‘Useless Art’ or ‘Practical Protest’: The Fin-de-Siècle Artist between Social Engagement and Artistic Detachment

This thesis follows recent scholarly interest in the British fin de siècle, focussing on the artist and the notion of art within the context of capitalisation and rapidly changing social strata. It claims that the artist can be understood as a socially orientated rather than purely economically motivated player, who tries to position himself and his art within a distinctly transformed cultural landscape. It demonstrates how many texts and art works of the fin de siècle are permeated by a socio-critical and didactical discourse, which serves to legitimize the artist and his art work on the one hand, and aims at the aesthetic education of his audience on the other. This approach allows for a reconciliation of the paradoxical co-existence of socio-critical engagement and the concept of ‘art for art’s sake’ in fin-de-siècle art works. Chapter One, “Leaving the Ivory Tower,” provides a temporal framework for the discussion of the fin de siècle by tracing the development of the eighteenth-century, idealized notion of the artist through the writings of John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold and Walter Pater. It also gestures towards the connection of this tradition to Theodore Adorno’s understanding of ‘social art’. Examining Oscar Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist” within the context of this temporal trajectory, this chapter aims to establish an understanding of the paradoxical demands that face the artist in the light of capitalisation and the development of a mass readership at the end of the nineteenth century. Chapter Two, “Social Aestheticism,” investigates Oscar Wilde’s “The Soul of Man under Socialism” and several of his fairy tales and George Moore’s Confessions of a Young Man in view of their affiliation with Aestheticism. These texts, while insisting on the autonomy of art and voicing their opinions in the disdainful tone of the disinterested artist, are striking because of the social awareness and criticism that they express. By showing how these opposing concepts aim for the legitimization of the artist, this chapter draws attention to the aesthetic-didactical element of Aestheticism, positioning its artists as social critics and educators rather than otherworldly figures. Chapter Three, “A Map of Utopia,” considers William Morris’ News from Nowhere as an example of the artist as visionary and the importance of artistic imagination in the process of social evolution and change. It argues that Morris’ utopia can be read as supporting the concept of autonomous art in that it expresses the omnipresence of art and the realization of a perfect society that this entails. As such, the text demonstrates the social effectiveness of autonomous art which, in turn, supports an understanding of the artist as social agent. Chapter Four, “Periodical Education,” looks at The Yellow Book as an example of audience education and the positioning of the artist through the medium of art. It contrasts The Yellow Book’s aspiration to be an ‘art for art’s sake’ publication with its socio-critical content, evidencing how the concept of autonomous art is used at the fin de siècle for the selection and education of an audience. Chapter Five, “The Author at a Distance,” examines Max Beerbohm’s essays in the light of their aesthetic-didactical tone and the artist-audience relationship they establish. By including a selection of Beerbohm’s later essays, this chapter also gestures towards the difference between the artist-audience relationship implied in fin-de-siècle art as opposed to Modernist art. This attests to the distinct character of fin-de-siècle art. Further, the chapter investigates the effects of these aspects in terms of artist legitimization and the promotion of autonomous art, and thus shows how Beerbohm’s essays contribute to an understanding of fin-de-siècle art as didactical, aesthetic and autonomous at the same time. In conclusion, this thesis reveals how artists at the fin de siècle used their art in order to legitimize an idealized position of the artist within society, to promote the separation between art and life and to create an audience that would appreciate and understand this view. It thus also demonstrates how the paradox between the concept of autonomous art and artistic socio-critical engagement can be reconciled

Initial Results from the Sixth Community Achieving, Affording, and Sustaining Human Exploration of Mars Workshop (AM VI)

A critical assessment by approximately 70 community representatives from NASA, academia, industry, research institutions, and international organizations of candidate activities on the lunar surface and its vicinity that may feed forward to support affordable and sustainable human missions to the surface of Mars in 2030s

Radical politics and ideology in the coming of post-industrial society : the Values Party in perspective

This study applies the insights of post-industrial theory to an analysis of a radical party in New Zealand politics, the Values party. Empirical studies utilising post-industrial theory are very few indeed, and no previous research into a political party in such terms is known of by the author. The major aspects of the theory are outlined in Chapter one and their relevance to New Zealand then examined in Chapter two. Although concluding that New Zealand cannot be termed a post-industrial society, changes are occurring, notably with the growth of the service industry and the professional and technical occupational groups which would suggest that New Zealand's future development lies in such a direction. Aggregate data analysis of New Zealand statistics lays the ground in Chapters three and four for an examination of the Values party as an example of a radical movement in the coming of the post-industrial age. On the basis of survey data, the study finds the party to be composed predominantly of highly educated, professional and technical individuals, with a developed efficacious outlook on society and politics, and a high level of personal affluence; in one post-industrial theorist's terms they are, bourgeois radicals. Finally in Chapter five the differing ideological orientations of members are studied in order to define the nature of important conflicts in the party. I conclude that the Values party is an early manifestation of the style of radical politics in post-industrial societies. With the intensification of growth in the tertiary sector and amongst the professional and technical groups, the basis for the articulation of such orientations, and for parties such as Values, is likely to increase in the future

