davies ,Out of the Kumbla: Caribbean women and literature. Trenton NJ: Africa World Press, 1990. xxiii + 399 pp., Elaine Savory Fido (eds)-Renée Larrier, Evelyn O'Callaghan, Woman version: Theoretical approaches to West Indian fiction by women. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1993. viii + 126 pp.-Lisa Douglass, Carolyn Cooper, Noises in the blood: Orality, gender and the 'vulgar' body of Jamaican popular culture. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1993. ix + 214 pp.-Christine G.T. Ho, Kumar Mahabir, East Indian women of Trinidad & Tobago: An annotated bibliography with photographs and ephemera. San Juan, Trinidad: Chakra, 1992. vii + 346 pp.-Eva Abraham, Richenel Ansano ,Mundu Yama Sinta Mira: Womanhood in Curacao. Eithel Martis (eds.). Curacao: Fundashon Publikashon, 1992. xii + 240 pp., Joceline Clemencia, Jeanette Cook (eds)-Louis Allaire, Corrine L. Hofman, In search of the native population of pre-Colombian Saba (400-1450 A.D.): Pottery styles and their interpretations. Part one. Amsterdam: Natuurwetenschappelijke Studiekring voor het Caraïbisch Gebied, 1993. xiv + 269 pp.-Frank L. Mills, Bonham C. Richardson, The Caribbean in the wider world, 1492-1992: A regional geography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. xvi + 235 pp.-Frank L. Mills, Thomas D. Boswell ,The Caribbean Islands: Endless geographical diversity. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992. viii + 240 pp., Dennis Conway (eds)-Alex van Stipriaan, H.W. van den Doel ,Nederland en de Nieuwe Wereld. Utrecht: Aula, 1992. 348 pp., P.C. Emmer, H.PH. Vogel (eds)-Idsa E. Alegría Ortega, Francine Jácome, Diversidad cultural y tensión regional: América Latina y el Caribe. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad, 1993. 143 pp.-Barbara L. Solow, Ira Berlin ,Cultivation and culture: Labor and the shaping of slave life in the Americas. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993. viii + 388 pp., Philip D. Morgan (eds)-Andrew J. O'Shaughnessy, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Providence Island, 1630-1641: The other puritan colony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. xiii + 393 pp.-Armando Lampe, Johannes Meier, Die Anfänge der Kirche auf den Karibischen Inseln: Die Geschichte der Bistümer Santo Domingo, Concepción de la Vega, San Juan de Puerto Rico und Santiago de Cuba von ihrer Entstehung (1511/22) bis zur Mitte des 17. Jahrhunderts. Immensee: Neue Zeitschrift für Missionswissenschaft, 1991. xxxiii + 313 pp.-Edward L. Cox, Carl C. Campbell, Cedulants and capitulants; The politics of the coloured opposition in the slave society of Trinidad, 1783-1838. Port of Spain, Trinidad: Paria Publishing, 1992. xv + 429 pp.-Thomas J. Spinner, Jr., Basdeo Mangru, Indenture and abolition: Sacrifice and survival on the Guyanese sugar plantations. Toronto: TSAR, 1993. xiii + 146 pp.-Rosemarijn Hoefte, Lila Gobardhan-Rambocus ,Immigratie en ontwikkeling: Emancipatie van contractanten. Paramaribo: Anton de Kom Universiteit, 1993. 262 pp., Maurits S. Hassankhan (eds)-Juan A. Giusti-Cordero, Teresita Martínez-Vergne, Capitalism in colonial Puerto Rico: Central San Vicente in the late nineteenth century. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992. 189 pp.-Jean Pierre Sainton, Henriette Levillain, La Guadeloupe 1875 -1914: Les soubresauts d'une société pluriethnique ou les ambiguïtés de l'assimilation. Paris: Autrement, 1994. 241 pp.-Michèle Baj Strobel, Solange Contour, Fort de France au début du siècle. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1994. 224 pp.-Betty Wood, Robert J. Stewart, Religion and society in post-emancipation Jamaica. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992. xx + 254 pp.-O. Nigel Bolland, Michael Havinden ,Colonialism and development: Britain and its tropical colonies, 1850-1960. New York: Routledge, 1993. xv + 420 pp., David Meredith (eds)-Luis Martínez-Fernández, Luis Navarro García, La independencia de Cuba. Madrid: MAPFRE, 1992. 413 pp.-Pedro A. Pequeño, Guillermo J. Grenier ,Miami now! : Immigration, ethnicity, and social change. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992. 219 pp., Alex Stepick III (eds)-George Irving, Alistair Hennessy ,The fractured blockade: West European-Cuban relations during the revolution. London: Macmillan Caribbean, 1993. xv + 358 pp., George Lambie (eds)-George Irving, Donna Rich Kaplowitz, Cuba's ties to a changing world. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993, xii + 263 pp.-G.B. Hagelberg, Scott B. MacDonald ,The politics of the Caribbean basin sugar trade. New York: Praeger, 1991. vii + 164 pp., Georges A. Fauriol (eds)-Bonham C. Richardson, Trevor W. Purcell, Banana Fallout: Class, color, and culture among West Indians in Costa Rica. Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Afro-American studies, 1993. xxi + 198 pp.-Gertrude Fraser, George Gmelch, Double Passage: The lives of Caribbean migrants abroad and back home. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992. viii + 335 pp.-Gertrude Fraser, John Western, A passage to England: Barbadian Londoners speak of home. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992. xxii + 309 pp.-Trevor W. Purcell, Harry G. Lefever, Turtle Bogue: Afro-Caribbean life and culture in a Costa Rican Village. Cranbury NJ: Susquehanna University Press, 1992. 249 pp.-Elizabeth Fortenberry, Virginia Heyer Young, Becoming West Indian: Culture, self, and nation in St. Vincent. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993. x + 229 pp.-Horace Campbell, Dudley J. Thompson ,From Kingston to Kenya: The making of a Pan-Africanist lawyer. Dover MA: The Majority Press, 1993. xii + 144 pp., Margaret Cezair Thompson (eds)-Kumar Mahabir, Samaroo Siewah, The lotus and the dagger: The Capildeo speeches (1957-1994). Port of Spain: Chakra Publishing House, 1994. 811 pp.-Donald R. Hill, Forty years of steel: An annotated discography of steel band and Pan recordings, 1951-1991. Jeffrey Thomas (comp.). Westport CT: Greenwood, 1992. xxxii + 307 pp.-Jill A. Leonard, André Lucrèce, Société et modernité: Essai d'interprétation de la société martiniquaise. Case Pilote, Martinique: Editions de l'Autre Mer, 1994. 188 pp.-Dirk H. van der Elst, Ben Scholtens ,Gaama Duumi, Buta Gaama: Overlijden en opvolging van Aboikoni, grootopperhoofd van de Saramaka bosnegers. Stanley Dieko. Paramaribo: Afdeling Cultuurstudies/Minov; Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, 1992. 204 pp., Gloria Wekker, Lady van Putten (eds)-Rosemarijn Hoefte, Chandra van Binnendijk ,Sranan: Cultuur in Suriname. Amsterdam: Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen/Rotterdam: Museum voor Volkenkunde, 1992. 159 pp., Paul Faber (eds)-Harold Munneke, A.J.A. Quintus Bosz, Grepen uit de Surinaamse rechtshistorie. Paramaribo: Vaco, 1993. 176 pp.-Harold Munneke, Irvin Kanhai ,Strijd om grond in Suriname: Verkenning van het probleem van de grondenrechten van Indianen en Bosnegers. Paramaribo, 1993, 200 pp., Joyce Nelson (eds)-Ronald Donk, J. Hartog, De geschiedenis van twee landen: De Nederlandse Antillen en Aruba. Zaltbommel: Europese Bibliotheek, 1993. 183 pp.-Aart G. Broek, J.J. Oversteegen, In het schuim van grauwe wolken: Het leven van Cola Debrot tot 1948. Amsterdam: Muelenhoff, 1994. 556 pp.''Gemunt op wederkeer: Het leven van Cola Debrot vanaf 1948. Amsterdam: Muelenhoff, 1994. 397 pp.
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"Buchbesprechungen." Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 46, no. 4 (October 1, 2019): 641–754. http://dx.doi.org/10.3790/zhf.46.4.641.

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Rexroth, Frank / Teresa Schröder-Stapper (Hrsg.), Experten, Wissen, Symbole. Performanz und Medialität vormoderner Wissenskulturen (Historische Zeitschrift. Beihefte (Neue Folge), 71), Berlin / Boston 2018, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, 336 S. / Abb., € 89,95. (Lisa Dannenberg-Markel, Aachen) Enenkel, Karl A. E. / Christine Göttler (Hrsg.), Solitudo. Spaces, Places, and Times of Solitude in Late Medieval and Early Modern Cultures (Intersections, 56), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XXXIV u. 568 S. / Abb., € 165,00. (Mirko Breitenstein, Dresden / Leipzig) Tracy, Larissa (Hg.), Medieval and Early Modern Murder. Legal, Literary and Historical Contexts, Woodbridge 2018, Boydell Press, 486 S., £ 60,00. (Benjamin Seebröker, Dresden) Müller, Mario, Verletzende Worte. Beleidigung und Verleumdung in Rechtstexten aus dem Mittelalter und aus dem 16. Jahrhundert (Hildesheimer Universitätsschriften, 33), Hildesheim / Zürich / New York 2017, Olms, 410 S. / Abb., € 78,00. (Gerd Schwerhoff, Dresden) Heebøll-Holm, Thomas / Philipp Höhn / Gregor Rohmann (Hrsg.), Merchants, Pirates, and Smugglers. Criminalization, Economics, and the Transformation of the Maritime World (1200 – 1600) (Discourses of Weakness and Resource Regimes, 6), Frankfurt a. M. / New York 2019, Campus, 431 S., € 43,00. (Sebastian Kolditz, Heidelberg) Fox, Yaniv / Yosi Yisraeli (Hrsg.), Contesting Inter-Religious Conversion in the Medieval World, London / New York 2017, Routledge, VI u. 276 S. / Abb., £ 110,00. (Benjamin Scheller, Essen) Gruber, Elisabeth / Christina Lutter / Oliver J. Schmitt (Hrsg.), Kulturgeschichte der Überlieferung im Mittelalter. Quellen und Methoden zur Geschichte Mittel- und Südosteuropas (UTB, 4554), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2017, Böhlau, 510 S. / Abb., € 29,99. (Grischa Vercamer, Passau) Heiles, Marco, Das Losbuch. Manuskriptologie einer Textsorte des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 13), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 574 S. / Abb., € 70,00. (Klaus Oschema, Bochum) Dartmann, Christoph, Die Benediktiner. Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Mittelalters (Urban-Taschenbücher; Geschichte der christlichen Orden), Stuttgart 2018, Kohlhammer, 301 S. / Abb., € 26,00. (Kai Hering, Dresden) Linde, Cornelia (Hrsg.), Making and Breaking the Rules. Discussion, Implementation, and Consequences of Dominican Legislation (Studies of the German Historical Institute London), Oxford / New York 2018, Oxford University Press, XII u. 438 S. / Abb., £ 85,00. (Jens Röhrkasten, Birmingham) Bünz, Enno, Die mittelalterliche Pfarrei. Ausgewählte Studien zum 13.–16. Jahrhundert (Spätmittelalter, Humanismus, Reformation, 96), Tübingen 2017, Mohr Siebeck, IX u. 862 S., € 109,00. (Michele C. Ferrari, Erlangen) Beuckers, Klaus G. / Thomas Schilp (Hrsg.), Fragen, Perspektiven und Aspekte der Erforschung mittelalterlicher Frauenstifte. Beiträge der Abschlusstagung des Essener Arbeitskreises für die Erforschung des Frauenstifts (Essener Forschungen zum Frauenstift, 15), Essen 2018, Klartext, 364 S. / Abb., € 32,00. (Helmut Flachenecker, Würzburg) Schöller, Bettina, Zeiten der Erinnerung. Muri und die Habsburger im Mittelalter (Murenser Monografien, 2), Zürich 2018, Chronos, 191 S. / Abb., € 38,00. (Bruno Meier, Baden (CH)) Mandry, Julia, Armenfürsorge, Hospitäler und Bettel in Thüringen in Spätmittelalter und Reformation (1300 – 1600) (Quellen und Forschungen zu Thüringen im Zeitalter der Reformation, 10), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 1052 S. / Abb., € 125,00. (Stefan Michel, Leipzig) Roth, Stefan, Geldgeschichte und Münzpolitik im Herzogtum Braunschweig-Lüneburg im Spätmittelalter, 2 Bde., Teil 1: Die Rechnungsbücher der Braunschweiger Münzstätte; Teil 2: Geldgeschichte und Münzkatalog (Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen, 293 bzw. 294), Göttingen 2018, Wallstein, 292 S. / Abb., € 19,90 bzw. 717 S. / Abb., € 49,00. (Manfred Mehl, Hamburg) Föller, Carola, Königskinder. Erziehung am Hof Ludwigs IX. des Heiligen von Frankreich (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 88), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 252 S., € 50,00. (Benjamin Müsegades, Heidelberg) Das Urbar des Hochstifts Augsburg von 1316, bearb. v. Thaddäus Steiner (Veröffentlichungen der Schwäbischen Forschungsstelle Augsburg der Kommission für Bayerische Landesgeschichte bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Schwäbischen Forschungsgemeinschaft. Reihe 5a: Urbare, 4), Augsburg 2019, Wißner, VIII u. 168 S., € 19,80. (Wolfgang Wüst, Erlangen) Just, Thomas / Kathrin Kininger / Andrea Sommerlechner / Herwig Weigl (Hrsg.), Privilegium maius. Autopsie, Kontext und Karriere der Fälschungen Rudolfs IV. von Österreich (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 69; Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs, Sonderband 15), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 388 S. / Abb., € 70,00. (Patrick Fiska, Wien) Wolfinger, Lukas, Die Herrschaftsinszenierung Rudolfs IV. von Österreich. Strategien – Publikum – Rezeption (Symbolische Kommunikation in der Vormoderne), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 924 S. / Abb., € 110,00. (Benjamin Müsegades, Heidelberg) Brachthäuser, Urs, Der Kreuzzug gegen Mahdiya 1390. Konstruktionen eines Ereignisses im spätmittelterlichen Mediterraneum (Mittelmeerstudien, 14), Paderborn 2017, Fink / Schöningh, 822 S., € 99,00. (Georg Jostkleigrewe, Halle) Pilat, Liviu / Ovidiu Cristea, The Ottoman Threat and Crusading on the Eastern Border of Christendom during the 15th Century (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450 – 1450, 48), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, VIII u. 337 S. / Abb., € 174,00. (Thomas Woelki, Berlin) Dümling, Sebastian, Träume der Einfachheit. Gesellschaftsbeobachtungen in den Reformschriften des 15. Jahrhunderts (Historische Studien, 511), Husum 2017, Matthiesen, 250 S., € 39,00. (Birgit Studt, Freiburg i. Br.) Buondelmonti, Christoforo, Description of the Aegean and Other Islands. Copied, with Supplemental Material, by Henricus Martellus Germanus. A Facsimile of the Manuscript at the James Ford Bell Library, University of Minnesota, hrsg. u. übers. v. Evelyn Edson, New York 2018, Italica Press, X u. 190 S. / Abb., $ 100,00. (Ingrid Baumgärtner, Kassel) Schneider, Joachim, Eberhard Windeck und sein „Buch von Kaiser Sigmund“. Studien zu Entstehung, Funktion und Verbreitung einer Königschronik im 15. Jahrhundert (Geschichtliche Landeskunde, 73), Stuttgart 2018, Steiner, 369 S. / Abb., € 62,00. (Gerhard Fouquet, Kiel) The London Customs Accounts. 24 Henry VI (1445/46), hrsg. v. Stuart Jenks (Quellen und Darstellungen zur Hansischen Geschichte. Neue Folge, 74), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2018, Böhlau, LXIII u. 407 S., € 60,00. (Harm von Seggern, Kiel) Pietro Montes „Collectanea“. The Arms, Armour and Fighting Techniques of a Fifteenth-Century Soldier, hrsg. u. übers. v. Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Woodbridge 2018, The Boydell Press, VII u. 313 S. / Abb., £ 60,00. (Patrick Leiske, Heidelberg) Sander-Faes, Stephan, Europas habsburgisches Jahrhundert. 1450 – 1550 (Geschichte kompakt), Darmstadt 2018, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 160 S. / Abb., € 19,95. (Thomas Winkelbauer, Wien) Helmrath, Johannes / Ursula Kocher / Andrea Sieber (Hrsg.), Maximilians Welt. Kaiser Maximilian im Spannungsfeld zwischen Innovation und Tradition (Berliner Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeitforschung, 22), Göttingen 2018, V&R unipress, 300 S. / Abb., € 45,00. (Nadja Krajicek, Innsbruck) Krajicek, Nadja, Frauen in Notlagen. Suppliken an Maximilian I. als Selbstzeugnisse (Quelleneditionen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 17), Wien 2018, Böhlau, 198 S. / Abb., € 39,00. (Manfred Hollegger, Graz) Sebastiani, Valentina, Johann Froben, Printer of Basel. A Biographical Profile and Catalogue of His Editions (Library of the Written Word, 65; The Handpress World, 50), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XII u. 830 S. / Abb., € 215,00. (Charlotte Kempf, Stuttgart) Sharman, Jason C., Empires of the Weak. The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order, Princeton / Oxford 2019, Princeton University Press, XII u. 196 S., £ 22,00. (Wolfgang Reinhard, Freiburg i. Br.) MacDougall, Philip, Islamic Seapower during the Age of Fighting Sail, Woodbridge 2017, The Boydell Press, XVII u. 241 S. / Abb., £ 65,00. (Stefan Hanß, Manchester) Head, Randolph C., Making Archives in Early Modern Europe. Proof, Information, and Political Record-Keeping, 1400 – 1700, Cambridge [u. a.] 2019, Cambridge University Press, XVII u. 348 S. / Abb., £ 90,00. (Markus Friedrich, Hamburg) Keller, Vera / Anna M. Roos / Elizabeth Yale (Hrsg.), Archival Afterlives. Life, Death, and Knowledge-Making in Early Modern British Scientific and Medical Archives (Scientific and Learned Cultures and Their Institutions, 23), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, XI u. 276 S. / Abb., € 105,00. (Markus Friedrich, Hamburg) Jaumann, Herbert / Gideon Stiening (Hrsg.), Neue Diskurse der Gelehrtenkultur in der Frühen Neuzeit. Ein Handbuch, Berlin / Boston 2016, de Gruyter, XXIII u. 877 S., € 219,00. (Marian Füssel, Göttingen) Reinalter, Helmut, Freimaurerei, Politik und Gesellschaft. Die Wirkungsgeschichte des diskreten Bundes, Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 255 S., € 20,00. (Joachim Bauer, Jena) Jarzebowski, Claudia, Kindheit und Emotion. Kinder und ihre Lebenswelten in der europäischen Frühen Neuzeit, Berlin / Boston 2018, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, VIII u. 343 S. / Abb., € 89,95. (Christina Antenhofer, Salzburg) Bepler, Jill / Svante Norrhem (Hrsg.), Telling Objects. Contextualizing the Role of the Consort in Early Modern Europe (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen, 153), Wiesbaden 2018, Harrassowitz in Kommission, 269 S. / Abb., € 68,00. (Melanie Greinert, Kiel) Gantet, Claire / Christine Lebeau, Le Saint-Empire. 1500 – 1800 (Collection U: Histoire), Malakoff 2018, Armand Colin, 270 S. / graph. Darst., € 27,00. (Guido Braun, Mülhausen / Mulhouse) Willasch, Friederike, Verhandlungen, Gespräche, Briefe. Savoyisch-französische Fürstenheiraten in der Frühen Neuzeit (Beihefte der Francia, 85), Ostfildern 2018, Thorbecke, 344 S., € 45,00. (Matthias Schnettger, Mainz) Del Soldato, Eva / Andrea Rizzi (Hrsg.), City, Court, Academy. Language Choice in Early Modern Italy, London / New York, Routledge 2018, IX u. 228 S., £ 105,00. (Bettina Pfotenhauer, München) Lobenwein, Elisabeth / Martin Scheutz / Alfred St. Weiß (Hrsg.), Bruderschaften als multifunktionale Dienstleister der Frühen Neuzeit in Zentraleuropa (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung, 70), Wien 2018, Böhlau, 548 S. / Abb., € 90,00. (Patrick Schmidt, Rostock) Bergerfurth, Yvonne, Die Bruderschaften der Kölner Jesuiten 1576 bis 1773 (Studien zur Kölner Kirchengeschichte, 45), Siegburg 2018, Schmitt, 438 S., € 34,90. (Hans-Wolfgang Bergerhausen, Würzburg) Walter, Philipp, Universität und Landtag (1500 – 1700). Akademische Landstandschaft im Spannungsfeld von reformatorischer Lehre, landesherrlicher Instrumentalisierung und ständischer Solidarität (Quellen und Forschungen zu Thüringen im Zeitalter der Reformation, 8), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2018, Böhlau, 1093 S., € 125,00. (Bernhard Homa, Stade) Kikuchi, Yuta, Hamburgs Ostsee- und Mitteleuropahandel 1600 – 1800. Warenaustausch und Hinterlandnetzwerke (Wirtschafts- und Sozialhistorische Studien, 20), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2018, Böhlau, 426 S. / Abb., € 65,00. (Mark Häberlein, Bamberg) Hoppe, Peter / Daniel Schläppi / Nathalie Büsser / Thomas Meier, Universum Kleinstadt. Die Stadt Zug und ihre Untertanen im Spiegel der Protokolle von Stadtrat und Gemeinde (1471 – 1798) (Beiträge zur Zuger Geschichte, 18), Zürich 2018, Chronos in Kommission, 320 S. / Abb., € 38,00. (Volker Reinhardt, Fribourg) Griffin, Carl J. / Briony McDonagh (Hrsg.), Remembering Protest in Britain since 1500. Memory, Materiality and the Landscape, Cham 2018, Palgrave Macmillan, XIV u. 253 S. / Abb., € 96,29. (Georg Eckert, Wuppertal / Potsdam) Queckbörner, Boris, Englands Exodus. Form und Funktion einer Vorstellung göttlicher Erwählung in Tudor-England, Bielefeld 2017, transcript, 596 S. / Abb., € 49,99. (Andreas Pečar, Halle a. d. S.) Fleming, Gillian B., Juana I. Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile (Queenship and Power), Cham 2018, Palgrave Macmillan, XXI 356 S. / Abb., € 103,99. (Pauline Puppel, Berlin) Heidenreich, Benjamin, Ein Ereignis ohne Namen? Zu den Vorstellungen des „Bauernkriegs“ von 1525 in den Schriften der „Aufständischen“ und in der zeitgenössischen Geschichtsschreibung (Quellen und Forschungen zur Agrargeschichte, 9), Berlin / Boston 2019, de Gruyter Oldenbourg, IX u. 350 S., € 99,95. (Wiebke Voigt, Dresden) Lehmann, Sarah, Jrdische Pilgrimschafft und Himmlische Burgerschafft. Leid und Trost in frühneuzeitlichen Leichenpredigten (The Early Modern World, 1), Göttingen 2019, V&R unipress, 374 S. / Abb., € 50,00. (Volker Leppin, Tübingen) Hanß, Stefan, Lepanto als Ereignis. Dezentrierende Geschichte‍(n) der Seeschlacht von Lepanto (1571) (Berliner Mittelalter- und Frühneuzeit-Forschung, 21), Göttingen 2017, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 710 S. / Abb., € 85,00. (Cornel Zwierlein, Berlin) Hanß, Stefan, Die materielle Kultur der Seeschlacht von Lepanto (1571). Materialität, Medialität und die historische Produktion eines Ereignisses, 2 Teilbde. (Istanbuler Texte und Studien, 38.1 u. 38.2), Würzburg 2017, Ergon in Kommission, 1006 S. / Abb., € 148,00. (Cornel Zwierlein, Berlin) Nagel, Ulrich, Zwischen Dynastie und Staatsräson. Die habsburgischen Botschafter in Wien und Madrid am Beginn des Dreißigjährigen Krieges (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz. Abteilung für Universalgeschichte, 247), Göttingen 2018, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 464 S., € 80,00. (Hillard von Thiessen, Rostock) Mitchell, Silvia Z., Queen, Mother, and Stateswoman. Mariana of Austria and the Gouvernment of Spain, University Park Pennsylvania 2019, The Pennsylvania State University Press, XII u. 293 S. / Abb., $ 84,95. (Katrin Keller, Wien) Krause, Oliver, Die Variabilität frühneuzeitlicher Staatlichkeit. Die niederländische „Staats“-Formierung der Statthalterlosen Epoche (1650 – 1672) als interkontinentales Regiment (Beiträge zur Europäischen Überseegeschichte, 105), Stuttgart 2018, Steiner, 529 S., € 76,00. (Johannes Arndt, Münster) Stevens, Ralph, Protestant Pluralism. The Reception of the Toleration Act, 1689 – 1720 (Studies in Modern British Religious History, 37), Woodbridge / Rochester 2018, The Boydell Press, XIV u. 201 S., £ 65,00. (Frouke Veenstra-Vis, Groningen) Mitchell, A. Wess, The Grand Strategy of the Habsburg Empire, Princeton / Oxford 2018, Princeton University Press, XIV u. 403 S. / Abb., $ 27,00. (Simon Karstens, Trier) Pohlig, Matthias / Michael Schaich (Hrsg.), The War of the Spanish Succession. New Perspectives (Studies of the German Historical Institute London), Oxford 2018, Oxford University Press, IX u. 509 S. / Abb., £ 85,00. (Anuschka Tischer, Würzburg) Vollhardt, Friedrich, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Epoche und Werk, Göttingen 2018, Wallstein, 490 S. / Abb., € 29,90. (Michael Maurer, Jena) Walliss, John, The Bloody Code in England and Wales, 1760 – 1830 (World Histories of Crime, Culture and Violence), Cham 2018, Palgrave Macmillan, XXIII u. 176 S. / graph. Darst., € 85,59. (Benjamin Seebröker, Dresden) „Die Schlesier im Ganzen taugen wahrlich nichts!“ Johann Gustav Gottlieb Büschings Briefe an seine Braut. An der Wiege der Breslauer Germanistik, hrsg., komm. u. mit einem Vorwort versehen v. Krzysztof Żarski / Natalia Żarska (Schlesische Grenzgänger, 10), Leipzig 2018, Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 575 S., € 49,00. (Michael Maurer, Jena)
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"Buchbesprechungen." Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 47, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 79–182. http://dx.doi.org/10.3790/zhf.47.1.79.

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(Stephan Steiner, Wien) „Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes“: The Arts of the Spanish Inquisition. Reginaldus Gonsalvius Montanus. A Critical Edition of the „Sanctae Inquisitionis Hispanicae Artes aliquot“ (1567) with a Modern English Translation, hrsg. v. Marcos J. Herráiz Pareja / Ignacio J. García Pinilla / Jonathan L. Nelson (Heterodoxia Iberica 2), Leiden / Boston 2018, Brill, VII u. 515 S., € 187,00. (Wolfram Drews, Münster) Lattmann, Christopher, Der Teufel, die Hexe und der Rechtsgelehrte. Crimen magiae und Hexenprozess in Jean Bodins „De la Démonomanie des Sorciers“ (Studien zur europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, 318), Frankfurt a. M. 2019, Klostermann, XVI u. 390 S., € 69,00. (Andreas Flurschütz da Cruz, Bamberg) Gorrochategui Santos, Luis, The English Armada. The Greatest Naval Disaster in English History, übers. v. Peter J. Gold, London / New York 2018, VIII u. 323 S. / Abb., £ 26,99. (Patrick Schmidt, Rostock) Schäfer-Griebel, Alexandra, Die Medialität der Französischen Religionskriege. Frankreich und das Heilige Römische Reich 1589 (Beiträge zur Kommunikationsgeschichte, 30), Stuttgart 2018, Steiner, 556 S. / Abb., € 84,00. (Mona Garloff, Stuttgart / Wien) Malettke, Klaus, Richelieu. Ein Leben im Dienste des Königs und Frankreichs, Paderborn 2018, Schöningh, 1076 S. / Abb., € 128,00. (Michael Rohrschneider, Bonn) Windler, Christian, Missionare in Persien. Kulturelle Diversität und Normenkonkurrenz im globalen Katholizismus (17.-18. Jahrhundert) (Externa, 12), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2018, Böhlau, 764 S. / Abb., € 95,00. (Tobias Winnerling, Düsseldorf) Amsler, Nadine, Jesuits and Matriarchs. Domestic Worship in Early Modern China, Seattle 2018, University of Washington Press, X u. 258 S. / Abb., $ 30,00. (Tobias Winnerling, Düsseldorf) Seppel, Marten / Keith Tribe (Hrsg.), Cameralism in Practice. 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Dynastic Politics in Their European Context, 1604 - 1630 (Studies in Earl Modern Cultural, Political and Social History, 31), Woodbridge / Rochester 2018, The Boydell Press, XVIII u. 367 S., £ 75,00. (Martin Foerster, Hamburg) Blakemore, Richard J. / Elaine Murphy, The British Civil Wars at Sea, 1638 - 1653, Woodbridge 2018, The Boydell Press, X u. 225 S. / Abb., £ 65,00. (Jann M. Witt, Laboe) Deflers, Isabelle / Christian Kühner (Hrsg.), Ludwig XIV. - Vorbild und Feindbild. Inszenierung und Rezeption der Herrschaft eines barocken Monarchen zwischen Heroisierung, Nachahmung und Dämonisierung / Louis XIV - fascination et répulsion. Mise en scène et réception du règne d’un monarque baroque entre héroïsation, imitation et diabolisation (Studien des Frankreich-Zentrums der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 25), Berlin 2018, Schmidt, 296 S. / Abb., € 69,95. (Anuschka Tischer, Würzburg) Pérez Sarrión, Guillermo, The Emergence of a National Market in Spain, 1650 - 1800. Trade Networks, Foreign Powers and the State, übers. v. Daniel Duffield, London [u. a.] 2017, Bloomsbury Academic, XXI u. 331 S., £ 26,09. (Hanna Sonkajärvi, Rio de Janeiro) Alimento, Antonella / Koen Stapelbroek (Hrsg.), The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century. Balance of Power, Balance of Trade, Cham 2017, Palgrave Macmillan, XI u. 472 S., € 103,99. (Justus Nipperdey, Saarbrücken) McDowell, Paula, The Invention of the Oral. Print Commerce and Fugitive Voices in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Chicago / London 2017, University of Chicago Press, XIII u. 353 S. / Abb., $ 45,00. (Markus Friedrich, Hamburg) Bernhard, Jan-Andrea / Judith Engeler (Hrsg.), „Dass das Blut der heiligen Wunden mich durchgehet alle Stunden“. Frauen und ihre Lektüre im Pietismus, Zürich 2019, Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 161 S. /Abb., € 21,90. (Helga Meise, Reims) Hammer-Luza, Elke, Im Arrest. Zucht-‍, Arbeits- und Strafhäuser in Graz (1700 - 1850) (Mitteilungen des Instituts für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung. Ergänzungsband, 63; Forschungen zur geschichtlichen Landeskunde der Steiermark, 83), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2019, Böhlau, 556 S. / Abb., € 85,00. (Simon Karstens, Trier) Oldach, Robert, Stadt und Festung Stralsund. Die schwedische Militärpräsenz in Schwedisch-Pommern 1721 - 1807 (Quellen und Studien aus den Landesarchiven Mecklenburg-Vorpommerns, 20), Köln / Weimar / Wien 2018, Böhlau, 518 S. / Abb., € 60,00. (Michael Busch, Rostock) Koller, Ekaterina E., Religiöse Grenzgänger im östlichen Europa. Glaubensenthusiasten um die Prophetin Ekaterina Tatarinova und den Pseudomessias Jakob Frank im Vergleich (1750 - 1850) (Lebenswelten osteuropäischer Juden, 17), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2019, Böhlau, 352 S., € 60,00. (Agnieszka Pufelska, Lüneburg) Häberlein, Mark / Holger Zaunstöck (Hrsg.), Halle als Zentrum der Mehrsprachigkeit im langen 18. Jahrhundert (Hallesche Forschungen, 47), Halle a. d. S. 2017, Verlag der Franckeschen Stiftungen, VI u. 265 S. / Abb., € 56,00. (Martin Gierl, Göttingen) Geffarth, Renko / Markus Meumann / Holger Zaunstöck (Hrsg.), Kampf um die Aufklärung? Institutionelle Konkurrenzen und intellektuelle Vielfalt im Halle des 18. Jahrhunderts, Halle a. d. S. 2018, Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 334 S., € 50,00. (Martin Gierl, Göttingen) Giro d’Italia. Die Reiseberichte des bayerischen Kurprinzen Karl Albrecht (1715/16). Eine historisch-kritische Edition, hrsg. v. Andrea Zedler / Jörg Zedler (Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, 90), Wien / Köln / Weimar 2019, Böhlau, 694 S. / Abb., € 90,00. (Michael Maurer, Jena) Backerra, Charlotte, Wien und London, 1727 - 1735. Internationale Beziehungen im frühen 18. Jahrhundert (Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für europäische Geschichte Mainz, 253), Göttingen 2018, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 474 S., € 80,00. (Michael Schaich, London) Gottesdienst im Bamberger Dom zwischen Barock und Aufklärung. Die Handschrift des Ordinarius L des Subkustos Johann Graff von 1730 als Edition mit Kommentar, hrsg. v. Franz Kohlschein / Werner Zeißner unter Mitarbeit v. Walter Milutzki (Studien zur Bamberger Bistumsgeschichte, 9), Petersberg 2018, Imhoff, 687 S. / Abb., € 79,00. (Tillmann Lohse, Berlin / Leipzig) Warnke, Marcus, Logistik und friderizianische Kriegsführung. Eine Studie zur Verteilung, Mobilisierung und Wirkungsmächtigkeit militärisch relevanter Ressourcen im Siebenjährigen Krieg am Beispiel des Jahres 1757 (Quellen und Forschungen zur Brandenburgischen und Preußischen Geschichte, 50), Berlin 2018, Duncker & Humblot, 696 S. / Abb., € 139,90. (Tilman Stieve, Aachen) Frey, Linda / Marsha Frey, The Culture of French Revolutionary Diplomacy. In the Face of Europe (Studies in Diplomacy and International Relations), Cham 2018, Palgrave Macmillan, XI u. 300 S., € 149,79. (Christine Vogel, Vechta) Wagner, Johann Conrad, „Meine Erfahrungen in dem gegenwärtigen Kriege“. Tagebuch des Feldzugs mit Herzog Carl August von Weimar, hrsg. v. Edith Zehm (Schriften der Goethe-Gesellschaft, 78), Göttingen 2018, Wallstein, 552 S. / Abb. / Faltkarte, € 59,00. (Michael Kaiser, Köln / Bonn) Zamoyski, Adam, Napoleon. Ein Leben. Aus dem Englischen übers. v. Ruth Keen / Erhard Stölting, München 2018, Beck, 863 S. / Abb., € 29,95. (Hans-Ulrich Thamer, Münster)
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Berkson, Rachel, Uwe Matthias Richter, Sarada Veerabhatla, and Larysa Zasiekina. "Experiences of Students with Communication Related Disabilities in the TBL Classroom." East European Journal of Psycholinguistics 7, no. 1 (June 30, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.29038/eejpl.2020.7.1.ber.

