Bridging the Gap: Canadian Engineer Operations at Canal du Nord–Bourlon Wood, 1918

During the last hundred days of the Great War, the Allied armies swept eastward past the Hindenburg Line with hammer-blow offensive warfare. Performing their work under intense machine gun and shell fire, engineers erected bridges and constructed roads, allowing infantry and artillery units to pursue the retreating enemy. These combat engineers played a vital role in battle tactics and logistical services of open warfare. Their versatile formations contributed to the Canadian Corps’ rapid victories, which included the successful Canal du Nord crossing leading to the capture of Bourlon Wood in September 1918

Extracting, investigating and representing geographical concepts in Herodotus: the case of the Black Sea

In a short break from his preparations for the invasion of Scythia, Darius stops off where the Bosporus was bridged and sails to the Dark Rocks, apparently retracing the steps of the Argonauts.1 ‘There’, Herodotus reports, ‘he sat on the headland and viewed the Pontus, a wonderful sight’ (έζόμενος δέ έπί ρίω έθηεĩτο τόν Πόντον έόντα άξιοθέητον 4. 85. 1).2 In this paper, we aim to bring that wonderful sight to life using the latest digital technology, and to set out some of the ways in which the world that Herodotus describes can now be represented. At the same time, however, we will be concerned to show the potential of digital technologies for opening up new lines of enquiry, in particular the investigation of the ‘deep’ topological structures that underpin the Histories. After all, the Persian king is not the only figure to take an interest in the Pontus as a geographical concept: the historian too shows an interest in the Black Sea by extensively mapping the region and its place in the world, both before and after this episode (4. 37-45; 4. 99-101). The way that Herodotus articulates this space himself, which frames, and to a certain extent pre-empts, Darius’ invasion of Scythia, will be the concern of this paper

Struggling towards Salvation: Narrative Structure in James Baldwin\u27s Go Tell It on the Mountain

This paper argues that John Grimes, the protagonist of James Baldwin\u27s Go Tell It on the Mountain, represents the struggle inherent in the path towards salvation and holds the potential ability to break down the binaries that create this struggle. Of particular interest is a similarity in the narrative framing of John’s story with Jesus Christ\u27s, as told in the four Gospels. The significance of both their symbolic power is dependent on a multitude of narrative viewpoints, in John’s case the tragic pasts offered of his aunt, father and mother in the novel’s medial section. Their stories inform the identity crisis the black church creates for John in the first section yet ties him to this church for his ultimate conversion on the threshing floor at the novel’s close. Baldwin critiques the conversion experience as largely relational to the power structure of the black church, but he also highlights the cultural and historical necessity of converting through the unfortunate fates of those who refuse the experience. John’s ultimate significance as a Christ-like figure of salvation maintains an ambivalent relationship to the black church while offering love as an avenue for bridging the binaries facing him and serving greater collective purpose for the plight of the oppressed

Unlocking Catholic Social Doctrine: Narrative is Key

The argument of the present essay is that the pragmatic pressures of contemporary circumstances that lead to Catholic social doctrine – as set out in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, for example, – to being strongly emphasized in Catholic law schools should not be permitted to create a doctrinal hegemony severing doctrine from the contextualization from which it draws its meaning. Catholic social doctrine depends, for its coherence and truth, as do all of the doctrinal formulations within Catholicism, on its relation to both philosophical and theological understanding and, for the purposes of my present inquiry, to a larger narrative. The case for this thesis rightly begins with trenchant criticism of the peculiar complacency that currently exists within circles of legal thought devoted to Catholic Social Thought, with respect to the assumption of an habitual, basically a doctrinaire point of view. It next offers a contrasting vision of doctrine as merely partial, and as properly dependent for its ground on reference to a fuller normative Christian narrative. It goes on to explain that this necessary ground is found in cosmic Christian narrative and narratives, but that linkage to the cosmic dimension of Christian narrative depends on an auxiliary bridging narrative that serves to translate the cosmic into appropriately temporal terms. Specifically, it offers an account of the narrative of social reconstruction which became current in Western social life in the later part of the nineteenth century as precisely this bridging narrative. Finally, it proposes that respect for narrative ground, context and framework “unlocks” Catholic social doctrine, allowing access to its normative content both in se and for purposes of application on contemporary issues in political and legal theory and of law and public policy

