The Thirty-Second George Eliot Memorial Lecture, 2003; What\u27s in a Name: Competing Claims to the Authority of George Eliot

The contentious issue of fame, infamy, and notoriety is the issue at stake in this lecture. On the one hand I focus attention on a tiny moment at the beginning of George Eliot\u27s career, but argue that its gendered implications remain provocative. It acts as a test case of how nineteenth-century women writers had to justify the \u27unfeminine\u27 attribute of ambition. It also tells us something about the double standards operating in the reception of fiction by male and female writers. On 1 February 1859 literary history was made with the publication of a novel called Adam Bede. A chorus of critical acclaim followed in periodicals across the political spectrum - moving politically from left to right, the Westminster Review, the Athenaeum and the Saturday Review - which all trumpeted their approval. E. S. Dallas\u27s review in The Times is representative of the predominant tone, with its opening declaration that \u27there can be no mistake about Adam Bede. It is a first-rate novel, and its author takes rank at once among the masters of the art\u27.2 Charles Dickens wrote a letter of praise, as did Jane Welsh Carlyle, while Queen Victoria\u27s admiration was such that she commissioned the court painter, Edward Corbould, to paint two scenes from the novel for her private collection. Victoria asked for illustrations of the heroine of the book, Dinah Morris, an earnest young Methodist preacher bringing her audience back to the paths of righteousness, and another of the seduced woman, Hetty Sorrel. Her choice was entirely predictable as her taste ran to narrative paintings with an unexceptionable moral message.3 So, it would seem from all this that Adam Bede was a respectable novel, promulgating an unambiguous moral message, well-designed to suit a middle-class Victorian readership. Indeed, the novel sold over 15,000 copies in 1859 and was also translated into Dutch, French, German and Hungarian, making it, by the standards of the day, an international bestseller

Women and Jews in Daniel Deronda

When Daniel Deronda was first published in 1876 George Eliot was disappointed that readers tended to \u27cut the book into scraps and talk of nothing in it but Gwendolen. I meant everything in the book to be related to everything else there\u27.1 Her contemporary readers had failed to see the connections she had forged between the condition of Jews in British society and the condition of women in British society at a specific moment in history. By 1876 Jews in England had, like Dissenters and Catholics, been allowed to hold most public offices since 1828. In 1858 Rothschild had become the first Jewish MP, and the position of Jews in society had been strengthened by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863. Nevertheless, Marian Lewes knew well at least two Jewish men who had suffered disabilities simply because they were Jewish. The first is James Joseph Sylvester, a brilliant mathematician, who had attended St. John\u27s College, Cambridge, but was prevented by his Jewish faith from taking a degree or a position on the faculty. Emmanuel Deutsch was another Jewish friend, whom Marian Lewes regarded as one of the greatest living Oriental scholars. He had come over from Germany in 1855 as an assistant in the British Museum and the Leweses met him in 1866. Like Sylvester, his career had suffered because he was a Jew. The portrayal of Mordecai in Daniel Deronda is in part a tribute to Deutsch. Similarly, George Eliot was closely in touch with the work of the Victorian women\u27s movement. Women, by comparison with Jewish men, had even further to go. Once a woman married, she no longer existed as an independent legal person. George Eliot\u27s closest friend, Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon, the leader of the Langham Place Group, made the struggle to amend the Married Women\u27s Property Act her first feminist campaign. The activism of the Victorian feminists was grounded in a study of women\u27s history; this understanding helped to empower a new generation of women both in the sense of helping each other and being competent campaigners.2 George Eliot\u27s close friendships with Jewish men and the women of the Langham Place Group gave her insights into the plights of both groups and fed the creative imagination which produced Daniel Deronda