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The objective of this article is to explore how suitable Team-Based Learning (TBL) is for students with social and communication disabilities, such as those on the autism spectrum or with social anxiety. TBL is a structured form of Active Collaborative Learning, combining a flipped classroom approach with students working in permanent teams to apply concepts, models and theories into practice. The design of the study was based on an idiographic case study approach at Anglia Ruskin University, UK, treating each student as an individual rather than a representative sample. Towards the end of the academic year 2017/18, an electronic questionnaire was sent out to all students who had taken TBL modules at ARU during the preceding academic year, asking about various aspects of TBL experience. The questionnaire was repeated towards the end of the first semester of 2018/19. The questionnaire was analysed with a focus on questions relating to inclusivity, and the responses related to students who had declared a disability. The questionnaire was followed by semi-structured interviews with students with disabilities who had experienced TBL. We focused primarily on disabilities broadly related to communication, notably with dyslexia, dysgraphia, social phobia and autism that may impair students’ abilities to work in teams. Interviews were audio recorded and then transcribed. Transcriptions were thematically analysed by the research team using NVivo. The results of the study provide anonymized case studies for each of the students who took part in an interview, explaining their disability or condition, their coping strategies for studying in HE, and their experiences, both positive and negative, of the TBL modules they had taken. References Active Collaborative Learning. (2019). Scaling Up Active Collaborative Learning for Student Success. Project website. https://aclproject.org.uk. ARU. (2017). Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at our University. Annual Report. Anglia Ruskin University.https://web.anglia.ac.uk/anet/student_services/public/AngliaRuskinReport_2017_AW_ACCESSIBLE.pdf. ARU. (2018). Student Snapshots. Anglia Ruskin University. https://aru.ac.uk/about-us/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-for-students/aru-student-snapshots. ARU. (2020). Disability Support. Anglia Ruskin University. https://aru.ac.uk/student-life/support-and-facilities/study-skills/disability-support. ARU. (2020b). Inclusive Practices. Anglia Ruskin University. https://aru.ac.uk/about-us/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/equality-diversity-and-inclusion-for-students/inclusive-practices. Berkson, R., & Richter, U.M. (2019). Can Active Collaborative Learning Improve Equality? The European Conference on Education 2019 Official Conference Proceedings. https://papers.iafor.org/submission51859/. Berkson, R.G., & Richter, U.M. (2020). Barriers to scaling up active collaborative learning. IN S. Pratt-Adams, U.M. Richter & M. Warnes (Eds.), Innovations in Active Learning in Higher Education, Ch 7. Anglia Ruskin University (in press). Chenail, R. J. (2009). Interviewing the Investigator: Strategies for Addressing Instrumentation and Researcher Bias Concerns in Qualitative Research. The Qualitative Report, 13(4): 14-21. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr/vol13/iss4/14/. Dearnley, Ch., Rhodes, Ch., Roberts, P., Williams, P., & Prenton, S. (2018). Team based learning in nursing and midwifery higher education; a systematic review of the evidence for change. Nurse Education Today, 60: 75-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2017.09.012. Eksteen, M.J. (2019). Does team-based learning develop essential generic skills in pharmacy students? South African Journal of Higher Education, 33(1). https://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/sajhe/article/view/1332. http://dx.doi.org//10.20853/33-1-1332. Haidet, P., Kubitz, K., & McCormack, W. T. (2014). Analysis of the team-based learning literature: TBL comes of age. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3-4): 303-333. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4643940/. Hefce. (2018). Differences in student outcomes. The effect of student characteristics. Data Analysis report March 2018/05. https://dera.ioe.ac.uk/31412/1/HEFCE2017_05%20.pdf HM Government. (2017). Industrial Strategy. Building a Britain fit for the future. UK Government White Paper. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/664563/industrial-strategy-white-paper-web-ready-version.pdf. Kent, S., Wanzek, J., Swanson, E.A., & Vaughn, S. (2015). Team-Based Learning for Students with High-Incidence Disabilities in High School Social Studies Classrooms. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 30(1): 3-14. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ldrp.12048. Koles, P.G., Stolfi, A., Borges, N.J., Nelson S., & Parmelee, D.X. (2010). The impact of team-based learning on medical students' academic performance. Academic Medicine: Journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges, 85(11): 1739-1745. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20881827/ http://dx.doi.org/: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181f52bed. Michaelsen, L. K., Davidson, N., & Major, C. H. (2014). Team-based learning practices and principles in comparison with cooperative learning and problem-based learning. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3&4): 57-84. https://www.lhthompson.com/uploads/4/2/1/1/42117203/team_based_learning_-_group_work.pdf. Michaelsen, L. K., Knight, A. B., & Fink, L. D. (2004). Team-based learning: A transformative use of small groups in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus. McNeil, J., Borg, M., Kennedy, E., Cui, V., Puntha, H., Rashid, Z., Churchill, T., Howitt, E. and Trivedy, K., (2019a). SCALE-UP Handbook 2019-20 (3rd ed). Centre for Academic Development and Quality, Nottingham Trent University. https://www.ntu.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0033/906927/FINAL-SCALE-UP-Handbook-2019-20.pdf. McNeil, J., Borg, M., Kerrigan, M., Waller, S., Richter, U., Berkson, R., Tweddell, S., & McCarter, R. (2019b). Addressing barriers to student success. Scaling up Active Collaborative Learning for Student Success. Final Report, 28 March 2019, Updated 28 October 2019. https://aclproject.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NTU-ABSS-Final-Report-revised-Oct-2019.pdf. OECD. (2019). OECD Future of Education and Skills 2030. OECD Learning Compass 2030. A Series of Concept Notes. OECD. http://www.oecd.org/education/2030-project/contact/OECD_Learning_Compass_2030_Concept_Note_Series.pdf. Office for Students. (2019a). Addressing Barriers to Student Success programme. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/promoting-equal-opportunities/addressing-barriers-to-student-success-programme/ Office for Students. (2019b). Beyond the bare minimum: Are universities and colleges doing enough for disabled students? OfS Insight Brief 4. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/publications/beyond-the-bare-minimum-are-universities-and-colleges-doing-enough-for-disabled-students/#participation. Roulston, K., & Shelton, St. A. (2015). Reconceptualizing Bias in Teaching Qualitative Research Methods. Qualitative Inquiry, (21)4: 332-342. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077800414563803. Sangwan, P., & Sangwan, S. (2011). Inclusive Education: A Developmental Approach in Special Education. Journal of Indian Education, 36(4): 18-32. http://www.ncert.nic.in/publication/journals/pdf_files/iea/JIE_FEB2011.pdf#page=20 Sibley, J., & Ostafichuk, P. (2014). Getting Started with Team-Based Learning. Sterling, VA, USA: Stylus. Sisk, R. J. (2011). Team-based learning: systematic research review. Journal of Nursing Education, 50(12): 665–669. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22007709/. Vaccaro, A., Daly-Cano, M., & Newman, B. M. (2015). A sense of belonging among college students with disabilities: An emergent theoretical model. Journal of College Student Development, 56(7): 670-686. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/597267 Vaughn, S., Danielson, L., Zumeta, R., & Holdheide, L. (2015). Deeper Learning for Students with Disabilities. Students at the Center. Deeper Learning Research Series. Boston, MA: Jobs for the Future. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED560790.pdf. Wanzek, J., Vaughn, S., Kent, S.C., Swanson, E.A., Roberts, G., Haynes, M., & Solis, M. (2014). The Effects of Team-Based Learning on Social Studies Knowledge Acquisition in High School. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness. 7(2): 183-204. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/19345747.2013.836765. Williams, M., Pollard, E., Helena Takala, H., & Houghton, A-M. (2019). Review of Support for Disabled Students in Higher Education in England. Report to the Office for Students by the Institute for Employment Studies and Researching Equity, Access and Participation. IES Report. Institute for Employment Studies and Researching Equity, Access and Participation. https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/media/a8152716-870b-47f2-8045-.fc30e8e599e5/review-of-support-for-disabled-students-in-higher-education-in-england.pdf World Economic Forum. (2018). The Future of Jobs 2018. Insight Report. Centre for the New Economy and Society. http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Future_of_Jobs_2018.pdf.
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10

Harrison, Karey. "Building Resilient Communities." M/C Journal 16, no. 5 (August 24, 2013). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.716.

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This paper will compare the metaphoric structuring of the ecological concept of resilience—with its roots in Holling's 1973 paper; with psychological concepts of resilience which followed from research—such as Werner, Bierman, and French and Garmezy and Streitman) published in the early 1970s. This metaphoric analysis will expose the difference between complex adaptive systems models of resilience in ecology and studies related to resilience in relation to climate change; compared with the individualism of linear equilibrium models of resilience which have dominated discussions of resilience in psychology and economics. By examining the ontological commitments of these competing metaphors, I will show that the individualistic concept of resilience which dominates psychological discussions of resilience is incompatible with the ontological commitments of ecological concepts of resilience. Because the ontological commitments of the concepts of ecological resilience on the one hand, and psychological resilience on the other, are so at odds with one another, it is important to be clear which concept of resilience is being evaluated for its adequacy as a concept. Having clearly distinguished these competing metaphors and their ontological commitments, this paper will show that it is the complex adaptive systems model of resilience from ecology, not the individualist concept of psychological resilience, that has been utilised by both the academic discussions of adaptation to climate change, and the operationalisation of the concept of resilience by social movements like the permaculture, ecovillage, and Transition Towns movements. Ontological Metaphors My analysis of ontological metaphors draws on insights from Kuhn's (114) account of gestalt perception in scientific paradigm shifts; the centrality of the role of concrete analogies in scientific reasoning (Masterman 77); and the theorisation of ontological metaphors in cognitive linguistics (Gärdenfors). Figure 1: Object Ontological commitments reflect the shared beliefs within a community about the sorts of things that exist. Our beliefs about what exists are shaped by our sensory and motor interactions with objects in the physical world. Physical objects have boundaries and surfaces that separate the object from not-the-object. Objects have insides and outsides, and can be described in terms of more-or-less fixed and stable “objective” properties. A prototypical example of an “object” is a “container”, like the example shown in Figure 1. Ontological metaphors allow us to conceive of “things” which are not objects as if they were objects by picking “out parts of our experience and treat them as [if they were] discrete entities or substances of a uniform kind” (Lakoff and Johnson 25). We use ontological metaphors when we imagine a boundary around a collection of things, such as the members of a team or trees in a forest, and conceive of them as being in a container (Langacker 191–97). We can then think of “things” like a team or forest as if they were a single entity. We can also understand processes and activities as if they were things with boundaries. Whether or not we characterise some aspect of our experience as a noun (a bounded entity) or as a verb (a process that occurs over time) is not determined by the nature of things in themselves, but by our understanding and interpretation of our experience (Langacker 233). In this paper I employ a technique that involves examining the details of “concrete images” from the source domains for metaphors employed in the social sciences to expose for analysis their ontological commitments (Harrison, “Politics” 215; Harrison, “Economics” 7). By examining the ontological metaphors that structure the resilience literature I will show how different conceptions of resilience reflect different beliefs and commitments about the sorts of “things” there are in the world, and hence how we can study and understand these “things.” Engineering Metaphors In his discussion of engineering resilience, Holling (“Engineering Vs. Ecological” 33) argues that this conception is the “foundation for economic theory”, and defined in terms of “resistance to disturbance and the speed of return to the equilibrium” or steady state of the system. Whereas Holling takes his original example of the use of the engineering concept of resilience from economics, Pendall, Foster, & Cowell (72), and Martin-Breen and Anderies (6) identify it as the concept of resilience that dominates the field of psychology. They take the stress loading of bridges to be the engineering source for the metaphor. Figure 2: Pogo stick animation (Source: Blacklemon 67, CC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pogoanim.gif). In order to understand this metaphor, we need to examine the characteristics of the source domain for the metaphor. A bridge can be “under tension, compression or both forces at the same time [and] experiences what engineers define as stress” (Matthews 3). In order to resist these forces, bridges need to be constructed of material which “behave much like a spring” that “strains elastically (deforms temporarily and returns to its original shape after a load has been removed) under a given stress” (Gordon 52; cited in Matthews). The pogostick shown in Figure 2 illustrates how a spring returns to its original size and configuration once the load or stress is removed. WGBH Educational Foundation provides links to simple diagrams that illustrate the different stresses the three main designs of bridges are subject to, and if you compare Computers & Engineering's with Gibbs and Bourne's harmonic spring animation you can see how both a bridge under live load and the pogostick in Figure 2 oscillate just like an harmonic spring. Subject to the elastic limits of the material, the deformation of a spring is proportional to the stress or load applied. According to the “modern theory of elasticity [...] it [is] possible to deduce the relation between strain and stress for complex objects in terms of intrinsic properties of the materials it is made of” (“Hooke’s Law”). When psychological resilience is characterised in terms of “properties of individuals [that] are identified in isolation” (Martin-Breen and Anderies 12); and in terms of “behaviours and attributes [of individuals] that allow people to get along with one another and to succeed socially” (Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 72), they are reflecting this engineering focus on the properties of materials. Martin-Breen and Anderies (42) argue that “the Engineering Resilience framework” has been informed by ontological metaphors which treat “an ecosystem, person, city, government, bridge, [or] society” as if it were an object—“a unified whole”. Because this concept of resilience treats individuals as “objects,” it leads researchers to look for the properties or characteristics of the “materials” which individuals are “made of”, which are either elastic and allow them to “bounce” or “spring” back after stress; or are fragile and brittle and break under load. Similarly, the Designers Institute (DINZ), in its conference on “Our brittle society,” shows it is following the engineering resilience approach when it conceives of a city or society as an object which is made of materials which are either “strong and flexible” or “brittle and fragile”. While Holling characterises economic theory in terms of this engineering metaphor, it is in fact chemistry and the kinetic theory of gases that provides the source domain for the ontological metaphor which structures both static and dynamic equilibrium models within neo-classical economics (Smith and Foley; Mirowski). However, while springs are usually made out of metals, they can be made out of any “material [that] has the required combination of rigidity and elasticity,” such as plastic, and even wood (in a bow) (“Spring (device)”). Gas under pressure turns out to behave the same as other springs or elastic materials do under load. Because both the economic metaphor based on equilibrium theory of gases and the engineering analysis of bridges under load can both be subsumed under spring theory, we can treat both the economic (gas) metaphor and the engineering (bridge) metaphor as minor variations of a single overarching (spring) metaphor. Complex Systems Metaphors Holling (“Resilience & Stability” 13–15) critiques equilibrium models, arguing that non-deterministic, complex, non-equilibrium and multi-equilibrium ecological systems do not satisfy the conditions for application of equilibrium models. Holling argues that unlike the single equilibrium modelled by engineering resilience, complex adaptive systems (CAS) may have multi or no equilibrium states, and be non-linear and non-deterministic. Walker and Salt follow Holling by calling for recognition of the “dynamic complexity of the real world” (8), and that “these [real world] systems are complex adaptive systems” (11). Martin-Breen and Anderies (7) identify the key difference between “systems” and “complex adaptive systems” resilience as adaptive capacity, which like Walker and Salt (xiii), they define as the capacity to maintain function, even if system structures change or fail. The “engineering” concept of resilience focuses on the (elastic) properties of materials and uses language associated with elastic springs. This “spring” metaphor emphasises the property of individual components. In contrast, ecological concepts of resilience examine interactions between elements, and the state of the system in a multi-dimensional phase space. This systems approach shows that the complex behaviour of a system depends at least as much on the relationships between elements. These relationships can lead to “emergent” properties which cannot be reduced to the properties of the parts of the system. To explain these relationships and connections, ecologists and climate scientists use language and images associated with landscapes such as 2-D cross-sections and 3-D topology (Holling, “Resilience & Stability” 20; Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 74). Figure 3 is based on an image used by Walker, Holling, Carpenter and Kinzig (fig. 1b) to represent possible states of ecological systems. The “basins” in the image rely on our understanding of gravitational forces operating in a 3-D space to model “equilibrium” states in which the system, like the “ball” in the “basin”, will tend to settle. Figure 3: (based on Langston; in Walker et al. fig. 1b) – Tipping Point Bifurcation Wasdell (“Feedback” fig. 4) adapted this image to represent possible climate states and explain the concept of “tipping points” in complex systems. I have added the red balls (a, b, and c to replace the one black ball (b) in the original which represented the state of the system), the red lines which indicate the path of the ball/system, and the black x-y axis, in order to discuss the image. Wasdell (“Feedback Dynamics” slide 22) takes the left basin to represents “the variable, near-equilibrium, but contained dynamics of the [current] glacial/interglacial period”. As a result of rising GHG levels, the climate system absorbs more energy (mostly as heat). This energy can force the system into a different, hotter, state, less amenable to life as we know it. This is shown in Figure 3 by the system (represented as the red ball a) rising up the left basin (point b). From the perspective of the gravitational representation in Figure 3, the extra energy in the basin operates like the rotation in a Gravitron amusement ride, where centrifugal force pushes riders up the sides of the ride. If there is enough energy added to the climate system it could rise up and jump over the ridge/tipping point separating the current climate state into the “hot earth” basin shown on the right. Once the system falls into the right basin, it may be stuck near point c, and due to reinforcing feedbacks have difficulty escaping this new “equilibrium” state. Figure 4 represents a 2-D cross-section of the 3-D landscape shown in Figure 3. This cross-section shows how rising temperature and greenhouse gas (GHG) concentrations in a multi-equilibrium climate topology can lead to the climate crossing a tipping point and shifting from state a to state c. Figure 4: Topographic cross-section of possible climate states (derived from Wasdell, “Feedback” 26 CC). As Holling (“Resilience & Stability”) warns, a less “desirable” state, such as population collapse or extinction, may be more “resilient”, in the engineering sense, than a more desirable state. Wasdell (“Feedback Dynamics” slide 22) warns that the climate forcing as a result of human induced GHG emissions is in fact pushing the system “far away from equilibrium, passed the tipping point, and into the hot-earth scenario”. In previous episodes of extreme radiative forcing in the past, this “disturbance has then been amplified by powerful feedback dynamics not active in the near-equilibrium state [… and] have typically resulted in the loss of about 90% of life on earth.” An essential element of system dynamics is the existence of (delayed) reinforcing and balancing causal feedback loops, such as the ones illustrated in Figure 5. Figure 5: Pre/Predator model (Bellinger CC-BY-SA) In the case of Figure 5, the feedback loops illustrate the relationship between rabbit population increasing, then foxes feeding on the rabbits, keeping the rabbit population within the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. Fox predation prevents rabbit over-population and consequent starvation of rabbits. The reciprocal interaction of the elements of a system leads to unpredictable nonlinearity in “even seemingly simple systems” (“System Dynamics”). The climate system is subject to both positive and negative feedback loops. If the area of ice cover increases, more heat is reflected back into space, creating a positive feedback loop, reinforcing cooling. Whereas, as the arctic ice melts, as it is doing at present (Barber), heat previously reflected back into space is absorbed by now exposed water, increasing the rate of warming. Where negative feedback (system damping) dominates, the cup-shaped equilibrium is stable and system behaviour returns to base when subject to disturbance. [...]The impact of extreme events, however, indicates limits to the stable equilibrium. At one point cooling feedback loops overwhelmed the homeostasis, precipitating the "snowball earth" effect. […] Massive release of CO2 as a result of major volcanic activity […] set off positive feedback loops, precipitating runaway global warming and eliminating most life forms at the end of the Permian period. (Wasdell, “Topological”) Martin-Breen and Anderies (53–54), following Walker and Salt, identify four key factors for systems (ecological) resilience in nonlinear, non-deterministic (complex adaptive) systems: regulatory (balancing) feedback mechanisms, where increase in one element is kept in check by another element; modularity, where failure in one part of the system will not cascade into total systems failure; functional redundancy, where more than one element performs every essential function; and, self-organising capacity, rather than central control ensures the system continues without the need for “leadership”. Transition Towns as a Resilience Movement The Transition Town (TT) movement draws on systems modelling of both climate change and of Limits to Growth (Meadows et al.). TT takes seriously Limits to Growth modelling that showed that without constraints in population and consumption the world faces systems collapse by the middle of this century. It recommends community action to build as much capacity as possible to “maintain existence of function”—Holling's (“Engineering vs. Ecological” 33) definition of ecological resilience—in the face of failing economic, political and environmental systems. The Transition Network provides a template for communities to follow to “rebuild resilience and reduce CO2 emissions”. Rob Hopkins, the movements founder, explicitly identifies ecological resilience as its central concept (Transition Handbook 6). The idea for the movement grew out of a project by (2nd year students) completed for Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College. According to Hopkins (“Kinsale”), this project was inspired by Holmgren’s Permaculture principles and Heinberg's book on adapting to life after peak oil. Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is a design system for creating agricultural systems modelled on the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems (Mollison ix; Holmgren xix). Permaculture draws its scientific foundations from systems ecology (Holmgren xxv). Following CAS theory, Mollison (33) defines stability as “self-regulation”, rather than “climax” or a single equilibrium state, and recommends “diversity of beneficial functional connections” (32) rather than diversity of isolated elements. Permaculture understands resilience in the ecological, rather than the engineering sense. The Transition Handbook (17) “explores the issues of peak oil and climate change, and how when looked at together, we need to be focusing on the rebuilding of resilience as well as cutting carbon emissions. It argues that the focus of our lives will become increasingly local and small scale as we come to terms with the real implications of the energy crisis we are heading into.” The Transition Towns movement incorporate each of the four systems resilience factors, listed at the end of the previous section, into its template for building resilient communities (Hopkins, Transition Handbook 55–6). Many of its recommendations build “modularity” and “self-organising”, such as encouraging communities to build “local food systems, [and] local investment models”. Hopkins argues that in a “more localised system” feedback loops are tighter, and the “results of our actions are more obvious”. TT training exercises include awareness raising for sensitivity to networks of (actual or potential) ecological, social and economic relationships (Hopkins, Transition Handbook 60–1). TT promotes diversity of local production and economic activities in order to increase “diversity of functions” and “diversity of responses to challenges.” Heinberg (8) wrote the forward to the 2008 edition of the Transition Handbook, after speaking at a TotnesTransition Town meeting. Heinberg is now a senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute (PCI), which was established in 2003 to “provide […] the resources needed to understand and respond to the interrelated economic, energy, environmental, and equity crises that define the 21st century [… in] a world of resilient communities and re-localized economies that thrive within ecological bounds” (PCI, “About”), of the sort envisioned by the Limits to Growth model discussed in the previous section. Given the overlapping goals of PCI and Transition Towns, it is not surprising that Rob Hopkins is now a Fellow of PCI and regular contributor to Resilience, and there are close ties between the two organisations. Resilience, which until 2012 was published as the Energy Bulletin, is run by the Post Carbon Institute (PCI). Like Transition Towns, Resilience aims to build “community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges: the decline of cheap energy, the depletion of critical resources like water, complex environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, and the social and economic issues which are linked to these. […] It has [its] roots in systems theory” (PCI, “About Resilience”). Resilience.org says it follows the interpretation of Resilience Alliance (RA) Program Director Brian Walker and science writer David Salt's (xiii) ecological definition of resilience as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and still retain its basic function and structure.“ Conclusion This paper has analysed the ontological metaphors structuring competing conceptions of resilience. The engineering resilience metaphor dominates in psychological resilience research, but is not adequate for understanding resilience in complex adaptive systems. Ecological resilience, on the other hand, dominates in environmental and climate change research, and is the model of resilience that has been incorporated into the global permaculture and Transition Towns movements. References 2nd year students. Kinsale 2021: An Energy Descent Action Plan. Kinsale, Cork, Ireland: Kinsale Further Education College, 2005. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://transitionculture.org/wp-content/uploads/KinsaleEnergyDescentActionPlan.pdf>. Barber, Elizabeth. “Arctic Ice Continues to Thin, and Thin, European Satellite Reveals.” Christian Science Monitor 11 Sep. 2013. 25 Sep. 2013 ‹http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2013/0911/Arctic-ice-continues-to-thin-and-thin-European-satellite-reveals>. 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Garmezy, N, and S Streitman. “Children at Risk: The Search for the Antecedents of Schizophrenia. Part I. Conceptual Models and Research Methods.” Schizophrenia Bulletin 8 (1974): 14–90. NCBI PubMed 14 Aug. 2013 ‹http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/8/14.full.pdf>. Gibbs, Keith, and John Bourne. “The Helical Spring.” Schoolphysics 2013. 15 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.schoolphysics.co.uk/animations/Helical_spring_shm/index.html>. Gordon, James Edward. Structures: Or, Why Things Don’t Fall Down. London: Plenum Press, 1978. Harrison, Karey. “Image Schemas and Political Ontology.” Communication, Cognition and Media: Political and Economic Discourse. Ed. Augusto Soares da Silva et al. Portugal: Aletheia, forthcoming. ———. “Ontological Commitments of Ethics and Economics.” Economic Thought 2.1 (2013): 1–19. 23 Apr. 2013 ‹http://et.worldeconomicsassociation.org/article/view/64>. Heinberg, Richard. Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-carbon World. 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The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience. Free edit version. ‹http://www.appropedia.org/Category:The_Transition_Handbook: Appropedia.org> 2010. 16 Aug. 2010 ‹http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~sme/CSC2600/transition-handbook.pdf>. Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 2nd ed. University of Chicago Press, 1962. Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press, 1980. Langacker, Ronald W. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites. Vol. 1. Stanford University Press, 1987. Langston, Art. “Tipping Point” or Bifurcation Between Two Attractor Basins. 2004. 25 Sep. 2013. ‹http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/figure1.html>. Martin-Breen, Patrick, and J. Marty Anderies. Resilience: A Literature Review. Rockefeller Foundation, 2011. 8 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/blog/resilience-literature-review>. Masterman, Margaret. “The Nature of a Paradigm.” Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Eds. Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave. Cambridge University Press, 1970. 59–89. Matthews, Theresa. “The Physics of Bridges.” Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 2013. 14 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/2001/5/01.05.08.x.html>. Meadows, Donella H. et al. The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind. Universe Books, 1972. Mirowski, Philip. “From Mandelbrot to Chaos in Economic Theory.” Southern Economic Journal 57.2 (1990): 289–307. Mollison, Bill. Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual. Tagari Publications, 1988. PCI. “About.” Post Carbon Institute. 16 July 2012. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.postcarbon.org/about/>. ———. “About Resilience.org.” Resilience 16 July 2012. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.resilience.org/about>. Pendall, Rolf, Kathryn A. Foster, and Margaret Cowell. “Resilience and Regions: Building Understanding of the Metaphor.” Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3.1 (2010): 71–84. 4 Aug. 2013 ‹http://cjres.oxfordjournals.org/content/3/1/71>. RA. “About RA.” Resilience Alliance 2013. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.resalliance.org/index.php/about_ra>. Smith, Eric, and Duncan K. Foley. “Classical Thermodynamics and Economic General Equilibrium Theory.” Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control 32.1 (2008): 7–65. Transition Network. “About Transition Network.” Transition Network. 2012. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.transitionnetwork.org/about>. Walker, B. H., and David Salt. Resilience Thinking: Sustaining Ecosystems and People in a Changing World. Island Press, 2006. Walker, Brian et al. “Resilience, Adaptability and Transformability in Social–Ecological Systems.” Ecology and Society 9.2 (2004): 5. Wasdell, David. “A Topological Approach.” The Feedback Crisis in Climate Change: The Meridian Report. n.d. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.meridian.org.uk/Resources/Global%20Dynamics/Feedback%20Crisis/frameset1.htm?p=3>. ———. “Beyond the Tipping Point: Positive Feedback and the Acceleration of Climate Change.” The Foundation for the Future, Humanity 3000 Workshop. Seattle, 2006. ‹http://www.meridian.org.uk/_PDFs/BeyondTippingPoint.pdf>. ———. “Feedback Dynamics and the Acceleration of Climate Change.” Winterthur, 2008. 16 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.crisis-forum.org.uk/events/Workshop1/Workshop1_presentations/wasdellpictures/wasdell_clubofrome.php>. Werner, Emmy E., Jessie M. Bierman, and Fern E. French. The Children of Kauai: A Longitudinal Study from the Prenatal Period to Age Ten. University of Hawaii Press, 1971.WGBH. “Bridge Basics.” Building Big. 2001. 14 Aug. 2013 ‹http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/bridge/basics.html>. 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Wegner, Juliane, and Julia Stüwe. "Young Cancer on Instagram." M/C Journal 23, no. 6 (November 28, 2020). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2724.

