The journals of Maria Graham (1785-1842)

Maria Graham is known as a travel writer, but she also translated works from French and German into English, wrote on history, painting, stories for children, and kept personal journals. My thesis centres on her travel journals and memoirs, published and unpublished. Graham is one of the first female travel writers to acquire fame as a writer shortly after publication, or to provoke controversy; in the cases of Brazil and Chile she actually is the first woman to write about those emerging states. She is outstanding as well for the authority of her narrative voice, her disregard of restrictions imposed on women’s text during her time, her complex approach to gender issues and for the changes experienced by her narrating persona. She begins by constructing a well informed but detached observer who reports her visit to India and the first visit to Brazil in a cold and distant voice, but who later allows another voice to filter through her text, an event that turns the narrator into a mere shadow in parts of the journal on Chile. It is in this journal that Graham begins to build up a contradictory persona who can be superior, ironic, and scathing when describing other women, but who can portray herself as a helpless heroine in a traditional romance when her script so demands it. In the second visit to Brazil this complex narrator becomes warmly eulogising of the country and its ruler, but this attitude does not last. The position is reversed in the third journal, which has elements of a spy thriller at times. The last chapter concerns the journals written in and about Europe regardless of chronology; they illustrate one of the main postulates of the thesis: that Graham evolved as narrator from detached observer to heroine up to the journals written at the end of her life, which become explorations into the narrator’s inner self

The journals of Maria Graham (1785-1842)

Maria Graham is known as a travel writer, but she also translated works from French and German into English, wrote on history, painting, stories for children, and kept personal journals. My thesis centres on her travel journals and memoirs, published and unpublished. Graham is one of the first female travel writers to acquire fame as a writer shortly after publication, or to provoke controversy; in the cases of Brazil and Chile she actually is the first woman to write about those emerging states. She is outstanding as well for the authority of her narrative voice, her disregard of restrictions imposed on women’s text during her time, her complex approach to gender issues and for the changes experienced by her narrating persona. She begins by constructing a well informed but detached observer who reports her visit to India and the first visit to Brazil in a cold and distant voice, but who later allows another voice to filter through her text, an event that turns the narrator into a mere shadow in parts of the journal on Chile. It is in this journal that Graham begins to build up a contradictory persona who can be superior, ironic, and scathing when describing other women, but who can portray herself as a helpless heroine in a traditional romance when her script so demands it. In the second visit to Brazil this complex narrator becomes warmly eulogising of the country and its ruler, but this attitude does not last. The position is reversed in the third journal, which has elements of a spy thriller at times. The last chapter concerns the journals written in and about Europe regardless of chronology; they illustrate one of the main postulates of the thesis: that Graham evolved as narrator from detached observer to heroine up to the journals written at the end of her life, which become explorations into the narrator’s inner self.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

"On the Spot": travelling artists and Abolitionism, 1770-1830

Until recently the visual culture of Atlantic slavery has rarely been critically scrutinised. Yet in the first decades of the nineteenth century slavery was frequently represented by European travelling artists, often in the most graphic, sometimes voyeuristic, detail. This paper examines the work of several itinerant artists, in particular Augustus Earle (1793-1838) and Agostino Brunias (1730–1796), whose very mobility along the edges of empire was part of a much larger circulatory system of exchange (people, goods and ideas) and diplomacy that characterised Europe’s Age of Expansion. It focuses on the role of the travelling artist, and visual culture more generally, in the development of British abolitionism between 1770 and 1830. It discusses the broad circulation of slave imagery within European culture and argues for greater recognition of the role of such imagery in the abolitionist debates that divided Britain. Furthermore, it suggests that the epistemological authority conferred on the travelling artist—the quintessential eyewitness—was key to the rhetorical power of his (rarely her) images. Artists such as Earle viewed the New World as a boundless source of fresh material that could potentially propel them to fame and fortune. Johann Moritz Rugendas (1802-1858), on the other hand, was conscious of contributing to a global scientific mission, a Humboldtian imperative that by the 1820s propelled him and others to travel beyond the traditional itinerary of the Grand Tour. Some artists were implicated in the very fabric of slavery itself, particularly those in the British West Indies such as William Clark (working 1820s) and Richard Bridgens (1785-1846); others, particularly those in Brazil, expressed strong abolitionist sentiments. Fuelled by evangelical zeal to record all aspects of the New World, these artists recognised the importance of representing the harsh realities of slave life. Unlike those in the metropole who depicted slavery (most often in caustic satirical drawings), many travelling artists believed strongly in the evidential value of their images, a value attributed to their global mobility. The paper examines the varied and complex means by which visual culture played a significant and often overlooked role in the political struggles that beset the period

Diabetic Ketoacidosis Complicating Gestational Diabetes Mellitus

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: The prevalence of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is very low. We describe a patient with GDM in whom severe DKA with intrauterine fetal demise developed in the setting of nonadherence to therapy. CASE REPORT: A 33-year-old woman, G2P0010, with no preexisting diabetes mellitus (DM) presented at 30 weeks of gestation with acute-onset altered sensorium, nausea, and emesis. GDM was diagnosed at 15 weeks of gestation with a serum glucose level of 266 mg/dL (70-134 mg/dL) after 1-hour 50-gram glucose challenge test. Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C) was 5.9% (41 mmol/mol) at the time of GMD diagnosis. Insulin was initiated at week 20 of gestation. On presentation, serum glucose level of 920 mg/dL (70-110 mg/dL), pH of 7.02 (7.32-7.43), anion gap level of 38 mmol (5-17 mmol), bicarbonate level of 5.0 mEq/L (22-29 mEq/L), and large serum ketones were found. Ultrasound showed intrauterine fetal demise. She received intravenous fluids and continuous insulin. Following the spontaneous delivery of a nonviable fetus, DKA was resolved. Negative antiglutamic acid decarboxylase, islet cell, and zinc transporter 8 antibodies, C-peptide level of 2.4 ng/dL (1.1-4.4 ng/dL), and HbA1C level of 9% (75 mmol/mol) were found. Inpatient management included basal-bolus and sliding scale insulin therapies. Metformin was added upon discharge 7 days after admission. The HbA1C levels were 5.3% (34 mmol/mol) and 5% (31 mmol/mol) at the 3- and 6-month follow-ups, respectively. Insulin was discontinued. Currently, the patient is on metformin and glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist. DISCUSSION: The development of insulin resistance during pregnancy is driven by multiple factors. Approximately 1% to 2% of pregnant women with impaired glucose tolerance develop DKA; most cases occur in women with type 1 DM. The approximate incidence of DKA in GDM is 0.02%. CONCLUSION: DKA complicating GDM is extremely infrequent, but it cannot be dismissed. Early recognition along with prompt and appropriate medical and obstetrical management is critical