Gothic Voids: Nineteenth-Century Reader Experience and Participation

Characterization of nineteenth-century literary Gothic is usually confined to affective response. This project argues that literary Gothic works constitute an intellectual, empirical endeavor. Because authors of literary Gothic intentionally left voids in their narratives, they invited their readers to participate in making narrative through speculation and conjecture about missing information. The practice of Gothic reading makes the reader an active partaker in filling those voids with rational conclusions. Reading is not just textual encounter. Rather, it incorporates making meaning of one’s surroundings. In their experiences, literary works’ characters “read” their environments: people, objects, events, etc. Chapter 1 characterizes Gothic reading as the employment of logical processes; Northanger Abbey’s Catherine Morland uses induction, deduction and syllogism to make sense of—read—her world. In Chapter 2, Frankenstein presents reading as audience engagement between characters as they tell their stories. Shelley uses sympathy as a social-bonding device in which characters read other characters through listening. Chapter 3 examines Jane Eyre through the motif of the legend of Bluebeard’s House. The house serves as a narrative that Bluebeard’s Wife must read and decode for its danger. With her keys, she can unlock the spaces of that narrative. Standing in for the reader, Jane attempts to unlock Thornfield’s narrative through investigation. Both Jane and the reader use “keys” of unexplainable things to unlock the secrets within the narrative; the Gothic author endows the reader with keys of mysterious objects, people, and events. Reading continually opens up answers. In the final chapter, this project argues for Gothic as detective fiction. In their narrative structure and storylines, Dracula and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde allow for the reader to sleuth out mysteries. Dracula’s Seward and van Helsing perform detective work on Renfield and Dracula, respectively. Additionally, each man represents a different style of reasoning, Seward algorithmic and Helsing heuristic. Meanwhile, Utterson the attorney must play detective to determine the nature of the relationship between Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. All three characters read their environments as part of their detection

Rabindranath Tagore’s English Prose: “Some Qualities of Permanence”

This paper explores the enduring qualities of Rabindranath Tagore’s English prose and puts forward the thesis that not only the Gitanjali poems but also many other of his English writings attained “some qualities of permanence” almost wholly because of his artistic skills. In addition to the strength of his ideas and the intensity of his feelings, the main reason why his prose works found an appreciative audience for a long time in the west can often be attributed to his adroit use of the English language in his letters, lectures, essays and speeches and his ability to adjust his style in accordance with the occasion, the audience, the genre and the subject matter. Without the impact the English prose writings have had, Tagore’s international reputation would not have survived thus far. Indeed, the enduring popularity of a work such as Nationalism tells us quite clearly that while as far as his argument is concerned there is a lot that is still relevant for the world in Tagore’s English writings, they should still appeal to us also because of his eloquence and writing skills

Dating martian climate change

Geological evidence indicates that low-latitude polygonally-patterned grounds on Mars, generally thought to be the product of flood volcanism, are periglacial in nature and record a complex signal of changing climate. By studying the martian surface stratigraphically (in terms of the geometrical relations between surface landforms and the substrate) rather than genetically (by form analogy with Earth), we have identified dynamic surfaces across one fifth of martian longitude. New stratigraphical observations in the Elysium-Amazonis plains have revealed a progressive surface polygonisation that is destructive of impact craters across the region. This activity is comparable to the climatically-driven degradation of periglacial landscapes on Earth, but because it affects impact craters – the martian chronometer – it can be dated. Here we show that it is possible to directly date this activity based on the fraction of impact craters affected by polygon formation. Nearly 100% of craters (of all diameters) are superposed by polygonal sculpture: considering the few-100 Ma age of the substrate, this suggests that the process of polygon formation was active within the last few million years. Surface polygonisation in this region, often considered to be one of the signs of young, 'plains-forming' volcanism on Mars, is instead shown to postdate the majority of impact craters seen. We therefore conclude that it is post-depositional in origin and an artifact of thermal cycling of near-surface ground ice. Stratigraphically-controlled crater counts present the first way of dating climate change on a planet other than Earth: a record that may tell us something about climate change on our own planet. Parallel climate change on these two worlds – an ice age Mars coincident with Earth's glacial Quaternary period – might suggest a coupled system linking both. We have previously been unable to generalise about the causes of long-term climate change based on a single terrestrial example – with the beginnings of a chronology for climate change on our nearest planetary neighbour, we can