Baraba Leigh-Smith Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Rebel

It is impossible not to be impressed by Barbara Leigh-Smith Bodichon. Her life is interesting for its diversity, rather than for any single accomplishment, and therefore she has posed a challenge for biographers. Most accounts of Bodichon, such as Sheila Hemstein\u27s A Mid- Victorian Feminist: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon (1985) and Candida Ann Lacey\u27s collection, Barbara Bodichon and the Langham Place Group (1987), have focused on her activities as a social reformer. The first complete biography since Hester Burton\u27s Barbara Bodichon, 1827- 1891 (1949), is Pam Hirsch\u27s Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: Feminist, Artist and Rebel. Hirsch recognizes the relative neglect of Bodichon as a consequence of her multi-faceted career: \u27She did many things, and historians seem to find it easier to understand and write about a man who pursued one \u27great\u27 goal. Women\u27s lives and women\u27s histories often look different, more diffuse and are (perhaps) harder to evaluate\u27 (ix). While this generalization does not describe the historical treatment of many of Bodichon\u27s friends and collaborators, such as George Eliot, Elizabeth Blackwell or Emily Davies - known for contributions in specific areas of Victorian culture and society - it does hold true for Bodichon. Her career combined political agitation for the Married Women\u27s Property Act, the founding of the English Woman s Journal (1858), and the campaign to establish a college for women at Cambridge, culminating in the opening of Girton College in 1873. But Bodichon thought of herself as an artist - a painter. One of Hirsch\u27s most important contributions is to call attention to the continuity of Bodichon\u27s identity as an artist, even as she pursued her various activities on behalf of women. Hirsch provides a variety of historical contexts to help explain Bodichon\u27s achievements. We receive some background on topics ranging from Unitarianism to the obstacles facing Victorian women painters. In this sense, the book is useful to students of nineteenth-century social movements and culture, but as a biography, it is not methodologically self-conscious. Hirsch has no particular take on Bodichon\u27s life, perhaps because there has not been enough biographical controversy to require a redirection of the subject. So she promises to remain \u27faithful to those things the police call the facts\u27 (ix). Despite this first of several gestures toward an awareness of post-structuralist historical critiques, her biography does not question the existence of facts. She describes her method in modest, if metaphorical terms, comparing her task to that of the \u27mosaicist, who creates a picture out of tiny fragments of coloured enamel\u27 (ix). The metaphor does not recur after the preface, and what we have is a combination of the \u27facts\u27 in a linear narrative and, with the exception of occasional confusing skips forward, a standard birth-to-death account of Bodichon\u27s rich and varied life

Location tracking: views from the older adult population

Background: there has been a rise in the use of social media applications that allow people to see where friends, family and nearby services are located. Yet while uptake has been high for younger people, adoption by older adults is relatively slow, despite the potential health and social benefits. In this paper, we explore the barriers to acceptance of location-based services (LBS) in a community of older adults. Objective: to understand attitudes to LBS technologies in older adults. Methods: eighty-six older adults used LBS for 1-week and completed pre- and post-use questionnaires. Twenty available volunteers from the first study also completed in-depth interviews after their experience using the LBS technology. Results: the pre-use questionnaire identified perceptions of usefulness, individual privacy and visibility as predictive of intentions to use a location-tracking service. Post-use, perceived risk was the only factor to predict intention to use LBS. Interviews with participants revealed that LBS was primarily seen as an assistive technology and that issues of trust and privacy were important. Conclusion: the findings from this study suggest older adults struggle to see the benefits of LBS and have a number of privacy concerns likely to inhibit future uptake of location-tracking services and devices

Determinants of short and long term functional recovery after hospitalization for community-acquired pneumonia in the elderly: role of inflammatory markers

BACKGROUND: Hospitalization for older patients with community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is associated with functional decline. Little is know about the relationship between inflammatory markers and determinants of functional status in this population. The aim of the study is to investigate the association between tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α, C-reactive protein (CRP) and Activities of Daily Living, and to identify risk factors associated with one year mortality or hospital readmission. METHODS: 301 consecutive patients hospitalized for CAP (mean age 73.9 ± 5.3 years) in a University affiliated hospital over 18 month period were included. All patients were evaluated on admission to identify baseline demographic, microbiological, cognitive and functional characteristics. Serum levels for TNF-α and CRP were collected at the same time. Reassessment of functional status at discharge, and monthly thereafter till 3 months post discharge was obtained and compared with preadmission level to document loss or recovery of functionality. Outcome was assessed by the composite endpoint of hospital readmission or death from any cause up to one year post hospital discharge. RESULTS: 36% of patients developed functional decline at discharge and 11% had persistent functional impairment at 3 months. Serum TNF-α (odds ratio [OR] 1.12, 95% CI 1.08–1.15; p < 0.001) and the Charlson Index (OR = 1.39, 95% CI 1.14 to 1.71; p = 0.001) but not age, CRP, or cognitive status were independently associated with loss of functionality at the time of hospital discharge. Lack of recovery in functional status at 3 months was associated with impaired cognitive ability and preadmission comorbidities. In Cox regression analysis, persistent functional impairment at 3 months, impaired cognitive function, and the Charlson Index were highly predictive of one year hospital readmission or death. CONCLUSION: Serum TNF-α levels can be useful in determining patients at risk for functional impairment following hospitalization from CAP. Old patients with impaired cognitive function and preexisting comorbidities who exhibit delay in functional recovery at 3 months post discharge may be at high risk for hospital readmission and death. With the scarcity of resources, a future risk stratification system based on these findings might be proven helpful to target older patients who are likely to benefit from interventional strategies

