Reviews in brief: Geographies of modernism: literatures, cultures and spaces. Edited by Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker. London and New York: Routledge 2005. ISBN 0-415-33116-1

397Reviewsin briefGeographiesof modernism: literatures, cultures and spaces. Edited by Peter Brooker andAndrew Thacker. London and New York: Routledge. 2005. 181 pp. £19.99 paperback.ISBN 0 415 33116 1SAGE Publications, Inc.2008DOI: 10.1177/14744740080150030704JamesKnealeDepartment of Geography University College London398Thisis a book situated between the fields of literary, media, and cultural studies,geography, architecture, and history. Its focus – the emerging `spatialturn' in studies of modernist litera- ture, art, architecture and more – is a fascinating one. But despite this the book is strangely uneven and ratherdisappointing. The introduction to a collection like this needs to set a clearagenda, but it does little more than suggest that historicist criticism shouldinvolve some con- sideration of space. What this might mean is largely leftto the contributors, who seem equally uncertain. I hope this isn't just adisciplinary twitch on my part but none of the contributors are geographers,and beyond the usual suspects there isn't much discussion of the discipline(though postcolonial historians of cartography, empire and nation are betterrepresented). Does this matter? Well, Andreas Huyssen's chapter seems to bemired in the debates about the `global' and the `local' which bothered geographersin the late 1990s. Jon Hegglund's account of Graham Greene's travel writingis also weirdly familiar, like it fell out of Barnes and Duncan's Writingworlds. Hegglund concludes `Perhaps we can take one of modernism's trademarkaesthetic elements – the multiplication of perspectives – andfruitfully apply it to the way we imagine the very nature and history of geographicalspace' (p. 53). I was hoping that the contributors to this volume might havestarted from this point, not ended there. So the most interesting storiesare those that are least familiar: Rebecca Beasley on the British intelligentsia'sengagement with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, for example, or James Housefields'subtle and insightful reading of Duchamp as `traveller and geographer'. Orthose that mix the familiar and unfamiliar to produce something novel, likeJames Donald's provoca- tive discussion of modernist mediations of space andtime, or Andrew Thacker's chapter on Imagism and Orientalism. But in the endit wasn't the sense of missed opportunities that bothered me – afterall, interdisciplinary work isn't easy and geographers have been slow to catchon to developments in literary criticism – but that the casually historicistapproach of some contributors seems as uninterested in history as it is ingeography. In a few chapters history seems to be a pretty simple thing, acultural `moment' of a particular and unprob- lematic type, and space andcultural production are treated as expressions of this. This strangely uncriticalapproach compromises what might have been much more than just another eclecticset of essays

Consumption

Overall, this book proposes a new global framework that is vital to understanding how deeply alcohol was involved in central processes shaping the modern world

From beyond: H. P. Lovecraft and the place of horror

The work of the American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft offers a valuable opportunity to study the representation of space in literature, but while Lovecraft's biography provides a useful way of making sense of his horror fictions, it also risks obscuring the importance of his represented spaces. Many of these impossible spaces mark a threshold between the known and unknown, and the paper argues that an attention to narrative demonstrates that these thresholds constitute the fulcrum about which his plots move. The work of Mikhail Bakhtin also suggests that Lovecraft's belief that ‘change is the enemy of everything really worth cherishing’ explains why these thresholds are represented as threats rather than progressive engagements with social space

Re-mapping H.P. Lovecraft: Geographies of the Weird and Absent

This paper offers a re-mapping of H.P. Lovecraft’s writing as an example of one possible way into exploring the idea of mapping in literary geographies. Re-mapping involves taking another look at those elements that are included in any geographical encounter with Lovecraft, as well as a consideration of those that have been left out: what is missing from other critical mappings of his Lovecraft’s life and literary work? Examining this question of absence is of course appropriate for an author famous for his fictions of ‘cosmic terror,’ but the paper argues that it also allows us to explore the ways that Lovecraft wrote about place. The body of the paper explores two possible re-mappings of Lovecraft. The first takes its cue from recent fictional and critical responses to Lovecraft’s racism, particularly Matt Ruff’s Lovecraft Country (2016). These revisions open up his work to new interpretations by adding in relations to places and people that are otherwise absent or muted. The second considers Lovecraft’s ‘sunset cities’—Providence, Boston, and others—as waypoints on narrated itineraries. Drawing on Bakhtin’s discussion of the chronotope, the paper suggests that we can see these cities as places of transformation, and that this also holds true for biographies of Lovecraft and perhaps for his own understanding of himself