Madness as The Divided Self in the works of American female authors

When R.D. Laing wrote The Divided Self in 1960, his goal was “to make madness, and the process of going mad, comprehensible.” Laing argued that psychosis was, at its core, an existential problem, driven by a sense of disconnection from the world and in turn, a fragmentation of the self. This thesis uses Laing’s theory of “the divided self” as a framework for examining how madness is constructed in Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (1890), Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar (1963), and Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962). Each of these works offers a unique portrait of the “divided self” that both builds upon and enriches the understanding of Laing’s theory and uses that “divided self” to highlight the greater themes of the works. These narratives not only illuminate the complicated nature of madness and psychosis but also the ways that society and the larger world contribute to these conditions, particularly in the case of women. By analyzing the ways that Laing’s theory of the “divided self” functions within the texts of Gilman, Plath, and Jackson, I aim in this thesis to highlight the ability of each of these texts to confront issues of gender, social roles, and mental health while also unpacking the unique intricacies and implications of female madness in the early to mid-twentieth century

Redistributing power? A poetics of participation in contemporary arts.

Imagine a man standing in a covered market place. Other stallholders around him sell fruit and vegetables, clothes and household goods. However, he is undertaking an altogether different kind of exchange. He offers to insure the shoppers and other stallholders in the market place against the loss of mystery in contemporary life. He invites members of the public to contribute their personal examples of mystery in exchange for an insurance certificate and a jar of two pence coins. He receives a rich and unexpected range of experiences from lost keys to a possessed mobile phone. The Insurance Stall, 21 – 23 November 2006 is the first part of a four-part project, The Preston Market Mystery Project (2006 – 8) by the artist John Newling. Three full days of running the Insurance Stall from dawn to dusk in Preston Market in November 2006 resulted in the collection of 280 mysteries: Mystery, as a kind of truth that is incomprehensible to reason, is familiar to us. Many of us have been in, or observed, situations when something inexplicable has occurred. An object goes missing, never to be found or the cause of odd sounds in the house is never discovered. There are hundreds of small events that seem to be beyond our understanding. Other incidents of mystery are miraculous in their form. The recovery, against reason, from a terrible illness; the happenstance of circumstances that prevent an awful incident; an extraordinary event in nature, the like of which has never been experienced before, all are witness to mystery in the world. In the second part of the project, Voicing Mysteries March 2007, Newling read out the mysteries one by one from a spot-lit golden lectern in the same market place assembled at the key five entrances into the market. The readings took place after market hours beginning at twilight and demarcating a threshold 'where our dreams and thoughts coalesce'. It continued deep into the night. In this way, the private thoughts and experiences of individuals willing to take part in this work in its preliminary stages were gifted back, ceremoniously, within a public space in the form of a public proclamation. In part three the following June, The Knowledge Meal, individuals whose contributions stood out were invited to a formal, beautifully produced meal. Again, this was held in the market place and after hours. The exchange had been prepared carefully through correspondence beforehand between the 40 individuals about the peculiarities of their mysteries. The public was encouraged to view the whole ritual

Schema.

This thesis supports the Master of Fine Arts exhibition at the Slocumb Galleries in Ball Hall at East Tennessee State University, from February 23rd through February 27th 2009. The exhibition is comprised of eight graphite drawings, one ink drawing, eight vinyl prints, two hundred sixty lenticular prints, over fifty digital inkjet prints, and one video installation. The exhibition presents the artist\u27s exploration into using drawings and prints as installation as they relate to quantum physics and universal scale. Subjects discussed, on a project-by-project basis, include thought, ideas, methods, influences, and process by which the work in the exhibition was achieved

Exploring Sara Paretsky\u27s detective fiction from the perspective of ecofeminism

This thesis analyzes Paretsky\u27s works and how the dominant members of society use their power to exploit the weaker members, and how that exploitation impacts society. It shows how the author connects the abuse that stems from the power of patriarchy to the abuse of nature

Global Impacts Report 2017

Our fifth Global Impacts Report reflects on the progress of the MSC over the past 20 years, examines the sustainability performance of certified fisheries around the world and highlights areas of future interest