‘A Very Hell of Horrors’? The Haitian Revolution and the Early Transatlantic Haitian Gothic

This article explores the Gothicisation of the Haitian Revolution in the transatlantic discourse during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As it argues, the Gothic mode has to be understood as a reaction to the profound challenges that the Haitian Revolution posed to a transatlantic world built on the slave economy. Pro-slavery and pro-colonialist authors demonised this successful slave revolution and one of the first anti-colonial revolutions in modern history by resorting frequently to the ‘hegemonic Haitian Gothic.’ By contrast, early Haitian leaders and some British radicals appropriated this mode, turning it into the ideologically contrary ‘radical Haitian Gothic.

First-order hyperbolic pseudodifferential equations with generalized symbols

We consider the Cauchy problem for a hyperbolic pseudodifferential operator whose symbol is generalized, resembling a representative of a Colombeau generalized function. Such equations arise, for example, after a reduction-decoupling of second-order model systems of differential equations in seismology. We prove existence of a unique generalized solution under log-type growth conditions on the symbol, thereby extending known results for the case of differential operators with generalized functions as coefficients

Wave breaking of periodic solutions to the Fornberg-Whitham equation

Based on recent well-posedness results in Sobolev (or Besov spaces) for periodic solutions to the Fornberg-Whitham equations we investigate here the questions of wave breaking and blow-up for these solutions. We show first that finite maximal life time of a solution necessarily leads to wave breaking. Second, we prove that for a certain class of initial wave profiles the corresponding solutions do indeed blow-up in finite time

Microlocal properties of basic operations in Colombeau algebras

The Colombeau algebra of generalized functions allows to unrestrictedly carry out products of distributions. We analyze this operation from a microlocal point of view, deriving a general inclusion relation for wave front sets of products in the algebra. Furthermore, we give explicit examples showing that the given result is optimal, i.e. its assumptions cannot be weakened. Finally, we discuss the interrelation of these results with the concept of pullback under smooth maps.Comment: LaTeX, 18 page

On duality theory and pseudodifferential techniques for Colombeau algebras: generalized delta functionals, kernels and wave front sets

Summarizing basic facts from abstract topological modules over Colombeau generalized complex numbers we discuss duality of Colombeau algebras. In particular, we focus on generalized delta functionals and operator kernels as elements of dual spaces. A large class of examples is provided by pseudodifferential operators acting on Colombeau algebras. By a refinement of symbol calculus we review a new characterization of the wave front set for generalized functions with applications to microlocal analysis

Distributional solution concepts for the Euler-Bernoulli beam equation with discontinuous coefficients

We study existence and uniqueness of distributional solutions to the differential equation of the Euler-Bernoulli rod with discontinuous coefficients and right-hand side. Upon checking the validity of a solution the occurring products of singular coefficients with the distributional solution have no obvious meaning. When interpreted on the most general level of the so-called hierarchy of distributional products, it turns out that existence of a solution forces a minimum regularity to hold. Curiously, the choice of the distributional product concept is thus incompatible with the possibility of having a discontinuous displacement function as a solution. We also give conditions for unique solvability.Comment: 3 figure