The Murmuring-In-Between: Eco-centric Politics in The Girl Who Swam Forever

Viewing one of Clements’s earliest plays through an eco-critical lens reveals how this playwright manages to situate her post-colonial politics within a vision of the world that is unequivocally eco-centric. After detailing how Clements incorporated three primary sources in the conception and development of The Girl Who Swam Forever, this paper (employing Tim Ingold, Christopher Manes, Val Plumwood, Akira Lippit, Thomas King, and Jeanette Armstrong ) shows how the animist assumptions that inform the play’s action are fundamentally distinct from conventional Western ways of seeing. The paper then concludes by arguing that it is precisely this animist sensibility that provides Clements’s female protagonist with what Deleuze and Guattari have called "a line of escape" from the repressive constraints of human-centred thought, enabling her to imagine a world beyond the racist one that threatens to undermine her agency, well-being and self-respect. Résumé Lorsqu’on examine l’une des premières pièces de Clements en adoptant une perspective écocritique, on voit à quel point cette dramaturge a réussi à inscrire ses politiques postcoloniales à l’intérieur d’une vision du monde qui est catégoriquement écocentrique. Après avoir décrit en détail comment Clements fusionne trois sources primaires dans la conception et le développement de The Girl Who Swam Forever, cette étude démontre (en s’appuyant sur des écrits de Tim Ingold, Christopher Manes, Val Plumwood, Akira Lippit, Thomas King et Jeanette Armstrong) comment les hypothèses animistes qui informent l’action de la pièce diffèrent fondamentalement des façons conventionnelles de voir les choses en Occident. L’étude fait valoir que c’est cette sensibilité animiste, justement, qui donne à la protagoniste de Clements ce que Deleuze et Guattari ont appelé «.une ligne de fuite.» pour échapper aux contraintes répressives de la pensée centrée sur l’être humain, lui permettant d’imaginer un monde situé au-delà de l’univers raciste qui menace sa fonction d’agent, son bien-être et son estime de soi

Herman Voaden’s Romantic Ecology: Settler Identity and the Canadian Sublime

If, in Jonathan Bate’s view, literary critics would be well served by turning their attentions to a “historical tradition of ecological consciousness,” one obvious starting point for critics of Canadian drama is with the writings of Herman Voaden. Voaden is well known to Canadian theatre scholars as a playwright and director who drew his creative inspiration from the “natural” world, and who, in the 1920s and 30s, viewed what he perceived as the Canadian wilderness as a crucial factor in the shaping of settler identity. Incorporating Bate’s advice, and drawing on insights from Northrop Frye, Val Plumwood, Christopher Manes, and Akira Lippit, this ecocritical study shows how an ecological consciousness came to the fore in Voaden’s writings and how, in his play Murder Pattern, he brings this to its most fully developed form, portraying elements in the more-than-human physical world, not as the ground for human action, but as actions in their own right: sublime agencies that measure human lives vis-a-vis the frailty of mortal desires. 

Greville Ewing: architect of Scottish congregationalism

In assessing tte life and work of Greville Swing, minister of the Gospel, and pioneer of the Congregational Union of Scotland, it is necessary to glance at the historical trends that created the situation in which he was involved, and the pressures that shaped the subsequent course of his life.Throughout the varied ministry of Greville Ewing, a constant common factor is discernible which makes it significant for Scottish Congregationalism. In many respects he occupied marginal ground; he was a man forever on the frontier. In an age of transition, he stood at the cross-roads of historical, social and religious change.In a final assessment of Greville Ewing's ministry, therefore, it is clear that he has a message for the whole church, as well as for his own denomination, in the present time. But primarily, he was the architect of Scottish CongregationalIsm, and in the exercise of his long ministry he worked out the basic plan. His aim was to reach out, never to restrict. The authority of the Word of God, and the plight of men without Christ were his sole co-ordinates. He had no thought of erecting an infallible denominational system. It did not exist, His passion was for the souls of sen and for a society whose sole aim would be to seek for them, There could be no finer description of his heart's desire for Scottish Congregationalism than that which was penned during the Jubilee celebrations, fifty years after he had laboured to lay the foundations

