Manuscripts, antiquarians, editors and critics: the historiography of reception

This essay deals in material evidence which endorses Umberto Eco’s proposition that “immediately after the official ending of the Middle Ages, Europe was ravaged by a pervasive medieval nostalgia”. Focusing on religious plays, it draws attention to how the production of many of our manuscript witnesses to “medieval” biblical drama are products of the very early-modern impulse for antiquarian conservation of the past. This impulse, possibly impelled more widely across the arts by the losses attributable to Reformation iconoclasm, make many of our earliest witnesses themselves recuperations. Our manuscripts are, for the most part, not so much acting texts as early critical editions. Embarked on this hypothesis, the essay goes on to look at later endeavours – Romantic, Victorian, and mid twentieth-century – to re-present and comment on the plays understood to form the early English dramatic heritage. It suggests that the historiography of the subject merits study in its own right. It also suggests axiomatically that we should remain alert to the provisionality of our own analyses

The Early English passion play

This discussion challenges the common understanding that biblical drama in England was dominated by ‘mystery plays’, narrowly understood to be cycles of short pageants, by drawing attention to the evidence for large-scale Passion Plays comparable with those better known from France and Burgundy. In so doing, it makes no apology for standing on the shoulders of Peter Meredith's work on the N-Town manuscript, and with John Tailby on the texts and documents illustrating the variety of staging of religious drama across Europe, as well as Meg Twycross's work on devisor Felsted of London, all of which demonstrate that this material has been available in the public domain for some years. Just as the N-Town Plays were still believed in some quarters to come from Coventry as late as the mid-twentieth century, although Francis Douce knew they did not almost 150 years earlier, so too the domination of modern understandings about English mystery plays has remained wedded to the model of four ‘cycles’ promulgated in the 1970s, despite the accumulation of evidence to the contrary. Peter Meredith's edition of The ‘Passion Play’ from the N. Town Manuscript is now all but unobtainable, and the volumes of Records of Early English Drama are the chosen bedtime reading of few, so here we revisit some texts and records to explore afresh one aspect of an already shifted paradigm

The Protection of Groundwater and Public Drinking Supplies: Recent Trends in Litigation and Legislation

Although groundwater is one of our most vital natural resources, it is perhaps the least protected. Over half of the total United States population-nearly 117 million people-depends on groundwater reservoirs, or aquifers, as its source of drinking water. Industry looks to groundwater for twenty-six percent of its water needs, and two-thirds of all groundwater is used in agriculture. In addition, groundwater reenters oceans, lakes, and rivers to supply nearly one-third of the flow of surface water in the United States. Presently, underground water sources are contaminated in all fifty states. This pollution is the by-product of a vast array of personal, industrial, and governmental activities.\u27 In 1988 Congress proposed ten different bills to increase groundwater protection, Currently, eight different statutes attempt to protect groundwater. This Note examines the effect of current legislation on the supply of underground drinking water, addresses the federal judiciary\u27s treatment of statutory violations, and details new legislative proposals for the protection of groundwater. Part II discusses the lack of enforcement of current protective provisions and the specialized nature of ground-water that makes contamination a major problem. Part III outlines the current statutory scheme for the protection of this natural resource with special emphasis on the Safe Drinking Water Act. Part IV examines the provisions in these current statutes intended to increase enforcement and keep federal violators in check. Part IV also discusses how narrowly the courts have interpreted the citizen suit provisions and waivers of sovereign immunity in these statutes and how those interpretations have contributed to the inadequate protection of groundwater. Part V details proposed legislation that is intended to strengthen re-search efforts and to provide a comprehensive program covering only groundwater. Part VI concludes that a comprehensive groundwater protection program is needed, but will have only limited success if the judiciary continues to favor one of the largest polluters of groundwater, the federal government, against state protection and management policies

Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Identity Development

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between adolescent sexual behavior, motivations, and identity status. A review of the literature indicated that deviant behaviors covary, and that drug use and abuse and the motivations for same are related to identity status . A questionnaire, including the Extended Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status(EOM-EIS) and a series of questions to gather information about sexual behaviors and motivations, was employed. The sample consisted of 579 university students ranging in age from 17 to 25. The dependent variable (sexual behavior and motivation) was viewed through the categorical assignments of identity status achieved, moratorium, foreclosed, and diffused, as well as through individual scores. As anticipated there was a relationship between sexual behavior and identity status; specifically, risky sexual behavior was positively correlated with identity diffusion, and abstinence with identity foreclosure. Adolescents in all statuses were equally consistent users of contraception, not just identity achieved as hypothesized. There was not a clear response pattern mediated by identity status as initially anticipated. Implications were discussed

Too much stuff: Motivators of overconsumption

The purpose of this research is to determine what motivates consumers to make purchases of clothing, and what factors influence their decision to continue to participate in the overconsumption of clothing. Research questions of interest include: Why do women buy clothing? What retailers encourage these consumption patterns? Are women overconsuming intentionally

Shoreline Management Handbook

Shoreline habitats and processes are impacted by the decisions we make about managing coastal development and shorelines. Shoreline Management is making choices to address the desire to protect upland property from erosion or develop property balanced with the benefits and uses of natural and nature-based shoreline features and shoreline habitat restoration. This requires a weighing of the private benefits and cots of management actions and the benefits and costs to public held common resources, also known as the public trust. The natural features along our shorelines -tidal wetlands, beaches and dunes, and riparian buffers, are economically and ecologically valuable. They provide food, shelter, and breeding grounds for a variety of marine animals; recreational and commercial opportunities; water quality services; and can serve as significant protection against coastal storms by dissipating wave energy and absorbing flood waters. Shoreline change can be both slow and chronic–from daily tides for example, or sudden and dramatic–like after a hurricane or Nor-Easter. The natural process of erosion can result in loss of upland property with the distribution of sediment and nutrients into our waters, while also providing material to support wetland and beach habitats.There are two primary reasons for the establishment of legal programs to preserve and manage shoreline resources: 1.Shoreline features provide services valued by society including water quality, erosion control, flood buffering, primary production in support of the estuarine food web, recreational opportunities, and aesthetics. 2.Tidal wetlands, beaches and dunes have been adversely impacted by development with significant losses

Traveling Judges

Around the world, domestic courts focused on commercial disputes hire foreign judges. The practice seems to resemble arbitration, but is also rooted in colonialism. These traveling judges are predominantly retired English judges hired by small, market-dominant jurisdictions, like Hong Kong or Dubai. The judges’ identities reveal efforts to harness business preferences for English common law into domestic court systems. While judges aspire to spread the rule of law, local politics may dictate these courts’ futures. This Article maps the practice of traveling judges and explores its implications