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Introduction Although our postmodern (media) society should provide room for diversity and otherness (Greer and Jewkes), some people are not integrated but rather excluded. Social exclusion can be defined as the discrepancy of the wish of being part of a society and its possibilities to be part of it and contains feelings or experiences of physically or emotionally exclusion from others (Burchardt et al.; Riva and Eck). It is not really known what or who is responsible for social exclusion (Hills et al.), but it is certain that it is not that rare phenomenon — especially in social media. Here, digital engagement characteristics (likes, follows, shares, and comments) are important to build up, renew, and strengthen different forms of relationships. But if users do not receive any feedback, the risk of feeling social excluded increases. In this context, adolescents and young adults as the primary audience are the focus of interest. They seem to be especially vulnerable when it comes to social ostracism within social media and its potential negative psychological effects (Timeo et al.). The variety of social exclusion allows multiple perspectives on the topic. Hereafter we focus on young people with cancer. This life-threatening disease can increase the risk of being excluded. Cancer as a chronic illness and its negative effects on people’s lives, such as potential death, long-term and late effects, private and social burdens (Hilgendorf et al.), show an obvious otherness compared to the healthy peer, which might push ostracism effects and social exclusion of young people within social media to a new level. We actually can see a large number of (included) young cancer patients and survivors using social media for information sharing, exchanging ideas, networking, and addressing their unmet needs of the real world (Chou et al.; Chou and Moskowitz; Ruckenstuhl et al.; Perales et al.). Especially Instagram is becoming more present in social cancer communication (Stage et al.), though it actually increasingly represents cheerful, easy-going content (Hu et al.; Waterloo et al.). Judging by the number of cancer-related hashtags, we can see more and more public cancer bloggers thematise cancer illness on Instagram. But less is known about the actual content posted by cancer bloggers on Instagram. This leads us to the question, to what extent is cancer content found and included or excluded on public Instagram profiles of German speaking cancer bloggers? And is there a difference between biography descriptions with visible cancer references and posted motifs, captions and hashtags? Chronic Illnesses, Identities, and Social Networks Chronic illnesses such as cancer not only affect the body, but also impact on the identity of those affected. It is understood as life-changing with both short-term and long-term effects on the identity-forming process and on the already developed identity (Bury; Charmaz; Leventhal et al.). With their diagnosis, adolescents and young adults face a double challenge: they have to cope with the typical developmental changes of this age group and they have to negotiate these changes against the background of a life-threatening illness (Makros and McCabe; Zebrack and Isaacso). Miller shows three levels of identity for young cancer patients (pre-cancer identity, patient identity, and post-cancer identity), which are used regularly and flexibly by those affected in their interaction with the social network in order to maintain relationships and to minimise communicative misunderstandings. Moreover, the negotiation of the self within the social network and its expectations, especially towards convalescent people, can lead to paradoxical situations and identities of young people with cancer (Jones et al.). Although therapeutic measures are completed and patients may be discharged as cured, physical, cognitive, and emotional challenges with regard to the illness (e.g. fatigue, loss of performance, difficulty concentrating) still have to be overcome. These challenges, despite recovery, cause those affected to feel they still belong to a cancer group which they have actually largely outgrown medically and therapeutically, and also continually remind them of their present difference from the healthy peer group. To minimise these differences, narratives are the means for those affected to negotiate their new illness-related identity with their network (Hyde). These processes can be digitally transformed on blogs or to age-appropriate social network sites (SNS), which enable users to record and communicate experiences and emotions in an uncomplicated, situational manner and with fewer inhibitions (Kim and Gilham). Cancer contents on SNS are called autopathography and can serve as a means of self-expression, whilst at the same time stimulating communication and networking and thus significantly influencing identity and identity development in the chronic disease process (Rettberg; Ressler et al.; Abrol et al.; Stage). The possibility of recording and archiving private moments in a digital environment through photos and texts creates a visual diary. Here, illness recordings are not just motifs, but also part of an identity process by accepting the self as being ill (Nesby and Salamonsen; Tembeck). Instagram-Exclusive Positivity Instagram is the most popular social media network amongst 14-29 year olds in Germany (Beisch et al.). It presents itself as a highly visual structured platform. Furthermore, both posts and stories are dominated by content with innocuous motifs (Hu et al.). Additionally, the visual culture on Instagram is supported by integrated image optimisations such as filters and therefore often associated with high aesthetic standards (Waterloo et al.). This encourages the exchange of idealised self-presenting and self-advertising content (Lee et al.; Lup et al.; Sheldon and Bryant). The positive tone of the shared motifs and captions can also be explained by larger, sometimes anonymous networks on Instagram. The principle of non-reciprocal following of public accounts increasingly creates weak ties, which can additionally encourage the sharing of positively connoted content due to the anonymity (Lin et al.; Waterloo et al.). The posting of negative moods or image motifs to anonymous followers does not seem to be socially standardised, due to the associated intimate thoughts and feelings (Bazarova). In addition, users are aware of the public framework in which they address intimate topics and discourses (Bazarova and Choi). Internal platform standards and technical possibilities thus create a particular posting culture: an environment that is—due to its strong visual-aesthetic structure and anonymous follower-based networks—almost exclusively positive. However, these assumptions and findings are based on a general posting culture, which is usually not focussed on niche topics like cancer. Previous studies show that SNS are used for exchange and networking, especially by young cancer patients (Chou and Moskowitz; Perales et al.). Studies from online SNS disease-related self-help groups show that weak ties in illness situations are considered beneficial when it comes to self-disclosure, seeking help, and support (Wright et al.; Love et al.; Donovan et al.). In addition, Instagram is part of the so-called “vital media” (Stage et al.), which means it is very important for young cancer patients to share cancer-related material. But despite these research findings less is known about the content shared by German-speaking bloggers who have visible cancer references in their Instagram biography. Do they include a serious, even life-threatening illness on a platform that actually stands for positivity, or do they follow the invisible platform regulations in their posted content and statements and exclude it by themselves? The specific objectives of this explorative study were (a) to obtain a descriptive analysis of the manner in which cancer bloggers post content on Instagram, and (b) to determine the extent to which most applied practices exclude the posting of certain negatively connoted motives and emotions associated with cancer. Methodology For the study, 142 German-speaking cancer bloggers (14–39 years of age) with public accounts and visible cancer references in their biography were researched on Instagram. The sample was divided into posts (7,553) and stories (4,117). The content was examined using a standardised content analysis and a code book with relevant categories (motifs, body presences, emotions, captions, emojis; ICR Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85). Measured by the value of the content posted, the story users, at 23 years of age, were comparatively much younger than the post users, at 30 years of age. The sample was predominantly female in both posts (81%) and stories (99%). The most common form of cancer was breast cancer (posts: 28%; stories: 29%), followed by brain tumors (posts: 19%; stories: 16%) and leukaemia (posts: 4%; stories: 19%). Most content was shared by people who were actively involved in treatment – 46% of posts and 54% of stories. Completed treatments were more common in posts (39%) than in stories (19%). At the time of data collection, the Instagram entries were explicitly open to the public, and no registration was required. The content, not the individual, was analysed to minimise the risk for the bloggers and to prevent them from violations of privacy and autonomy by third parties. Furthermore, the entries were assigned unidentifiable numbers to ensure that no tracing is possible (Franzke et al.). Results The sample consists of public cancer blogger accounts who document everyday experiences for their network in images and videos. The following results are shown for posts (P) and stories (S). Motifs and Bodies Looking at the evaluation of the image motifs, the selfie predominates both in posts, with 20.7 per cent, and stories, with 32.8 per cent. Other popular photo motifs are pictures of food (P: 10.2%; S: 11.0%), activities (P: 7.2%; S: 7.7%), landscapes (P: 6.3%; S: 7.1%), and of/with family and friends (P: 12.5%; S: 6.0%). Photos in medical or clinical settings are rare, with one per cent in the posts and three per cent in the stories. Looking at the bodies and faces displayed, a comparatively normal to positive image of the bloggers that were studied can be observed. Most of the people in the posts present themselves with hair (81.3%), wear make-up (53.3%) and smile at the camera (64.1%). A similar trend can also be seen in the stories. Here 63.8 per cent present themselves with hair, 62.7 per cent with make-up and 55.3 per cent with happy facial expressions. In contrast, scars (P: 1.6%; S: 4.4%) or amputations (P: 0.2%; S: 0.1%) are hardly ever shown. Thus, possible therapy-accompanying symptoms, such as alopecia, ports for chemotherapy, or amputations (e.g. mastectomy in the case of breast cancer) are rarely or hardly ever made visible by cancer bloggers. Captions, Hashtags, and Emojis Similar to the motifs, everyday themes dominate in the captions of the images, such as the description of activities (P: 23.2%; S: 18.0%), food (P: 8.2%; S: 9.3%), or beauty/fashion (P: 6.2%; S: 10.2%). However, information on the current health status of the person affected can be found under every tenth photo, both in the stories and in the posts. Hashtags are mainly found amongst the posts with 81.5 per cent. In keeping with the caption, normal themes were also chosen here, divided into the categories of activities (17.7%), beauty/fashion (7.6%), food (5.8%), and family/friends (4.8%). Illness-specific hashtags (e.g. #cancer, #survivor, or #chemo) were chosen in 15.6 per cent. In addition, the cancer bloggers in this study used emojis in 74 per cent of their posts. In the stories, however, only 28.2 per cent of the content was tagged with emojis. The most common category is smileys & people (P: 46.8%; S: 52.8%), followed by symbols (e.g. hearts, ribbons) (P: 21.1%; S: 26.5%), and animals & nature (P: 17.0%; S: 14.2%). Emotions In captions, hashtags and emojis, emotions were divided into positive (e.g. joy, fighting spirit), neutral (e.g. simple narration of the experience), and negative (e.g. fear, anger). It is noticeable that in all three categories predominantly and significantly positive or neutral words and images were used to describe emotional states or experiences. In the case of captions, 40.4 per cent of the posts and 43.9 per cent of the stories could be classified as positive. For the hashtags, the values were 18.7 per cent (P) and 43 per cent (S), and for the emojis 60 per cent (P) and 65.7 per cent (S). In contrast, there were hardly any negative moods (captions P: 5.7%, S: 5.8%; hashtags P: 4.4%, S: 0.7%; emojis P: 8.7%, S: 6.4%). Although the disease status (e.g. active in therapy or completed) had less impact on emotional messages, a significant connection with the applied thematic areas could be observed. Thus, it is apparent that medical and/or therapeutic aspects tend to be described with positive and negative words and hashtags, e.g. the current health status (χ²(3) = 795.44, p =.000, φ = 0.346) or the topics of illness/health via hashtag (χ²(3) = 797.67, p =.000, φ = 0.361). Topics such as food (χ²(3) = 20.49, p =.000, φ = 0.056) or beauty/fashion (χ²(3) = 51.52, p =.000, φ = 0.092) are recognisably more impersonal from an emotional perspective. Discussion A Digital Identity Paradox Drugs, chemotherapy, setbacks, physical impairments, or anxiety are issues that usually accompany cancer patients during treatment and also in remission. Looking at the content posted by German-speaking cancer bloggers on Instagram, illness-related images and words are comparatively rare. The bloggers show their normal, mostly cancer-free world, in which negative and illness-related content does not seem to fit. Although they clearly draw attention to their illness through their biography, this is not or only rarely addressed. Therefore, it can be stated that cancer as a topic is excluded by choice by the bloggers examined. Neither motifs, captions, nor hashtags make the illness visible. This seems paradoxical because the content and biography appear to contradict each other. And yet, the content studied only shows what Jones et al. and Miller have already described: their identity paradox, or multiple identities. The digital acceptance of one's own illness and solidarity with (anonymous) fellow sufferers is clearly given through the disclosure in the biography, but yet a normal and healthy online ego—comparable to the peer group and equal to their own illness identity—is aspired to. It seems as if those affected have to switch their identity back and forth. The awareness that they are already different in real life (in this case, ill) encourages the users examined to show a normal, age-appropriate life—at least online, which is why we speak of an identity paradox 2.0. Based on our data, the obvious otherness of being ill—and in this context the potential higher risk of digital ostracism effects (Greer and Jewkes; Timeo et al.)—can be a reason for self-exclusion of the cancer topic, in order not to be excluded by a healthy peer. The Standard Creates the Content The positive tone that can be found in almost every second post can be explained by the platform standards and practices themselves (Waterloo et al.). Thus, smiling faces in a public environment correspond more to this than sadness, anger, or despair. Although disease-related topics in captions are also provided with negatively connoted language, they do not have a determining influence on the public self-image of the blogger and their life and the illness. The strong visual culture on Instagram does not leave much scope for "other", perhaps more authentic serious content. The fact that published content has the potential to talk about cancer and to make one’s own experience with the disease transparent is proven by blogs (Kim and Gilham). Instagram does not currently seem to be particularly suitable for public profiles to make serious illness narratives about cancer. Conclusion It remains to be noted that public cancer blogs attempt to include a serious topic on Instagram. But with regard to the data, we can see a form of (maybe unconsciously) self-chosen exclusion of illness narratives. The reasons might vary. On the one hand, cancer bloggers want to belong to a healthy peer group, and expressing a visible otherness would exclude them. Therefore, they try to reduce the higher risk potential of ostracism effects. On the other hand, internal Instagram regulations and standards create an environment which can strengthen the bloggers' posting behaviours: young people, especially, post life-affirming and life-related content. This also helps them to cope with crisis situations and to avoid being dominated by a life-threatening disease. Further research on cancer on Instagram is needed to determine to what extent this is desired, and whether an awareness of this paradox exists or develops intuitively. 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Howarth, Anita. "Food Banks: A Lens on the Hungry Body." M/C Journal 19, no. 1 (April 6, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1072.

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IntroductionIn Britain, hunger is often hidden in the privacy of the home. Yet otherwise private hunger is currently being rendered public and visible in the growing queues at charity-run food banks, where emergency food parcels are distributed directly to those who cannot afford to feed themselves or their families adequately (Downing et al.; Caplan). Food banks, in providing emergency relief to those in need, are responses to crisis moments, actualised through an embodied feeling of hunger that cannot be alleviated. The growing queues at food banks not only render hidden hunger visible, but also serve as reminders of the corporeal vulnerability of the human body to political and socio-economic shifts.A consideration of corporeality allows us to view the world through the lived experiences of the body. Human beings are “creatures of the flesh” who understand and reason, act and interact with their environments through the body (Johnson 81). The growing academic interest in corporeality signifies what Judith Butler calls a “new bodily ontology” (2). However, as Butler highlights, the body is also vulnerable to injury and suffering. An application of this ontology to hunger draws attention to eating as essential to life, so the denial of food poses an existential threat to health and ultimately to survival. The body’s response to threat is the physiological experience of hunger as a craving or longing that is the “most bodily experience of need […] a visceral desire locatable in a void” in which an empty stomach “initiates” a series of sounds and pangs that “call for action” in the form of eating (Anderson 27). Food bank queues serve as visible public reminders of this precariousness and of how social conditions can limit the ability of individuals to feed themselves, and so respond to an existential threat.Corporeal vulnerability made visible elicits responses that support societal interventions to feed the hungry, or that stigmatise hungry people by withdrawing or disparaging what limited support is available. Responses to vulnerability therefore evoke nurture and care or violence and abuse, and so in this sense are ambiguous (Butler; Cavarero). The responses are also normative, shaped by social and cultural understandings of what hunger is, what its causes are, and whether it is seen as originating in personal or societal failings. The stigmatising of individuals by blaming them for their hunger is closely allied to the feelings of shame that lie at the “irreducible absolutist core” of the idea of poverty (Sen 159). Shame is where the “internally felt inadequacies” of the impoverished individual and the “externally inflicted judgments” of society about the hungry body come together in a “co-construction of shame” (Walker et al. 5) that is a key part of the lived experience of hunger. The experience of shame, while common, is far from inevitable and is open to resistance (see Pickett; Foucault); shame can be subverted, turned from the hungry body and onto the society that allows hunger to happen. Who and what are deemed responsible are shaped by shifting ideas and contested understandings of hunger at a particular moment in time (Vernon).This exploration of corporeal vulnerability through food banks as a historically located response to hunger offers an alternative to studies which privilege representations, objectifying the body and “treating it as a discursive, textual, iconographic and metaphorical reality” while neglecting understandings derived from lived experiences and the responses that visible vulnerabilities elicit (Hamilakis 99). The argument made in this paper calls for a critical reconsideration of classic political economy approaches that view hunger in terms of a class struggle against the material conditions that give rise to it, and responses that ultimately led to the construction of the welfare state (Vernon). These political economy approaches, in focusing on the structures that lead to hunger and that respond to it, are more closed than Butler’s notion of ambiguous and constantly changing social responses to corporeal vulnerability. This paper also challenges the dominant tradition of nutrition science, which medicalises hunger. While nutrition science usefully draws attention to the physiological experiences and existential threat posed by acute hunger, the scientific focus on the “anatomical functioning” of the body and the optimising of survival problematically separates eating from the social contexts in which hunger is experienced (Lupton 11, 12; Abbots and Lavis). The focus in this article on the corporeal vulnerability of hunger interweaves contested representations of, and ideas about, hunger with the physiological experience of it, the material conditions that shape it, and the lived experiences of deprivation. Food banks offer a lens onto these experiences and their complexities.Food Banks: Deprivation Made VisibleSince the 1980s, food banks have become the fastest growing charitable organisations in the wealthiest countries of North America, Europe, and Australasia (Riches), but in Britain they are a recent phenomenon. The first opened in 2000, and by 2014, the largest operator, the Trussell Trust, had over 420 franchised food banks, and more recently was opening more than one per week (Lambie-Mumford et al.; Lambie-Mumford and Dowler). British food banks hand out emergency food relief directly to those who cannot afford to feed themselves or their families adequately, and have become new sites where deprivation is materialised through a congregation of hungry people and the distribution of food parcels. The food relief parcels are intended as short-term immediate responses to crisis moments felt within the body when the individual cannot alleviate hunger through their own resources; they are for “emergency use only” to ameliorate individual crisis and acute vulnerability, and are not intended as long-term solutions to sustained, chronic poverty (Perry et al.). The need for food banks has emerged with the continued shrinkage of the welfare state, which for the past half century sought to mediate the impact of changing individual and social circumstances on those deemed to be most vulnerable to the vicissitudes of life. The proliferation of food banks since the 2009 financial crisis and the increased public discourse about them has normalised their presence and naturalised their role in alleviating acute food poverty (Perry et al.).Media images of food bank queues and stacks of tins waiting to be handed out (Glaze; Gore) evoke collective memories from the early twentieth century of hunger marches in protest at government inaction over poverty, long queues at soup kitchens, and the faces of gaunt, unemployed war veterans (Vernon). After the Second World War, the spectre of communism and the expansionist agenda of the Soviet Union meant such images of hunger could become tools in a propaganda war constructed around the failure of the British state to care for its citizens (Field; Clarke et al; Vernon). The 1945 Labour government, elected on a social democratic agenda of reform in an era of food rationing, responded with a “war on want” based on the normative premise that no one should be without food, medical care, shelter, warmth or work. Labour’s response was the construction of the modern welfare state.The welfare state signified a major shift in ideational understandings of hunger. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ideas about hunger had been rooted in a moralistic account of divine punishment for individual failure (Vernon). Bodily experiences of hunger were seen as instruments for disciplining the indigent into a work ethic appropriate for a modern industrialised economy. The infamous workhouses, finally abolished in 1948, were key sites of deprivation where restrictions on how much food was distributed served to punish or discipline the hungry body into compliance with the dominant work ethic (Vernon; Foucault). However, these ideas shifted in the second half of the nineteenth century as the hungry citizen in Britain (if not in its colonies) was increasingly viewed as a victim of wider forces beyond the control of the individual, and the notion of disciplining the hungry body in workhouses was seen as reprehensible. A humanitarian treatment of hunger replaced a disciplinarian one as a more appropriate response to acute need (Shaw; Vernon). Charitable and reformist organisations proliferated with an agenda to feed, clothe, house, and campaign on behalf of those most deprived, and civil society largely assumed responsibility for those unable to feed themselves. By the early 1900s, ideas about hunger had begun to shift again, and after the Second World War ideational changes were formalised in the welfare state, premised on a view of hunger as due to structural rather than individual failure, hence the need for state intervention encapsulated in the “cradle to grave” mantra of the welfare state, i.e. of consistent care at the point of need for all citizens for their lifetime (see Clarke and Newman; Field; Powell). In this context, the suggestion that Britons could go to bed hungry because they could not afford to feed themselves would be seen as the failure of the “war on want” and of an advanced modern democracy to fulfil its responsibilities for the welfare of its citizens.Since the 1980s, there has been a retreat from these ideas. Successive governments have sought to rein in, reinvent or shrink what they have perceived as a “bloated” welfare state. In their view this has incentivised “dependency” by providing benefits so generous that the supposedly work-shy or “skivers” have no need to seek employment and can fund a diet of takeaways and luxury televisions (Howarth). These stigmatising ideas have, since the 2009 financial crisis and the 2010 election, become more entrenched as the Conservative-led government has sought to renew a neo-liberal agenda to shrink the welfare state, and legitimise a new mantra of austerity. This mantra is premised on the idea that the state can no longer afford the bloated welfare budget, that responsible government needs to “wean” people off benefits, and that sanctions imposed for not seeking work or for incorrectly filling in benefit claim forms serve to “encourage” people into work. Critics counter-argue that the punitive nature of sanctions has exacerbated deprivation and contributed to the growing use of food banks, a view the government disputes (Howarth; Caplan).Food Banks as Sites of Vulnerable CorporealityIn these shifting contexts, food banks have proliferated not only as sites of deprivation but also as sites of vulnerable corporeality, where people unable to draw on individual resources to respond to hunger congregate in search of social and material support. As growing numbers of people in Britain find themselves in this situation, the vulnerable corporeality of the hungry body becomes more pervasive and more visible. Hunger as a lived experience is laid bare in ever-longer food bank queues and also through the physiological, emotional and social consequences graphically described in personal blogs and in the testimonies of food bank users.Blogger Jack Monroe, for example, has recounted giving what little food she had to her child and going to bed hungry with a pot of ginger tea to “ease the stomach pains”; saying to her curious child “I’m not hungry,” while “the rumblings of my stomach call me a liar” (Monroe, Hunger Hurts). She has also written that her recourse to food banks started with the “terrifying and humiliating” admission that “you cannot afford to feed your child” and has expressed her reluctance to solicit the help of the food bank because “it feels like begging” (Monroe, Austerity Works?). Such blog accounts are corroborated in reports by food bank operators and a parliamentary enquiry which told stories of mothers not eating for days after being sanctioned under the benefit system; of children going to school hungry; of people leaving hospital after a major operation unable to feed themselves since their benefits have been cut; of the elderly having to make “hard choices” between “heat or eat” each winter; and of mixed feelings of relief and shame at receiving food bank parcels (All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry; Beattie; Cooper and Dumpleton; Caplan; Perry et al.). That is, two different visibilities have emerged: the shame of standing or being seen to stand in the food bank queue, and blogs that describe these feelings and the lived experience of hunger – both are vulnerable and visible, but in different ways and in different spaces: the physical or material, and the virtual.The response of doctors to the growing evidence of crisis was to warn that there were “all the signs of a public health emergency that could go unrecognised until it is too late to take preventative action,” that progress made against food poverty since the 1960s was being eroded (Ashton et al. 1631), and that the “robust last line of defence against hunger” provided by the welfare state was failing (Loopstra et al. n.p). Medical professionals thus sought to conscript the rhetorical resources of their professional credibility to highlight that this is a politically created public health crisis.This is not to suggest that acute hunger was absent for 50 years of the welfare state, but that with the closure of the last workhouses, the end of hunger marches, and the shutting of the soup kitchens by the 1950s, it became less visible. Over the past decade, hunger has become more visible in images of growing queues at food banks and stacked tins ready to be handed out by volunteers (Glaze; Gore) on production of a voucher provided on referral by professionals. Doctors, social workers or teachers are therefore tasked with discerning cases of need, deciding whose need is “genuine” and so worthy of food relief (see Downing et al.). The voucher system is regulated by professionals so that food banks are open only to those with a public identity constructed around bodily crisis. The sense of something as intimate as hunger being defined by others contrasts to making visible one’s own hunger through blogging. It suggests again how bodies become caught up in wider political struggles where not only is shame a co-construction of internal inadequacies and external judgements, but so too is hunger, albeit in different yet interweaving ways. New boundaries are being established between those who are deprived and those who are not, and also between those whose bodies are in short-term acute crisis, and those whose bodies are in long-term and chronic crisis, which is not deemed to be an emergency. It is in this context that food banks have also become sites of demarcation, shame, and contestation.Public debates about growing food bank queues highlight the ambiguous nature of societal responses to the vulnerability of hunger made visible. Government ministers have intensified internal shame in attributing growing food bank queues to individual inadequacies, failure to manage household budgets (Gove), and profligate spending on luxury (Johnston; Shipton). Civil society organisations have contested this account of hunger, turning shame away from the individual and onto the government. Austerity reforms have, they argue, “torn apart” the “basic safety net” of social responses to corporeal vulnerability put in place after the Second World War and intended to ensure that no-one was left hungry or destitute (Bingham), their vulnerability unattended to. Furthermore, the benefit sanctions impose punitive measures that leave families with “nothing” to live on for weeks. Hungry citizens, confronted with their own corporeal vulnerability and little choice but to seek relief from food banks, echo the Dickensian era of the workhouse (Cooper and Dumpleton) and indict the UK government response to poverty. Church leaders have called on the government to exercise “moral duty” and recognise the “acute moral imperative to act” to alleviate the suffering of the hungry body (Beattie; see also Bingham), and respond ethically to corporeal vulnerability with social policies that address unmet need for food. However, future cuts to welfare benefits mean the need for relief is likely to intensify.ConclusionThe aim of this paper was to explore the vulnerable corporeality of hunger through the lens of food banks, the twenty-first-century manifestations of charitable responses to acute need. Food banks have emerged in a gap between the renewal of a neo-liberal agenda of prudent government spending and the retreat of the welfare state, between struggles over resurgent ideas about individual responsibility and deep disquiet about wider social responsibilities. Food banks as sites of deprivation, in drawing attention to a newly vulnerable corporeality, potentially pose a threat to the moral credibility of the neo-liberal state. The threat is highlighted when the taboo of a hungry body, previously hidden because of shame, is being challenged by two new visibilities, that of food bank queues and the commentaries on blogs about the shame of having to queue for food.ReferencesAbbots, Emma-Jayne, and Anna Lavis. Eds. Why We Eat, How We Eat: Contemporary Encounters between Foods and Bodies. Farnham: Ashgate, 2013.All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry. “Feeding Britain.” 2014. 6 Jan. 2016 <https://foodpovertyinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/food>.Anderson, Patrick. “So Much Wasted:” Hunger, Performance, and the Morbidity of Resistance. 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Currie, Susan, and Donna Lee Brien. "Mythbusting Publishing: Questioning the ‘Runaway Popularity’ of Published Biography and Other Life Writing." M/C Journal 11, no. 4 (July 1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.43.

