"To seize the copyright in myself" : "giving up the ghost" by Hilary Mantel as an exercise in autopathography

Though Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, two Man Booker Prize-winning historical novels by Hilary Mantel, ostensibly deal with the life of Thomas Cromwell, a chief minister to King Henry VIII, their major motif, I should argue, is that of disability, of illness, of bodily failure. As Mantel herself stated in an essay titled "Royal Bodies," "historians are still trying to peer inside the Tudors, (…) are they healthy, are they sick, can they breed?" She further added: "The story of Henry and his wives is peculiar to its time and place, but also timeless and universally understood; it is highly political and also highly personal. It is about body parts, about what slots in where, and when: are they body parts fit for purpose, or are they diseased?" (Mantel 2013) Bodily dysfunction appears to me to be one of primary thematic preoccupations of Mantel’s writing. Handicapped Muriel from Every Day is Mother’s Day, disfigured "Irish giant" O’Brien from The Giant, O’Brien, ailing Henry VIII from her Tudor triptych– these are just a few of a panoply of disabled/ill/afflicted characters that populate the pages of Mantel’s work. The aim of the present paper is to examine Mantel’s 2003 memoir entitled Giving Up the Ghost which tells the story of the writer’s struggle with endometriosis as well as doctors’ indifference and medical neglect. I will attempt to discuss Mantel’s autobiographical account not only as a narrative about the writer’s illness, but as a work which investigates interrelatedness of writing and suffering, and which tries to both make sense and take charge of one’s life story which has been otherwise claimed by the demands and limitations of an ailing body. In short, I wish to see Mantel’s memoir as an exercise in autopathography

Scholar – fictionist – memoirist: David Lodge’s documentary (self-)biography in "Quite a Good Time to Be Born: 1935–1975"

Over the last decade or so, David Lodge has become not only a reader but also an avid practitioner of “fact-based writing” – be it the biographical novel (The Master of 2004 and A Man of Parts 2011), the autobiographical novel (Deaf Sentence of 2008), the biographical essay (Lives in Writing of 2014) and – finally – a proper autobiography (Quite a Good Time to Be Born of 2015). The aim of this paper is to analyse Lodge’s recent turn to life narratives and, in particular, his autobiographical story of 2015; and, consequently, to address the following questions: Does Lodge’s memoir offer “an experiment in autobiography” (to quote H.G. Wells, one of Lodge’s favourites), or remain a conventional life story immune to the tenets of contemporary life writing? Is it the work of a (self-)historian, or a novelist? Does it belong to the “regime of truth,” or is it the product of memory? Finally, is it, indeed, a memoir (as its subtitle claims), or a specimen of self-biography? The paper will show special interest in the work’s generic characteristics and will offer an attempt to locate Quite a Good Time to Be Born on the map of contemporary life writing practices

Subsistit In: Full Identity or Discontinuity?

In its dogmatic constitution, Lumen Gentium, Vatican II teaches, “This Church, constituted and ordered as a society in this world, subsists in the Catholic Church.” Within this statement, the council fathers affirmed what had always been taught in the tradition of the Church, namely, that the Church of Christ is fully identical with the Catholic Church. Yet, controversy was quick to arise from the statement, as the words subsistit in replaced the words of the more direct phrasing of the original draft, which asserted that the Church of Christ is [est] the Catholic Church. Indeed, for the past fifty years, the hermeneutic of discontinuity or rupture has been particularly popular among theologians trying to interpret this article. That is, many approach this text with the understanding that the Church’s ecclesiology concerning her own identity was radically altered. Other authoritative voices, however, have continuously defended and affirmed full identity as the true interpretation of the Second Vatican Council. It is the intent of this study to demonstrate this understanding of full identity as the intended message of the council fathers, in keeping with centuries of Magisterial teaching and Revelation itself. More precisely, the following study aims to remove the possibility that subsistit in is a proof of discontinuity. Imbued with the fullness of all the means with which Christ entrusted her, the Church remains forever, exclusively, and immutably Catholic. That the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church is proof of exclusive identity. Since this has been the prevalent perspective of the Church throughout its history, surely this proposition removes subsistit in from the arguments for discontinuity

The Impacts of Peer Assisted Learning on Rhythm Counting in a Middle School String Orchestra Classroom

Ethical Leadership Colloquium Members of the Ed.D. Class of 2016-17, Cohort XI

The impacts of peer assisted learning on rhythm counting in a middle school string orchestra classroom

This study addressed the topic of peer assisted learning, specifically ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT), in a middle school string orchestra classroom. The purpose of the current study was to implement peer assisted learning into a middle school string orchestra classroom in order to determine the impacts of peer assisted learning versus teacher-directed instruction on middle school string orchestra students’ abilities to notate correct rhythm counting. Over the course of four weeks, the researcher implemented two different instructional strategies, CWPT and teacher-directed instruction (TDI), into a sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade string orchestra classroom. Utilizing the difference between pretest and posttest scores, the researcher analyzed and compared the impacts of each strategy; the researcher also measured students’ satisfaction of CWPT and TDI for learning to notate correct rhythm counting. Ultimately, the researcher concluded that there were no statistically significant differences in the impacts, or level of satisfaction, CWPT had on middle school string orchestra students\u27 abilities to notate correct rhythm counting when compared to TDI. However, both instructional strategies increased students’ scores from pretests to posttests, and students within each group reported equal satisfaction. Therefore, the researcher also concluded that CWPT is a tool that can be added to music educators’ repertoire of teaching strategies as a supplemental strategy to traditional TDI

The impacts of peer assisted learning on rhythm counting in a middle school string orchestra classroom

This study addressed the topic of peer assisted learning, specifically ClassWide Peer Tutoring (CWPT), in a middle school string orchestra classroom. The purpose of the current study was to implement peer assisted learning into a middle school string orchestra classroom in order to determine the impacts of peer assisted learning versus teacher-directed instruction on middle school string orchestra students’ abilities to notate correct rhythm counting. Over the course of four weeks, the researcher implemented two different instructional strategies, CWPT and teacher-directed instruction (TDI), into a sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade string orchestra classroom. Utilizing the difference between pretest and posttest scores, the researcher analyzed and compared the impacts of each strategy; the researcher also measured students’ satisfaction of CWPT and TDI for learning to notate correct rhythm counting. Ultimately, the researcher concluded that there were no statistically significant differences in the impacts, or level of satisfaction, CWPT had on middle school string orchestra students\u27 abilities to notate correct rhythm counting when compared to TDI. However, both instructional strategies increased students’ scores from pretests to posttests, and students within each group reported equal satisfaction. Therefore, the researcher also concluded that CWPT is a tool that can be added to music educators’ repertoire of teaching strategies as a supplemental strategy to traditional TDI

A global-scale analysis of the sharing economy model – an AirBnB case study

Abstract: The sharing economy model has changed the way in which people engage in a variety of activities, including travelling, trading, working, and lending/borrowing money. Several studies exist that aim to understand, quantify and model such phenomenon, but most such studies are geographically focused on countries in the Western World. Knowledge about the penetration and adoption of this novel market model in non-Western countries is much more limited, and almost completely lacking when it comes to emerging markets, where it was touted to bring the biggest benefits and be a game changer to uplift people economically. To close the gap, we chose Airbnb as an example of sharing economy model with worldwide market penetration, and performed a large-scale quantitative study of its penetration and adoption in seven cities in Asia, five cities in Latin America. We compared findings against seven cities in the Western World, and observed patterns to be similar across all locales, with two notable exceptions: the geographic penetration of such services, and the experience that guests travelling to such destinations shared in their reviews