"Looking all lost towards a Cook's guide for beauty”: the art of literature and the lessons of the guidebook in modernist writing

This article explores the impact of the guidebook, especially the Baedeker series, on modernist literary culture. It argues that the guidebook is a literary phenomenon in its own right and that, as such, it attracts special attention from those engaged in defending and/or extending the category of literature as part of a modernist agenda. In particular, modernist writers are concerned as to whether the guidebook counts as a form of literature and, if so, what this means for the more familiar forms seen in their own essays, fiction and travelogues. What might the invention of the star system to rank scenes and monuments mean for the future of art criticism? How might the guidebook help or hinder the traveller in his/her pursuit of the beautiful or the picturesque? What does recourse to the guidebook reveal about the taste and education of the traveller? And, more pointedly still, what kind and quality of writing is the guidebook itself? This article surveys the extent of modernism's interest in the guidebook, both as a noteworthy new form and as a form modernist writers adapted for use in their own books, before turning in detail to commentary on the guidebook by E.M. Forster, Ernest Hemingway, H.D. and Virginia Woolf. In conclusion, it finds that the guidebook in modernism is very rarely just that. Instead, the guidebook finds unexpected affinities with modernism in its attempt to “modernise” literature – to make it more rational, more totalising and, in the eyes of its critics, less able to discriminate.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Studies in Travel Writing on 4th March 2015, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13645145.2014.994924

Abstracts from the NIHR INVOLVE Conference 2017

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Heterozygous Variants in KMT2E Cause a Spectrum of Neurodevelopmental Disorders and Epilepsy.

We delineate a KMT2E-related neurodevelopmental disorder on the basis of 38 individuals in 36 families. This study includes 31 distinct heterozygous variants in KMT2E (28 ascertained from Matchmaker Exchange and three previously reported), and four individuals with chromosome 7q22.2-22.23 microdeletions encompassing KMT2E (one previously reported). Almost all variants occurred de novo, and most were truncating. Most affected individuals with protein-truncating variants presented with mild intellectual disability. One-quarter of individuals met criteria for autism. Additional common features include macrocephaly, hypotonia, functional gastrointestinal abnormalities, and a subtle facial gestalt. Epilepsy was present in about one-fifth of individuals with truncating variants and was responsive to treatment with anti-epileptic medications in almost all. More than 70% of the individuals were male, and expressivity was variable by sex; epilepsy was more common in females and autism more common in males. The four individuals with microdeletions encompassing KMT2E generally presented similarly to those with truncating variants, but the degree of developmental delay was greater. The group of four individuals with missense variants in KMT2E presented with the most severe developmental delays. Epilepsy was present in all individuals with missense variants, often manifesting as treatment-resistant infantile epileptic encephalopathy. Microcephaly was also common in this group. Haploinsufficiency versus gain-of-function or dominant-negative effects specific to these missense variants in KMT2E might explain this divergence in phenotype, but requires independent validation. Disruptive variants in KMT2E are an under-recognized cause of neurodevelopmental abnormalities

Guided participation and parental tutoring in preschool children with autism: A pilot study of Relationship Development Intervention (RDI)

The guided participation relationship between parents and children, whereby parents sensitively support the child’s emerging abilities, is central to child development. However, difficulties with intersubjective engagement characteristic of autism can make supportive interactions between parents and children more challenging. In this study, we compared dyads of parents and children with autism (n = 16) and dyads of parents and children with other developmental disabilities (n = 14) on two coding schemes, the Dyadic Coding Scales (DCS) and a Parent Scaffolding coding scheme. Consistent with expectations, the ASD group showed more difficulties in parent–child engagement on the DCS. Although autistic children were more likely to resist parental input on the Parent Scaffolding task, their parents were equally as sensitive as those in the developmental disabilities group. Child factors on the Parent Scaffolding coding scheme were associated with DCS scores. Half (n = 8) of the children with autism received an academic school year-long modified version of Relationship Development Intervention delivered in a preschool setting, and all children with autism (n = 16) were re-assessed at the end of the preschool year. The dyads who had received RDI showed improvements in parent–child engagement on the DCS, both compared to baseline and compared to the group who did not receive the intervention. No changes in Parent Scaffolding were found. The results are discussed in relation to intervention priorities for children with autism

Restoration and the Affective Ecologies of Healing: Buffalo and the Fort Peck Tribes

Intentional acts of restoration are purported to have a multitude of benefits, not only for non-human nature, but for the people who conduct restoration. Yet, there is limited scholarship that considers the nature of these benefits in all of their complexity, including psychological and spiritual dimensions. Using the case study of the restoration of bison/buffalo by the Sioux and Assiniboine tribes to their reservation in Montana, USA, we observe that ecological restoration can promote and facilitate emergent and dynamic processes of reconnection at the scale of individuals, across species and within community. In an indigenous setting marked by historical trauma and other challenges, these re-connections have therapeutic benefits that align with the relationality that mental health frameworks suggest is a key protective factor for many indigenous people. Affective experiences of and with buffalo play an important role in building and articulating that therapeutic relationality in our case study. Our work points out the importance of access to spaces of affective ecologies and personal investment in spiritual traditions as elements of the therapeutic benefits of restoration in this case, raising questions and possibilities for future research that considers patterns and avenues of diffusion of restoration benefits within social groups more broadly

Regiocontrolled Rearrangement of Isobenzofurans

The regioselective alkylation and oxidative rearrangement of isobenzofurans has been achieved to generate substituted 4,8-dihydroxyisochromanones in good yields and with complete regiocontrol