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Introduction: Our current obsession with the lives of others “Biography—that is to say, our creative and non-fictional output devoted to recording and interpreting real lives—has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance in recent years,” writes Nigel Hamilton in Biography: A Brief History (1). Ian Donaldson agrees that biography is back in fashion: “Once neglected within the academy and relegated to the dustier recesses of public bookstores, biography has made a notable return over recent years, emerging, somewhat surprisingly, as a new cultural phenomenon, and a new academic adventure” (23). For over a decade now, commentators having been making similar observations about our obsession with the intimacies of individual people’s lives. In a lecture in 1994, Justin Kaplan asserted the West was “a culture of biography” (qtd. in Salwak 1) and more recent research findings by John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge affirm that “the undiminished human curiosity about other peoples lives is clearly reflected in the popularity of autobiographies and biographies” (218). At least in relation to television, this assertion seems valid. In Australia, as in the USA and the UK, reality and other biographically based television shows have taken over from drama in both the numbers of shows produced and the viewers these shows attract, and these forms are also popular in Canada (see, for instance, Morreale on The Osbournes). In 2007, the program Biography celebrated its twentieth anniversary season to become one of the longest running documentary series on American television; so successful that in 1999 it was spun off into its own eponymous channel (Rak; Dempsey). Premiered in May 1996, Australian Story—which aims to utilise a “personal approach” to biographical storytelling—has won a significant viewership, critical acclaim and professional recognition (ABC). It can also be posited that the real home movies viewers submit to such programs as Australia’s Favourite Home Videos, and “chat” or “confessional” television are further reflections of a general mania for biographical detail (see Douglas), no matter how fragmented, sensationalized, or even inane and cruel. A recent example of the latter, the USA-produced The Moment of Truth, has contestants answering personal questions under polygraph examination and then again in front of an audience including close relatives and friends—the more “truthful” their answers (and often, the more humiliated and/or distressed contestants are willing to be), the more money they can win. Away from television, but offering further evidence of this interest are the growing readerships for personally oriented weblogs and networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook (Grossman), individual profiles and interviews in periodical publications, and the recently widely revived newspaper obituary column (Starck). Adult and community education organisations run short courses on researching and writing auto/biographical forms and, across Western countries, the family history/genealogy sections of many local, state, and national libraries have been upgraded to meet the increasing demand for these services. Academically, journals and e-mail discussion lists have been established on the topics of biography and autobiography, and North American, British, and Australian universities offer undergraduate and postgraduate courses in life writing. The commonly aired wisdom is that published life writing in its many text-based forms (biography, autobiography, memoir, diaries, and collections of personal letters) is enjoying unprecedented popularity. It is our purpose to examine this proposition. Methodological problems There are a number of problems involved in investigating genre popularity, growth, and decline in publishing. Firstly, it is not easy to gain access to detailed statistics, which are usually only available within the industry. Secondly, it is difficult to ascertain how publishing statistics are gathered and what they report (Eliot). There is the question of whether bestselling booklists reflect actual book sales or are manipulated marketing tools (Miller), although the move from surveys of booksellers to electronic reporting at point of sale in new publishing lists such as BookScan will hopefully obviate this problem. Thirdly, some publishing lists categorise by subject and form, some by subject only, and some do not categorise at all. This means that in any analysis of these statistics, a decision has to be made whether to use the publishing list’s system or impose a different mode. If the publishing list is taken at face value, the question arises of whether to use categorisation by form or by subject. Fourthly, there is the bedeviling issue of terminology. Traditionally, there reigned a simple dualism in the terminology applied to forms of telling the true story of an actual life: biography and autobiography. Publishing lists that categorise their books, such as BookScan, have retained it. But with postmodern recognition of the presence of the biographer in a biography and of the presence of other subjects in an autobiography, the dichotomy proves false. There is the further problem of how to categorise memoirs, diaries, and letters. In the academic arena, the term “life writing” has emerged to describe the field as a whole. Within the genre of life writing, there are, however, still recognised sub-genres. Academic definitions vary, but generally a biography is understood to be a scholarly study of a subject who is not the writer; an autobiography is the story of a entire life written by its subject; while a memoir is a segment or particular focus of that life told, again, by its own subject. These terms are, however, often used interchangeably even by significant institutions such the USA Library of Congress, which utilises the term “biography” for all. Different commentators also use differing definitions. Hamilton uses the term “biography” to include all forms of life writing. Donaldson discusses how the term has been co-opted to include biographies of place such as Peter Ackroyd’s London: The Biography (2000) and of things such as Lizzie Collingham’s Curry: A Biography (2005). This reflects, of course, a writing/publishing world in which non-fiction stories of places, creatures, and even foodstuffs are called biographies, presumably in the belief that this will make them more saleable. The situation is further complicated by the emergence of hybrid publishing forms such as, for instance, the “memoir-with-recipes” or “food memoir” (Brien, Rutherford and Williamson). Are such books to be classified as autobiography or put in the “cookery/food & drink” category? We mention in passing the further confusion caused by novels with a subtitle of The Biography such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando. The fifth methodological problem that needs to be mentioned is the increasing globalisation of the publishing industry, which raises questions about the validity of the majority of studies available (including those cited herein) which are nationally based. Whether book sales reflect what is actually read (and by whom), raises of course another set of questions altogether. Methodology In our exploration, we were fundamentally concerned with two questions. Is life writing as popular as claimed? And, if it is, is this a new phenomenon? To answer these questions, we examined a range of available sources. We began with the non-fiction bestseller lists in Publishers Weekly (a respected American trade magazine aimed at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents that claims to be international in scope) from their inception in 1912 to the present time. We hoped that this data could provide a longitudinal perspective. The term bestseller was coined by Publishers Weekly when it began publishing its lists in 1912; although the first list of popular American books actually appeared in The Bookman (New York) in 1895, based itself on lists appearing in London’s The Bookman since 1891 (Bassett and Walter 206). The Publishers Weekly lists are the best source of longitudinal information as the currently widely cited New York Times listings did not appear till 1942, with the Wall Street Journal a late entry into the field in 1994. We then examined a number of sources of more recent statistics. We looked at the bestseller lists from the USA-based Amazon.com online bookseller; recent research on bestsellers in Britain; and lists from Nielsen BookScan Australia, which claims to tally some 85% or more of books sold in Australia, wherever they are published. In addition to the reservations expressed above, caveats must be aired in relation to these sources. While Publishers Weekly claims to be an international publication, it largely reflects the North American publishing scene and especially that of the USA. Although available internationally, Amazon.com also has its own national sites—such as Amazon.co.uk—not considered here. It also caters to a “specific computer-literate, credit-able clientele” (Gutjahr: 219) and has an unashamedly commercial focus, within which all the information generated must be considered. In our analysis of the material studied, we will use “life writing” as a genre term. When it comes to analysis of the lists, we have broken down the genre of life writing into biography and autobiography, incorporating memoir, letters, and diaries under autobiography. This is consistent with the use of the terminology in BookScan. Although we have broken down the genre in this way, it is the overall picture with regard to life writing that is our concern. It is beyond the scope of this paper to offer a detailed analysis of whether, within life writing, further distinctions should be drawn. Publishers Weekly: 1912 to 2006 1912 saw the first list of the 10 bestselling non-fiction titles in Publishers Weekly. It featured two life writing texts, being headed by an autobiography, The Promised Land by Russian Jewish immigrant Mary Antin, and concluding with Albert Bigelow Paine’s six-volume biography, Mark Twain. The Publishers Weekly lists do not categorise non-fiction titles by either form or subject, so the classifications below are our own with memoir classified as autobiography. In a decade-by-decade tally of these listings, there were 3 biographies and 20 autobiographies in the lists between 1912 and 1919; 24 biographies and 21 autobiographies in the 1920s; 13 biographies and 40 autobiographies in the 1930s; 8 biographies and 46 biographies in the 1940s; 4 biographies and 14 autobiographies in the 1950s; 11 biographies and 13 autobiographies in the 1960s; 6 biographies and 11 autobiographies in the 1970s; 3 biographies and 19 autobiographies in the 1980s; 5 biographies and 17 autobiographies in the 1990s; and 2 biographies and 7 autobiographies from 2000 up until the end of 2006. See Appendix 1 for the relevant titles and authors. Breaking down the most recent figures for 1990–2006, we find a not radically different range of figures and trends across years in the contemporary environment. The validity of looking only at the top ten books sold in any year is, of course, questionable, as are all the issues regarding sources discussed above. But one thing is certain in terms of our inquiry. There is no upwards curve obvious here. If anything, the decade break-down suggests that sales are trending downwards. This is in keeping with the findings of Michael Korda, in his history of twentieth-century bestsellers. He suggests a consistent longitudinal picture across all genres: In every decade, from 1900 to the end of the twentieth century, people have been reliably attracted to the same kind of books […] Certain kinds of popular fiction always do well, as do diet books […] self-help books, celebrity memoirs, sensationalist scientific or religious speculation, stories about pets, medical advice (particularly on the subjects of sex, longevity, and child rearing), folksy wisdom and/or humour, and the American Civil War (xvii). Amazon.com since 2000 The USA-based Amazon.com online bookselling site provides listings of its own top 50 bestsellers since 2000, although only the top 14 bestsellers are recorded for 2001. As fiction and non-fiction are not separated out on these lists and no genre categories are specified, we have again made our own decisions about what books fall into the category of life writing. Generally, we erred on the side of inclusion. (See Appendix 2.) However, when it came to books dealing with political events, we excluded books dealing with specific aspects of political practice/policy. This meant excluding books on, for instance, George Bush’s so-called ‘war on terror,’ of which there were a number of bestsellers listed. In summary, these listings reveal that of the top 364 books sold by Amazon from 2000 to 2007, 46 (or some 12.6%) were, according to our judgment, either biographical or autobiographical texts. This is not far from the 10% of the 1912 Publishers Weekly listing, although, as above, the proportion of bestsellers that can be classified as life writing varied dramatically from year to year, with no discernible pattern of peaks and troughs. This proportion tallied to 4% auto/biographies in 2000, 14% in 2001, 10% in 2002, 18% in 2003 and 2004, 4% in 2005, 14% in 2006 and 20% in 2007. This could suggest a rising trend, although it does not offer any consistent trend data to suggest sales figures may either continue to grow, or fall again, in 2008 or afterwards. Looking at the particular texts in these lists (see Appendix 2) also suggests that there is no general trend in the popularity of life writing in relation to other genres. For instance, in these listings in Amazon.com, life writing texts only rarely figure in the top 10 books sold in any year. So rarely indeed, that from 2001 there were only five in this category. In 2001, John Adams by David McCullough was the best selling book of the year; in 2003, Hillary Clinton’s autobiographical Living History was 7th; in 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton reached number 1; in 2006, Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman was 9th; and in 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8th. Apart from McCulloch’s biography of Adams, all the above are autobiographical texts, while the focus on leading political figures is notable. Britain: Feather and Woodbridge With regard to the British situation, we did not have actual lists and relied on recent analysis. John Feather and Hazel Woodbridge find considerably higher levels for life writing in Britain than above with, from 1998 to 2005, 28% of British published non-fiction comprising autobiography, while 8% of hardback and 5% of paperback non-fiction was biography (2007). Furthermore, although Feather and Woodbridge agree with commentators that life writing is currently popular, they do not agree that this is a growth state, finding the popularity of life writing “essentially unchanged” since their previous study, which covered 1979 to the early 1990s (Feather and Reid). Australia: Nielsen BookScan 2006 and 2007 In the Australian publishing industry, where producing books remains an ‘expensive, risky endeavour which is increasingly market driven’ (Galligan 36) and ‘an inherently complex activity’ (Carter and Galligan 4), the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures reveal that the total numbers of books sold in Australia has remained relatively static over the past decade (130.6 million in the financial year 1995–96 and 128.8 million in 2003–04) (ABS). During this time, however, sales volumes of non-fiction publications have grown markedly, with a trend towards “non-fiction, mass market and predictable” books (Corporall 41) resulting in general non-fiction sales in 2003–2004 outselling general fiction by factors as high as ten depending on the format—hard- or paperback, and trade or mass market paperback (ABS 2005). However, while non-fiction has increased in popularity in Australia, the same does not seem to hold true for life writing. Here, in utilising data for the top 5,000 selling non-fiction books in both 2006 and 2007, we are relying on Nielsen BookScan’s categorisation of texts as either biography or autobiography. In 2006, no works of life writing made the top 10 books sold in Australia. In looking at the top 100 books sold for 2006, in some cases the subjects of these works vary markedly from those extracted from the Amazon.com listings. In Australia in 2006, life writing makes its first appearance at number 14 with convicted drug smuggler Schapelle Corby’s My Story. This is followed by another My Story at 25, this time by retired Australian army chief, Peter Cosgrove. Jonestown: The Power and Myth of Alan Jones comes in at 34 for the Australian broadcaster’s biographer Chris Masters; the biography, The Innocent Man by John Grisham at 38 and Li Cunxin’s autobiographical Mao’s Last Dancer at 45. Australian Susan Duncan’s memoir of coping with personal loss, Salvation Creek: An Unexpected Life makes 50; bestselling USA travel writer Bill Bryson’s autobiographical memoir of his childhood The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid 69; Mandela: The Authorised Portrait by Rosalind Coward, 79; and Joanne Lees’s memoir of dealing with her kidnapping, the murder of her partner and the justice system in Australia’s Northern Territory, No Turning Back, 89. These books reveal a market preference for autobiographical writing, and an almost even split between Australian and overseas subjects in 2006. 2007 similarly saw no life writing in the top 10. The books in the top 100 sales reveal a downward trend, with fewer titles making this band overall. In 2007, Terri Irwin’s memoir of life with her famous husband, wildlife warrior Steve Irwin, My Steve, came in at number 26; musician Andrew Johns’s memoir of mental illness, The Two of Me, at 37; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography Infidel at 39; John Grogan’s biography/memoir, Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog, at 42; Sally Collings’s biography of the inspirational young survivor Sophie Delezio, Sophie’s Journey, at 51; and Elizabeth Gilbert’s hybrid food, self-help and travel memoir, Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything at 82. Mao’s Last Dancer, published the year before, remained in the top 100 in 2007 at 87. When moving to a consideration of the top 5,000 books sold in Australia in 2006, BookScan reveals only 62 books categorised as life writing in the top 1,000, and only 222 in the top 5,000 (with 34 titles between 1,000 and 1,999, 45 between 2,000 and 2,999, 48 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 33 between 4,000 and 5,000). 2007 shows a similar total of 235 life writing texts in the top 5,000 bestselling books (75 titles in the first 1,000, 27 between 1,000 and 1,999, 51 between 2,000 and 2,999, 39 between 3,000 and 3,999, and 43 between 4,000 and 5,000). In both years, 2006 and 2007, life writing thus not only constituted only some 4% of the bestselling 5,000 titles in Australia, it also showed only minimal change between these years and, therefore, no significant growth. Conclusions Our investigation using various instruments that claim to reflect levels of book sales reveals that Western readers’ willingness to purchase published life writing has not changed significantly over the past century. We find no evidence of either a short, or longer, term growth or boom in sales in such books. Instead, it appears that what has been widely heralded as a new golden age of life writing may well be more the result of an expanded understanding of what is included in the genre than an increased interest in it by either book readers or publishers. What recent years do appear to have seen, however, is a significantly increased interest by public commentators, critics, and academics in this genre of writing. We have also discovered that the issue of our current obsession with the lives of others tends to be discussed in academic as well as popular fora as if what applies to one sub-genre or production form applies to another: if biography is popular, then autobiography will also be, and vice versa. If reality television programming is attracting viewers, then readers will be flocking to life writing as well. Our investigation reveals that such propositions are questionable, and that there is significant research to be completed in mapping such audiences against each other. This work has also highlighted the difficulty of separating out the categories of written texts in publishing studies, firstly in terms of determining what falls within the category of life writing as distinct from other forms of non-fiction (the hybrid problem) and, secondly, in terms of separating out the categories within life writing. Although we have continued to use the terms biography and autobiography as sub-genres, we are aware that they are less useful as descriptors than they are often assumed to be. In order to obtain a more complete and accurate picture, publishing categories may need to be agreed upon, redefined and utilised across the publishing industry and within academia. This is of particular importance in the light of the suggestions (from total sales volumes) that the audiences for books are limited, and therefore the rise of one sub-genre may be directly responsible for the fall of another. Bair argues, for example, that in the 1980s and 1990s, the popularity of what she categorises as memoir had direct repercussions on the numbers of birth-to-death biographies that were commissioned, contracted, and published as “sales and marketing staffs conclude[d] that readers don’t want a full-scale life any more” (17). Finally, although we have highlighted the difficulty of using publishing statistics when there is no common understanding as to what such data is reporting, we hope this study shows that the utilisation of such material does add a depth to such enquiries, especially in interrogating the anecdotal evidence that is often quoted as data in publishing and other studies. Appendix 1 Publishers Weekly listings 1990–1999 1990 included two autobiographies, Bo Knows Bo by professional athlete Bo Jackson (with Dick Schaap) and Ronald Reagan’s An America Life: An Autobiography. In 1991, there were further examples of life writing with unimaginative titles, Me: Stories of My Life by Katherine Hepburn, Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography by Kitty Kelley, and Under Fire: An American Story by Oliver North with William Novak; as indeed there were again in 1992 with It Doesn’t Take a Hero: The Autobiography of Norman Schwarzkopf, Sam Walton: Made in America, the autobiography of the founder of Wal-Mart, Diana: Her True Story by Andrew Morton, Every Living Thing, yet another veterinary outpouring from James Herriot, and Truman by David McCullough. In 1993, radio shock-jock Howard Stern was successful with the autobiographical Private Parts, as was Betty Eadie with her detailed recounting of her alleged near-death experience, Embraced by the Light. Eadie’s book remained on the list in 1994 next to Don’t Stand too Close to a Naked Man, comedian Tim Allen’s autobiography. Flag-waving titles continue in 1995 with Colin Powell’s My American Journey, and Miss America, Howard Stern’s follow-up to Private Parts. 1996 saw two autobiographical works, basketball superstar Dennis Rodman’s Bad as I Wanna Be and figure-skater, Ekaterina Gordeeva’s (with EM Swift) My Sergei: A Love Story. In 1997, Diana: Her True Story returns to the top 10, joining Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and prolific biographer Kitty Kelly’s The Royals, while in 1998, there is only the part-autobiography, part travel-writing A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by musician Jimmy Buffet. There is no biography or autobiography included in either the 1999 or 2000 top 10 lists in Publishers Weekly, nor in that for 2005. In 2001, David McCullough’s biography John Adams and Jack Welch’s business memoir Jack: Straight from the Gut featured. In 2002, Let’s Roll! Lisa Beamer’s tribute to her husband, one of the heroes of 9/11, written with Ken Abraham, joined Rudolph Giuliani’s autobiography, Leadership. 2003 saw Hillary Clinton’s autobiography Living History and Paul Burrell’s memoir of his time as Princess Diana’s butler, A Royal Duty, on the list. In 2004, it was Bill Clinton’s turn with My Life. In 2006, we find John Grisham’s true crime (arguably a biography), The Innocent Man, at the top, Grogan’s Marley and Me at number three, and the autobiographical The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama in fourth place. Appendix 2 Amazon.com listings since 2000 In 2000, there were only two auto/biographies in the top Amazon 50 bestsellers with Lance Armstrong’s It’s Not about the Bike: My Journey Back to Life about his battle with cancer at 20, and Dave Eggers’s self-consciously fictionalised memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at 32. In 2001, only the top 14 bestsellers were recorded. At number 1 is John Adams by David McCullough and, at 11, Jack: Straight from the Gut by USA golfer Jack Welch. In 2002, Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani was at 12; Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert Caro at 29; Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper by Patricia Cornwell at 42; Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative by David Brock at 48; and Louis Gerstner’s autobiographical Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance: Inside IBM’s Historic Turnaround at 50. In 2003, Living History by Hillary Clinton was 7th; Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson 14th; Dereliction of Duty: The Eyewitness Account of How President Bill Clinton Endangered America’s Long-Term National Security by Robert Patterson 20th; Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer 32nd; Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life by Queen Noor of Jordan 33rd; Kate Remembered, Scott Berg’s biography of Katharine Hepburn, 37th; Who’s your Caddy?: Looping for the Great, Near Great and Reprobates of Golf by Rick Reilly 39th; The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship about a winning baseball team by David Halberstam 42nd; and Every Second Counts by Lance Armstrong 49th. In 2004, My Life by Bill Clinton was the best selling book of the year; American Soldier by General Tommy Franks was 16th; Kevin Phillips’s American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush 18th; Timothy Russert’s Big Russ and Me: Father and Son. Lessons of Life 20th; Tony Hendra’s Father Joe: The Man who Saved my Soul 23rd; Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton 27th; Cokie Roberts’s Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised our Nation 31st; Kitty Kelley’s The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty 42nd; and Chronicles, Volume 1 by Bob Dylan was 43rd. In 2005, auto/biographical texts were well down the list with only The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion at 45 and The Glass Castle: A Memoir by Jeanette Walls at 49. In 2006, there was a resurgence of life writing with Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck: and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman at 9; Grisham’s The Innocent Man at 12; Bill Buford’s food memoir Heat: an Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany at 23; more food writing with Julia Child’s My Life in France at 29; Immaculée Ilibagiza’s Left to Tell: Discovering God amidst the Rwandan Holocaust at 30; CNN anchor Anderson Cooper’s Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters and Survival at 43; and Isabella Hatkoff’s Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship (between a baby hippo and a giant tortoise) at 44. In 2007, Ishmael Beah’s discredited A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier came in at 8; Walter Isaacson’s Einstein: His Life and Universe 13; Ayaan Hirst Ali’s autobiography of her life in Muslim society, Infidel, 18; The Reagan Diaries 25; Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI 29; Mother Teresa: Come be my Light 36; Clapton: The Autobiography 40; Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles 45; Tony Dungy’s Quiet Strength: The Principles, Practices & Priorities of a Winning Life 47; and Daniel Tammet’s Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant at 49. Acknowledgements A sincere thank you to Michael Webster at RMIT for assistance with access to Nielsen BookScan statistics, and to the reviewers of this article for their insightful comments. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC). “About Us.” Australian Story 2008. 1 June 2008. ‹http://www.abc.net.au/austory/aboutus.htm>. Australian Bureau of Statistics. “1363.0 Book Publishers, Australia, 2003–04.” 2005. 1 June 2008 ‹http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/1363.0>. Bair, Deirdre “Too Much S & M.” Sydney Morning Herald 10–11 Sept. 2005: 17. Basset, Troy J., and Christina M. Walter. “Booksellers and Bestsellers: British Book Sales as Documented by The Bookman, 1891–1906.” Book History 4 (2001): 205–36. Brien, Donna Lee, Leonie Rutherford, and Rosemary Williamson. “Hearth and Hotmail: The Domestic Sphere as Commodity and Community in Cyberspace.” M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). 1 June 2008 ‹http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/10-brien.php>. Carter, David, and Anne Galligan. “Introduction.” Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2007. 1–14. Corporall, Glenda. Project Octopus: Report Commissioned by the Australian Society of Authors. Sydney: Australian Society of Authors, 1990. Dempsey, John “Biography Rewrite: A&E’s Signature Series Heads to Sib Net.” Variety 4 Jun. 2006. 1 June 2008 ‹http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117944601.html?categoryid=1238&cs=1>. Donaldson, Ian. “Matters of Life and Death: The Return of Biography.” Australian Book Review 286 (Nov. 2006): 23–29. Douglas, Kate. “‘Blurbing’ Biographical: Authorship and Autobiography.” Biography 24.4 (2001): 806–26. Eliot, Simon. “Very Necessary but not Sufficient: A Personal View of Quantitative Analysis in Book History.” Book History 5 (2002): 283–93. Feather, John, and Hazel Woodbridge. “Bestsellers in the British Book Industry.” Publishing Research Quarterly 23.3 (Sept. 2007): 210–23. Feather, JP, and M Reid. “Bestsellers and the British Book Industry.” Publishing Research Quarterly 11.1 (1995): 57–72. Galligan, Anne. “Living in the Marketplace: Publishing in the 1990s.” Publishing Studies 7 (1999): 36–44. Grossman, Lev. “Time’s Person of the Year: You.” Time 13 Dec. 2006. Online edition. 1 June 2008 ‹http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C1569514%2C00.html>. Gutjahr, Paul C. “No Longer Left Behind: Amazon.com, Reader Response, and the Changing Fortunes of the Christian Novel in America.” Book History 5 (2002): 209–36. Hamilton, Nigel. Biography: A Brief History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007. Kaplan, Justin. “A Culture of Biography.” The Literary Biography: Problems and Solutions. Ed. Dale Salwak. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996. 1–11. Korda, Michael. Making the List: A Cultural History of the American Bestseller 1900–1999. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2001. Miller, Laura J. “The Bestseller List as Marketing Tool and Historical Fiction.” Book History 3 (2000): 286–304. Morreale, Joanne. “Revisiting The Osbournes: The Hybrid Reality-Sitcom.” Journal of Film and Video 55.1 (Spring 2003): 3–15. Rak, Julie. “Bio-Power: CBC Television’s Life & Times and A&E Network’s Biography on A&E.” LifeWriting 1.2 (2005): 1–18. Starck, Nigel. “Capturing Life—Not Death: A Case For Burying The Posthumous Parallax.” Text: The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs 5.2 (2001). 1 June 2008 ‹http://www.textjournal.com.au/oct01/starck.htm>.
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Williams, Graeme Henry. "Australian Artists Abroad." M/C Journal 19, no. 5 (October 13, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1154.

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Abstract:
At the start of the twentieth century, many young Australian artists travelled abroad to expand their art education and to gain exposure to the modern art movements of Europe. Most of these artists were active members of artist associations such as the Victorian Artists Society or the New South Wales Society of Artists. Male artists from Victoria were generally also members of the Melbourne Savage Club, a club with a strong association with the arts.This paper investigates the dual function of the club, as a space where the artists felt “at home” in the familiar environment that the club offered whilst they were abroad and, at the same time, a meeting space where they could engage in a stimulating artistic environment and gain introductions to leading figures in the art world. For those artists who chose England, London’s arts clubs played a large role, for it was in these establishments that they discussed, exhibited, shared, and met with their English counterparts. The club environment in London would have a significant impact on male Australian artists, as it offered a space where they were integrated into the English art world, which enhanced their experience whilst abroad.Artists were seldom members of Australia’s early gentlemen’s clubs, however, in the late nineteenth century Melbourne, artists formed less formal social groupings with exotic names such as the Prehistoric Order of Cannibals, the Buonarotti Club, and the Ishmael Club (Mead). Melbourne artists congregated in these clubs until the Melbourne Savage Club, modelled on the London Savage Club (1857)—a club whose membership was restricted to practitioners in the performing and visual arts—opened its doors in 1894.The Melbourne Savage Club had its origins in the Metropolitan Music Club, established in the late 1880s by a group of professional and amateur musicians and music lovers. The club initially admitted musicians and people from the dramatic professions free-of-charge, however, author Randolph Bedford (1868–1941) and artist Alf Vincent (1874–1915) were not content to be treated on a different basis to the musicians and actors, and two months after Vincent joined the club, at a Special General Meeting, the club resolved to vary Rule 6, “to admit landscape or portrait painters and sculptors without entrance fee” (Melbourne Savage Club). At another Special General Meeting, a year later, the rule was altered to admit “recognised members of the musical, dramatic and artistic professions and sculptors without payment of entrance fee” (Melbourne Savage Club).This resulted in an immediate influx of prominent Victorian male artists (Williams) and the Melbourne Savage Club became their place of choice to gather and enjoy the fellowship the club offered and to share ideas in a convivial atmosphere. When the opportunity arose for them to travel to London in the early twentieth century, they met in London’s famous art clubs. Membership of the Melbourne Savage Club not only conferred rights to visit reciprocal clubs whilst in London, but also facilitated introductions to potential patrons. The London clubs were the venue of choice for visiting artists to meet their fellow artist expatriates and to share experiences and, importantly, to meet with their British counterparts, exhibit their works, and establish valuable contacts.The London Savage Club attracted many Australian expatriates. Not only is it the grandfather of London’s bohemian clubs but also it was the model for arts clubs the world over. Founded in 1857, the qualification for admission was (and still is) to be, “a working man in literature or art, and a good fellow” (Halliday vii). If a candidate met these requirements, he would be cordially received “come whence he may.” This was embodied in the club’s first rules which required applicants for membership to be from a restricted range of pursuits relating to the arts thought to be commensurate with its bohemian ideals, namely art, literature, drama, or music.The second London arts club that attracted expatriate Australian artists was the New English Arts Club, founded in 1886 by young English artists returning from studying art in Paris. Members of The New English Arts Club were influenced by the Impressionist style as opposed to the academic art shown at the Royal Academy. As a meeting place for Australia’s expatriate artists, the New English Arts Club had a particular influence, as it exposed them to significant early Modern artist members such as John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), Walter Sickert (1860–1942), William Orpen (1878–1931) and Augustus John (1878–1961) (Corbett and Perry; Thornton; Melbourne Savage Club).The third, and arguably the most popular with the expatriate Australian artists’ club, was the Chelsea Arts Club, a bohemian club formed in 1891 by local working artists looking for a place to go to “meet, talk, eat and drink” (Cross).Apart from the American-born founding member, James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), amongst the biggest Chelsea names at the time of the influx of travelling young Australian artists were modernists Sir William Orpen, Augustus John, and John Sargent. The opportunity to mix with these leading British contemporary artists was irresistible to these antipodean artists (55).When Melbourne artist, Miles Evergood (1871–1939) arrived in London from America in 1910, he had been an active exhibiting member of the Salmagundi Club, a New York artists’ club. Almost immediately he joined the New English Arts Club and the Chelsea Arts Club. Hammer tells of him associating with “writer Israel Zangwill, sculptor Jacob Epstein, and anti-academic artists including Walter Sickert, Augustus John, John Lavery, John Singer Sargent and C.R.W. Nevison, who challenged art values in Britain at the beginning of the century” (Hammer 41).Arthur Streeton (1867–1943) used the Chelsea Arts Club as his postal address, as did many expatriate artists. The Melbourne Savage Club archives contain letters and greetings, with news from abroad, written from artist members back to their “Brother Savages” (Various).In late 1902, Streeton wrote to fellow artist and Savage Club member Tom Roberts (1856–1931) from London:I belong to the Chelsea Arts Club now, & meet the artists – MacKennel says it’s about the most artistic club (speaking in the real sense) in England. … They all seem to be here – McKennal, Longstaff, Mahony, Fullwood, Norman, Minns, Fox, Plataganet Tudor St. George Tucker, Quinn, Coates, Bunny, Alston, K, Sonny Pole, other minor lights and your old friend and admirer Smike – within 100 yards of here – there must be 30 different studios. (Streeton 94)Whilst some of the artists whom Streeton mentioned were studying at either the Royal Academy or the Slade School, it was the clubs like the Chelsea Arts Club where they were most likely to encounter fellow Australian artists. Tom Roberts was obviously attentive to Streeton’s enthusiastic account and, when he returned to London the following year to work on his commission for The Big Picture of the 1901 opening of the first Commonwealth Parliament, he soon joined. Roberts, through his expansive personality, became particularly active in London’s Australian expatriate artistic community and later became Vice-President of the Chelsea Arts Club. Along with Streeton and Roberts, other visiting Melbourne Savage Club artists joined the Chelsea Arts Club. They included, John Longstaff (1861–1941), James Quinn (1869–1951), George Coates (1869–1930), and Will Dyson (1880–1938), along with Sydney artists Henry Fullwood (1863–1930), George Lambert (1873–1930), and Will Ashton (1881–1963) (Croll 95). Smith describes the exodus to London and Paris: “It was the Chelsea Arts Club that the Heidelberg School established its last and least distinguished camp” (Smith, Smith and Heathcote 152).Streeton, who retained his Chelsea Arts Club membership when he returned for a while to Australia, wrote to Roberts in 1907, “I miss Chelsea & the Club-boys” (Streeton 107). In relation to Frederick McCubbin’s pending visit he wrote: “Prof McCubbin left here a week ago by German ‘Prinz Heinrich.’ … You’ll introduce him at the Chelsea Club and I hope they make him an Hon. Member, etc” (Streeton et al. 85). McCubbin wrote, after an evening at the Chelsea Arts Club, following a visit to the Royal Academy: “Tonight, I am dining with Australian artists in Soho, and shall be there to greet my old friends. How glad I am! Longstaff will be there, and Frank Stuart, Roberts, Fullwood, Pontin, Coates, Quinn, and Tucker’s brother, and many others from all around” (MacDonald, McCubbin and McCubbin 75). Impressed by the work of Turner he wrote to his wife Annie, following avisit to the Tate Gallery:I went yesterday with Fullwood and G. Coates and Tom Roberts for a ramble … to the Tate Gallery – a beautiful freestone building facing the river through a portico into the gallery where the lately found turners are exhibited – these are not like the greater number of pictures in the National Gallery – they represent his different periods, but are mostly in his latest style, when he had realised the quality of light (McCubbin).Clearly Turner’s paintings had a profound impression on him. In the same letter he wrote:they are mostly unfinished but they are divine – such dreams of colour – a dozen of them are like pearls … mist and cloud and sea and land, drenched in light … They glow with tender brilliancy that radiates from these canvases – how he loved the dazzling brilliancy of morning or evening – these gems with their opal colour – you feel how he gloried in these tender visions of light and air. He worked from darkness into light.The Chelsea Arts Club also served as a venue for artists to entertain and host distinguished visitors from home. These guests included; Melbourne Savage Club artist member Alf Vincent (Joske 112), National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Trustee and popular patron of the arts, Professor Baldwin Spencer (1860–1929), Professor Frederick S. Delmer (1864–1931) and conductor George Marshall-Hall (1862–1915) (Mulvaney and Calaby 329; Streeton 111).Artist Miles Evergood arrived in London in 1910, and visited the Chelsea Arts Club. He mentions expatriate Australian artists gathering at the Club, including Will Dyson, Fred Leist (1873–1945), David Davies (1864–1939), Will Ashton (1881–1963), and Henry Fullwood (Hammer 41).Most of the Melbourne Savage Club artist members were active in the London Savage Club. On one occasion, in November 1908, Roberts, with fellow artist MacKennal in the Chair, attended the Australian Artists’ Dinner held there. This event attracted twenty-five expatriate Australian artists, all residing in London at the time (McQueen 532).These London arts clubs had a significant influence on the expatriate Australian artists for they became the “glue” that held them together whilst abroad. Although some artists travelled abroad specifically to take up places at the Royal Academy School or the Slade School, only a minority of artists arriving in London from Australia and other British colonies were offered positions at these prestigious schools. Many artists travelled to “try their luck.” The arts clubs of London, whilst similarly discerning in their membership criteria, generally offered a visiting “brother-of-the-brush” a warm welcome as a professional courtesy. They featured the familiar rollicking all-male “Smoke Nights” a feature of the Melbourne Savage Club. With a greater “artist” membership than the clubs in Australia, expatriate artists were not only able to catch up with their friends from Australia, but also they could associate with England’s finest and most progressive artists in a familiar congenial environment. The clubs were a “home away from home” and described by Underhill as, “an artistic Earl’s Court” (Underhill 99). Most importantly, the clubs were a centre for discourse, arguably even more so than were the teaching academies. Britain’s leading modernist artists were members of the Chelsea Arts Club and the New English Arts Club and mixed freely with the visiting Australian artists.Many Australian artists, such as Miles Evergood and George Bell (1878–1966), held anti-academic views similar to English club members and embraced the new artistic trends, which they would bring back to Australia. Streeton had no illusions about the relative worth of the famed institutions and the exhibitions held by clubs such as the New English. Writing to Roberts before he joins him in London, he describes the Royal Academy as having, “an inartistic atmosphere” and claims he “hasn’t the least desire to go again” (Streeton 77). His preference lay with a concurrent “International Exhibition”, which featured works by Rodin, Whistler, Condor, Degas, and others who were setting the pace rather than merely continuing the academic traditions.Architect Hardy Wilson (1881–1955) served as secretary of The Chelsea Arts Club. When he returned to Australia he brought back with him a number of British works by Streeton and Lambert for an exhibition at the Guild Hall Melbourne (Underhill 92). Artists and Bohemians, a history of the Chelsea Arts Club, makes special reference of its world-wide contacts and singles out many of its prominent Australian members for specific mention including; Sir John William (Will) Ashton OBE, later Director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and Will Dyson, whose illustrious career as an Australian war artist was described in some detail. Dyson’s popularity led to his later appointment as Chairman of the Chelsea Arts Club where he initiated an ambitious rebuilding program, improving staff accommodation, refurbishing the members’ areas, and adding five bedrooms for visiting members (Bross 87-90).Whilst the influence of travel abroad on Australian artists has been noted, the importance of the London Clubs has not been fully explored. These clubs offered artists a space where they felt “at home” and a familiar environment whilst they were abroad. The clubs functioned as a meeting space where they could engage in a stimulating artistic environment and gain introductions to leading figures in the art world. For those artists who chose England, London’s arts clubs played a large role, for it was in these establishments that they discussed, exhibited, shared, and met with their English counterparts. The club environment in London had a significant impact on male Australian artists as it offered a space where they were integrated into the English art world which enhanced their experience whilst abroad and influenced the direction of their art.ReferencesCorbett, David Peters, and Lara Perry, eds. English Art, 1860–1914: Modern Artists and Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000.Croll, Robert Henderson. Tom Roberts: Father of Australian Landscape Painting. Melbourne: Robertson & Mullens, 1935.Cross, Tom. Artists and Bohemians: 100 Years with the Chelsea Arts Club. 1992. 1st ed. London: Quiller Press, 1992.Gray, Anne, and National Gallery of Australia. McCubbin: Last Impressions 1907–17. 1st ed. Parkes, A.C.T.: National Gallery of Australia, 2009.Halliday, Andrew, ed. The Savage Papers. 1867. 1st ed. London: Tinsley Brothers, 1867.Hammer, Gael. Miles Evergood: No End of Passion. Willoughby, NSW: Phillip Mathews, 2013.Joske, Prue. Debonair Jack: A Biography of Sir John Longstaff. 1st ed. Melbourne: Claremont Publishing, 1994.MacDonald, James S., Frederick McCubbin, and Alexander McCubbin. The Art of F. McCubbin. Melbourne: Lothian Book Publishing, 1916.McCaughy, Patrick. Strange Country: Why Australian Painting Matters. Ed. Paige Amor. The Miegunyah Press, 2014.McCubbin, Frederick. Papers, Ca. 1900–Ca. 1915. Melbourne.McQueen, Humphrey. Tom Roberts. Sydney: Macmillan, 1996.Mead, Stephen. "Bohemia in Melbourne: An Investigation of the Writer Marcus Clarke and Four Artistic Clubs during the Late 1860s – 1901.” PhD thesis. Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2009.Melbourne Savage Club. Secretary. Minute Book: Melbourne Savage Club. Club Minutes (General Committee). Melbourne: Savage Archives.Mulvaney, Derek John, and J.H. Calaby. So Much That Is New: Baldwin Spencer, 1860–1929, a Biography. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 1985.Smith, Bernard, Terry Smith, and Christopher Heathcote. Australian Painting, 1788–2000. 4th ed. South Melbourne, Vic.: Oxford University Press, 2001.Streeton, Arthur, et al. Smike to Bulldog: Letters from Sir Arthur Streeton to Tom Roberts. Sydney: Ure Smith, 1946.Streeton, Arthur, ed. Letters from Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton, 1890–1943. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1989.Thornton, Alfred, and New English Art Club. Fifty Years of the New English Art Club, 1886–1935. London: New English Art Club, Curwen Press 1935.Underhill, Nancy D.H. Making Australian Art 1916–49: Sydney Ure Smith Patron and Publisher. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1991.Various. Melbourne Savage Club Correspondence Book: 1902–1916. Melbourne: Melbourne Savage Club.Williams, Graeme Henry. "A Socio-Cultural Reading: The Melbourne Savage Club through Its Collections." Masters of Arts thesis. Melbourne: Deakin University, 2013.
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Brien, Donna Lee. "Why Foodies Thrive in the Country: Mapping the Influence and Significance of the Rural and Regional Chef." M/C Journal 11, no. 5 (September 8, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.83.

