The Victorian city and the Christian imagination: from gothic city to garden city

This article discusses some of the ways in which ideas about the city influenced the thinking of British Christians from 1840 to the early twentieth century. First, it explores nonconformist conceptions of the city, suggesting that, although the urban environment offered favourable circumstances for nonconformist growth, a desire to return to, or incorporate elements of, rural life was rarely far away. It explores why, when the garden city movement began, it found such fertile soil among Christian thinkers. Secondly, it considers some of the biblical paradigms that shaped late Victorian thinking about the city. Preachers and writers moved seamlessly from their well-stocked religious imaginations to contemplating the practicalities of the city, and back again. It is argued that the Christian evocation of medieval cities, biblical cities and garden cities shaped in important ways the conceptualizations of the urban world

Preaching in Britain’s “Parish Church”: Sermons at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

This paper will address the conference themes of ‘space, place and context’ with an examination of the development of preaching at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, over the course of two hundred years. Completely rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666, on a scale which was intended to rival St Peter’s in Rome, the new St Paul’s was explicitly designed as a Protestant cathedral. Preaching, therefore, was highly valued. Yet, despite the adoption of Wren’s ‘preaching box’ plan, speaking in the colossal space, potentially to a congregation of many hundreds, presented considerable challenges. As one would expect over a two-hundred-year period, the content of the sermons changed very considerably. This reflected the changes taking place in Church and State, as well as the evolution of St Paul’s as a public and religious institution, which became gradually seen as the ‘parish church’ of both the British nation and the empire. Among the surviving published sermons, many were preached in aid of the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, and extolled the Protestant virtues of a married clergy. Others were preached for the support of charity schools, in order to raise funds for the education of the ‘lower orders’, which was also seen as a Protestant priority. Still others were preached to mark particularly significant anniversaries, such as the sermons of 5 November, in commemoration of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot (1605) and the landing of William of Orange (1688) or of the Great Fire, in September. These events survived in the Cathedral’s calendar until 1859. By 1870, however, the preaching priorities had changed. The Dean and Chapter were now mainly supporters of the high church ritualist movement, and no longer saw themselves as the upholders of Protestant tradition. Two of St Paul’s most celebrated preachers of this period (H.P. Liddon and Henry Scott Holland) both had Anglo-Catholic sympathies. Their sermons were more focused on biblical exposition within a liturgical framework, and, in the case of Holland, on social questions.The paper will show that even a brief analysis of some of the St Paul’s sermons can provide useful critical insights into some of the most fundamental changes that occurred at the heart of the Church of England in the period from 1700 – 1900

Geographic Enchantments: the Trickster and Crone in Contemporary Fairy Tales and Storytelling

Fairy tales are enchanting geographical stories, which affectively organize space-time in socially, politically, and ethically significant ways. Despite this, fairy tales have been neglected in the discipline of geography, and the inter-discipline of fairy tale studies has rarely interrogated the spatialities of tales, or of storytelling more widely. This thesis addresses this lacuna by theorizing the relationship between fairy tales, storytelling, and geography through the subversive folkloric figures of the trickster and crone. It posits, first, that we understand fairy tales as iterative stories that constitute mythic communities; and second, that trickster and crone figures are enchanting territorializing and deterritorializing refrains that subvert this mythic community. These two concerns are explored through Nolan’s (2008) Batman film The Dark Knight, and Maitland’s (2009) short story Moss Witch. An experimental research approach provides insight into these ‘worldly,’ enchanting, and symbolically rich stories, without sacrificing their liveliness or ‘systematizing’ them for ideological gain. The research begins with an interpretive textual analysis to address the symbolic traditions of the fairy tale refrains. Collage enables a ‘retelling’ of the stories as materially and visually expressive media. Genealogical analysis traces the material-discursive matterings of the geographical refrains within academic ‘storytelling.’ These combined approaches ‘story’ the trickster and crone as spatial patterns with affective force. Trickster refrains are animating forces of destruction and chaos. They shift between the centre and periphery of mythic community, violently overturn its seemingly ordered realities, and unfold insecure and profane in-between places, where (human) community can no longer be sustained. The crone refrain enacts a ‘wilding’ in fairy tales, entangling the civilized, storied human polis (or culture more generally) with the nonhuman ‘environment,’ and undermining both relational accounts of being and more romantic discourses of dwelling. Going forward, continued engagement with this nexus of geography, storytelling, and fairy tales promises to enrich our multidisciplinary endeavours, highlight our theoretical ‘matterings’ of fairy tales, and enable more responsible engagement with these endlessly enchanting stories.Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC

Nitrene Transfer Catalyzed by a Non-Heme Iron Enzyme and Enhanced by Non-Native Small-Molecule Cofactors

