The Dark and Middle Ages

For the most part only Plato\u27s teachings supported by a limited version of Aristotelian cosmology supportive of Platonism survived the decline of ancient Greek philosophy during the Roman Empire. Christianity later prevailed, and toward the end of the Middle Ages Aristotle’s secular perspective was only taken into account by Arab philosophers such as Averroes and Avicenna. After the collapse of Arab civilization during the twelfth century, the secular concept of a double truth between belief and reason put philosophy on equal footing with religion in such universities as Cordoba and the University of Paris. After a large assortment of ancient Greek texts were shipped from Constantinople to Italy in 1453 to prevent their destruction by pagan invaders, so-called Nominalists among European philosophers such as Duns Scotus and William of Ockham featured the independent analysis of the universe based on assumptions already pursued by Aristotle. In effect Greek philosophy in its entirety came to be “resurrected,” setting the stage for the inception of science as exemplified by Copernicus, Galileo, and Bacon

The Enlightenment: John Messlier

First paragraph: Today many exceptions seem obvious relevant to the historic advance of secularism from the Renaissance to the Reformation followed by the Enlightenment. However, a basic transition seems to have sustained itself over many decades in the modern recovery of religious disbelief ultimately derivative of pre-Socratic philosophy consolidated by Aristotle. For example, the two years of 1610-1611 seem to have set the stage for all three of the later historic epochs, the Renaissance followed by the Reformation and Enlightenment. The King James translation of the Bible in 1611 might have been a major achievement of the English Reformation just preceding Milton, but Shakespeare\u27s final play, “The Tempest,” produced the same year, effectively brought the English Renaissance to a close as suggested by its secular wording, What\u27s past is prologue, Oh brave new world, and, most tellingly, We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep as opposed to the promise of heavenly infinitude. Similarly, Ben Jonson\u27s stage satire “The Alchemist,” first produced in 1610, invoked a level of skepticism that both anticipated and exceeded the conventions of Restoration comedy that followed

Bruno: Modern Europe\u27s First Free Thinker

First paragraph: By most accounts Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) was by far the most controversial Renaissance philosopher. He published at least sixty texts upon a large variety of topics including mnemonics, hermetic religion, Copernican astronomy, and the renewed possibility of materialism as suggested by this major breakthrough in astronomy. For the most part his notoriety resulted from his defense of heliocentric theory, but also from his pursuit of its theoretical implications toward a modern renewal of ancient secular philosophy. Just as Bacon bridged the gap between Aristotelian philosophy and modern science, Bruno no less effectively served the same purpose between ancient and modern secularism as justified by science. Particularly important in his opinion was Lucretius’ version of materialism based on the earlier assumptions of Aristotle and Epicurus. Bruno’s effort to encourage such a revival was best illustrated by his publications during two relatively brief periods--in 1584-85 while he lived in London and to a lesser extent while in Frankfurt in 1590-91. His reputation at the time was as an overbold iconoclast, but in fact his theoretical innovations derivative of classical secularism eventually set the stage for Spinoza’s pantheism in the mid-seventeenth century, followed by Leibniz’s philosophy as well as the versions of deism suggested by Toland, Meslier, Voltaire, and d’Holbach throughout the eighteenth century, and still later the materialist perspective of scientists and secularists in general that has come to predominate since the mid-nineteenth century

Affective Criticism: Theories of Emotion and Synaesthesis In the Experience of Literature