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Introduction The academic area known as food studies—incorporating elements from disciplines including anthropology, folklore, history, sociology, gastronomy, and cultural studies as well as a range of multi-disciplinary approaches—asserts that cooking and eating practices are less a matter of nutrition (maintaining life by absorbing nutrients from food) and more a personal or group expression of various social and/or cultural actions, values or positions. The French philosopher, Michel de Certeau agrees, arguing, moreover, that there is an urgency to name and unpick (what he identifies as) the “minor” practices, the “multifarious and silent reserve of procedures” of everyday life. Such practices are of crucial importance to all of us, as although seemingly ordinary, and even banal, they have the ability to “organise” our lives (48). Within such a context, the following aims to consider the influence and significance of an important (although largely unstudied) professional figure in rural and regional economic life: the country food preparer variously known as the local chef or cook. Such an approach is obviously framed by the concept of “cultural economy”. This term recognises the convergence, and interdependence, of the spheres of the cultural and the economic (see Scott 335, for an influential discussion on how “the cultural geography of space and the economic geography of production are intertwined”). Utilising this concept in relation to chefs and cooks seeks to highlight how the ways these figures organise (to use de Certeau’s term) the social and cultural lives of those in their communities are embedded in economic practices and also how, in turn, their economic contributions are dependent upon social and cultural practices. This initial mapping of the influence and significance of the rural and regional chef in one rural and regional area, therefore, although necessarily different in approach and content, continues the application of such converged conceptualisations of the cultural and economic as Teema Tairu’s discussion of the social, recreational and spiritual importance of food preparation and consumption by the unemployed in Finland, Guy Redden’s exploration of how supermarket products reflect shared values, and a series of analyses of the cultural significance of individual food products, such as Richard White’s study of vegemite. While Australians, both urban and rural, currently enjoy access to an internationally renowned food culture, it is remarkable to consider that it has only been during the years following the Second World War that these sophisticated and now much emulated ways of eating and cooking have developed. It is, indeed, only during the last half century that Australian eating habits have shifted from largely Anglo-Saxon influenced foods and meals that were prepared and eaten in the home, to the consumption of a wider range of more international and sophisticated foods and meals that are, increasingly, prepared by others and eaten outside the consumer’s residence. While a range of commonly cited influences has prompted this relatively recent revolution in culinary practice—including post-war migration, increasing levels of prosperity, widespread international travel, and the forces of globalisation—some of this change owes a debt to a series of influential individual figures. These tastemakers have included food writers and celebrity chefs; with early exponents including Margaret Fulton, Graham Kerr and Charmaine Solomon (see Brien). The findings of this study suggests that many restaurant chefs, and other cooks, have similarly played, and continue to take, a key role in the lives of not only the, necessarily, limited numbers of individuals who dine in a particular eatery or the other chefs and/or cooks trained in that establishment (Ruhlman, Reach), but also the communities in which they work on a much broader scale. Considering Chefs In his groundbreaking study, A History of Cooks and Cooking, Australian food historian Michael Symons proposes that those who prepare food are worthy of serious consideration because “if ‘we are what we eat’, cooks have not just made our meals, but have also made us. They have shaped our social networks, our technologies, arts and religions” (xi). Writing that cooks “deserve to have their stories told often and well,” and that, moreover, there is a “need to invent ways to think about them, and to revise our views about ourselves in their light” (xi), Symons’s is a clarion call to investigate the role and influence of cooks. Charles-Allen Baker-Clark has explicitly begun to address this lacunae in his Profiles from the Kitchen: What Great Cooks Have Taught Us About Ourselves and Our Food (2006), positing not only how these figures have shaped our relationships with food and eating, but also how these relationships impact on identities, culture and a range of social issues including those of social justice, spirituality and environmental sustainability. With the growing public interest in celebrities, it is perhaps not surprising that, while such research on chefs and/or cooks is still in its infancy, most of the existing detailed studies on individuals focus on famed international figures such as Marie-Antoine Carême (Bernier; Kelly), Escoffier (James; Rachleff; Sanger), and Alexis Soyer (Brandon; Morris; Ray). Despite an increasing number of tabloid “tell-all” surveys of contemporary celebrity chefs, which are largely based on mass media sources and which display little concern for historical or biographical accuracy (Bowyer; Hildred and Ewbank; Simpson; Smith), there have been to date only a handful of “serious” researched biographies of contemporary international chefs such as Julia Child, Alice Waters (Reardon; Riley), and Bernard Loiseux (Chelminski)—the last perhaps precipitated by an increased interest in this chef following his suicide after his restaurant lost one of its Michelin stars. Despite a handful of collective biographical studies of Australian chefs from the later-1980s on (Jenkins; O’Donnell and Knox; Brien), there are even fewer sustained biographical studies of Australian chefs or cooks (Clifford-Smith’s 2004 study of “the supermarket chef,” Bernard King, is a notable exception). Throughout such investigations, as well as in other popular food writing in magazines and cookbooks, there is some recognition that influential chefs and cooks have worked, and continue to work, outside such renowned urban culinary centres as Paris, London, New York, and Sydney. The Michelin starred restaurants of rural France, the so-called “gastropubs” of rural Britain and the advent of the “star-chef”-led country bed and breakfast establishment in Australia and New Zealand, together with the proliferation of farmer’s markets and a public desire to consume locally sourced, and ecologically sustainable, produce (Nabhan), has focused fresh attention on what could be called “the rural/regional chef”. However, despite the above, little attention has focused on the Australian non-urban chef/cook outside of the pages of a small number of key food writing magazines such as Australian Gourmet Traveller and Vogue Entertaining + Travel. Setting the Scene with an Australian Country Example: Armidale and Guyra In 2004, the Armidale-Dumaresq Council (of the New England region, New South Wales, Australia) adopted the slogan “Foodies thrive in Armidale” to market its main city for the next three years. With a population of some 20,000, Armidale’s main industry (in economic terms) is actually education and related services, but the latest Tourist Information Centre’s Dining Out in Armidale (c. 2006) brochure lists some 25 restaurants, 9 bistros and brasseries, 19 cafés and 5 fast food outlets featuring Australian, French, Italian, Mediterranean, Chinese, Thai, Indian and “international” cuisines. The local Yellow Pages telephone listings swell the estimation of the total number of food-providing businesses in the city to 60. Alongside the range of cuisines cited above, a large number of these eateries foreground the use of fresh, local foods with such phrases as “local and regional produce,” “fresh locally grown produce,” “the finest New England ingredients” and locally sourced “New England steaks, lamb and fresh seafood” repeatedly utilised in advertising and other promotional material. Some thirty kilometres to the north along the New England highway, the country town of Guyra, proclaimed a town in 1885, is the administrative and retail centre for a shire of some 2,200 people. Situated at 1,325 metres above sea level, the town is one of the highest in Australia with its main industries those of fine wool and lamb, beef cattle, potatoes and tomatoes. Until 1996, Guyra had been home to a large regional abattoir that employed some 400 staff at the height of its productivity, but rationalisation of the meat processing industry closed the facility, together with its associated pet food processor, causing a downturn in employment, local retail business, and real estate values. Since 2004, Guyra’s economy has, however, begun to recover after the town was identified by the Costa Group as the perfect site for glasshouse grown tomatoes. Perfect, due to its rare combination of cool summers (with an average of less than two days per year with temperatures over 30 degrees celsius), high winter light levels and proximity to transport routes. The result: 3.3 million kilograms of truss, vine harvested, hydroponic “Top of the Range” tomatoes currently produced per annum, all year round, in Guyra’s 5-hectare glasshouse: Australia’s largest, opened in December 2005. What residents (of whom I am one) call the “tomato-led recovery” has generated some 60 new local jobs directly related to the business, and significant flow on effects in terms of the demand for local services and retail business. This has led to substantial rates of renovation and building of new residential and retail properties, and a noticeably higher level of trade flowing into the town. Guyra’s main street retail sector is currently burgeoning and stories of its renewal have appeared in the national press. Unlike many similar sized inland towns, there are only a handful of empty shops (and most of these are in the process of being renovated), and new commercial premises have recently been constructed and opened for business. Although a small town, even in Australian country town terms, Guyra now has 10 restaurants, hotel bistros and cafés. A number of these feature local foods, with one pub’s bistro regularly featuring the trout that is farmed just kilometres away. Assessing the Contribution of Local Chefs and Cooks In mid-2007, a pilot survey to begin to explore the contribution of the regional chef in these two close, but quite distinct, rural and regional areas was sent to the chefs/cooks of the 70 food-serving businesses in Armidale and Guyra that I could identify. Taking into account the 6 returns that revealed a business had closed, moved or changed its name, the 42 replies received represented a response rate of 65.5per cent (or two thirds), representatively spread across the two towns. Answers indicated that the businesses comprised 18 restaurants, 13 cafés, 6 bistro/brasseries, 1 roadhouse, 1 takeaway/fast food and 3 bed and breakfast establishments. These businesses employed 394 staff, of whom 102 were chefs and/cooks, or 25.9 per cent of the total number of staff then employed by these establishments. In answer to a series of questions designed to ascertain the roles played by these chefs/cooks in their local communities, as well as more widely, I found a wide range of inputs. These chefs had, for instance, made a considerable contribution to their local economies in the area of fostering local jobs and a work culture: 40 (95 per cent) had worked with/for another local business including but not exclusively food businesses; 30 (71.4 per cent) had provided work experience opportunities for those aspiring to work in the culinary field; and 22 (more than half) had provided at least one apprenticeship position. A large number had brought outside expertise and knowledge with them to these local areas, with 29 (69 per cent) having worked in another food business outside Armidale or Guyra. In terms of community building and sustainability, 10 (or almost a quarter) had assisted or advised the local Council; 20 (or almost half) had worked with local school children in a food-related way; 28 (two thirds) had helped at least one charity or other local fundraising group. An extra 7 (bringing the cumulative total to 83.3 per cent) specifically mentioned that they had worked with/for the local gallery, museum and/or local history group. 23 (more than half) had been involved with and/or contributed to a local festival. The question of whether they had “contributed anything else important, helpful or interesting to the community” elicited the following responses: writing a food or wine column for the local paper (3 respondents), delivering TAFE teacher workshops (2 respondents), holding food demonstrations for Rotary and Lions Clubs and school fetes (5 respondents), informing the public about healthy food (3 respondents), educating the public about environmental issues (2 respondents) and working regularly with Meals on Wheels or a similar organisation (6 respondents, or 14.3 per cent). One respondent added his/her work as a volunteer driver for the local ambulance transport service, the only non-food related response to this question. Interestingly, in line with the activity of well-known celebrity chefs, in addition to the 3 chefs/cooks who had written a food or wine column for the local newspaper, 11 respondents (more than a quarter of the sample) had written or contributed to a cookbook or recipe collection. One of these chefs/cooks, moreover, reported that he/she produced a weblog that was “widely read”, and also contributed to international food-related weblogs and websites. In turn, the responses indicated that the (local) communities—including their governing bodies—also offer some support of these chefs and cooks. Many respondents reported they had been featured in, or interviewed and/or photographed for, a range of media. This media comprised the following: the local newspapers (22 respondents, 52.4 per cent), local radio stations (19 respondents, 45.2 per cent), regional television stations (11 respondents, 26.2 per cent) and local websites (8 respondents, 19 per cent). A number had also attracted other media exposure. This was in the local, regional area, especially through local Council publications (31 respondents, 75 per cent), as well as state-wide (2 respondents, 4.8 per cent) and nationally (6 respondents, 14.3 per cent). Two of these local chefs/cooks (or 4.8 per cent) had attracted international media coverage of their activities. It is clear from the above that, in the small area surveyed, rural and regional chefs/cooks make a considerable contribution to their local communities, with all the chefs/cooks who replied making some, and a number a major, contribution to those communities, well beyond the requirements of their paid positions in the field of food preparation and service. The responses tendered indicate that these chefs and cooks contributed regularly to local public events, institutions and charities (with a high rate of contribution to local festivals, school programs and local charitable activities), and were also making an input into public education programs, local cultural institutions, political and social debates of local importance, as well as the profitability of other local businesses. They were also actively supporting not only the future of the food industry as a whole, but also the viability of their local communities, by providing work experience opportunities and taking on local apprentices for training and mentorship. Much more than merely food providers, as a group, these chefs and cooks were, it appears, also operating as food historians, public intellectuals, teachers, activists and environmentalists. They were, moreover, operating as content producers for local media while, at the same time, acting as media producers and publishers. Conclusion The terms “chef” and “cook” can be diversely defined. All definitions, however, commonly involve a sense of professionalism in food preparation reflecting some specialist knowledge and skill in the culinary arts, as well as various levels of creativity, experience and responsibility. In terms of the specific duties that chefs and professional cooks undertake every day, almost all publications on the subject deal specifically with workplace related activities such as food and other supply ordering, staff management, menu planning and food preparation and serving. This is constant across culinary textbooks (see, for instance, Culinary Institute of America 2002) and more discursive narratives about the professional chef such as the bestselling autobiographical musings of Anthony Bourdain, and Michael Ruhlman’s journalistic/biographical investigations of US chefs (Soul; Reach). An alternative preliminary examination, and categorisation, of the roles these professionals play outside their kitchens reveals, however, a much wider range of community based activities and inputs than such texts suggest. It is without doubt that the chefs and cooks who responded to the survey discussed above have made, and are making, a considerable contribution to their local New England communities. It is also without doubt that these contributions are of considerable value, and valued by, those country communities. Further research will have to consider to what extent these contributions, and the significance and influence of these chefs and cooks in those communities are mirrored, or not, by other country (as well as urban) chefs and cooks, and their communities. Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Engaging Histories: Australian Historical Association Regional Conference, at the University of New England, September 2007. I would like to thank the session’s participants for their insightful comments on that presentation. A sincere thank you, too, to the reviewers of this article, whose suggestions assisted my thinking on this piece. Research to complete this article was carried out whilst a Visiting Fellow with the Research School of Humanities, the Australian National University. References Armidale Tourist Information Centre. Dining Out in Armidale [brochure]. Armidale: Armidale-Dumaresq Council, c. 2006. Baker-Clark, C. A. Profiles from the Kitchen: What Great Cooks have Taught us about Ourselves and our Food. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2006. Bernier, G. Antoine Carême 1783-1833: La Sensualité Gourmande en Europe. Paris: Grasset, 1989. Bourdain, A. Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly. New York: Harper Perennial, 2001. Bowyer, A. Delia Smith: The Biography. London: André Deutsch, 1999. Brandon, R. The People’s Chef: Alexis Soyer, A Life in Seven Courses. Chichester: Wiley, 2005. Brien, D. L. “Australian Celebrity Chefs 1950-1980: A Preliminary Study.” Australian Folklore 21 (2006): 201–18. Chelminski, R. The Perfectionist: Life and Death In Haute Cuisine. New York: Gotham Books, 2005. Clifford-Smith, S. A Marvellous Party: The Life of Bernard King. Milson’s Point: Random House Australia, 2004. Culinary Institute of America. The Professional Chef. 7th ed. New York: Wiley, 2002. de Certeau, M. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: U of California P, 1988. Hildred, S., and T. Ewbank. Jamie Oliver: The Biography. London: Blake, 2001. Jenkins, S. 21 Great Chefs of Australia: The Coming of Age of Australian Cuisine. East Roseville: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Kelly, I. Cooking for Kings: The Life of Antoine Carême, The First Celebrity Chef. New York: Walker and Company, 2003. James, K. Escoffier: The King of Chefs. London and New York: Hambledon and London, 2002. Morris, H. Portrait of a Chef: The Life of Alexis Soyer, Sometime Chef to the Reform Club. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1938. Nabhan, G. P. Coming Home to Eat: The Pleasures and Politics of Local Foods. New York: W.W. Norton, 2002. O’Donnell, M., and T. Knox. Great Australian Chefs. Melbourne: Bookman Press, 1999. Rachleff, O. S. Escoffier: King of Chefs. New York: Broadway Play Pub., 1983. Ray, E. Alexis Soyer: Cook Extraordinary. Lewes: Southover, 1991. Reardon, J. M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, and Alice Waters: Celebrating the Pleasures of the Table. New York: Harmony Books, 1994. Redden, G. “Packaging the Gifts of Nation.” M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.7 (1999) accessed 10 September 2008 http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/gifts.php. Riley, N. Appetite For Life: The Biography of Julia Child. New York: Doubleday, 1977. Ruhlman, M. The Soul of a Chef. New York: Viking, 2001. Ruhlman, M. The Reach of a Chef. New York: Viking, 2006. Sanger, M. B. Escoffier: Master Chef. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1976. Scott, A. J. “The Cultural Economy of Cities.” International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 212 (1997) 323–39. Simpson, N. Gordon Ramsay: The Biography. London: John Blake, 2006. Smith, G. Nigella Lawson: A Biography. London: Andre Deutsch, 2005. Symons, M. A History of Cooks and Cooking. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 2004. Tairu, T. “Material Food, Spiritual Quest: When Pleasure Does Not Follow Purchase.” M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.7 (1999) accessed 10 September 2008 http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9910/pleasure.php. White, R. S. “Popular Culture as the Everyday: A Brief Cultural History of Vegemite.” Australian Popular Culture. Ed. I. Craven. Cambridge UP, 1994. 15–21.
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Gantley, Michael J., and James P. Carney. "Grave Matters: Mediating Corporeal Objects and Subjects through Mortuary Practices." M/C Journal 19, no. 1 (April 6, 2016). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1058.

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IntroductionThe common origin of the adjective “corporeal” and the noun “corpse” in the Latin root corpus points to the value of mortuary practices for investigating how the human body is objectified. In post-mortem rituals, the body—formerly the manipulator of objects—becomes itself the object that is manipulated. Thus, these funerary rituals provide a type of double reflexivity, where the object and subject of manipulation can be used to reciprocally illuminate one another. To this extent, any consideration of corporeality can only benefit from a discussion of how the body is objectified through mortuary practices. This paper offers just such a discussion with respect to a selection of two contrasting mortuary practices, in the context of the prehistoric past and the Classical Era respectively. At the most general level, we are motivated by the same intellectual impulse that has stimulated expositions on corporeality, materiality, and incarnation in areas like phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 77–234), Marxism (Adorno 112–119), gender studies (Grosz vii–xvi), history (Laqueur 193–244), and theology (Henry 33–53). That is to say, our goal is to show that the body, far from being a transparent frame through which we encounter the world, is in fact a locus where historical, social, cultural, and psychological forces intersect. On this view, “the body vanishes as a biological entity and becomes an infinitely malleable and highly unstable culturally constructed product” (Shilling 78). However, for all that the cited paradigms offer culturally situated appreciations of corporeality; our particular intellectual framework will be provided by cognitive science. Two reasons impel us towards this methodological choice.In the first instance, the study of ritual has, after several decades of stagnation, been rewarded—even revolutionised—by the application of insights from the new sciences of the mind (Whitehouse 1–12; McCauley and Lawson 1–37). Thus, there are good reasons to think that ritual treatments of the body will refract historical and social forces through empirically attested tendencies in human cognition. In the present connection, this means that knowledge of these tendencies will reward any attempt to theorise the objectification of the body in mortuary rituals.In the second instance, because beliefs concerning the afterlife can never be definitively judged to be true or false, they give free expression to tendencies in cognition that are otherwise constrained by the need to reflect external realities accurately. To this extent, they grant direct access to the intuitive ideas and biases that shape how we think about the world. Already, this idea has been exploited to good effect in areas like the cognitive anthropology of religion, which explores how counterfactual beings like ghosts, spirits, and gods conform to (and deviate from) pre-reflective cognitive patterns (Atran 83–112; Barrett and Keil 219–224; Barrett and Reed 252–255; Boyer 876–886). Necessarily, this implies that targeting post-mortem treatments of the body will offer unmediated access to some of the conceptual schemes that inform thinking about human corporeality.At a more detailed level, the specific methodology we propose to use will be provided by conceptual blending theory—a framework developed by Gilles Fauconnier, Mark Turner, and others to describe how structures from different areas of experience are creatively blended to form a new conceptual frame. In this system, a generic space provides the ground for coordinating two or more input spaces into a blended space that synthesises them into a single output. Here this would entail using natural or technological processes to structure mortuary practices in a way that satisfies various psychological needs.Take, for instance, W.B. Yeats’s famous claim that “Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart” (“Easter 1916” in Yeats 57-8). Here, the poet exploits a generic space—that of everyday objects and the effort involved in manipulating them—to coordinate an organic input from that taxonomy (the heart) with an inorganic input (a stone) to create the blended idea that too energetic a pursuit of an abstract ideal turns a person into an unfeeling object (the heart-as-stone). Although this particular example corresponds to a familiar rhetorical figure (the metaphor), the value of conceptual blending theory is that it cuts across distinctions of genre, media, language, and discourse level to provide a versatile framework for expressing how one area of human experience is related to another.As indicated, we will exploit this versatility to investigate two ways of objectifying the body through the examination of two contrasting mortuary practices—cremation and inhumation—against different cultural horizons. The first of these is the conceptualisation of the body as an object of a technical process, where the post-mortem cremation of the corpse is analogically correlated with the metallurgical refining of ore into base metal. Our area of focus here will be Bronze Age cremation practices. The second conceptual scheme we will investigate focuses on treatments of the body as a vegetable object; here, the relevant analogy likens the inhumation of the corpse to the planting of a seed in the soil from which future growth will come. This discussion will centre on the Classical Era. Burning: The Body as Manufactured ObjectThe Early and Middle Bronze Age in Western Europe (2500-1200 BCE) represented a period of change in funerary practices relative to the preceding Neolithic, exemplified by a move away from the use of Megalithic monuments, a proliferation of grave goods, and an increase in the use of cremation (Barrett 38-9; Cooney and Grogan 105-121; Brück, Material Metaphors 308; Waddell, Bronze Age 141-149). Moreover, the Western European Bronze Age is characterised by a shift away from communal burial towards single interment (Barrett 32; Bradley 158-168). Equally, the Bronze Age in Western Europe provides us with evidence of an increased use of cist and pit cremation burials concentrated in low-lying areas (Woodman 254; Waddell, Prehistoric 16; Cooney and Grogan 105-121; Bettencourt 103). This greater preference for lower-lying location appears to reflect a distinctive change in comparison to the distribution patterns of the Neolithic burials; these are often located on prominent, visible aspects of a landscape (Cooney and Grogan 53-61). These new Bronze Age burial practices appear to reflect a distancing in relation to the territories of the “old ancestors” typified by Megalithic monuments (Bettencourt 101-103). Crucially, the Bronze Age archaeological record provides us with evidence that indicates that cremation was becoming the dominant form of deposition of human remains throughout Central and Western Europe (Sørensen and Rebay 59-60).The activities associated with Bronze Age cremations such as the burning of the body and the fragmentation of the remains have often been considered as corporeal equivalents (or expressions) of the activities involved in metal (bronze) production (Brück, Death 84-86; Sørensen and Rebay 60–1; Rebay-Salisbury, Cremations 66-67). There are unequivocal similarities between the practices of cremation and contemporary bronze production technologies—particularly as both processes involve the transformation of material through the application of fire at temperatures between 700 ºC to 1000 ºC (Musgrove 272-276; Walker et al. 132; de Becdelievre et al. 222-223).We assert that the technologies that define the European Bronze Age—those involved in alloying copper and tin to produce bronze—offered a new conceptual frame that enabled the body to be objectified in new ways. The fundamental idea explored here is that the displacement of inhumation by cremation in the European Bronze Age was motivated by a cognitive shift, where new smelting technologies provided novel conceptual metaphors for thinking about age-old problems concerning human mortality and post-mortem survival. The increased use of cremation in the European Bronze Age contrasts with the archaeological record of the Near Eastern—where, despite the earlier emergence of metallurgy (3300–3000 BCE), we do not see a notable proliferation in the use of cremation in this region. Thus, mortuary practices (i.e. cremation) provide us with an insight into how Western European Bronze Age cultures mediated the body through changes in technological objects and processes.In the terminology of conceptual blending, the generic space in question centres on the technical manipulation of the material world. The first input space is associated with the anxiety attending mortality—specifically, the cessation of personal identity and the extinction of interpersonal relationships. The second input space represents the technical knowledge associated with bronze production; in particular, the extraction of ore from source material and its mixing with other metals to form an alloy. The blended space coordinates these inputs to objectify the human body as an object that is ritually transformed into a new but more durable substance via the cremation process. In this contention we use the archaeological record to draw a conceptual parallel between the emergence of bronze production technology—centring on transition of naturally occurring material to a new subsistence (bronze)—and the transitional nature of the cremation process.In this theoretical framework, treating the body as a mixture of substances that can be reduced to its constituents and transformed through technologies of cremation enabled Western European Bronze Age society to intervene in the natural process of putrefaction and transform the organic matter into something more permanent. This transformative aspect of the cremation is seen in the evidence we have for secondary burial practices involving the curation and circulation of cremated bones of deceased members of a group (Brück, Death 87-93). This evidence allows us to assert that cremated human remains and objects were considered products of the same transformation into a more permanent state via burning, fragmentation, dispersal, and curation. Sofaer (62-69) states that the living body is regarded as a person, but as soon as the transition to death is made, the body becomes an object; this is an “ontological shift in the perception of the body that assumes a sudden change in its qualities” (62).Moreover, some authors have proposed that the exchange of fragmented human remains was central to mortuary practices and was central in establishing and maintaining social relations (Brück, Death 76-88). It is suggested that in the Early Bronze Age the perceptions of the human body mirrored the perceptions of objects associated with the arrival of the new bronze technology (Brück, Death 88-92). This idea is more pronounced if we consider the emergence of bronze technology as the beginning of a period of capital intensification of natural resources. Through this connection, the Bronze Age can be regarded as the point at which a particular natural resource—in this case, copper—went through myriad intensive manufacturing stages, which are still present today (intensive extraction, production/manufacturing, and distribution). Unlike stone tool production, bronze production had the addition of fire as the explicit method of transformation (Brück, Death 88-92). Thus, such views maintain that the transition achieved by cremation—i.e. reducing the human remains to objects or tokens that could be exchanged and curated relatively soon after the death of the individual—is equivalent to the framework of commodification connected with bronze production.A sample of cremated remains from Castlehyde in County Cork, Ireland, provides us with an example of a Bronze Age cremation burial in a Western European context (McCarthy). This is chosen because it is a typical example of a Bronze Age cremation burial in the context of Western Europe; also, one of the authors (MG) has first-hand experience in the analysis of its associated remains. The Castlehyde cremation burial consisted of a rectangular, stone-lined cist (McCarthy). The cist contained cremated, calcined human remains, with the fragments generally ranging from a greyish white to white in colour; this indicates that the bones were subject to a temperature range of 700-900ºC. The organic content of bone was destroyed during the cremation process, leaving only the inorganic matrix (brittle bone which is, often, described as metallic in consistency—e.g. Gejvall 470-475). There is evidence that remains may have been circulated in a manner akin to valuable metal objects. First of all, the absence of long bones indicates that there may have been a practice of removing salient remains as curatable records of ancestral ties. Secondly, remains show traces of metal staining from objects that are no longer extant, which suggests that graves were subject to secondary burial practices involving the removal of metal objects and/or human bone. To this extent, we can discern that human remains were being processed, curated, and circulated in a similar manner to metal objects.Thus, there are remarkable similarities between the treatment of the human body in cremation and bronze metal production technologies in the European Bronze Age. On the one hand, the parallel between smelting and cremation allowed death to be understood as a process of transformation in which the individual was removed from processes of organic decay. On the other hand, the circulation of the transformed remains conferred a type of post-mortem survival on the deceased. In this way, cremation practices may have enabled Bronze Age society to symbolically overcome the existential anxiety concerning the loss of personhood and the breaking of human relationships through death. In relation to the former point, the resurgence of cremation in nineteenth century Europe provides us with an example of how the disposal of a human body can be contextualised in relation to socio-technological advancements. The (re)emergence of cremation in this period reflects the post-Enlightenment shift from an understanding of the world through religious beliefs to the use of rational, scientific approaches to examine the natural world, including the human body (and death). The controlled use of fire in the cremation process, as well as the architecture of crematories, reflected the industrial context of the period (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 16).With respect to the circulation of cremated remains, Smith suggests that Early Medieval Christian relics of individual bones or bone fragments reflect a reconceptualised continuation of pre-Christian practices (beginning in Christian areas of the Roman Empire). In this context, it is claimed, firstly, that the curation of bone relics and the use of mobile bone relics of important, saintly individuals provided an embodied connection between the sacred sphere and the earthly world; and secondly, that the use of individual bones or fragments of bone made the Christian message something portable, which could be used to reinforce individual or collective adherence to Christianity (Smith 143-167). Using the example of the Christian bone relics, we can thus propose that the curation and circulation of Bronze Age cremated material may have served a role similar to tools for focusing religiously oriented cognition. Burying: The Body as a Vegetable ObjectGiven that the designation “the Classical Era” nominates the entirety of the Graeco-Roman world (including the Near East and North Africa) from about 800 BCE to 600 CE, there were obviously no mortuary practices common to all cultures. Nevertheless, in both classical Greece and Rome, we have examples of periods when either cremation or inhumation was the principal funerary custom (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 19-21).For instance, the ancient Homeric texts inform us that the ancient Greeks believed that “the spirit of the departed was sentient and still in the world of the living as long as the flesh was in existence […] and would rather have the body devoured by purifying fire than by dogs or worms” (Mylonas 484). However, the primary sources and archaeological record indicate that cremation practices declined in Athens circa 400 BCE (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 20). With respect to the Roman Empire, scholarly opinion argues that inhumation was the dominant funerary rite in the eastern part of the Empire (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 17-21; Morris 52). Complementing this, the archaeological and historical record indicates that inhumation became the primary rite throughout the Roman Empire in the first century CE. Inhumation was considered to be an essential rite in the context of an emerging belief that a peaceful afterlife was reflected by a peaceful burial in which bodily integrity was maintained (Rebay-Salisbury, Inhumation 19-21; Morris 52; Toynbee 41). The question that this poses is how these beliefs were framed in the broader discourses of Classical culture.In this regard, our claim is that the growth in inhumation was driven (at least in part) by the spread of a conceptual scheme, implicit in Greek fertility myths that objectify the body as a seed. The conceptual logic here is that the post-mortem continuation of personal identity is (symbolically) achieved by objectifying the body as a vegetable object that will re-grow from its own physical remains. Although the dominant metaphor here is vegetable, there is no doubt that the motivating concern of this mythological fabulation is human mortality. As Jon Davies notes, “the myths of Hades, Persephone and Demeter, of Orpheus and Eurydice, of Adonis and Aphrodite, of Selene and Endymion, of Herakles and Dionysus, are myths of death and rebirth, of journeys into and out of the underworld, of transactions and transformations between gods and humans” (128). Thus, such myths reveal important patterns in how the post-mortem fate of the body was conceptualised.In the terminology of mental mapping, the generic space relevant to inhumation contains knowledge pertaining to folk biology—specifically, pre-theoretical ideas concerning regeneration, survival, and mortality. The first input space attaches to human mortality; it departs from the anxiety associated with the seeming cessation of personal identity and dissolution of kin relationships subsequent to death. The second input space is the subset of knowledge concerning vegetable life, and how the immersion of seeds in the soil produces a new generation of plants with the passage of time. The blended space combines the two input spaces by way of the funerary script, which involves depositing the body in the soil with a view to securing its eventual rebirth by analogy with the sprouting of a planted seed.As indicated, the most important illustration of this conceptual pattern can be found in the fertility myths of ancient Greece. The Homeric Hymns, in particular, provide a number of narratives that trace out correspondences between vegetation cycles, human mortality, and inhumation, which inform ritual practice (Frazer 223–404; Carney 355–65; Sowa 121–44). The Homeric Hymn to Demeter, for instance, charts how Persephone is abducted by Hades, god of the dead, and taken to his underground kingdom. While searching for her missing daughter, Demeter, goddess of fertility, neglects the earth, causing widespread devastation. Matters are resolved when Zeus intervenes to restore Persephone to Demeter. However, having ingested part of Hades’s kingdom (a pomegranate seed), Persephone is obliged to spend half the year below ground with her captor and the other half above ground with her mother.The objectification of Persephone as both a seed and a corpse in this narrative is clearly signalled by her seasonal inhumation in Hades’ chthonic realm, which is at once both the soil and the grave. And, just as the planting of seeds in autumn ensures rebirth in spring, Persephone’s seasonal passage from the Kingdom of the Dead nominates the individual human life as just one season in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. A further signifying element is added by the ingestion of the pomegranate seed. This is evocative of her being inseminated by Hades; thus, the coordination of vegetation cycles with life and death is correlated with secondary transition—that from childhood to adulthood (Kerényi 119–183).In the examples given, we can see how the Homeric Hymn objectifies both the mortal and sexual destiny of the body in terms of thresholds derived from the vegetable world. Moreover, this mapping is not merely an intellectual exercise. Its emotional and social appeal is visible in the fact that the Eleusinian mysteries—which offered the ritual homologue to the Homeric Hymn to Demeter—persisted from the Mycenaean period to 396 CE, one of the longest recorded durations for any ritual (Ferguson 254–9; Cosmopoulos 1–24). In sum, then, classical myth provided a precedent for treating the body as a vegetable object—most often, a seed—that would, in turn, have driven the move towards inhumation as an important mortuary practice. The result is to create a ritual form that makes key aspects of human experience intelligible by connecting them with cyclical processes like the seasons of the year, the harvesting of crops, and the intergenerational oscillation between the roles of parent and child. Indeed, this pattern remains visible in the germination metaphors and burial practices of contemporary religions such as Christianity, which draw heavily on the symbolism associated with mystery cults like that at Eleusis (Nock 177–213).ConclusionWe acknowledge that our examples offer a limited reflection of the ethnographic and archaeological data, and that they need to be expanded to a much greater degree if they are to be more than merely suggestive. Nevertheless, suggestiveness has its value, too, and we submit that the speculations explored here may well offer a useful starting point for a larger survey. In particular, they showcase how a recurring existential anxiety concerning death—involving the fear of loss of personal identity and kinship relations—is addressed by different ways of objectifying the body. Given that the body is not reducible to the objects with which it is identified, these objectifications can never be entirely successful in negotiating the boundary between life and death. In the words of Jon Davies, “there is simply no let-up in the efforts by human beings to transcend this boundary, no matter how poignantly each failure seemed to reinforce it” (128). For this reason, we can expect that the record will be replete with conceptual and cognitive schemes that mediate the experience of death.At a more general level, it should also be clear that our understanding of human corporeality is rewarded by the study of mortuary practices. No less than having a body is coextensive with being human, so too is dying, with the consequence that investigating the intersection of both areas is likely to reveal insights into issues of universal cultural concern. For this reason, we advocate the study of mortuary practices as an evolving record of how various cultures understand human corporeality by way of external objects.ReferencesAdorno, Theodor W. Metaphysics: Concept and Problems. Trans. Rolf Tiedemann. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2002.Atran, Scott. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.Barrett, John C. “The Living, the Dead and the Ancestors: Neolithic and Bronze Age Mortuary Practices.” The Archaeology of Context in the Neolithic and Bronze Age: Recent Trends. Eds. John. C. Barrett and Ian. A. Kinnes. 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Morrison, Susan Signe. "Walking as Memorial Ritual: Pilgrimage to the Past." M/C Journal 21, no. 4 (October 15, 2018). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1437.

