Katherine Mansfield and Conceptualisations of the Self

The thesis aims to show how Katherine Mansfield’s desire to discover aspects of the self shaped her strengths and distinctiveness as a writer, particularly in the development of her own modernist aesthetic. Mansfield’s letters and notebooks often betray a preoccupation with issues of the self. In one notebook entry she exclaims, ‘if one was true to oneself . . . True to oneself! Which self? Which of my many – well, really, that’s what it looks like coming to – hundreds of selves’ (CW4, 349). By examining this and many other scattered references to the self throughout Mansfield’s letters and notebooks, this thesis aims to uncover the relationship between Mansfield’s personal comments and questions on the self and the development of her literary techniques. The beginning of the twentieth century, when Mansfield was writing, saw many advancements in science and technology as well as new psychological theories popularised by William James and Sigmund Freud. These theories added to a discourse on the psychological make-up of the individual as modernity caused a crisis in understanding the construction of the self, calling identity into question. By examining these theories, this thesis provides a framework for the analysis of Mansfield’s writing, integrating current critical commentary on her fiction, Mansfield’s private thoughts and her experimental fiction. Whilst there have in the past been studies of Mansfield’s writing addressing aspects of the narrative techniques of her stories that construct multifarious representations of the self, particularly those by Clare Hanson (1981), Kate Fullbrook (1986) and Sydney Janet Kaplan (1991), to date no full-length study exists which coordinates notebook entries, letters and Mansfield’s fiction across her writing career. Using a chronological analysis this thesis demonstrates how her preoccupation with the self underlies the energy and liveliness of her stories and is a key influencing factor in her creation of a unique aesthetic. Using narratological theory as a guide, close textual analysis of stories from across Mansfield’s entire oeuvre informs this study, revealing how she learns to exploit literary techniques such as focalisation and free indirect discourse in order to represent the ‘hundreds of selves’ experienced by her characters. The thesis will illustrate from a selection of stories, how the spirit and uniqueness of Mansfield’s experimental fiction comes from observations about the contradictions of the self, its multiplicity, its division and its obliqueness, achieved by placing her characters in situations that cause them to misapprehend the self or discover it anew. It will focus on Mansfield’s depictions of the frustrations, dreams and passions of her female characters as they seek escape from or transgress the boundaries forced upon them, whether these are self-imposed or result from patriarchal strictures and will aim to reveal how Mansfield’s experimental fiction captures the nuances of the female self

Cycling through Dark Space: Apprehending the Landscape Otherwise

By investigating the experience of night-cycling, this paper redresses the overwhelming focus in mobility studies on the apprehension of landscape by daylight. Drawing on Matt’s cycling diary of his regular night rides through rural Bedfordshire, we explore the distinctive ways in which dark landscape is experienced. We discuss various effects: the shaping of perception by the beam of the head torch; an ongoing attunement to differing levels of light and dark; the affordances of the cycle and other equipment; enhanced awareness of the vital rhythms of landscape; and imaginaries stimulated by passage through darkness. We, thereby, aim to contribute to revaluing darkness

Spaces of Vernacular Creativity Reconsidered

Case No. 900303-CA Category No. 2 PETITION FOR REHEARING

Walking women: interviews with artists on the move

No abstract available

French comprehension of English regional accents

French comprehension of British regional varieties: what do response times tell us?The goal of this study is to contribute to the understanding of non-native listener’s perceptual comprehension of British regional accents. The read passage of the IViE corpus (Intonational Variation in English) was used for these experiments with a total of nine varieties from Cambridge, London (Jamaican), Liverpool, Leeds, Bradford (Punjabi), Cardiff, Newcastle, Belfast and Malahide. The subjects included 21 second-year French students majoring in English. The objective of the experiment was to measure the subject’s comprehension of regional varieties. The subjects were asked to write down orthographically what they heard and could listen to each sentence a maximum of four times. Are French people able to adapt to these regional accents and understand them? Does our adaptation mechanism only work for our own native language?The results of the comprehension task showed that the accents that were the most easily understood were Cardiff and Cambridge (the latter being the closest to Received Pronunciation, taught at University). Response times showed an unexpected pattern where they increased as the proportion of errors decreased.Cet article porte sur la compréhension des accents régionaux britanniques chez les Français. L’objectif est de voir comment se comportent les auditeurs français face à des accents dont ils ont peu l’habitude. Nous avons effectué une expérience de compréhension sur les étudiants de deuxième année de LLCE (Langue, Littérature, Civilisation étrangère) et de LEA (Langues Étrangères Appliquées). Il existe peu d’études qui analysent la compréhension d’accents régionaux chez les non-natifs. Les étudiants ont écouté vingt-sept phrases, trois phrases par le même locuteur pour chaque accent. Ils pouvaient écouter chaque phrase jusqu’à quatre fois et devaient transcrire orthographiquement ce qu’ils pensaient entendre. En ce qui concerne cette expérience, les accents les plus facilement compris étaient ceux de Cambridge (l’accent qui ressemble le plus à celui de la Received Pronunciation) et de Cardiff. Nous voulons savoir quel est le coût cognitif de ces accents régionaux. Le temps de réponse est-il un indicateur de la compréhension ou de la non-compréhension des phrases