Transition-metal catalysis is a powerful tool for the construction of chemical bonds. Here we show that a non-heme iron enzyme can catalyze olefin aziridination and nitrene C–H insertion, and that these activities can be improved by directed evolution. The non-heme iron center allows for facile modification of the primary coordination sphere by addition of metal-coordinating molecules, enabling control over enzyme activity and selectivity using small molecules

Cremation and Christianity: English Anglican and Roman Catholic attitudes to cremation since 1885

Britain was the first modern European country to adopt the widespread practice of cremation, and by 2010, it took place in around three-quarters of all funerals. Although the clergy had ceased to be the exclusive custodians of funeral ritual, their views and example remained highly significant in conveying approval, or disapproval, of cremation to their religious constituencies. This article explores attitudes to cremation amongst the English Anglican and Roman Catholic leadership in the twentieth century. In the first half of the century, a number of high-profile Anglican bishops promoted cremation by both teaching and example. The Roman Catholic Church, however, remained opposed to the practice, which it equated with atheism and inhumanity. Although the Catholic position began to soften from the 1960s, it is evident that some reticence about cremation remains. The different approaches to cremation illuminate a subtle religious and cultural fault line between the two ecclesial communities which has hitherto been little explored. The article highlights the role of the Cremation Society of Great Britain in working with members of both Churches to normalise cremation

The Earned Income Tax Credit and Rural Families: Differences between Participants and Non-participants

The differences between rural low-income mothers who were participants and non-participants in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) were examined. One-third of the 224 eligible mothers in a multi-state study did not claim the tax credit. Non-participants were more likely to be Hispanic, less educated, with larger families, borrowing money from family, and living in more rural counties. Participating mothers, on the other hand, were more food secure, perceived their household income as being adequate, reported recent improvements in their economic situation, were satisfied with life, and lived in states with a state EITC. Analysis of qualitative data revealed that rural mothers had many misconceptions about the EITC. These findings contribute to family and economic professionals’ understanding of why rural low-income families do not participate in the tax credit and assist in formulating policies and education/outreach efforts that would increase their participationEITC non-participants, EITC participants, rural low-income mothers, state EITC, rural low-income families

Nitrene Transfer Catalyzed by a Non-Heme Iron Enzyme and Enhanced by Non-Native Small-Molecule Cofactors

Transition-metal catalysis is a powerful tool for the construction of chemical bonds. Here we show that a non-heme iron enzyme can catalyze olefin aziridination and nitrene C–H insertion, and that these activities can be improved by directed evolution. The non-heme iron center allows for facile modification of the primary coordination sphere by addition of metal-coordinating molecules, enabling control over enzyme activity and selectivity using small molecules

Nitrene Transfer Catalyzed by a Non-Heme Iron Enzyme and Enhanced by Non-Native Small-Molecule Ligands

Transition-metal catalysis is a powerful tool for the construction of chemical bonds. Here we show that Pseudomonas savastanoi ethylene-forming enzyme, a non-heme iron enzyme, can catalyze olefin aziridination and nitrene C–H insertion, and that these activities can be improved by directed evolution. The non-heme iron center allows for facile modification of the primary coordination sphere by addition of metal-coordinating molecules, enabling control over enzyme activity and selectivity using small molecules

Using routinely collected data to explore neurology outpatient services

In the UK a large amount of data is collected during the routine treatment of patients. This data, referred to as ‘routinely collected data’ within the health research community is increasingly being used in health research despite not being explicitly collected for this purpose. The fact that data collected for healthcare and administrative purposes is used for research can lead to a number of issues that need to be acknowledged and overcome. This thesis explores the benefits and limitations of using routinely collected data to research outpatient neurology services in the North-West of England. Neurology services in the UK are under pressure, with large variations in the level of service provided in different geographical areas. We analyse data from an outpatient neurology clinic in the northwest of England covering a diverse population which is dispersed over a large area. First the current research into neurology services using routinely collected data is explored using a systematic mapping review, identifying gaps and areas for further research. We then use data from the outpatient neurology clinic to explore the issues identified in three separate papers. Chapter four explores the number of patients using outpatient neurology services, what resources they require and the waiting times they experience. We show that there are a small number of diagnostic categories which account for 60% of new referrals to the clinic, and that waiting times vary by diagnostic category. Chapter five examines referrals for headache patients. Using standardised residuals from a Poisson regression we identify GP practices which have referred an unexpected number of headache patients. Chapter six uses State Sequence Analysis to observe patterns in the types of appointments patients attend over time. We show that there a number of common patterns of appointments and that these patterns are somewhat related to diagnosis. Taken together these papers show that routinely collected data can be successfully used to conduct useful and insightful research into outpatient neurology services. Our research also identifies key areas of limitation of using this type of data - such as missing data, the difficulty of accessing data, and the difficulties presented by the lack of diagnostic coding – for which solutions are proposed in the discussion