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This essay combines life writing with meditations on the significance of walking as integral to the ritual practice of pilgrimage, where the individual improves her soul or health through the act of walking to a shrine containing healing relics of a saint. Braiding together insights from medieval literature, contemporary ecocriticism, and memory studies, I reflect on my own pilgrimage practice as it impacts the land itself. Canterbury, England serves as the central shrine for four pilgrimages over decades: 1966, 1994, 1997, and 2003.The act of memory was not invented in the Anthropocene. Rather, the nonhuman world has taught humans how to remember. From ice-core samples retaining the history of Europe’s weather to rocks embedded with fossilized extinct species, nonhuman actors literally petrifying or freezing the past—from geologic sites to frozen water—become exposed through the process of anthropocentric discovery and human interference. The very act of human uncovery and analysis threatens to eliminate the nonhuman actor which has hospitably shared its own experience. How can humans script nonhuman memory?As for the history of memory studies itself, a new phase is arguably beginning, shifting from “the transnational, transcultural, or global to the planetary; from recorded to deep history; from the human to the nonhuman” (Craps et al. 3). Memory studies for the Anthropocene can “focus on the terrestrialized significance of (the historicized) forms of remembrance but also on the positioning of who is remembering and, ultimately, which ‘Anthropocene’ is remembered” (Craps et al. 5). In this era of the “self-conscious Anthropocene” (Craps et al. 6), narrative itself can focus on “the place of nonhuman beings in human stories of origins, identity, and futures point to a possible opening for the methods of memory studies” (Craps et al. 8). The nonhuman on the paths of this essay range from the dirt on the path to the rock used to build the sacred shrine, the ultimate goal. How they intersect with human actors reveals how the “human subject is no longer the one forming the world, but does indeed constitute itself through its relation to and dependence on the object world” (Marcussen 14, qtd. in Rodriguez 378). Incorporating “nonhuman species as objects, if not subjects, of memory [...] memory critics could begin by extending their objects to include the memory of nonhuman species,” linking both humans and nonhumans in “an expanded multispecies frame of remembrance” (Craps et al. 9). My narrative—from diaries recording sacred journey to a novel structured by pilgrimage—propels motion, but also secures in memory events from the past, including memories of those nonhuman beings I interact with.Childhood PilgrimageThe little girl with brown curls sat crying softly, whimpering, by the side of the road in lush grass. The mother with her soft brown bangs and an underflip to her hair told the story of a little girl, sitting by the side of the road in lush grass.The story book girl had forgotten her Black Watch plaid raincoat at the picnic spot where she had lunched with her parents and two older brothers. Ponchos spread out, the family had eaten their fresh yeasty rolls, hard cheese, apples, and macaroons. The tin clink of the canteen hit their teeth as they gulped metallic water, still icy cold from the taps of the ancient inn that morning. The father cut slices of Edam with his Swiss army knife, parsing them out to each child to make his or her own little sandwich. The father then lay back for his daily nap, while the boys played chess. The portable wooden chess set had inlaid squares, each piece no taller than a fingernail paring. The girl read a Junior Puffin book, while the mother silently perused Agatha Christie. The boy who lost at chess had to play his younger sister, a fitting punishment for the less able player. She cheerfully played with either brother. Once the father awakened, they packed up their gear into their rucksacks, and continued the pilgrimage to Canterbury.Only the little Black Watch plaid raincoat was left behind.The real mother told the real girl that the story book family continued to walk, forgetting the raincoat until it began to rain. The men pulled on their ponchos and the mother her raincoat, when the little girl discovered her raincoat missing. The story book men walked two miles back while the story book mother and girl sat under the dripping canopy of leaves provided by a welcoming tree.And there, the real mother continued, the storybook girl cried and whimpered, until a magic taxi cab in which the father and boys sat suddenly appeared out of the mist to drive the little girl and her mother to their hotel.The real girl’s eyes shone. “Did that actually happen?” she asked, perking up in expectation.“Oh, yes,” said the real mother, kissing her on the brow. The girl’s tears dried. Only the plops of rain made her face moist. The little girl, now filled with hope, cuddled with her mother as they huddled together.Without warning, out of the mist, drove up a real magic taxi cab in which the real men sat. For magic taxi cabs really exist, even in the tangible world—especially in England. At the very least, in the England of little Susie’s imagination.Narrative and PilgrimageMy mother’s tale suggests how this story echoes in yet another pilgrimage story, maintaining a long tradition of pilgrimage stories embedded within frame tales as far back as the Middle Ages.The Christian pilgrim’s walk parallels Christ’s own pilgrimage to Emmaus. The blisters we suffer echo faintly the lash Christ endured. The social relations of the pilgrim are “diachronic” (Alworth 98), linking figures (Christ) from the past to the now (us, or, during the Middle Ages, William Langland’s Piers Plowman or Chaucer’s band who set out from Southwark). We embody the frame of the vera icon, the true image, thus “conjur[ing] a site of simultaneity or a plane of immanence where the actors of the past [...] meet those of the future” (Alworth 99). Our quotidian walk frames the true essence or meaning of our ambulatory travail.In 1966, my parents took my two older brothers and me on the Pilgrims’ Way—not the route from London to Canterbury that Chaucer’s pilgrims would have taken starting south of London in Southwark, rather the ancient trek from Winchester to Canterbury, famously chronicled in The Old Road by Hilaire Belloc. The route follows along the south side of the Downs, where the muddy path was dried by what sun there was. My parents first undertook the walk in the early 1950s. Slides from that pilgrimage depict my mother, voluptuous in her cashmere twinset and tweed skirt, as my father crosses a stile. My parents, inspired by Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, decided to walk along the traditional Pilgrims’ Way to Canterbury. Story intersects with material traversal over earth on dirt-laden paths.By the time we children came along, the memories of that earlier pilgrimage resonated with my parents, inspiring them to take us on the same journey. We all carried our own rucksacks and walked five or six miles a day. Concerning our pilgrimage when I was seven, my mother wrote in her diary:As good pilgrims should, we’ve been telling tales along the way. Yesterday Jimmy told the whole (detailed) story of That Darn Cat, a Disney movie. Today I told about Stevenson’s Travels with a Donkey, which first inspired me to think of walking trips and everyone noted the resemblance between Stevenson’s lovable, but balky, donkey and our sweet Sue. (We hadn’t planned to tell tales, but they just happened along the way.)I don’t know how sweet I was; perhaps I was “balky” because the road was so hard. Landscape certainly shaped my experience.As I wrote about the pilgrimage in my diary then, “We went to another Hotel and walked. We went and had lunch at the Boggly [booglie] place. We went to a nother hotel called The Swan with fether Quits [quilts]. We went to the Queens head. We went to the Gest house. We went to aother Hotle called Srping wells and my tooth came out. We saw some taekeys [turkeys].” The repetition suggests how pilgrimage combines various aspects of life, from the emotional to the physical, the quotidian (walking and especially resting—in hotels with quilts) with the extraordinary (newly sprung tooth or the appearance of turkeys). “[W]ayfaring abilities depend on an emotional connection to the environment” (Easterlin 261), whether that environment is modified by humans or even manmade, inhabited by human or nonhuman actors. How can one model an “ecological relationship between humans and nonhumans” in narrative (Rodriguez 368)? Rodriguez proposes a “model of reading as encounter [...] encountering fictional story worlds as potential models” (Rodriguez 368), just as my mother did with the Magic Taxi Cab story.Taxis proliferate in my childhood pilgrimage. My mother writes in 1966 in her diary of journeying along the Pilgrims’ Way to St. Martha’s on the Hill. “Susie was moaning and groaning under her pack and at one desperate uphill moment gasped out, ‘Let’s take a taxi!’ – our highborn lady as we call her. But we finally made it.” “Martha’s”, as I later learned, is a corruption of “Martyrs”, a natural linguistic decay that developed over the medieval period. Just as the vernacular textures pilgrimage poems in the fourteeth century, the common tongue in all its glorious variety seeps into even the quotidian modern pilgrim’s journey.Part of the delight of pilgrimage lies in the characters one meets and the languages they speak. In 1994, the only time my husband and I cheated on a strictly ambulatory sacred journey occurred when we opted to ride a bus for ten miles where walking would have been dangerous. When I ask the bus driver if a stop were ours, he replied, “I'll give you a shout, love.” As though in a P. G. Wodehouse novel, when our stop finally came, he cried out, “Cheerio, love” to me and “Cheerio, mate” to Jim.Language changes. Which is a good thing. If it didn’t, it would be dead, like those martyrs of old. Like Latin itself. Disentangling pilgrimage from language proves impossible. The healthy ecopoetics of languages meshes with the sustainable vibrancy of the land we traverse.“Nettles of remorse…”: Derek Walcott, The Bounty Once my father had to carry me past a particularly tough patch of nettles. As my mother tells it, we “went through orchards and along narrow woodland path with face-high nettles. Susie put a scarf over her face and I wore a poncho though it was sunny and we survived almost unscathed.” Certain moments get preserved by the camera. At age seven in a field outside of Wye, I am captured in my father’s slides surrounded by grain. At age thirty-five, I am captured in film by my husband in the same spot, in the identical pose, though now quite a bit taller than the grain. Three years later, as a mother, I in turn snap him with a backpack containing baby Sarah, grumpily gazing off over the fields.When I was seven, we took off from Detling. My mother writes, “set off along old Pilgrims’ Way. Road is paved now, but much the same as fifteen years ago. Saw sheep, lambs, and enjoyed lovely scenery. Sudden shower sent us all to a lunch spot under trees near Thurnham Court, where we huddled under ponchos and ate happily, watching the weather move across the valley. When the sun came to us, we continued on our way which was lovely, past sheep, etc., but all on hard paved road, alas. Susie was a good little walker, but moaned from time to time.”I seem to whimper and groan a lot on pilgrimage. One thing is clear: the physical aspects of walking for days affected my phenomenological response to our pilgrimage which we’d undertaken both as historical ritual, touristic nature hike, and what Wendell Berry calls a “secular pilgrimage” (402), where the walker seeks “the world of the Creation” (403) in a “return to the wilderness in order to be restored” (416). The materiality of my experience was key to how I perceived this journey as a spiritual, somatic, and emotional event. The link between pilgrimage and memory, between pilgrimage poetics and memorial methods, occupies my thoughts on pilgrimage. As Nancy Easterlin’s work on “cognitive ecocriticism” (“Cognitive” 257) contends, environmental knowledge is intimately tied in with memory (“Cognitive” 260). She writes: “The advantage of extensive environmental knowledge most surely precipitates the evolution of memory, necessary to sustain vast knowledge” (“Cognitive” 260). Even today I can recall snatches of moments from that trip when I was a child, including the telling of tales.Landscape not only changes the writer, but writing transforms the landscape and our interaction with it. As Valerie Allen suggests, “If the subject acts upon the environment, so does the environment upon the subject” (“When Things Break” 82). Indeed, we can understand the “road as a strategic point of interaction between human and environment” (Allen and Evans 26; see also Oram)—even, or especially, when that interaction causes pain and inflames blisters. My relationship with moleskin on my blasted and blistered toes made me intimately conscious of my body with every step taken on the pilgrimage route.As an adult, my boots on the way from Winchester to Canterbury pinched and squeezed, packed dirt acting upon them and, in turn, my feet. After taking the train home and upon arrival in London, we walked through Bloomsbury to our flat on Russell Square, passing by what I saw as a new, less religious, but no less beckoning shrine: The London Foot Hospital at Fitzroy Square.Now, sadly, it is closed. Where do pilgrims go for sole—and soul—care?Slow Walking as WayfindingAll pilgrimages come to an end, just as, in 1966, my mother writes of our our arrival at last in Canterbury:On into Canterbury past nice grassy cricket field, where we sat and ate chocolate bars while we watched white-flannelled cricketers at play. Past town gates to our Queen’s Head Inn, where we have the smallest, slantingest room in the world. Everything is askew and we’re planning to use our extra pillows to brace our feet so we won’t slide out of bed. Children have nice big room with 3 beds and are busy playing store with pounds and shillings [that’s very hard mathematics!]. After dinner, walked over to cathedral, where evensong was just ending. Walked back to hotel and into bed where we are now.Up to early breakfast, dashed to cathedral and looked up, up, up. After our sins were forgiven, we picked up our rucksacks and headed into London by train.This experience in 1966 varies slightly from the one in 1994. Jim and I walk through a long walkway of tall, slim trees arching over us, a green, lush and silent cloister, finally gaining our first view of Canterbury with me in a similar photo to one taken almost thirty years before. We make our way into the city through the West Gate, first passing by St. Dunstan’s Church where Henry II had put on penitential garb and later Sir Thomas More’s head was buried. Canterbury is like Coney Island in the Middle Ages and still is: men with dreadlocks and slinky didjeridoos, fire tossers, mobs of people, tourists. We go to Mercery Lane as all good pilgrims should and under the gate festooned with the green statue of Christ, arriving just in time for evensong.Imagining a medieval woman arriving here and listening to the service, I pray to God my gratefulness for us having arrived safely. I can understand the fifteenth-century pilgrim, Margery Kempe, screaming emotionally—maybe her feet hurt like mine. I’m on the verge of tears during the ceremony: so glad to be here safe, finally got here, my favorite service, my beloved husband. After the service, we pass on through the Quire to the spot where St. Thomas’s relic sanctuary was. People stare at a lit candle commemorating it. Tears well up in my eyes.I suppose some things have changed since the Middle Ages. One Friday in Canterbury with my children in 2003 has some parallels with earlier iterations. Seven-year-old Sarah and I go to evensong at the Cathedral. I tell her she has to be absolutely quiet or the Archbishop will chop off her head.She still has her head.Though the road has been paved, the view has remained virtually unaltered. Some aspects seem eternal—sheep, lambs, and stiles dotting the landscape. The grinding down of the pilgrimage path, reflecting the “slowness of flat ontology” (Yates 207), occurs over vast expanses of time. Similarly, Easterlin reflects on human and more than human vitalism: “Although an understanding of humans as wayfinders suggests a complex and dynamic interest on the part of humans in the environment, the surround itself is complex and dynamic and is frequently in a state of change as the individual or group moves through it” (Easterlin “Cognitive” 261). An image of my mother in the 1970s by a shady tree along the Pilgrims’ Way in England shows that the path is lower by 6 inches than the neighboring verge (Bright 4). We don’t see dirt evolving, because its changes occur so slowly. Only big time allows us to see transformative change.Memorial PilgrimageOddly, the erasure of self through duplication with a precursor occurred for me while reading W.G. Sebald’s pilgrimage novel, The Rings of Saturn. I had experienced my own pilgrimage to many of these same locations he immortalizes. I, too, had gone to Somerleyton Hall with my elderly mother, husband, and two children. My memories, sacred shrines pooling in familial history, are infused with synchronic reflection, medieval to contemporary—my parents’ periodic sojourns in Suffolk for years, leading me to love the very landscape Sebald treks across; sadness at my parents’ decline; hope in my children’s coming to add on to their memory palimpsest a layer devoted to this land, to this history, to this family.Then, the oddest coincidence from my reading pilgrimage. After visiting Dunwich Heath, Sebald comes to his friend, Michael, whose wife Anne relays a story about a local man hired as a pallbearer by the local undertaker in Westleton. This man, whose memory was famously bad, nevertheless reveled in the few lines allotted him in an outdoor performance of King Lear. After her relating this story, Sebald asks for a taxi (Sebald 188-9).This might all seem unremarkable to the average reader. Yet, “human wayfinders are richly aware of and responsive to environment, meaning both physical places and living beings, often at a level below consciousness” (Easterlin “Cognitive” 265). For me, with a connection to this area, I startled with recollection emerging from my subconscience. The pallbearer’s name in Sebald’s story was Mr Squirrel, the very same name of the taxi driver my parents—and we—had driven with many times. The same Mr Squirrel? How many Mr Squirrels can there be in this small part of Suffolk? Surely it must be the same family, related in a genetic encoding of memory. I run to my archives. And there, in my mother’s address book—itself a palimpsest of time with names and addressed scored through; pasted-in cards, names, and numbers; and looseleaf memoranda—there, on the first page under “S”, “Mr. Squirrel” in my mother’s unmistakable scribble. She also had inscribed his phone number and the village Saxmundum, seven miles from Westleton. His name had been crossed out. Had he died? Retired? I don’t know. Yet quick look online tells me Squirrell’s Taxis still exists, as it does in my memory.Making KinAfter accompanying a class on a bucolic section of England’s Pilgrims’ Way, seven miles from Wye to Charing, we ended up at a pub drinking a pint, with which all good pilgrimages should conclude. There, students asked me why I became a medievalist who studies pilgrimage. Only after the publication of my first book on women pilgrims did I realize that the origin of my scholarly, long fascination with pilgrimage, blossoming into my professional career, began when I was seven years old along the way to Canterbury. The seeds of that pilgrimage when I was so young bore fruit and flowers decades later.One story illustrates Michel Serres’s point that we should not aim to appropriate the world, but merely act as temporary tenants (Serres 72-3). On pilgrimage in 1966 as a child, I had a penchant for ant spiders. That was not the only insect who took my heart. My mother shares how “Susie found a beetle up on the hill today and put him in the cheese box. Jimmy put holes in the top for him. She named him Alexander Beetle and really became very fond of him. After supper, we set him free in the garden here, with appropriate ceremony and a few over-dramatic tears of farewell.” He clearly made a great impression on me. I yearn for him today, that beetle in the cheese box. Though I tried to smuggle nature as contraband, I ultimately had to set him free.Passing through cities, landscape, forests, over seas and on roads, wandering by fields and vegetable patches, under a sky lit both by sun and moon, the pilgrim—even when in a group of fellow pilgrims—in her lonesome exercise endeavors to realize Serres’ ideal of the tenant inhabitant of earth. Nevertheless, we, as physical pilgrims, inevitably leave our traces through photos immortalizing the journey, trash left by the wayside, even excretions discretely deposited behind a convenient bush. Or a beetle who can tell the story of his adventure—or terror—at being ensconced for a time in a cheese box.On one notorious day of painful feet, my husband and I arrived in Otford, only to find the pub was still closed. Finally, it became time for dinner. We sat outside, me with feet ensconced in shoes blessedly inert and unmoving, as the server brought out our salads. The salad cream, white and viscous, was presented in an elegantly curved silver dish. Then Jim began to pick at the salad cream with his fork. Patiently, tenderly, he endeavored to assist a little bug who had gotten trapped in the gooey sauce. Every attempt seemed doomed to failure. The tiny creature kept falling back into the gloppy substance. Undaunted, Jim compassionately ministered to our companion. Finally, the little insect flew off, free to continue its own pilgrimage, which had intersected with ours in a tiny moment of affinity. Such moments of “making kin” work, according to Donna Haraway, as “life-saving strateg[ies] for the Anthropocene” (Oppermann 3, qtd. in Haraway 160).How can narrative avoid the anthropocentric centre of writing, which is inevitable given the human generator of such a piece? While words are a human invention, nonhuman entities vitally enact memory. The very Downs we walked along were created in the Cretaceous period at least seventy million years ago. The petrol propelling the magic taxi cab was distilled from organic bodies dating back millions of years. Jurassic limestone from the Bathonian Age almost two hundred million years ago constitutes the Caen stone quarried for building Canterbury Cathedral, while its Purbeck marble from Dorset dates from the Cretaceous period. Walking on pilgrimage propels me through a past millions—billions—of eons into the past, dwarfing my speck of existence. Yet, “if we wish to cross the darkness which separates us from [the past] we must lay down a little plank of words and step delicately over it” (Barfield 23). Elias Amidon asks us to consider how “the ground we dig into and walk upon is sacred. It is sacred because it makes us neighbors to each other, whether we like it or not. Tell this story” (Amidon 42). And, so, I have.We are winding down. Time has passed since that first pilgrimage of mine at seven years old. Yet now, here, I still put on my red plaid wollen jumper and jacket, crisp white button-up shirt, grey knee socks, and stout red walking shoes. Slinging on my rucksack, I take my mother’s hand.I’m ready to take my first step.We continue our pilgrimage, together.ReferencesAllen, Valerie. “When Things Break: Mending Rroads, Being Social.” Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads. Eds. Valerie Allen and Ruth Evans. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016.———, and Ruth Evans. Introduction. Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads. Eds. Valerie Allen and Ruth Evans. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016.Alworth, David J. Site Reading: Fiction, Art, Social Form. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2016.Amidon, Elias. “Digging In.” Dirt: A Love Story. Ed. Barbara Richardson. Lebanon, NH: ForeEdge, 2015.Barfield, Owen. History in English Words. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1967.Berry, Wendell. “A Secular Pilgrimage.” The Hudson Review 23.3 (1970): 401-424.Bright, Derek. “The Pilgrims’ Way Revisited: The Use of the North Downs Main Trackway and the Medway Crossings by Medieval Travelers.” Kent Archaeological Society eArticle (2010): 4-32.Craps, Stef, Rick Crownshaw, Jennifer Wenzel, Rosanne Kennedy, Claire Colebrook, and Vin Nardizzi. “Memory Studies and the Anthropocene: A Roundtable.” Memory Studies 11.4 (2017) 1-18.Easterlin, Nancy. A Biocultural Approach to Literary Theory and Interpretation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2012.———. “Cognitive Ecocriticism: Human Wayfinding, Sociality, and Literary Interpretation.” Introduction to Cognitive Studies. Ed. Lisa Zunshine. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2010. 257-274.Haraway, Donna. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.” Environmental Humanities 6 (2015): 159-65.James, Erin, and Eric Morel. “Ecocriticism and Narrative Theory: An Introduction.” English Studies 99.4 (2018): 355-365.Marcussen, Marlene. Reading for Space: An Encounter between Narratology and New Materialism in the Works of Virgina Woolf and Georges Perec. PhD diss. University of Southern Denmark, 2016.Oppermann, Serpil. “Introducing Migrant Ecologies in an (Un)Bordered World.” ISLE 24.2 (2017): 243–256.Oram, Richard. “Trackless, Impenetrable, and Underdeveloped? Roads, Colonization and Environmental Transformation in the Anglo-Scottish Border Zone, c. 1100 to c. 1300.” Roadworks: Medieval Britain, Medieval Roads. Eds. Valerie Allen and Ruth Evans. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2016.Rodriquez, David. “Narratorhood in the Anthropocene: Strange Stranger as Narrator-Figure in The Road and Here.” English Studies 99.4 (2018): 366-382.Savory, Elaine. “Toward a Caribbean Ecopoetics: Derek Walcott’s Language of Plants.” Postcolonial Ecologies: Literatures of the Environment. Eds. Elizabeth DeLoughrey and George B. Handley. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011. 80-96.Sebald, W.G. The Rings of Saturn. Trans. Michael Hulse. New York: New Directions, 1998.Serres, Michel. Malfeasance: Appropriating through Pollution? Trans. Anne-Marie Feenberg-Dibon. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2011.Walcott, Derek. Selected Poems. Ed. Edward Baugh. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997. 3-16.Yates, Julian. “Sheep Tracks—A Multi-Species Impression.” Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. Washington, D.C.: Oliphaunt Books, 2012.
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Aly, Anne, and Lelia Green. "Less than Equal: Secularism, Religious Pluralism and Privilege." M/C Journal 11, no. 2 (June 1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.32.

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Abstract:
In its preamble, The Western Australian Charter of Multiculturalism (WA) commits the state to becoming: “A society in which respect for mutual difference is accompanied by equality of opportunity within a framework of democratic citizenship”. One of the principles of multiculturalism, as enunciated in the Charter, is “equality of opportunity for all members of society to achieve their full potential in a free and democratic society where every individual is equal before and under the law”. An important element of this principle is the “equality of opportunity … to achieve … full potential”. The implication here is that those who start from a position of disadvantage when it comes to achieving that potential deserve more than ‘equal’ treatment. Implicitly, equality can be achieved only through the recognition of and response to differential needs and according to the likelihood of achieving full potential. This is encapsulated in Kymlicka’s argument that neutrality is “hopelessly inadequate once we look at the diversity of cultural membership which exists in contemporary liberal democracies” (903). Yet such a potential commitment to differential support might seem unequal to some, where equality is constructed as the same or equal treatment regardless of differing circumstances. Until the past half-century or more, this problematic has been a hotly-contested element of the struggle for Civil Rights for African-Americans in the United States, especially as these rights related to educational opportunity during the years of racial segregation. For some, providing resources to achieve equal outcomes (rather than be committed to equal inputs) may appear to undermine the very ethos of liberal democracy. In Australia, this perspective has been the central argument of Pauline Hanson and her supporters who denounce programs designed as measures to achieve equality for specific disadvantaged groups; including Indigenous Australians and humanitarian refugees. Nevertheless, equality for all on all grounds of legally-accepted difference: gender, race, age, family status, sexual orientation, political conviction, to name a few; is often held as the hallmark of progressive liberal societies such as Australia. In the matter of religious freedoms the situation seems much less complex. All that is required for religious equality, it seems, is to define religion as a private matter – carried out, as it were, between consenting parties away from the public sphere. This necessitates, effectively, the separation of state and religion. This separation of religious belief from the apparatus of the state is referred to as ‘secularism’ and it tends to be regarded as a cornerstone of a liberal democracy, given the general assumption that secularism is a necessary precursor to equal treatment of and respect for different religious beliefs, and the association of secularism with the Western project of the Enlightenment when liberty, equality and science replaced religion and superstition. By this token, western nations committed to equality are also committed to being liberal, democratic and secular in nature; and it is a matter of state indifference as to which religious faith a citizen embraces – Wiccan, Christian, Judaism, etc – if any. Historically, and arguably more so in the past decade, the terms ‘democratic’, ‘secular’, ‘liberal’ and ‘equal’ have all been used to inscribe characteristics of the collective ‘West’. Individuals and states whom the West ascribe as ‘other’ are therefore either or all of: not democratic; not liberal; or not secular – and failing any one of these characteristics (for any country other than Britain, with its parliamentary-established Church of England, headed by the Queen as Supreme Governor) means that that country certainly does not espouse equality. The West and the ‘Other’ in Popular Discourse The constructed polarisation between the free, secular and democratic West that values equality; and the oppressive ‘other’ that perpetuates theocracies, religious discrimination and – at the ultimate – human rights abuses, is a common theme in much of the West’s media and popular discourse on Islam. The same themes are also applied in some measure to Muslims in Australia, in particular to constructions of the rights of Muslim women in Australia. Typically, Muslim women’s dress is deemed by some secular Australians to be a symbol of religious subjugation, rather than of free choice. Arguably, this polemic has come to the fore since the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001. However, as Aly and Walker note, the comparisons between the West and the ‘other’ are historically constructed and inherited (Said) and have tended latterly to focus western attention on the role and status of Muslim women as evidence of the West’s progression comparative to its antithesis, Eastern oppression. An examination of studies of the United States media coverage of the September 11 attacks, and the ensuing ‘war on terror’, reveals some common media constructions around good versus evil. There is no equal status between these. Good must necessarily triumph. In the media coverage, the evil ‘other’ is Islamic terrorism, personified by Osama bin Laden. Part of the justification for the war on terror is a perception that the West, as a force for good in this world, must battle evil and protect freedom and democracy (Erjavec and Volcic): to do otherwise is to allow the terror of the ‘other’ to seep into western lives. The war on terror becomes the defence of the west, and hence the defence of equality and freedom. A commitment to equality entails a defeat of all things constructed as denying the rights of people to be equal. Hutcheson, Domke, Billeaudeaux and Garland analysed the range of discourses evident in Time and Newsweek magazines in the five weeks following September 11 and found that journalists replicated themes of national identity present in the communication strategies of US leaders and elites. The political and media response to the threat of the evil ‘other’ is to create a monolithic appeal to liberal values which are constructed as being a monopoly of the ‘free’ West. A brief look at just a few instances of public communication by US political leaders confirms Hutcheson et al.’s contention that the official construction of the 2001 attacks invoked discourses of good and evil reminiscent of the Cold War. In reference to the actions of the four teams of plane hijackers, US president George W Bush opened his Address to the Nation on the evening of September 11: “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts” (“Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation”). After enjoining Americans to recite Psalm 23 in prayer for the victims and their families, President Bush ended his address with a clear message of national unity and a further reference to the battle between good and evil: “This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before, and we will do so this time. None of us will ever forget this day. Yet, we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world” (“Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation”). In his address to the joint houses of Congress shortly after September 11, President Bush implicated not just the United States in this fight against evil, but the entire international community stating: “This is the world’s fight. This is civilisation’s fight” (cited by Brown 295). Addressing the California Business Association a month later, in October 2001, Bush reiterated the notion of the United States as the leading nation in the moral fight against evil, and identified this as a possible reason for the attack: “This great state is known for its diversity – people of all races, all religions, and all nationalities. They’ve come here to live a better life, to find freedom, to live in peace and security, with tolerance and with justice. When the terrorists attacked America, this is what they attacked”. While the US media framed the events of September 11 as an attack on the values of democracy and liberalism as these are embodied in US democratic traditions, work by scholars analysing the Australian media’s representation of the attacks suggested that this perspective was echoed and internationalised for an Australian audience. Green asserts that global media coverage of the attacks positioned the global audience, including Australians, as ‘American’. The localisation of the discourses of patriotism and national identity for Australian audiences has mainly been attributed to the media’s use of the good versus evil frame that constructed the West as good, virtuous and moral and invited Australian audiences to subscribe to this argument as members of a shared Western democratic identity (Osuri and Banerjee). Further, where the ‘we’ are defenders of justice, equality and the rule of law; the opposing ‘others’ are necessarily barbaric. Secularism and the Muslim Diaspora Secularism is a historically laden term that has been harnessed to symbolise the emancipation of social life from the forced imposition of religious doctrine. The struggle between the essentially voluntary and private demands of religion, and the enjoyment of a public social life distinct from religious obligations, is historically entrenched in the cultural identities of many modern Western societies (Dallmayr). The concept of religious freedom in the West has evolved into a principle based on the bifurcation of life into the objective public sphere and the subjective private sphere within which individuals are free to practice their religion of choice (Yousif), or no religion at all. Secularism, then, is contingent on the maintenance of a separation between the public (religion-free) and the private or non- public (which may include religion). The debate regarding the feasibility or lack thereof of maintaining this separation has been a matter of concern for democratic theorists for some time, and has been made somewhat more complicated with the growing presence of religious diasporas in liberal democratic states (Charney). In fact, secularism is often cited as a precondition for the existence of religious pluralism. By removing religion from the public domain of the state, religious freedom, in so far as it constitutes the ability of an individual to freely choose which religion, if any, to practice, is deemed to be ensured. However, as Yousif notes, the Western conception of religious freedom is based on a narrow notion of religion as a personal matter, possibly a private emotional response to the idea of God, separate from the rational aspects of life which reside in the public domain. Arguably, religion is conceived of as recognising (or creating) a supernatural dimension to life that involves faith and belief, and the suspension of rational thought. This Western notion of religion as separate from the state, dividing the private from the public sphere, is constructed as a necessary basis for the liberal democratic commitment to secularism, and the notional equality of all religions, or none. Rawls questioned how people with conflicting political views and ideologies can freely endorse a common political regime in secular nations. The answer, he posits, lies in the conception of justice as a mechanism to regulate society independently of plural (and often opposing) religious or political conceptions. Thus, secularism can be constructed as an indicator of pluralism and justice; and political reason becomes the “common currency of debate in a pluralist society” (Charney 7). A corollary of this is that religious minorities must learn to use the language of political reason to represent and articulate their views and opinions in the public context, especially when talking with non-religious others. This imposes a need for religious minorities to support their views and opinions with political reason that appeals to the community at large as citizens, and not just to members of the minority religion concerned. The common ground becomes one of secularism, in which all speakers are deemed to be indifferent as to the (private) claims of religion upon believers. Minority religious groups, such as fundamentalist Mormons, invoke secular language of moral tolerance and civil rights to be acknowledged by the state, and to carry out their door-to-door ‘information’ evangelisation/campaigns. Right wing fundamentalist Christian groups and Catholics opposed to abortion couch their views in terms of an extension of the secular right to life, and in terms of the human rights and civil liberties of the yet-to-be-born. In doing this, these religious groups express an acceptance of the plurality of the liberal state and engage in debates in the public sphere through the language of political values and political principles of the liberal democratic state. The same principles do not apply within their own associations and communities where the language of the private religious realm prevails, and indeed is expected. This embracing of a political rhetoric for discussions of religion in the public sphere presents a dilemma for the Muslim diaspora in liberal democratic states. For many Muslims, religion is a complete way of life, incapable of compartmentalisation. The narrow Western concept of religious expression as a private matter is somewhat alien to Muslims who are either unable or unwilling to separate their religious needs from their needs as citizens of the nation state. Problems become apparent when religious needs challenge what seems to be publicly acceptable, and conflicts occur between what the state perceives to be matters of rational state interest and what Muslims perceive to be matters of religious identity. Muslim women’s groups in Western Australia for example have for some years discussed the desirability of a Sharia divorce court which would enable Muslims to obtain divorces according to Islamic law. It should be noted here that not all Muslims agree with the need for such a court and many – probably a majority – are satisfied with the existing processes that allow Muslim men and women to obtain a divorce through the Australian family court. For some Muslims however, this secular process does not satisfy their religious needs and it is perceived as having an adverse impact on their ability to adhere to their faith. A similar situation pertains to divorced Catholics who, according to a strict interpretation of their doctrine, are unable to take the Eucharist if they form a subsequent relationship (even if married according to the state), unless their prior marriage has been annulled by the Catholic Church or their previous partner has died. Whereas divorce is considered by the state as a public and legal concern, for some Muslims and others it is undeniably a religious matter. The suggestion by the Anglican Communion’s Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, that the adoption of certain aspects of Sharia law regarding marital disputes or financial matters is ultimately unavoidable, sparked controversy in Britain and in Australia. Attempts by some Australian Muslim scholars to elaborate on Dr Williams’s suggestions, such as an article by Anisa Buckley in The Herald Sun (Buckley), drew responses that, typically, called for Muslims to ‘go home’. A common theme in these responses is that proponents of Sharia law (and Islam in general) do not share a commitment to the Australian values of freedom and equality. The following excerpts from the online pages of Herald Sun Readers’ Comments (Herald Sun) demonstrate this perception: “These people come to Australia for freedoms they have never experienced before and to escape repression which is generally brought about by such ‘laws’ as Sharia! How very dare they even think that this would be an option. Go home if you want such a regime. Such an insult to want to come over to this country on our very goodwill and our humanity and want to change our systems and ways. Simply, No!” Posted 1:58am February 12, 2008 “Under our English derived common law statutes, the law is supposed to protect an individual’s rights to life, liberty and property. That is the basis of democracy in Australia and most other western nations. Sharia law does not adequately share these philosophies and principles, thus it is incompatible with our system of law.” Posted 12:55am February 11, 2008 “Incorporating religious laws in the secular legal system is just plain wrong. No fundamentalist religion (Islam in particular) is compatible with a liberal-democracy.” Posted 2:23pm February 10, 2008 “It should not be allowed in Australia the Muslims come her for a better life and we give them that opportunity but they still believe in covering them selfs why do they even come to Australia for when they don’t follow owe [our] rules but if we went to there [their] country we have to cover owe selfs [sic]” Posted 11:28am February 10, 2008 Conflicts similar to this one – over any overt or non-private religious practice in Australia – may also be observed in public debates concerning the wearing of traditional Islamic dress; the slaughter of animals for consumption; Islamic burial rites, and other religious practices which cannot be confined to the private realm. Such conflicts highlight the inability of the rational liberal approach to solve all controversies arising from religious traditions that enjoin a broader world view than merely private spirituality. In order to adhere to the liberal reduction of religion to the private sphere, Muslims in the West must negotiate some religious practices that are constructed as being at odds with the rational state and practice a form of Islam that is consistent with secularism. At the extreme, this Western-acceptable form is what the Australian government has termed ‘moderate Islam’. The implication here is that, for the state, ‘non-moderate Islam’ – Islam that pervades the public realm – is just a descriptor away from ‘extreme’. The divide between Christianity and Islam has been historically played out in European Christendom as a refusal to recognise Islam as a world religion, preferring instead to classify it according to race or ethnicity: a Moorish tendency, perhaps. The secular state prefers to engage with Muslims as an ethnic, linguistic or cultural group or groups (Yousif). Thus, in order to engage with the state as political citizens, Muslims must find ways to present their needs that meet the expectations of the state – ways that do not use their religious identity as a frame of reference. They can do this by utilizing the language of political reason in the public domain or by framing their needs, views and opinions exclusively in terms of their ethnic or cultural identity with no reference to their shared faith. Neither option is ideal, or indeed even viable. This is partly because many Muslims find it difficult if not impossible to separate their religious needs from their needs as political citizens; and also because the prevailing perception of Muslims in the media and public arena is constructed on the basis of an understanding of Islam as a religion that conflicts with the values of liberal democracy. In the media and public arena, little consideration is given to the vast differences that exist among Muslims in Australia, not only in terms of ethnicity and culture, but also in terms of practice and doctrine (Shia or Sunni). The dominant construction of Muslims in the Australian popular media is of religious purists committed to annihilating liberal, secular governments and replacing them with anti-modernist theocratic regimes (Brasted). It becomes a talking point for some, for example, to realise that there are international campaigns to recognise Gay Muslims’ rights within their faith (ABC) (in the same way that there are campaigns to recognise Gay Christians as full members of their churches and denominations and equally able to hold high office, as followers of the Anglican Communion will appreciate). Secularism, Preference and Equality Modood asserts that the extent to which a minority religious community can fully participate in the public and political life of the secular nation state is contingent on the extent to which religion is the primary marker of identity. “It may well be the case therefore that if a faith is the primary identity of any community then that community cannot fully identify with and participate in a polity to the extent that it privileges a rival faith. Or privileges secularism” (60). Modood is not saying here that Islam has to be privileged in order for Muslims to participate fully in the polity; but that no other religion, nor secularism, should be so privileged. None should be first, or last, among equals. For such a situation to occur, Islam would have to be equally acceptable both with other religions and with secularism. Following a 2006 address by the former treasurer (and self-avowed Christian) Peter Costello to the Sydney Institute, in which Costello suggested that people who feel a dual claim from both Islamic law and Australian law should be stripped of their citizenship (Costello), the former Prime Minister, John Howard, affirmed what he considers to be Australia’s primary identity when he stated that ‘Australia’s core set of values flowed from its Anglo Saxon identity’ and that any one who did not embrace those values should not be allowed into the country (Humphries). The (then) Prime Minister’s statement is an unequivocal assertion of the privileged position of the Anglo Saxon tradition in Australia, a tradition with which many Muslims and others in Australia find it difficult to identify. Conclusion Religious identity is increasingly becoming the identity of choice for Muslims in Australia, partly because it is perceived that their faith is under attack and that it needs defending (Aly). They construct the defence of their faith as a choice and an obligation; but also as a right that they have under Australian law as equal citizens in a secular state (Aly and Green). Australian Muslims who have no difficulty in reconciling their core Australianness with their deep faith take it as a responsibility to live their lives in ways that model the reconciliation of each identity – civil and religious – with the other. In this respect, the political call to Australian Muslims to embrace a ‘moderate Islam’, where this is seen as an Islam without a public or political dimension, is constructed as treating their faith as less than equal. Religious identity is generally deemed to have no place in the liberal democratic model, particularly where that religion is constructed to be at odds with the principles and values of liberal democracy, namely tolerance and adherence to the rule of law. Indeed, it is as if the national commitment to secularism rules as out-of-bounds any identity that is grounded in religion, giving precedence instead to accepting and negotiating cultural and ethnic differences. Religion becomes a taboo topic in these terms, an affront against secularism and the values of the Enlightenment that include liberty and equality. In these circumstances, it is not the case that all religions are equally ignored in a secular framework. What is the case is that the secular framework has been constructed as a way of ‘privatising’ one religion, Christianity; leaving others – including Islam – as having nowhere to go. Islam thus becomes constructed as less than equal since it appears that, unlike Christians, Muslims are not willing to play the secular game. In fact, Muslims are puzzling over how they can play the secular game, and why they should play the secular game, given that – as is the case with Christians – they see no contradiction in performing ‘good Muslim’ and ‘good Australian’, if given an equal chance to embrace both. Acknowledgements This paper is based on the findings of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project, 2005-7, involving 10 focus groups and 60 in-depth interviews. The authors wish to acknowledge the participation and contributions of WA community members. References ABC. “A Jihad for Love.” Life Matters (Radio National), 21 Feb. 2008. 11 March 2008. < http://www.abc.net.au/rn/lifematters/stories/2008/2167874.htm >.Aly, Anne. “Australian Muslim Responses to the Discourse on Terrorism in the Australian Popular Media.” Australian Journal of Social Issues 42.1 (2007): 27-40.Aly, Anne, and Lelia Green. “‘Moderate Islam’: Defining the Good Citizen.” M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). 13 April 2008 < http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/08aly-green.php >.Aly, Anne, and David Walker. “Veiled Threats: Recurrent Anxieties in Australia.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 27.2 (2007): 203-14.Brasted, Howard.V. “Contested Representations in Historical Perspective: Images of Islam and the Australian Press 1950-2000.” Muslim Communities in Australia. Eds. Abdullah Saeed and Akbarzadeh, Shahram. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2001. 206-28.Brown, Chris. “Narratives of Religion, Civilization and Modernity.” Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order. Eds. Ken Booth and Tim Dunne. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. 293-324. Buckley, Anisa. “Should We Allow Sharia Law?” Sunday Herald Sun 10 Feb. 2008. 8 March 2008 < http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,231869735000117,00.html >.Bush, George. W. “President Outlines War Effort: Remarks by the President at the California Business Association Breakfast.” California Business Association 2001. 17 April 2007 < http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011017-15.html >.———. “Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation”. Washington, 2001. 17 April 2007 < http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html >.Charney, Evan. “Political Liberalism, Deliberative Democracy, and the Public Sphere.” The American Political Science Review 92.1 (1998): 97- 111.Costello, Peter. “Worth Promoting, Worth Defending: Australian Citizenship, What It Means and How to Nurture It.” Address to the Sydney Institute, 23 February 2006. 24 Apr. 2008 < http://www.treasurer.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=speeches/2006/004.htm &pageID=05&min=phc&Year=2006&DocType=1 >.Dallmayr, Fred. “Rethinking Secularism.” The Review of Politics 61.4 (1999): 715-36.Erjavec, Karmen, and Zala Volcic. “‘War on Terrorism’ as Discursive Battleground: Serbian Recontextualisation of G. W. Bush’s Discourse.” Discourse and Society 18 (2007): 123- 37.Green, Lelia. “Did the World Really Change on 9/11?” Australian Journal of Communication 29.2 (2002): 1-14.Herald Sun. “Readers’ Comments: Should We Allow Sharia Law?” Herald Sun Online Feb. 2008. 8 March 2008. < http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/comments/0,22023,23186973-5000117,00.html >.Humphries, David. “Live Here, Be Australian.” The Sydney Morning Herald 25 Feb. 2006, 1 ed.Hutcheson, John S., David Domke, Andre Billeaudeaux, and Philip Garland. “U.S. National Identity, Political Elites, and Patriotic Press Following September 11.” Political Communication 21.1 (2004): 27-50.Kymlicka, Will. “Liberal Individualism and Liberal Neutrality.” Ethics 99.4 (1989): 883-905.Modood, Tariq. “Establishment, Multiculturalism and British Citizenship.” The Political Quarterly (1994): 53-74.Osuri, Goldie, and Subhabrata B. Banerjee. “White Diasporas: Media Representations of September 11 and the Unbearable Whiteness of Being in Australia.” Social Semiotics 14.2 (2004): 151- 71.Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1971.Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books 1978.Western Australian Charter of Multiculturalism. WA: Government of Western Australia, Nov. 2004. 11 March 2008 < http://www.equalopportunity.wa.gov.au/pdf/wa_charter_multiculturalism.pdf >.Yousif, Ahmad. “Islam, Minorities and Religious Freedom: A Challenge to Modern Theory of Pluralism.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 20.1 (2000): 30-43.
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Noyce, Diana Christine. "Coffee Palaces in Australia: A Pub with No Beer." M/C Journal 15, no. 2 (May 2, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.464.