Prediction of silicate melt viscosity from electrical conductivity : a model and its geophysical implications

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 14 (2013): 1685–1692, doi:10.1002/ggge.20103.Our knowledge of magma dynamics would be improved if geophysical data could be used to infer rheological constraints in melt-bearing zones. Geophysical images of the Earth's interior provide frozen snapshots of a dynamical system. However, knowledge of a rheological parameter such as viscosity would constrain the time-dependent dynamics of melt bearing zones. We propose a model that relates melt viscosity to electrical conductivity for naturally occurring melt compositions (including H2O) and temperature. Based on laboratory measurements of melt conductivity and viscosity, our model provides a rheological dimension to the interpretation of electromagnetic anomalies caused by melt and partially molten rocks (melt fraction ~ >0.7).We acknowledge partial support under NASA USRA subaward 02153–04, NSF EAR 0739050, and the ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) Exploration Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.2013-12-1

Technology for NASA's Planetary Science Vision 2050.

NASAs Planetary Science Division (PSD) initiated and sponsored a very successful community Workshop held from Feb. 27 to Mar. 1, 2017 at NASA Headquarters. The purpose of the Workshop was to develop a vision of planetary science research and exploration for the next three decades until 2050. This abstract summarizes some of the salient technology needs discussed during the three-day workshop and at a technology panel on the final day. It is not meant to be a final report on technology to achieve the science vision for 2050

Single-crystal elasticity and sound velocities of (Mg_(0.94)Fe_(0.06))O ferropericlase to 20 GPa

The single-crystal elastic properties of high-spin (Mg_(0.94)Fe_(0.06))O ferropericlase were measured by Brillouin spectroscopy on a sample compressed to 20 GPa with diamond anvil cells using methanol-ethanol-water as a pressure-transmitting medium. At room pressure, the adiabatic bulk (K_0S) and shear (μ_0S) moduli are K_0S = 163 ± 3 GPa and μ_0S = 121 ± 2 GPa, in excellent agreement with ultrasonic results from the same bulk sample (Jacobsen et al., 2002). A fit to all our high-pressure Brillouin data using a third-order finite-strain equation of state yields the following pressure derivatives of the adiabatic bulk and shear moduli: K′_0S = 3.9 ± 0.2 and μ′_0S = 2.1 ± 0.1. Within the uncertainties, we find that K_0S and K′_0S of (Mg_0.94)Fe_(0.06))O are unchanged from MgO. However, μ_0S and μ′_0S of (Mg_(0.94)Fe_(0.06))O are reduced by 8% and 11%, respectively. The aggregate compressional (VP) and shear (VS) wave velocities are reduced by 4% and 6%, respectively, as compared to MgO. The pressure dependence of the single-crystal elastic moduli and aggregate sound velocities is linear within the investigated pressure range. The elastic anisotropy of (Mg_(0.94)Fe_(0.06))O is about 10% greater than that of MgO at ambient conditions. At the highest pressure obtained here, the elastic anisotropy of (Mg_(0.94)Fe_(0.06))O is close to zero. On the basis of our measurements and earlier ultrasonic measurements, we find that the pressure derivatives of shear moduli obtained at room pressure for low iron concentrations (<20 mol% FeO) of high-spin ferropericlase are inconsistent with those inferred from the lower mantle PREM model

On the relative importance of thermal and chemical buoyancy in regular and impact-induced melting in a Mars-like planet

We ran several series of two-dimensional numerical mantle convection simulations representing in idealized form the thermochemical evolution of a Mars-like planet. In order to study the importance of compositional buoyancy of melting mantle, the models were set up in pairs of one including all thermal and compositional contributions to buoyancy and one accounting only for the thermal contributions. In several of the model pairs, single large impacts were introduced as causes of additional strong local anomalies, and their evolution in the framework of the convecting mantle was tracked. The models confirm that the additional buoyancy provided by the depletion of the mantle by regular melting can establish a global stable stratification of the convecting mantle and throttle crust production. Furthermore, the compositional buoyancy is essential in the stabilization and preservation of local compositional anomalies directly beneath the lithosphere and offers a possible explanation for the existence of distinct, long-lived reservoirs in the martian mantle. The detection of such anomalies by geophysical means is probably difficult, however; they are expected to be detected by gravimetry rather than by seismic or heat flow measurements. The results further suggest that the crustal thickness can be locally overestimated by up to ~20 km if impact-induced density anomalies in the mantle are neglected.Comment: 29 pages, 10 figure