The Test of Command: McNaughton and Exercise “Spartan,” 4–12 March 1943

The large-scale General Headquarters (GHQ) exercise known as “Spartan,” held in the south of England during March 1943, was a significant event in the history of the Canadian Army in the Second World War. The purpose of “Spartan” was to test the army in the dual tasks of breaking out of an established bridgehead and making the transition to open warfare. As a direct result of shortcomings on the exercise, three Canadian generals lost their commands. Of greatest significance was the eventual relief of General A.G.L. McNaughton as commander of the First Canadian Army in November 1943. During and after “Spartan” the Chief of the Imperial General Staff (CIGS), General Sir Francis Alan Brooke, and the Commander-in-Chief of Home Forces, General Sir Bernard Paget, claimed that McNaughton’s performance proved his incapacity to lead First Canadian Army in the field. In consequence, Brooke and Paget orchestrated his removal and Canadian military historians have generally supported their assessment. However, the considerable criticism directed at McNaughton resulting from “Spartan” has suffered from oversimplification. This article will review McNaughton’s performance during the exercise and assess its role in his relief

Unlocking Catholic Social Doctrine: Narrative is Key

The argument of the present essay is that the pragmatic pressures of contemporary circumstances that lead to Catholic social doctrine – as set out in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Catholic Church, for example, – to being strongly emphasized in Catholic law schools should not be permitted to create a doctrinal hegemony severing doctrine from the contextualization from which it draws its meaning. Catholic social doctrine depends, for its coherence and truth, as do all of the doctrinal formulations within Catholicism, on its relation to both philosophical and theological understanding and, for the purposes of my present inquiry, to a larger narrative. The case for this thesis rightly begins with trenchant criticism of the peculiar complacency that currently exists within circles of legal thought devoted to Catholic Social Thought, with respect to the assumption of an habitual, basically a doctrinaire point of view. It next offers a contrasting vision of doctrine as merely partial, and as properly dependent for its ground on reference to a fuller normative Christian narrative. It goes on to explain that this necessary ground is found in cosmic Christian narrative and narratives, but that linkage to the cosmic dimension of Christian narrative depends on an auxiliary bridging narrative that serves to translate the cosmic into appropriately temporal terms. Specifically, it offers an account of the narrative of social reconstruction which became current in Western social life in the later part of the nineteenth century as precisely this bridging narrative. Finally, it proposes that respect for narrative ground, context and framework “unlocks” Catholic social doctrine, allowing access to its normative content both in se and for purposes of application on contemporary issues in political and legal theory and of law and public policy

Definite discourse-new reference in L1 and L2: The case of L2 Mandarin

Definite discourse-new bridging reference (e.g., a school … the teacher; Clark, 1975) is a complex syntax-pragmatic component of referential movement, one that is subject to relatively opaque form-function contingency compared with forms used for discourse-old reference, and one that is especially prone to crosslinguistic influence. Research shows Asian second language (L2) learners of English struggle to produce bridging reference appropriately, yet little research has been done on the L2 production of bridging in Asian languages. We collected oral picture sequence narrative data from 80 lower-intermediate L2 Mandarin learners from first language (L1) English (+ article, n = 23) and L1 Korean and Japanese (- article, n = 57) backgrounds, alongside equivalent L1 data. Speakers of article-L1s were more likely than those from article-less L1s to use numeral + classifier noun phrases (NPs) for nonbridging referents and demonstrative + classifier NPs when introducing bridging referents, essentially (and infelicitously) using these constructions as de facto English-like indefinite/definite articles in their L2 Mandarin production. Speakers of article-less languages infelicitously marked bridging relations with nonbridging forms. These findings confirm substantial crosslinguistic difficulties for the L2 marking of this complex syntax-pragmatic phenomenon across relatively underexplored L1/L2 pairs.postprin