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Abstract:
The term “coffee palace” was primarily used in Australia to describe the temperance hotels that were built in the last decades of the 19th century, although there are references to the term also being used to a lesser extent in the United Kingdom (Denby 174). Built in response to the worldwide temperance movement, which reached its pinnacle in the 1880s in Australia, coffee palaces were hotels that did not serve alcohol. This was a unique time in Australia’s architectural development as the economic boom fuelled by the gold rush in the 1850s, and the demand for ostentatious display that gathered momentum during the following years, afforded the use of richly ornamental High Victorian architecture and resulted in very majestic structures; hence the term “palace” (Freeland 121). The often multi-storied coffee palaces were found in every capital city as well as regional areas such as Geelong and Broken Hill, and locales as remote as Maria Island on the east coast of Tasmania. Presented as upholding family values and discouraging drunkenness, the coffee palaces were most popular in seaside resorts such as Barwon Heads in Victoria, where they catered to families. Coffee palaces were also constructed on a grand scale to provide accommodation for international and interstate visitors attending the international exhibitions held in Sydney (1879) and Melbourne (1880 and 1888). While the temperance movement lasted well over 100 years, the life of coffee palaces was relatively short-lived. Nevertheless, coffee palaces were very much part of Australia’s cultural landscape. In this article, I examine the rise and demise of coffee palaces associated with the temperance movement and argue that coffee palaces established in the name of abstinence were modelled on the coffee houses that spread throughout Europe and North America in the 17th and 18th centuries during the Enlightenment—a time when the human mind could be said to have been liberated from inebriation and the dogmatic state of ignorance. The Temperance Movement At a time when newspapers are full of lurid stories about binge-drinking and the alleged ill-effects of the liberalisation of licensing laws, as well as concerns over the growing trend of marketing easy-to-drink products (such as the so-called “alcopops”) to teenagers, it is difficult to think of a period when the total suppression of the alcohol trade was seriously debated in Australia. The cause of temperance has almost completely vanished from view, yet for well over a century—from 1830 to the outbreak of the Second World War—the control or even total abolition of the liquor trade was a major political issue—one that split the country, brought thousands onto the streets in demonstrations, and influenced the outcome of elections. Between 1911 and 1925 referenda to either limit or prohibit the sale of alcohol were held in most States. While moves to bring about abolition failed, Fitzgerald notes that almost one in three Australian voters expressed their support for prohibition of alcohol in their State (145). Today, the temperance movement’s platform has largely been forgotten, killed off by the practical example of the United States, where prohibition of the legal sale of alcohol served only to hand control of the liquor traffic to organised crime. Coffee Houses and the Enlightenment Although tea has long been considered the beverage of sobriety, it was coffee that came to be regarded as the very antithesis of alcohol. When the first coffee house opened in London in the early 1650s, customers were bewildered by this strange new drink from the Middle East—hot, bitter, and black as soot. But those who tried coffee were, reports Ellis, soon won over, and coffee houses were opened across London, Oxford, and Cambridge and, in the following decades, Europe and North America. Tea, equally exotic, entered the English market slightly later than coffee (in 1664), but was more expensive and remained a rarity long after coffee had become ubiquitous in London (Ellis 123-24). The impact of the introduction of coffee into Europe during the seventeenth century was particularly noticeable since the most common beverages of the time, even at breakfast, were weak “small beer” and wine. Both were safer to drink than water, which was liable to be contaminated. Coffee, like beer, was made using boiled water and, therefore, provided a new and safe alternative to alcoholic drinks. There was also the added benefit that those who drank coffee instead of alcohol began the day alert rather than mildly inebriated (Standage 135). It was also thought that coffee had a stimulating effect upon the “nervous system,” so much so that the French called coffee une boisson intellectuelle (an intellectual beverage), because of its stimulating effect on the brain (Muskett 71). In Oxford, the British called their coffee houses “penny universities,” a penny then being the price of a cup of coffee (Standage 158). Coffee houses were, moreover, more than places that sold coffee. Unlike other institutions of the period, rank and birth had no place (Ellis 59). The coffee house became the centre of urban life, creating a distinctive social culture by treating all customers as equals. Egalitarianism, however, did not extend to women—at least not in London. Around its egalitarian (but male) tables, merchants discussed and conducted business, writers and poets held discussions, scientists demonstrated experiments, and philosophers deliberated ideas and reforms. For the price of a cup (or “dish” as it was then known) of coffee, a man could read the latest pamphlets and newsletters, chat with other patrons, strike business deals, keep up with the latest political gossip, find out what other people thought of a new book, or take part in literary or philosophical discussions. Like today’s Internet, Twitter, and Facebook, Europe’s coffee houses functioned as an information network where ideas circulated and spread from coffee house to coffee house. In this way, drinking coffee in the coffee house became a metaphor for people getting together to share ideas in a sober environment, a concept that remains today. According to Standage, this information network fuelled the Enlightenment (133), prompting an explosion of creativity. Coffee houses provided an entirely new environment for political, financial, scientific, and literary change, as people gathered, discussed, and debated issues within their walls. Entrepreneurs and scientists teamed up to form companies to exploit new inventions and discoveries in manufacturing and mining, paving the way for the Industrial Revolution (Standage 163). The stock market and insurance companies also had their birth in the coffee house. As a result, coffee was seen to be the epitome of modernity and progress and, as such, was the ideal beverage for the Age of Reason. By the 19th century, however, the era of coffee houses had passed. Most of them had evolved into exclusive men’s clubs, each geared towards a certain segment of society. Tea was now more affordable and fashionable, and teahouses, which drew clientele from both sexes, began to grow in popularity. Tea, however, had always been Australia’s most popular non-alcoholic drink. Tea (and coffee) along with other alien plants had been part of the cargo unloaded onto Australian shores with the First Fleet in 1788. Coffee, mainly from Brazil and Jamaica, remained a constant import but was taxed more heavily than tea and was, therefore, more expensive. Furthermore, tea was much easier to make than coffee. To brew tea, all that is needed is to add boiling water, coffee, in contrast, required roasting, grinding and brewing. According to Symons, until the 1930s, Australians were the largest consumers of tea in the world (19). In spite of this, and as coffee, since its introduction into Europe, was regarded as the antidote to alcohol, the temperance movement established coffee palaces. In the early 1870s in Britain, the temperance movement had revived the coffee house to provide an alternative to the gin taverns that were so attractive to the working classes of the Industrial Age (Clarke 5). Unlike the earlier coffee house, this revived incarnation provided accommodation and was open to men, women and children. “Cheap and wholesome food,” was available as well as reading rooms supplied with newspapers and periodicals, and games and smoking rooms (Clarke 20). In Australia, coffee palaces did not seek the working classes, as clientele: at least in the cities they were largely for the nouveau riche. Coffee Palaces The discovery of gold in 1851 changed the direction of the Australian economy. An investment boom followed, with an influx of foreign funds and English banks lending freely to colonial speculators. By the 1880s, the manufacturing and construction sectors of the economy boomed and land prices were highly inflated. Governments shared in the wealth and ploughed money into urban infrastructure, particularly railways. Spurred on by these positive economic conditions and the newly extended inter-colonial rail network, international exhibitions were held in both Sydney and Melbourne. To celebrate modern technology and design in an industrial age, international exhibitions were phenomena that had spread throughout Europe and much of the world from the mid-19th century. According to Davison, exhibitions were “integral to the culture of nineteenth century industrialising societies” (158). In particular, these exhibitions provided the colonies with an opportunity to demonstrate to the world their economic power and achievements in the sciences, the arts and education, as well as to promote their commerce and industry. Massive purpose-built buildings were constructed to house the exhibition halls. In Sydney, the Garden Palace was erected in the Botanic Gardens for the 1879 Exhibition (it burnt down in 1882). In Melbourne, the Royal Exhibition Building, now a World Heritage site, was built in the Carlton Gardens for the 1880 Exhibition and extended for the 1888 Centennial Exhibition. Accommodation was required for the some one million interstate and international visitors who were to pass through the gates of the Garden Palace in Sydney. To meet this need, the temperance movement, keen to provide alternative accommodation to licensed hotels, backed the establishment of Sydney’s coffee palaces. The Sydney Coffee Palace Hotel Company was formed in 1878 to operate and manage a number of coffee palaces constructed during the 1870s. These were designed to compete with hotels by “offering all the ordinary advantages of those establishments without the allurements of the drink” (Murdoch). Coffee palaces were much more than ordinary hotels—they were often multi-purpose or mixed-use buildings that included a large number of rooms for accommodation as well as ballrooms and other leisure facilities to attract people away from pubs. As the Australian Town and Country Journal reveals, their services included the supply of affordable, wholesome food, either in the form of regular meals or occasional refreshments, cooked in kitchens fitted with the latest in culinary accoutrements. These “culinary temples” also provided smoking rooms, chess and billiard rooms, and rooms where people could read books, periodicals and all the local and national papers for free (121). Similar to the coffee houses of the Enlightenment, the coffee palaces brought businessmen, artists, writers, engineers, and scientists attending the exhibitions together to eat and drink (non-alcoholic), socialise and conduct business. The Johnson’s Temperance Coffee Palace located in York Street in Sydney produced a practical guide for potential investors and businessmen titled International Exhibition Visitors Pocket Guide to Sydney. It included information on the location of government departments, educational institutions, hospitals, charitable organisations, and embassies, as well as a list of the tariffs on goods from food to opium (1–17). Women, particularly the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) were a formidable force in the temperance movement (intemperance was generally regarded as a male problem and, more specifically, a husband problem). Murdoch argues, however, that much of the success of the push to establish coffee palaces was due to male politicians with business interests, such as the one-time Victorian premiere James Munro. Considered a stern, moral church-going leader, Munro expanded the temperance movement into a fanatical force with extraordinary power, which is perhaps why the temperance movement had its greatest following in Victoria (Murdoch). Several prestigious hotels were constructed to provide accommodation for visitors to the international exhibitions in Melbourne. Munro was responsible for building many of the city’s coffee palaces, including the Victoria (1880) and the Federal Coffee Palace (1888) in Collins Street. After establishing the Grand Coffee Palace Company, Munro took over the Grand Hotel (now the Windsor) in 1886. Munro expanded the hotel to accommodate some of the two million visitors who were to attend the Centenary Exhibition, renamed it the Grand Coffee Palace, and ceremoniously burnt its liquor licence at the official opening (Murdoch). By 1888 there were more than 50 coffee palaces in the city of Melbourne alone and Munro held thousands of shares in coffee palaces, including those in Geelong and Broken Hill. With its opening planned to commemorate the centenary of the founding of Australia and the 1888 International Exhibition, the construction of the Federal Coffee Palace, one of the largest hotels in Australia, was perhaps the greatest monument to the temperance movement. Designed in the French Renaissance style, the façade was embellished with statues, griffins and Venus in a chariot drawn by four seahorses. The building was crowned with an iron-framed domed tower. New passenger elevators—first demonstrated at the Sydney Exhibition—allowed the building to soar to seven storeys. According to the Federal Coffee Palace Visitor’s Guide, which was presented to every visitor, there were three lifts for passengers and others for luggage. Bedrooms were located on the top five floors, while the stately ground and first floors contained majestic dining, lounge, sitting, smoking, writing, and billiard rooms. There were electric service bells, gaslights, and kitchens “fitted with the most approved inventions for aiding proficients [sic] in the culinary arts,” while the luxury brand Pears soap was used in the lavatories and bathrooms (16–17). In 1891, a spectacular financial crash brought the economic boom to an abrupt end. The British economy was in crisis and to meet the predicament, English banks withdrew their funds in Australia. There was a wholesale collapse of building companies, mortgage banks and other financial institutions during 1891 and 1892 and much of the banking system was halted during 1893 (Attard). Meanwhile, however, while the eastern States were in the economic doldrums, gold was discovered in 1892 at Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie in Western Australia and, within two years, the west of the continent was transformed. As gold poured back to the capital city of Perth, the long dormant settlement hurriedly caught up and began to emulate the rest of Australia, including the construction of ornately detailed coffee palaces (Freeman 130). By 1904, Perth had 20 coffee palaces. When the No. 2 Coffee Palace opened in Pitt Street, Sydney, in 1880, the Australian Town and Country Journal reported that coffee palaces were “not only fashionable, but appear to have acquired a permanent footing in Sydney” (121). The coffee palace era, however, was relatively short-lived. Driven more by reformist and economic zeal than by good business sense, many were in financial trouble when the 1890’s Depression hit. Leading figures in the temperance movement were also involved in land speculation and building societies and when these schemes collapsed, many, including Munro, were financially ruined. Many of the palaces closed or were forced to apply for liquor licences in order to stay afloat. Others developed another life after the temperance movement’s influence waned and the coffee palace fad faded, and many were later demolished to make way for more modern buildings. The Federal was licensed in 1923 and traded as the Federal Hotel until its demolition in 1973. The Victoria, however, did not succumb to a liquor licence until 1967. The Sydney Coffee Palace in Woolloomooloo became the Sydney Eye Hospital and, more recently, smart apartments. Some fine examples still survive as reminders of Australia’s social and cultural heritage. The Windsor in Melbourne’s Spring Street and the Broken Hill Hotel, a massive three-story iconic pub in the outback now called simply “The Palace,” are some examples. Tea remained the beverage of choice in Australia until the 1950s when the lifting of government controls on the importation of coffee and the influence of American foodways coincided with the arrival of espresso-loving immigrants. As Australians were introduced to the espresso machine, the short black, the cappuccino, and the café latte and (reminiscent of the Enlightenment), the post-war malaise was shed in favour of the energy and vigour of modernist thought and creativity, fuelled in at least a small part by caffeine and the emergent café culture (Teffer). Although the temperance movement’s attempt to provide an alternative to the ubiquitous pubs failed, coffee has now outstripped the consumption of tea and today’s café culture ensures that wherever coffee is consumed, there is the possibility of a continuation of the Enlightenment’s lively discussions, exchange of news, and dissemination of ideas and information in a sober environment. References Attard, Bernard. “The Economic History of Australia from 1788: An Introduction.” EH.net Encyclopedia. 5 Feb. (2012) ‹http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/attard.australia›. Blainey, Anna. “The Prohibition and Total Abstinence Movement in Australia 1880–1910.” Food, Power and Community: Essays in the History of Food and Drink. Ed. Robert Dare. Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 1999. 142–52. Boyce, Francis Bertie. “Shall I Vote for No License?” An address delivered at the Convention of the Parramatta Branch of New South Wales Alliance, 3 September 1906. 3rd ed. Parramatta: New South Wales Alliance, 1907. Clarke, James Freeman. Coffee Houses and Coffee Palaces in England. Boston: George H. Ellis, 1882. “Coffee Palace, No. 2.” Australian Town and Country Journal. 17 Jul. 1880: 121. Davison, Graeme. “Festivals of Nationhood: The International Exhibitions.” Australian Cultural History. Eds. S. L. Goldberg and F. B. Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1989. 158–77. Denby, Elaine. Grand Hotels: Reality and Illusion. London: Reaktion Books, 2002. Ellis, Markman. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004. Federal Coffee Palace. The Federal Coffee Palace Visitors’ Guide to Melbourne, Its Suburbs, and Other Parts of the Colony of Victoria: Views of the Principal Public and Commercial Buildings in Melbourne, With a Bird’s Eye View of the City; and History of the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880, etc. Melbourne: Federal Coffee House Company, 1888. Fitzgerald, Ross, and Trevor Jordan. Under the Influence: A History of Alcohol in Australia. Sydney: Harper Collins, 2009. Freeland, John. The Australian Pub. Melbourne: Sun Books, 1977. Johnson’s Temperance Coffee Palace. International Exhibition Visitors Pocket Guide to Sydney, Restaurant and Temperance Hotel. Sydney: Johnson’s Temperance Coffee Palace, 1879. Mitchell, Ann M. “Munro, James (1832–1908).” Australian Dictionary of Biography. Canberra: National Centre of Biography, Australian National U, 2006-12. 5 Feb. 2012 ‹http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/munro-james-4271/text6905›. Murdoch, Sally. “Coffee Palaces.” Encyclopaedia of Melbourne. Eds. Andrew Brown-May and Shurlee Swain. 5 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.emelbourne.net.au/biogs/EM00371b.htm›. Muskett, Philip E. The Art of Living in Australia. New South Wales: Kangaroo Press, 1987. Standage, Tom. A History of the World in 6 Glasses. New York: Walker & Company, 2005. Sydney Coffee Palace Hotel Company Limited. Memorandum of Association of the Sydney Coffee Palace Hotel Company, Ltd. Sydney: Samuel Edward Lees, 1879. Symons, Michael. One Continuous Picnic: A Gastronomic History of Australia. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2007. Teffer, Nicola. Coffee Customs. Exhibition Catalogue. Sydney: Customs House, 2005.
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Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín. "Coffee Culture in Dublin: A Brief History." M/C Journal 15, no. 2 (May 2, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.456.

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IntroductionIn the year 2000, a group of likeminded individuals got together and convened the first annual World Barista Championship in Monte Carlo. With twelve competitors from around the globe, each competitor was judged by seven judges: one head judge who oversaw the process, two technical judges who assessed technical skills, and four sensory judges who evaluated the taste and appearance of the espresso drinks. Competitors had fifteen minutes to serve four espresso coffees, four cappuccino coffees, and four “signature” drinks that they had devised using one shot of espresso and other ingredients of their choice, but no alcohol. The competitors were also assessed on their overall barista skills, their creativity, and their ability to perform under pressure and impress the judges with their knowledge of coffee. This competition has grown to the extent that eleven years later, in 2011, 54 countries held national barista championships with the winner from each country competing for the highly coveted position of World Barista Champion. That year, Alejandro Mendez from El Salvador became the first world champion from a coffee producing nation. Champion baristas are more likely to come from coffee consuming countries than they are from coffee producing countries as countries that produce coffee seldom have a culture of espresso coffee consumption. While Ireland is not a coffee-producing nation, the Irish are the highest per capita consumers of tea in the world (Mac Con Iomaire, “Ireland”). Despite this, in 2008, Stephen Morrissey from Ireland overcame 50 other national champions to become the 2008 World Barista Champion (see, http://vimeo.com/2254130). Another Irish national champion, Colin Harmon, came fourth in this competition in both 2009 and 2010. This paper discusses the history and development of coffee and coffee houses in Dublin from the 17th century, charting how coffee culture in Dublin appeared, evolved, and stagnated before re-emerging at the beginning of the 21st century, with a remarkable win in the World Barista Championships. The historical links between coffeehouses and media—ranging from print media to electronic and social media—are discussed. In this, the coffee house acts as an informal public gathering space, what urban sociologist Ray Oldenburg calls a “third place,” neither work nor home. These “third places” provide anchors for community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction (Oldenburg). This paper will also show how competition from other “third places” such as clubs, hotels, restaurants, and bars have affected the vibrancy of coffee houses. Early Coffee Houses The first coffee house was established in Constantinople in 1554 (Tannahill 252; Huetz de Lemps 387). The first English coffee houses opened in Oxford in 1650 and in London in 1652. Coffee houses multiplied thereafter but, in 1676, when some London coffee houses became hotbeds for political protest, the city prosecutor decided to close them. The ban was soon lifted and between 1680 and 1730 Londoners discovered the pleasure of drinking coffee (Huetz de Lemps 388), although these coffee houses sold a number of hot drinks including tea and chocolate as well as coffee.The first French coffee houses opened in Marseille in 1671 and in Paris the following year. Coffee houses proliferated during the 18th century: by 1720 there were 380 public cafés in Paris and by the end of the century there were 600 (Huetz de Lemps 387). Café Procope opened in Paris in 1674 and, in the 18th century, became a literary salon with regular patrons: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot and Condorcet (Huetz de Lemps 387; Pitte 472). In England, coffee houses developed into exclusive clubs such as Crockford’s and the Reform, whilst elsewhere in Europe they evolved into what we identify as cafés, similar to the tea shops that would open in England in the late 19th century (Tannahill 252-53). Tea quickly displaced coffee in popularity in British coffee houses (Taylor 142). Pettigrew suggests two reasons why Great Britain became a tea-drinking nation while most of the rest of Europe took to coffee (48). The first was the power of the East India Company, chartered by Elizabeth I in 1600, which controlled the world’s biggest tea monopoly and promoted the beverage enthusiastically. The second was the difficulty England had in securing coffee from the Levant while at war with France at the end of the seventeenth century and again during the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13). Tea also became the dominant beverage in Ireland and over a period of time became the staple beverage of the whole country. In 1835, Samuel Bewley and his son Charles dared to break the monopoly of The East India Company by importing over 2,000 chests of tea directly from Canton, China, to Ireland. His family would later become synonymous with the importation of coffee and with opening cafés in Ireland (see, Farmar for full history of the Bewley's and their activities). Ireland remains the highest per-capita consumer of tea in the world. Coffee houses have long been linked with social and political change (Kennedy, Politicks; Pincus). The notion that these new non-alcoholic drinks were responsible for the Enlightenment because people could now gather socially without getting drunk is rejected by Wheaton as frivolous, since there had always been alternatives to strong drink, and European civilisation had achieved much in the previous centuries (91). She comments additionally that cafés, as gathering places for dissenters, took over the role that taverns had long played. Pennell and Vickery support this argument adding that by offering a choice of drinks, and often sweets, at a fixed price and in a more civilized setting than most taverns provided, coffee houses and cafés were part of the rise of the modern restaurant. It is believed that, by 1700, the commercial provision of food and drink constituted the second largest occupational sector in London. Travellers’ accounts are full of descriptions of London taverns, pie shops, coffee, bun and chop houses, breakfast huts, and food hawkers (Pennell; Vickery). Dublin Coffee Houses and Later incarnations The earliest reference to coffee houses in Dublin is to the Cock Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85). Public dining or drinking establishments listed in the 1738 Dublin Directory include taverns, eating houses, chop houses, coffee houses, and one chocolate house in Fownes Court run by Peter Bardin (Hardiman and Kennedy 157). During the second half of the 17th century, Dublin’s merchant classes transferred allegiance from taverns to the newly fashionable coffee houses as places to conduct business. By 1698, the fashion had spread to country towns with coffee houses found in Cork, Limerick, Kilkenny, Clonmel, Wexford, and Galway, and slightly later in Belfast and Waterford in the 18th century. Maxwell lists some of Dublin’s leading coffee houses and taverns, noting their clientele: There were Lucas’s Coffee House, on Cork Hill (the scene of many duels), frequented by fashionable young men; the Phoenix, in Werburgh Street, where political dinners were held; Dick’s Coffee House, in Skinner’s Row, much patronized by literary men, for it was over a bookseller’s; the Eagle, in Eustace Street, where meetings of the Volunteers were held; the Old Sot’s Hole, near Essex Bridge, famous for its beefsteaks and ale; the Eagle Tavern, on Cork Hill, which was demolished at the same time as Lucas’s to make room for the Royal Exchange; and many others. (76) Many of the early taverns were situated around the Winetavern Street, Cook Street, and Fishamble Street area. (see Fig. 1) Taverns, and later coffee houses, became meeting places for gentlemen and centres for debate and the exchange of ideas. In 1706, Francis Dickson published the Flying Post newspaper at the Four Courts coffee house in Winetavern Street. The Bear Tavern (1725) and the Black Lyon (1735), where a Masonic Lodge assembled every Wednesday, were also located on this street (Gilbert v.1 160). Dick’s Coffee house was established in the late 17th century by bookseller and newspaper proprietor Richard Pue, and remained open until 1780 when the building was demolished. In 1740, Dick’s customers were described thus: Ye citizens, gentlemen, lawyers and squires,who summer and winter surround our great fires,ye quidnuncs! who frequently come into Pue’s,To live upon politicks, coffee, and news. (Gilbert v.1 174) There has long been an association between coffeehouses and publishing books, pamphlets and particularly newspapers. Other Dublin publishers and newspapermen who owned coffee houses included Richard Norris and Thomas Bacon. Until the 1850s, newspapers were burdened with a number of taxes: on the newsprint, a stamp duty, and on each advertisement. By 1865, these taxes had virtually disappeared, resulting in the appearance of 30 new newspapers in Ireland, 24 of them in Dublin. Most people read from copies which were available free of charge in taverns, clubs, and coffee houses (MacGiolla Phadraig). Coffee houses also kept copies of international newspapers. On 4 May 1706, Francis Dickson notes in the Dublin Intelligence that he held the Paris and London Gazettes, Leyden Gazette and Slip, the Paris and Hague Lettres à la Main, Daily Courant, Post-man, Flying Post, Post-script and Manuscripts in his coffeehouse in Winetavern Street (Kennedy, “Dublin”). Henry Berry’s analysis of shop signs in Dublin identifies 24 different coffee houses in Dublin, with the main clusters in Essex Street near the Custom’s House (Cocoa Tree, Bacon’s, Dempster’s, Dublin, Merchant’s, Norris’s, and Walsh’s) Cork Hill (Lucas’s, St Lawrence’s, and Solyman’s) Skinners’ Row (Bow’s’, Darby’s, and Dick’s) Christ Church Yard (Four Courts, and London) College Green (Jack’s, and Parliament) and Crampton Court (Exchange, and Little Dublin). (see Figure 1, below, for these clusters and the locations of other Dublin coffee houses.) The earliest to be referenced is the Cock Coffee House in Cook Street during the reign of Charles II (1660-85), with Solyman’s (1691), Bow’s (1692), and Patt’s on High Street (1699), all mentioned in print before the 18th century. The name of one, the Cocoa Tree, suggests that chocolate was also served in this coffee house. More evidence of the variety of beverages sold in coffee houses comes from Gilbert who notes that in 1730, one Dublin poet wrote of George Carterwright’s wife at The Custom House Coffee House on Essex Street: Her coffee’s fresh and fresh her tea,Sweet her cream, ptizan, and whea,her drams, of ev’ry sort, we findboth good and pleasant, in their kind. (v. 2 161) Figure 1: Map of Dublin indicating Coffee House clusters 1 = Sackville St.; 2 = Winetavern St.; 3 = Essex St.; 4 = Cork Hill; 5 = Skinner's Row; 6 = College Green.; 7 = Christ Church Yard; 8 = Crampton Court.; 9 = Cook St.; 10 = High St.; 11 = Eustace St.; 12 = Werburgh St.; 13 = Fishamble St.; 14 = Westmorland St.; 15 = South Great George's St.; 16 = Grafton St.; 17 = Kildare St.; 18 = Dame St.; 19 = Anglesea Row; 20 = Foster Place; 21 = Poolbeg St.; 22 = Fleet St.; 23 = Burgh Quay.A = Cafe de Paris, Lincoln Place; B = Red Bank Restaurant, D'Olier St.; C = Morrison's Hotel, Nassau St.; D = Shelbourne Hotel, St. Stephen's Green; E = Jury's Hotel, Dame St. Some coffee houses transformed into the gentlemen’s clubs that appeared in London, Paris and Dublin in the 17th century. These clubs originally met in coffee houses, then taverns, until later proprietary clubs became fashionable. Dublin anticipated London in club fashions with members of the Kildare Street Club (1782) and the Sackville Street Club (1794) owning the premises of their clubhouse, thus dispensing with the proprietor. The first London club to be owned by the members seems to be Arthur’s, founded in 1811 (McDowell 4) and this practice became widespread throughout the 19th century in both London and Dublin. The origin of one of Dublin’s most famous clubs, Daly’s Club, was a chocolate house opened by Patrick Daly in c.1762–65 in premises at 2–3 Dame Street (Brooke). It prospered sufficiently to commission its own granite-faced building on College Green between Anglesea Street and Foster Place which opened in 1789 (Liddy 51). Daly’s Club, “where half the land of Ireland has changed hands”, was renowned for the gambling that took place there (Montgomery 39). Daly’s sumptuous palace catered very well (and discreetly) for honourable Members of Parliament and rich “bucks” alike (Craig 222). The changing political and social landscape following the Act of Union led to Daly’s slow demise and its eventual closure in 1823 (Liddy 51). Coincidentally, the first Starbucks in Ireland opened in 2005 in the same location. Once gentlemen’s clubs had designated buildings where members could eat, drink, socialise, and stay overnight, taverns and coffee houses faced competition from the best Dublin hotels which also had coffee rooms “in which gentlemen could read papers, write letters, take coffee and wine in the evening—an exiguous substitute for a club” (McDowell 17). There were at least 15 establishments in Dublin city claiming to be hotels by 1789 (Corr 1) and their numbers grew in the 19th century, an expansion which was particularly influenced by the growth of railways. By 1790, Dublin’s public houses (“pubs”) outnumbered its coffee houses with Dublin boasting 1,300 (Rooney 132). Names like the Goose and Gridiron, Harp and Crown, Horseshoe and Magpie, and Hen and Chickens—fashionable during the 17th and 18th centuries in Ireland—hung on decorative signs for those who could not read. Throughout the 20th century, the public house provided the dominant “third place” in Irish society, and the drink of choice for itd predominantly male customers was a frothy pint of Guinness. Newspapers were available in public houses and many newspapermen had their own favourite hostelries such as Mulligan’s of Poolbeg Street; The Pearl, and The Palace on Fleet Street; and The White Horse Inn on Burgh Quay. Any coffee served in these establishments prior to the arrival of the new coffee culture in the 21st century was, however, of the powdered instant variety. Hotels / Restaurants with Coffee Rooms From the mid-19th century, the public dining landscape of Dublin changed in line with London and other large cities in the United Kingdom. Restaurants did appear gradually in the United Kingdom and research suggests that one possible reason for this growth from the 1860s onwards was the Refreshment Houses and Wine Licences Act (1860). The object of this act was to “reunite the business of eating and drinking”, thereby encouraging public sobriety (Mac Con Iomaire, “Emergence” v.2 95). Advertisements for Dublin restaurants appeared in The Irish Times from the 1860s. Thom’s Directory includes listings for Dining Rooms from the 1870s and Refreshment Rooms are listed from the 1880s. This pattern continued until 1909, when Thom’s Directory first includes a listing for “Restaurants and Tea Rooms”. Some of the establishments that advertised separate coffee rooms include Dublin’s first French restaurant, the Café de Paris, The Red Bank Restaurant, Morrison’s Hotel, Shelbourne Hotel, and Jury’s Hotel (see Fig. 1). The pattern of separate ladies’ coffee rooms emerged in Dublin and London during the latter half of the 19th century and mixed sex dining only became popular around the last decade of the 19th century, partly infuenced by Cesar Ritz and Auguste Escoffier (Mac Con Iomaire, “Public Dining”). Irish Cafés: From Bewley’s to Starbucks A number of cafés appeared at the beginning of the 20th century, most notably Robert Roberts and Bewley’s, both of which were owned by Quaker families. Ernest Bewley took over the running of the Bewley’s importation business in the 1890s and opened a number of Oriental Cafés; South Great Georges Street (1894), Westmoreland Street (1896), and what became the landmark Bewley’s Oriental Café in Grafton Street (1927). Drawing influence from the grand cafés of Paris and Vienna, oriental tearooms, and Egyptian architecture (inspired by the discovery in 1922 of Tutankhamen’s Tomb), the Grafton Street business brought a touch of the exotic into the newly formed Irish Free State. Bewley’s cafés became the haunt of many of Ireland’s leading literary figures, including Samuel Becket, Sean O’Casey, and James Joyce who mentioned the café in his book, Dubliners. A full history of Bewley’s is available (Farmar). It is important to note, however, that pots of tea were sold in equal measure to mugs of coffee in Bewley’s. The cafés changed over time from waitress- to self-service and a failure to adapt to changing fashions led to the business being sold, with only the flagship café in Grafton Street remaining open in a revised capacity. It was not until the beginning of the 21st century that a new wave of coffee house culture swept Ireland. This was based around speciality coffee beverages such as espressos, cappuccinos, lattés, macchiatos, and frappuccinnos. This new phenomenon coincided with the unprecedented growth in the Irish economy, during which Ireland became known as the “Celtic Tiger” (Murphy 3). One aspect of this period was a building boom and a subsequent growth in apartment living in the Dublin city centre. The American sitcom Friends and its fictional coffee house, “Central Perk,” may also have helped popularise the use of coffee houses as “third spaces” (Oldenberg) among young apartment dwellers in Dublin. This was also the era of the “dotcom boom” when many young entrepreneurs, software designers, webmasters, and stock market investors were using coffee houses as meeting places for business and also as ad hoc office spaces. This trend is very similar to the situation in the 17th and early 18th centuries where coffeehouses became known as sites for business dealings. Various theories explaining the growth of the new café culture have circulated, with reasons ranging from a growth in Eastern European migrants, anti-smoking legislation, returning sophisticated Irish emigrants, and increased affluence (Fenton). Dublin pubs, facing competition from the new coffee culture, began installing espresso coffee machines made by companies such as Gaggia to attract customers more interested in a good latté than a lager and it is within this context that Irish baristas gained such success in the World Barista competition. In 2001 the Georges Street branch of Bewley’s was taken over by a chain called Café, Bar, Deli specialising in serving good food at reasonable prices. Many ex-Bewley’s staff members subsequently opened their own businesses, roasting coffee and running cafés. Irish-owned coffee chains such as Java Republic, Insomnia, and O’Brien’s Sandwich Bars continued to thrive despite the competition from coffee chains Starbucks and Costa Café. Indeed, so successful was the handmade Irish sandwich and coffee business that, before the economic downturn affected its business, Irish franchise O’Brien’s operated in over 18 countries. The Café, Bar, Deli group had also begun to franchise its operations in 2008 when it too became a victim of the global economic downturn. With the growth of the Internet, many newspapers have experienced falling sales of their printed format and rising uptake of their electronic versions. Most Dublin coffee houses today provide wireless Internet connections so their customers can read not only the local newspapers online, but also others from all over the globe, similar to Francis Dickenson’s coffee house in Winetavern Street in the early 18th century. Dublin has become Europe’s Silicon Valley, housing the European headquarters for companies such as Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Paypal, and Facebook. There are currently plans to provide free wireless connectivity throughout Dublin’s city centre in order to promote e-commerce, however, some coffee houses shut off the wireless Internet in their establishments at certain times of the week in order to promote more social interaction to ensure that these “third places” remain “great good places” at the heart of the community (Oldenburg). Conclusion Ireland is not a country that is normally associated with a coffee culture but coffee houses have been part of the fabric of that country since they emerged in Dublin in the 17th century. These Dublin coffee houses prospered in the 18th century, and survived strong competition from clubs and hotels in the 19th century, and from restaurant and public houses into the 20th century. In 2008, when Stephen Morrissey won the coveted title of World Barista Champion, Ireland’s place as a coffee consuming country was re-established. The first decade of the 21st century witnessed a birth of a new espresso coffee culture, which shows no signs of weakening despite Ireland’s economic travails. References Berry, Henry F. “House and Shop Signs in Dublin in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.” The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland 40.2 (1910): 81–98. Brooke, Raymond Frederick. Daly’s Club and the Kildare Street Club, Dublin. Dublin, 1930. Corr, Frank. Hotels in Ireland. Dublin: Jemma Publications, 1987. Craig, Maurice. Dublin 1660-1860. Dublin: Allen Figgis, 1980. Farmar, Tony. The Legendary, Lofty, Clattering Café. Dublin: A&A Farmar, 1988. Fenton, Ben. “Cafe Culture taking over in Dublin.” The Telegraph 2 Oct. 2006. 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1530308/cafe-culture-taking-over-in-Dublin.html›. Gilbert, John T. A History of the City of Dublin (3 vols.). Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1978. Girouard, Mark. Victorian Pubs. New Haven, Conn.: Yale UP, 1984. Hardiman, Nodlaig P., and Máire Kennedy. A Directory of Dublin for the Year 1738 Compiled from the Most Authentic of Sources. Dublin: Dublin Corporation Public Libraries, 2000. Huetz de Lemps, Alain. “Colonial Beverages and Consumption of Sugar.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 383–93. Kennedy, Máire. “Dublin Coffee Houses.” Ask About Ireland, 2011. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/pages-in-history/dublin-coffee-houses›. ----- “‘Politicks, Coffee and News’: The Dublin Book Trade in the Eighteenth Century.” Dublin Historical Record LVIII.1 (2005): 76–85. Liddy, Pat. Temple Bar—Dublin: An Illustrated History. Dublin: Temple Bar Properties, 1992. Mac Con Iomaire, Máirtín. “The Emergence, Development, and Influence of French Haute Cuisine on Public Dining in Dublin Restaurants 1900-2000: An Oral History.” Ph.D. thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, 2009. 4 Apr. 2012 ‹http://arrow.dit.ie/tourdoc/12›. ----- “Ireland.” Food Cultures of the World Encylopedia. Ed. Ken Albala. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2010. ----- “Public Dining in Dublin: The History and Evolution of Gastronomy and Commercial Dining 1700-1900.” International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management 24. Special Issue: The History of the Commercial Hospitality Industry from Classical Antiquity to the 19th Century (2012): forthcoming. MacGiolla Phadraig, Brian. “Dublin: One Hundred Years Ago.” Dublin Historical Record 23.2/3 (1969): 56–71. Maxwell, Constantia. Dublin under the Georges 1714–1830. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1979. McDowell, R. B. Land & Learning: Two Irish Clubs. Dublin: The Lilliput P, 1993. Montgomery, K. L. “Old Dublin Clubs and Coffee-Houses.” New Ireland Review VI (1896): 39–44. Murphy, Antoine E. “The ‘Celtic Tiger’—An Analysis of Ireland’s Economic Growth Performance.” EUI Working Papers, 2000 29 Apr. 2012 ‹http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/WP-Texts/00_16.pdf›. Oldenburg, Ray, ed. Celebrating the Third Place: Inspiring Stories About The “Great Good Places” At the Heart of Our Communities. New York: Marlowe & Company 2001. Pennell, Sarah. “‘Great Quantities of Gooseberry Pye and Baked Clod of Beef’: Victualling and Eating out in Early Modern London.” Londinopolis: Essays in the Cultural and Social History of Early Modern London. Eds. Paul Griffiths and Mark S. R. Jenner. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000. 228–59. Pettigrew, Jane. A Social History of Tea. London: National Trust Enterprises, 2001. Pincus, Steve. “‘Coffee Politicians Does Create’: Coffeehouses and Restoration Political Culture.” The Journal of Modern History 67.4 (1995): 807–34. Pitte, Jean-Robert. “The Rise of the Restaurant.” Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present. Eds. Jean-Louis Flandrin and Massimo Montanari. New York: Columbia UP, 1999. 471–80. Rooney, Brendan, ed. A Time and a Place: Two Centuries of Irish Social Life. Dublin: National Gallery of Ireland, 2006. Tannahill, Reay. Food in History. St Albans, Herts.: Paladin, 1975. Taylor, Laurence. “Coffee: The Bottomless Cup.” The American Dimension: Cultural Myths and Social Realities. Eds. W. Arens and Susan P. Montague. Port Washington, N.Y.: Alfred Publishing, 1976. 14–48. Vickery, Amanda. Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Wheaton, Barbara Ketcham. Savouring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300-1789. London: Chatto & Windus, Hogarth P, 1983. Williams, Anne. “Historical Attitudes to Women Eating in Restaurants.” Public Eating: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery 1991. Ed. Harlan Walker. Totnes: Prospect Books, 1992. 311–14. World Barista, Championship. “History–World Barista Championship”. 2012. 02 Apr. 2012 ‹http://worldbaristachampionship.com2012›.AcknowledgementA warm thank you to Dr. Kevin Griffin for producing the map of Dublin for this article.
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Glitsos, Laura. "From Rivers to Confetti: Reconfigurations of Time through New Media Narratives." M/C Journal 22, no. 6 (December 4, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1584.