The Affective Fallacy labeled by Wimsatt and Beardsley and denigrated by an entire generation of critics must be restored\u27to legitimacy-as probably the most fundamental principle of literature. The effect of a text takes precedence over the objectivity of its intra-referential :content since this content is meaningful only to the extent that it produces this effect. The concerted effort of formalists to deny or somehow bypass this self-evident axiom has been unique in the history of criticism and may be traced to a variety of causes, not the least of which has been a conservative isolation of literature from its social context. But the exclusion of politics from criticism has been itself a political act, protecting literary value by refining it almost beyond human experience. The outlook of I. A. Richards has been of particular interest because he sought to justify this escapism within affective theory. First employing an impulse theory of psychology-and then a projective theory derived from Coleridge he defined literary response as synaesthesis, the refined balance of emotions which is self-sufficient and exclusive of overt behavior. Intra-referential content was thus removed one degree :from the text to our incipient response, a bundle of mutually energized impulses inhibiting both praxis and the stock response. However, Richards also i investigated the sign situation, the total matrix of experience signified by language, and he proposed that literary response involves the choice of the whole personality. Both these concepts may be invoked to restore praxis, ethics, and even propaganda to the domain of literary response. Unfortunately, Richards has shifted to a more clearly formalist perspective in his later criticism. He has truncated the paradigm of information theory to exclude speaker and hearer except as the abstractions source and destination, bringing him right back again, really, to the incipient response, though now mathematically formulated. It is my contention that speaker and hearer are both vitally important to the act of literature, and that their relationship must be established within a dynamic theory of affective criticism. Richards choice of the whole personality is a useful first principle, but properly interpreted it involves unconscious displacement, archetypal embodiment, social responsibility, and other human dimensions requiring at least.ancillary concern with reductionist critical approaches (Psychoanalytic, Marxist, etc.) I additionally propose that the paradigm of information theory may be stratificationally rearranged to establish a hierarchy from (1) objective immediacy to (2) our pre-verbal organization of experience, (3) its symbolization in language, and (4) its further refinement in the literary act. All these levels must be activated for literature to be meaningful, contrary to the formalist hypothesis bestowing objective immediacy upon the text, bypassing our fullest resources of experience, often even of language

Soft estate

Soft Estate is the term used by the Highways Agency to describe the natural habitats that line our motorways and trunk roads. While roads play a major role in opening up land for development, their verges offer a refuge for wildlife and a modern form of wilderness in the midst of urbanisation and agro-chemical farming. Our road network, the site of some of our most carbon-intensive activity, is flanked by Britain's largest unofficial nature reserve. This practice-led research aims to visually investigate these under-represented areas of wilderness, both as ecological and metaphorical spaces and as reflectors of the changing relationships between travel, the environment and landscape imagery within British culture. In framing this research I draw on the English Landscape and 'picturesque' tradition of the 18th century, which still informs understanding of landscape. Early tourists travelled to areas such as the Lakes to capture images of wild places; today, uncontrolled wilderness only springs up in the margins of transport networks and the semi-derelict grid plans of industrialised corridors. I argue that these Edgelands invite a new kind of tourist, new ways of looking and new forms of visual representation. In drawing on the landscape tradition, and capturing details of the flora and fauna of the verge, my work engages viewers with landscapes that appear familiar and uncanny, traditional and strangely futuristic. The book incorporates a range of Edward Chell's related art works including gesso panels, installations, larger canvases and paper works. The publication, with foreword by Bluecoat director Bryan Biggs includes essays by curator Sara-Jayne Parsons, artists and academic, Edward Chell and the environmental activist and author Richard Mabey. This project has been supported through a year long AHRC Fellowship under the Highlight Theme, Care for the Future: Thinking Forward through the Past

A Cross-Country Analysis of Household Responses to Adult Mortality in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications For HIV/AIDS Mitigation And Rural Development Policies.

This paper summarizes and synthesizes across the results of a set of country studies on the effects of prime-age adult mortality on rural households in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, and Zambia. Each study is based on large representative rural household surveys. These findings have implications for the design of efforts to mitigate some of the most important effects of rural adult mortality, and for key development policies and priorities.HIV/AIDS, sub-Saharan Africa, mortality, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Health Economics and Policy, Downloads July 2008 - July 2009: 21, I11,

A Cross-Country Analysis of Household Response to Adult Mortality in Rural Sub-Saharan Africa: Implications for HIV/AIDS Mitigation and Rural Development Policies

Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Downloads November 2008 - July 2007: 6,

Crystal structure resolution of two different chlorhexidine salts

This work was partly funded by the British Heart Foundation (NH/11/8/29253) and the EPSRC (EP/K005499/1). CCDC 1416048 and 1416049 contain the supplementary crystallographic data for this paper. These data can be obtained free of charge from The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre via www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/data_request/cifTwo salts of the chlorhexidine di-cation (H2CHx2+) – (H2CHx)(SO4)·3H2O and (H2CHx)(CO3)·4H2O – have been synthesised and characterised crystallographically.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Synthesis and crystallographic characterisation of Mg(H2dhtp)(H2O)5·H2O

This work was funded by the British Heart Foundation (NH/11/8/29253) and the EPSRC (EP/K005499/1) (EP/K503162/1). CCDC 1432662 contains the supplementary crystallographic data for this paper. These data can be obtained free of charge from The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre via www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/data_request/cif.A mononuclear complex of composition Mg(H2dhtp)(H2O)5·H2O has been prepared and characterised crystallographically.PostprintPostprintPeer reviewe