Megascopic Quantum Phenomena. A Critical Study of Physical Interpretations

A megascopic revalidation is offered providing responses and resolutions of current inconsistencies and existing contradictions in present-day quantum theory. As the core of this study we present an independent proof of the Goldstone theorem for a quantum field formulation of molecules and solids. Along with phonons two types of new quasiparticles appear: rotons and translons. In full analogy with Lorentz covariance, combining space and time coordinates, a new covariance is necessary, binding together the internal and external degrees of freedom, without explicitly separating the centre-of-mass, which normally applies in both classical and quantum formulations. The generally accepted view regarding the lack of a simple correspondence between the Goldstone modes and broken symmetries, has significant consequences: an ambiguous BCS theory as well as a subsequent Higgs mechanism. The application of the archetype of the classical spontaneous symmetry breaking, i.e. the Mexican hat, as compared to standard quantum relations, i.e. the Jahn-Teller effect, superconductivity or the Higgs mechanism, becomes a disparity. In short, symmetry broken states have a microscopic causal origin, but transitions between them have a teleological component. The different treatments of the problem of the centre of gravity in quantum mechanics and in field theories imply a second type of Bohr complementarity on the many-body level opening the door for megascopic representations of all basic microscopic quantum axioms with further readings for teleonomic megascopic quantum phenomena, which have no microscopic rationale: isomeric transitions, Jahn-Teller effect, chemical reactions, Einstein-de Haas effect, superconductivity-superfluidity, and brittle fracture.Comment: 117 pages, 17 sections, final revised version from 20 May 2019 but uploaded after the DOI was know

The pools of 'The Swimmer' (1968): exurbia, topography, decay

The chapter discusses how 'The Swimmer' (Frank Perry, 1968) tends to align itself with Marxist readings of author John Cheever’s work, somewhat diverging from the preoccupations of the writer himself, who always resisted the imposition of a single interpretation upon his short story. If the film risked accusations of hypocrisy as it deployed ten pools and speedo-clad star Burt Lancaster in a critique of the idle rich, then a central motif is the exurban attempts at ascendancy over a predominantly natural environment. In contrast to the topographical make-believe of the ‘quasi-subterranean stream’ in which Lancaster’s insane protagonist Ned seeks to swim, the film provides evidence of a reality that is material, tangible, and hazardous; screenwriter Eleanor Perry in her adaptation emphasizes the redemption of reality in the Kracauerian sense. Less neutrally, the cold and empty pools that appear later in the film actively accelerate a drama of disintegration, a character arc of irrevocable physical and moral decay. This arguably has much in common with the emphasis of literary Naturalism on thermodynamics and entropy. The Swimmer ‘might well be called The Alumnus,’ one reviewer joked upon the film’s release in May 1968. ‘It says to an older group what The Graduate is saying to a younger.’1 As Burt Lancaster’s character dives into one luxurious swimming pool after another, he is implicated as something of a ‘Mr Robinson’ – a spokesperson for, and a casualty of, a compromised older generation. The Swimmer was directed by Frank Perry and was based on a short story by John Cheever, published in 1964. Its protagonist is the middle-aged Ned Merrill, who resides in wooded, suburban Connecticut.2 One day he decides to ‘swim the county’ on his way home, running cross-country, stopping to swim a length in each of his friends’ pools. As he heads back towards his wife and daughters, Ned is increasingly niggled by feelings of unease: his sense of time and place is disrupted, and friends behave strangely towards him, making allusions to a less-than-perfect family life. Disturbed and physically exhausted, Ned finally returns to discover his house empty and dilapidated, with his family evidently long since departed