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IntroductionIn the contemporary West, experiences of time are shaped by—and inextricably linked to—the nature of media production and consumption. In Derrida and Steigler’s estimation, teletechnologies bring time “into play” and thus produce time as an “artifact”, that is, a knowable product (3). How and why time becomes “artifactually” produced, according to these thinkers, is a result of the various properties of media production; media ensure that “gestures” (which can be understood here as the cultural moments marked as significant in some way, especially public ones) are registered. Being so, time is constrained, “formatted, initialised” by the matrix of the media system (3). Subsequently, because the media apparatus undergirds the Western imaginary, so too, the media apparatus undergirds the Western concept of time. We can say, in the radically changing global mediascape then, digital culture performs and generates ontological shifts that rewrite the relationship between media, time, and experience. This point lends itself to the significance of the role of both new media platforms and new media texts in reconfiguring understandings between past, present, and future timescapes.There are various ways in which new media texts and platforms work upon experiences of time. In the following, I will focus on just one of these ways: narrativity. By examining a ‘new media’ text, I elucidate how new media narratives imagine timescapes that are constructed through metaphors of ‘confetti’ or ‘snow’, as opposed to more traditional lineal metaphors like ‘rivers’ or ‘streams’ (see Augustine Sedgewick’s “Against Flows” for more critical thinking on the relationship between history, narrative, and the ‘flows’ metaphor). I focus on the revisioning of narrative structure in the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House (2018) from its original form in the 1959 novel by Shirley Jackson. The narrative revisioning from the novel to the televisual both demonstrates and manifests emergent conceptualisations of time through the creative play of temporal multi-flows, which are contemporaneous yet fragmented.The first consideration is the shift in textual format. However, the translocation of the narrative from a novel to a televisual text is important, but not the focus here. Added to this, I deliberately move toward a “general narrative analysis” (Cobley 28), which has the advantage of focusing onmechanisms which may be integral to linguistically or visually-based genres without becoming embroiled in parochial questions to do with the ‘effectiveness’ of given modes, or the relative ‘value’ of different genres. This also allows narrative analysis to track the development of a specified process as well as its embodiment in a range of generic and technological forms. (Cobley 28)It should be also be noted from the outset that I am not suggesting that fragmented narrative constructions and representations were never imagined or explored prior to this new media age. Quite the contrary if we think of Modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf (Lodwick; Haggland). Rather, it is to claim that this abstraction is emerging in the mainstream entertainment media in greater contest with the dominant and more historically entrenched version of ‘time as a construct’ that is characterised through Realist narratology as linear and flowing only one way. As I will explore below, the reasons for this are largely related to shifts in everyday media consumption brought about by digital culture. There are two reasons why I specifically utilise Netflix’s series The Haunting of Hill House as a fulcrum from which to lever arguments about new media and the contemporary experience of time. First, as a web series, it embodies some of the pertinent conventions of the digital media landscape, both diegetically and also through practices of production and consumption by way of new time-shifting paradigms (see Leaver). I focus on the former in this article, but the latter is fruitful ground for critical consideration. For example, Netflix itself, as a platform, has somewhat destabilised normative temporal routines, such as in the case of ‘binge-watching’ where audiences ‘lose’ time similarly to gamblers in the casino space. Second, the fact that there are two iterations of the same story—one a novel and one a televisual text—provide us with a comparative benchmark from which to make further assertions about the changing nature of media and time from the mid-century to a post-millennium digital mediascape. Though it should be noted, my discussion will focus on the nature and quality of the contemporary framework, and I use the 1959 novel as a frame of reference only rather than examining its rich tapestry in its own right (for critique on the novel itself, see Wilson; see Roberts).Media and the Production of Time-SenseThere is a remarkable canon of literature detailing the relationship between media and the production of time, which can help us place this discussion in a theoretical framework. I am limited by space, but I will engage with some of the most pertinent material to set out a conceptual map. Markedly, from here, I refer to the Western experience of time as a “time-sense” following E.P. Thompson’s work (80). Following Thompson’s language, I use the term “time-sense” to refer to “our inward notation of time”, characterised by the rhythms of our “technological conditioning” systems, whether those be the forces of labour, media, or otherwise (80). Through the textual analysis of Hill House to follow, I will offer ways in which the technological conditioning of the new media system both constructs and shapes time-sense in terms related to a constellation of moments, or, to use a metaphor from the Netflix series itself, like “confetti” or “snow” (“Silence Lay Steadily”).However, in discussing the production of time-sense through new media mechanisms, note that time-sense is not an abstraction but is still linked to our understandings of the literal nature of time-space. For example, Alvin Toffler explains that, in its most simple construction, “Time can be conceived as the intervals during which events occur” (21). However, we must be reminded that events must first occur within the paradigm of experience. That is to say that matters of ‘duration’ cannot be unhinged from the experiential or phenomenological accounts of those durations, or in Toffler’s words, in an echo of Thompson, “Man’s [sic] perception of time is closely linked with his internal rhythms” (71). In the 1970s, Toffler commented upon the radical expansion of global systems of communications that produces the “twin forces of acceleration and transience”, which “alter the texture of existence, hammering our lives and psyches into new and unfamiliar shapes” (18). This simultaneous ‘speeding up’ (which he calls acceleration) and sense of ‘skipping’ (which he calls transience) manifest in a range of modern experiences which disrupt temporal contingencies. Nearly two decades after Toffler, David Harvey commented upon the Postmodern’s “total acceptance of ephemerality, fragmentation, discontinuity, and the chaotic” (44). Only a decade ago, Terry Smith emphasised that time-sense had become even more characterised by the “insistent presentness of multiple, often incompatible temporalities” (196). Netflix had not even launched in Australia and New Zealand until 2015, as well as a host of other time-shifting media technologies which have emerged in the past five years. As a result, it behooves us to revaluate time-sense with this emergent field of production.That being said, entertainment media have always impressed itself upon our understanding of temporal flows. Since the dawn of cinema in the late 19th century, entertainment media have been pivotal in constructing, manifesting, and illustrating time-sense. This has largely (but not exclusively) been in relation to the changing nature of narratology and the ways that narrative produces a sense of temporality. Helen Powell points out that the very earliest cinema, such as the Lumière Brothers’ short films screened in Paris, did not embed narrative, rather, “the Lumières’ actualities captured life as it happened with all its contingencies” (2). It is really only with the emergence of classical mainstream Hollywood that narrative became central, and with it new representations of “temporal flow” (2). Powell tells us that “the classical Hollywood narrative embodies a specific representation of temporal flow, rational and linear in its construction” reflecting “the standardised view of time introduced by the onset of industrialisation” (Powell 2). Of course, as media production and trends change, so does narrative structure. By the late 20th century, new approaches to narrative structure manifest in tropes such as ‘the puzzle film,’ as an example, which “play with audiences” expectations of conventional roles and storytelling through the use of the unreliable narrator and the fracturing of linearity. In doing so, they open up wider questions of belief, truth and reliability” (Powell 4). Puzzle films which might be familiar to the reader are Memento (2001) and Run Lola Run (1999), each playing with the relationship between time and memory, and thus experiences of contemporaneity. The issue of narrative in the construction of temporal flow is therefore critically linked to the ways that mediatic production of narrative, in various ways, reorganises time-sense more broadly. To examine this more closely, I now turn to Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House.Narratology and Temporal FlowNetflix’s revision of The Haunting of Hill House reveals critical insights into the ways in which media manifest the nature and quality of time-sense. Of course, the main difference between the 1959 novel and the Netflix web series is the change of the textual format from a print text to a televisual text distributed on an Internet streaming platform. This change performs what Marie-Laure Ryan calls “transfictionality across media” (385). There are several models through which transfictionality might occur and thus transmogrify textual and narratival parametres of a text. In the case of The Haunting of Hill House, the Netflix series follows the “displacement” model, which means it “constructs essentially different versions of the protoworld, redesigning its structure and reinventing its story” (Doležel 206). For example, in the 2018 television remake, the protoworld from the original novel retains integrity in that it conveys the story of a group of people who are brought to a mansion called Hill House. In both versions of the protoworld, the discombobulating effects of the mansion work upon the group dynamics until a final break down reveals the supernatural nature of the house. However, in ‘displacing’ the original narrative for adaptation to the web series, the nature of the group is radically reshaped (from a research contingent to a nuclear family unit) and the events follow radically different temporal contingencies.More specifically, the original 1959 novel utilises third-person limited narration and follows a conventional linear temporal flow through which events occur in chronological order. This style of storytelling is often thought about in metaphorical terms by way of ‘rivers’ or ‘streams,’ that is, flowing one-way and never repeating the same configuration (very much unlike the televisual text, in which some scenes are repeated to punctuate various time-streams). Sean Cubitt has examined the relationship between this conventional narrative structure and time sensibility, stating thatthe chronological narrative proposes to us a protagonist who always occupies a perpetual present … as a point moving along a line whose dimensions have however already been mapped: the protagonist of the chronological narrative is caught in a story whose beginning and end have already been determined, and which therefore constructs story time as the unfolding of destiny rather than the passage from past certainty into an uncertain future. (4)I would map Cubitt’s characterisation onto the original Hill House novel as representative of a mid-century textual artifact. Although Modernist literature (by way of Joyce, Woolf, Eliot, and so forth) certainly ‘played’ with non-linear or multi-linear narrative structures, in relation to time-sense, Christina Chau reminds us that Modernity, as a general mood, was very much still caught up in the idea that “time that moves in a linear fashion with the future moving through the present and into the past” (26). Additionally, even though flashbacks are utilised in the original novel, they are revealed using the narrative convention of ‘memories’ through the inner dialogue of the central character, thus still occurring in the ‘present’ of the novel’s timescape and still in keeping with a ‘one-way’ trajectory. Most importantly, the original novel follows what I will call one ‘time-stream’, in that events unfold, and are conveyed through, one temporal flow.In the Netflix series, there are obvious (and even cardinal) changes which reorganise the entire cast of characters as well as the narrative structure. In fact, the very process of returning to the original novel in order to produce a televisual remake says something about the nature of time-sense in itself, which is further sophisticated by the recognition of Netflix as a ‘streaming service’. That is, Netflix encapsulates this notion of ‘rivers-on-demand’ which overlap with each other in the context of the contemporaneous and persistent ‘now’ of digital culture. Marie-Laure Ryan suggests that “the proliferation of rewrites … is easily explained by the sense of pastness that pervades Postmodern culture and by the fixation of contemporary thought with the textual nature of reality” (386). While the Netflix series remains loyal to the mood and basic premise (i.e., that there is a haunted house in which characters endure strange happenings and enter into psycho-drama), the series instead uses fractured narrative convention through which three time-streams are simultaneously at work (although one time-stream is embedded in another and therefore its significance is ‘hidden’ to the viewer until the final episode), which we will examine now.The Time-Streams of Hill HouseIn the Netflix series, the central time-stream is, at first, ostensibly located in the characters’ ‘present’. I will call this time-stream A. (As a note to the reader here, there are spoilers for those who have not watched the Netflix series.) The viewer assumes they are, from the very first scene, following the ‘present’ time-stream in which the characters are adults. This is the time-stream in which the series opens, however, only for the first minute of viewing. After around one minute of viewing time, we already enter into a second time-stream. Even though both the original novel and the TV series begin with the same dialogue, the original novel continues to follow one time-stream, while the TV series begins to play with contemporaneous action by manifesting a second time-stream (following a series of events from the characters past) running in parallel action to the first time-stream. This narrative revisioning resonates with Toffler’s estimation of shifting nature of time-sense in the later twentieth century, in which he cites thatindeed, not only do contemporary events radiate instantaneously—now we can be said to be feeling the impact of all past events in a new way. For the past is doubling back on us. We are caught in what might be called a ‘time skip’. (16)In its ‘displacement’ model, the Hill House televisual remake points to this ongoing fascination with, and re-actualisation of, the exaggerated temporal discrepancies in the experience of contemporary everyday life. The Netflix Hill House series constructs a dimensional timescape in which the timeline ‘skips’ back and forth (not only for the viewer but also the characters), and certain spaces (such as the Red Room) are only permeable to some characters at certain times.If we think about Toffler’s words here—a doubling back, or, a time-skip—we might be pulled toward ever more recent incarnations of this effect. In Helen Powell’s investigation of the relationship between narrative and time-sense, she insists that “new media’s temporalities offer up the potential to challenge the chronological mode of temporal experience” (152). Sean Cubitt proposes that with the intensification of new media “we enter a certain, as yet inchoate, mode of time. For all the boasts of instantaneity, our actual relations with one another are mediated and as such subject to delays: slow downloads, periodic crashes, cache clearances and software uploads” (10). Resultingly, we have myriad temporal contingencies running at any one time—some slow, frustrating, mundane, in ‘real-time’ and others rapid to the point of instantaneous, or even able to pull the past into the present (through the endless trove of archived media on the web) and again into other mediatic dimensions such as virtual reality. To wit, Powell writes that “narrative, in mirroring these new temporal relations must embody fragmentation, discontinuity and incomplete resolution” (153). Fragmentation, discontinuity, and incompleteness are appropriate ways to think through the Hill House’s narrative revision and the ways in which it manifests some of these time-sensibilities.The notion of a ‘time-skip’ is an appropriate way to describe the transitions between the three temporal flows occurring simultaneously in the Hill House televisual remake. Before being comfortably seated in any one time-stream, the viewer is translocated into a second time-stream that runs parallel to it (almost suggesting a kind of parallel dimension). So, we begin with the characters as adults and then almost immediately, we are also watching them as children with the rapid emergence of this second time-stream. This ‘second time-stream’ conveys the events of ‘the past’ in which the central characters are children, so I will call this time-stream B. While time-stream B conveys the scenes in which the characters are children, the scenes are not necessarily in chronological order.The third time-stream is the spectral-stream, or time-stream C. However, the viewer is not fully aware that there is a totally separate time stream at play (the audience is made to think that this time-stream is the product of mere ghost-sightings). This is until the final episode, which completes the narrative ‘puzzle’. That is, the third time-stream conveys the events which are occurring simultaneously in both of the two other time-streams. In a sense, time-stream C, the spectral stream, is used to collapse the ontological boundaries of the former two time-streams. Throughout the early episodes, this time-stream C weaves in and out of time-streams A and B, like an intrusive time-stream (intruding upon the two others until it manifests on its own in the final episode). Time-stream C is used to create a 'puzzle' for the viewer in that the viewer does not fully understand its total significance until the puzzle is completed in the final episode. This convention, too, says something about the nature of time-sense as it shifts and mutates with mediatic production. This echoes back to Powell’s discussion of the ‘puzzle’ trend, which, as I note earlier, plays with “audiences’ expectations of conventional roles and storytelling through the use of the unreliable narrator and the fracturing of linearity” which serves to “open up wider questions of belief, truth and reliability” (4). Similarly, the skipping between three time-streams to build the Hill House puzzle manifests the ever-complicating relationships of time-management experiences in everyday life, in which pasts, presents, and futures impinge upon one another and interfere with each other.Critically, in terms of plot, time-stream B (in which the characters are little children) opens with the character Nell as a small child of 5 or 6 years of age. She appears to have woken up from a nightmare about The Bent Neck Lady. This vision traumatises Nell, and she is duly comforted in this scene by the characters of the eldest son and the father. This provides crucial exposition for the viewer: We are told that these ‘visitations’ from The Bent Neck Lady are a recurring trauma for the child-Nell character. It is important to note that, while these scenes may be mistaken for simple memory flashbacks, it becomes clearer throughout the series that this time-stream is not tied to any one character’s memory but is a separate storyline, though critical to the functioning of the other two. Moreover, the Bent Neck Lady recurs as both (apparent) nightmares and waking visions throughout the course of Nell’s life. It is in Episode Five that we realise why.The reason why The Bent Neck Lady always appears to Nell is that she is Nell. We learn this at the end of Episode Five when the storyline finally conveys how Nell dies in the House, which is by hanging from a noose tied to the mezzanine in the Hill House foyer. As Nell drops from the mezzanine attached to this noose, her neck snaps—she is The Bent Neck Lady. However, Nell does not just drop to the end of the noose. She continues to drop five more times back into the other two time streams. Each time Nell drops, she drops into a different moment in time (and each time the neck snapping is emphasised). The first drop she appears to herself in a basement. The second drop she appears to herself on the road outside the car while she is with her brother. The third is during (what we have been told) is a kind of sleep paralysis. The fourth and fifth drops she appears to herself as the small child on two separate occasions—both of which we witness with her in the first episode. So not only is Nell journeying through time, the audience is too. The viewer follows Nell’s journey through her ‘time-skip’. The result of the staggered but now conjoined time-streams is that we come to realise that Nell is, in fact, haunting herself—and the audience now understands they have followed this throughout not as a ghost-sighting but as a ‘future’ time-stream impinging on another.In the final episode of season one, the siblings are confronted by Ghost-Nell in the Red Room. This is important because it is in this Red Room through which all time-streams coalesce. The Red Room exists dimensionally, cutting across disparate spaces and times—it is the spatial representation of the spectral time-stream C. It is in this final episode, and in this spectral dimension, that all the three time-streams collapse upon each other and complete the narrative ‘puzzle’ for the viewer. The temporal flow of the spectral dimension, time-stream C, interrupts and interferes with the temporal flow of the former two—for both the characters in the text and viewing audience.The collapse of time-streams is produced through a strategic dialogic structure. When Ghost-Nell appears to the siblings in the Red Room, her first line of dialogue is a non-sequitur. Luke emerges from his near-death experience and points to Nell, to which Nell replies: “I feel a little clearer just now. We have. All of us have” ("Silence Lay Steadily"). Nell’s dialogue continues but, eventually, she returns to the same statement, almost like she is running through a cyclic piece of text. She states again, “We have. All of us have.” However, this time around, the phrase is pre-punctuated by Shirley’s claim that she feels as though she had been in the Red Room before. Nell’s dialogue and the dialogue of the other characters suddenly align in synchronicity. The audience now understands that Nell’s very first statement, “We have. All of us have” is actually a response to the statement that Shirley had not yet made. This narrative convention emphasises the ‘confetti-like’ nature of the construction of time here. Confetti is, after all, sheets of paper that have been cut into pieces, thrown into the air, and then fallen out of place. Similarly, the narrative makes sense as a whole but feels cut into pieces and realigned, if only momentarily. When Nell then loops back through the same dialogue, it finally appears in synch and thus makes sense. This signifies that the time-streams are now merged.The Ghost of Nell has travelled through (and in and out of) each separate time-stream. As a result, Ghost-Nell understands the nature of the Red Room—it manifests a slippage of timespace that each of the siblings had entered during their stay at the Hill House mansion. It is with this realisation that Ghost-Nell explains:Everything’s been out of order. Time, I mean. I thought for so long that time was like a line, that ... our moments were laid out like dominoes, and that they ... fell, one into another and on it went, just days tipping, one into the next, into the next, in a long line between the beginning ... and the end.But I was wrong. It’s not like that at all. Our moments fall around us like rain. Or... snow. Or confetti. (“Silence Lay Steadily”)This brings me to the titular concern: The emerging abstraction of time as a mode of layering and fracturing, a mode performed through this analogy of ‘confetti’ or ‘snow’. The Netflix Hill House revision rearranges time constructs so that any one moment of time may be accessed, much like scrolling back and forth (and in and out) of social media feeds, Internet forums, virtual reality programs and so forth. Each moment, like a flake of ‘snow’ or ‘confetti’ litters the timespace matrix, making an infinite tapestry that exists dimensionally. In the Hill House narrative, all moments exist simultaneously and accessing each moment at any point in the time-stream is merely a process of perception.ConclusionNetflix is optimised as a ‘streaming platform’ which has all but ushered in the era of ‘time-shifting’ predicated on geospatial politics (see Leaver). The current media landscape offers instantaneity, contemporaneity, as well as, arbitrary boundedness on the basis of geopolitics, which Tama Leaver refers to as the “tyranny of digital distance”. Therefore, it is fitting that Netflix’s revision of the Hill House narrative is preoccupied with time as well as spectrality. Above, I have explored just some of the ways that the televisual remake plays with notions of time through a diegetic analysis.However, we should take note that even in its production and consumption, this series, to quote Graham Meikle and Sherman Young, is embedded within “the current phase of television [that] suggests contested continuities” (67). Powell problematises the time-sense of this media apparatus further by reminding us that “there are three layers of temporality contained within any film image: the time of registration (production); the time of narration (storytelling); and the time of its consumption (viewing)” (3-4). Each of these aspects produces what Althusser and Balibar have called a “peculiar time”, that is, “different levels of the whole as developing ‘in the same historical time’ … relatively autonomous and hence relatively independent, even in its dependence, of the ‘times’ of the other levels” (99). When we think of the layers upon layers of different time ‘signatures’ which converge in Hill House as a textual artifact—in its production, consumption, distribution, and diegesis—the nature of contemporary time reveals itself as complex but also fleeting—hard to hold onto—much like snow or confetti.ReferencesAlthusser, Louis, and Étienne Balibar. Reading Capital. London: NLB, 1970.Cobley, Paul. Narrative. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis, 2013.Cubitt, S. “Spreadsheets, Sitemaps and Search Engines.” New Screen Media: Cinema/Art/Narrative. Eds. Martin Rieser and Andrea Zapp. London: BFI, 2002. 3-13.Derrida, Jacques, and Bernard Stiegler. Echographies of Television: Filmed Interviews. Massachusetts: Polity Press, 2002.Doležel, Lubomir. Heterocosmica: Fiction and Possible Worlds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1999.Hägglund, Martin. Dying for Time: Proust, Woolf, Nabokov. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2012.Hartley, Lodwick. “Of Time and Mrs. Woolf.” The Sewanee Review 47.2 (1939): 235-241.Harvey, David. Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.Jackson, Shirley. The Haunting of Hill House. New York: Viking, 1959.Laurie-Ryan Marie. “Transfictionality across Media.” Theorizing Narrativity. Eds. John Pier, García Landa, and José Angel. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2008. 385-418.Leaver, Tama. “Watching Battlestar Galactica in Australia and the Tyranny of Digital Distance.” Media International Australia 126 (2008): 145-154.Meikle, George, and Sherman Young. “Beyond Broadcasting? TV For the Twenty-First Century.” Media International Australia 126 (2008): 67-70.Powell, Helen. Stop the Clocks! Time and Narrative in Cinema. London: I.B. Tauris, 2012.Roberts, Brittany. “Helping Eleanor Come Home: A Reassessment of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.” The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies 16 (2017): 67-93.Smith, Terry. What Is Contemporary Art? Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2009.The Haunting of Hill House. Mike Flanagan. Amblin Entertainment, 2018.Thompson, E.P. “Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism.” Past and Present 38.1 (1967): 56-97.Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: Bantam Books, 1971.Wilson, Michael T. “‘Absolute Reality’ and the Role of the Ineffable in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.” Journal of Popular Culture 48.1 (2015): 114-123.
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