Science fiction or future fact? Exploring imaginative geographies of the new millennium

In this article, we examine the imaginative geographies of the new millennium through a critical reading of cyberfiction. This fiction, we argue, through its use of estrangement and defamiliarization, and its destabilization of the foundational assumptions of modernism, provides a cognitive space in which to contemplate future spatialities given the present postmodern condition – a cognitive space which is already providing an imaginal sphere in which present-day individual and institutional thought and practice are partially shaped. Using a detailed reading of 34 novels and four collections of short stories, we illustrate the utility of this cognitive space, and its appropriation, through an exploration of fictional visions of postmodern urbanism in the early twenty-first century. We assess the viability and utility of these visions by comparing them to academic analyses of the sociospatial processes shaping present-day urban form and spatiality

Inequalities in health and care among lesbian, gay and bisexual people aged 50 and over in the United Kingdom: a systematic review and meta-analysis of sources of individual participant data

Objectives Modelling the health and care trajectories of lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) is essential to identify inequalities and support needs, yet because of the small sample of LGB people in any one survey, current evidence relies on studies that have poor generalisability and low power. This study assesses the magnitude of health inequalities among older LGB people across ten outcomes, informed by evidence on the health trajectories and distinct LGB history of the United Kingdom (UK). Methods A systematic review was conducted of representative data sources on older LGB and heterosexual people’s health and care status in the UK. Individual Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis was employed to synthesise data from up to 25 different sources. To account for the intricacies of individual datasets, the analysis employed a two-stage approach where an odds ratio (OR) and standard error was calculated for each dataset individually, before being meta-analysed through DerSimonian and Laird random effects models. Results Among men aged 50+, being gay, bisexual or having another non-heterosexual orientation is associated with an increased risk of reporting long-term illness and health-related limitations. Indicators of mental health also suggest that gay and bisexual men are more likely to report low life satisfaction and to have attempted suicide over their life time. Among women, differences are apparent with regards to self-rated health as well as with engagement with risky health behaviours. Discussion The findings corroborate the minority stress theory, but they also generate new questions for researchers around when and how these inequalities emerge

‘Leading from the front’ implementation increases the success of influenza vaccination drives among healthcare workers: a reanalysis of systematic review evidence using Intervention Component Analysis (ICA) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)

Background: Seasonal influenza vaccination of healthcare workers (HCW) is widely recommended to protect staff and patients. A previous systematic review examined interventions to encourage uptake finding that hard mandates, such as loss of employment for non-vaccination, were more effective than soft mandates, such as signing a declination form, or other interventions such as incentives. Despite these overarching patterns the authors of the review concluded that ‘substantial heterogeneity’ remained requiring further analysis. This paper reanalyses the evidence using Intervention Component Analysis (ICA) and Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to examine whether the strategies used to implement interventions explain the residual heterogeneity. // Methods: We used ICA to extract implementation features and trialists’ reflections on what underpinned the success of the intervention they evaluated. The ICA findings then informed and structured two QCA analyses to systematically examine associations between implementation features and intervention outcomes. Analysis 1 examined hard mandate studies. Analysis 2 examined soft mandates and other interventions. // Results: In Analysis 1 ICA revealed the significance of ‘leading from the front’ rather than ‘top-down’ implementation of hard mandates. Four key features underpinned this: providing education prior to implementation; two-way engagement so HCW can voice concerns prior to implementation; previous use of other strategies so that institutions ‘don’t-go-in-cold’ with hard-mandates; and support from institutional leadership. QCA revealed that either of two configurations were associated with greater success of hard mandates. The first involves two-way engagement, leadership support and a ‘don’t-go-in-cold’ approach. The second involves leadership support, education and a ‘don’t-go-in-cold’ approach. Reapplying the ‘leading from the front’ theory in Analysis 2 revealed similar patterns. // Conclusions: Regardless of intervention type a ‘leading from the front’ approach to implementation will likely enhance intervention success. While the results pertain to flu vaccination among HCWs, the components identified here may be relevant to public health campaigns regarding COVID-19 vaccination