Exploring the Vacuum Geometry of N=1 Gauge Theories

Using techniques of algorithmic algebraic geometry, we present a new and efficient method for explicitly computing the vacuum space of N=1 gauge theories. We emphasize the importance of finding special geometric properties of these spaces in connecting phenomenology to guiding principles descending from high-energy physics. We exemplify the method by addressing various subsectors of the MSSM. In particular the geometry of the vacuum space of electroweak theory is described in detail, with and without right-handed neutrinos. We discuss the impact of our method on the search for evidence of underlying physics at a higher energy. Finally we describe how our results can be used to rule out certain top-down constructions of electroweak physics.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figures, LaTe

Contribution of Hans-Georg Gadamer to the development of a Christian philosophy

The aim of the thesis is in Part One to give a critical exposition of the foundations of Gadamer's philosophy, and in Part Two to show how that philosophy can contribute to a Christian philosophy. Part One outlines Gadamer's interpretation of Heidegger's analysis of the 'fore-structure" of Understanding and the former's development of that analysis with his own analysis of "effective-historical consciousness" and his positive understanding of prejudice. Gadamer understands Understanding as a mode of experience and resists any attempt by reflection to elevate experience into knowledge; he wants Hegel's "science of the experience of consciousness" without his Absolute Knowledge. He also wants knowledge and truth without the totality which would guarantee them, and believes that Heidegger's "ontologically positive" understanding of finitude allows this. We try to show the difficulties of such a position, and also of his attempt to guarantee truth with the "speculative structure" of language. Finally we question the grounding of his philosophy in the aesthetic experience testified to by the "other side" of the Platonic doctrine of Beauty. In Part Two we suggest that religious experience provides a more adequate grounding for a philosophy such as Gadamer's. We try to clarify the relation between Gadamer and theology, and suggest that this relation is more intimate than he admits. We then try to see whether the Christian understandings of Eschatology and of Providence can shed new light on the questions raised in Part One, and can hint at their resolution. Finally we sketch a Christian philosophy which attempts to overcome the weaknesses and ambiguities of Gadamer's philosophy by a more explicit and thorough-going appropriation of the Christian-Platonic tradition

Vacuum Geometry and the Search for New Physics

We propose a new guiding principle for phenomenology: special geometry in the vacuum space. New algorithmic methods which efficiently compute geometric properties of the vacuum space of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories are described. We illustrate the technique on subsectors of the MSSM. The fragility of geometric structure that we find in the moduli space motivates phenomenologically realistic deformations of the superpotential, while arguing against others. Special geometry in the vacuum may therefore signal the presence of string physics underlying the low-energy effective theory.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX; v2: revised title, minor changes in wording, reference adde

Abnormal Reward Valuation and Event-Related Connectivity in Unmedicated Major Depressive Disorder

BackgroundExperience of emotion is closely linked to valuation. Mood can be viewed as a bias to experience positive or negative emotions and abnormally biased subjective reward valuation and cognitions are core characteristics of major depression.MethodsThirty-four unmedicated subjects with major depressive disorder and controls estimated the probability that fractal stimuli were associated with reward, based on passive observations, so they could subsequently choose the higher of either their estimated fractal value or an explicitly presented reward probability. Using model-based functional magnetic resonance imaging, we estimated each subject's internal value estimation, with psychophysiological interaction analysis used to examine event-related connectivity, testing hypotheses of abnormal reward valuation and cingulate connectivity in depression.ResultsReward value encoding in the hippocampus and rostral anterior cingulate was abnormal in depression. In addition, abnormal decision-making in depression was associated with increased anterior mid-cingulate activity and a signal in this region encoded the difference between the values of the two options. This localised decision-making and its impairment to the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (aMCC) consistent with theories of cognitive control. Notably, subjects with depression had significantly decreased event-related connectivity between the aMCC and rostral cingulate regions during decision-making, implying impaired communication between the neural substrates of expected value estimation and decision-making in depression.ConclusionsOur findings support the theory that abnormal neural reward valuation plays a central role in major depressive disorder (MDD). To the extent that emotion reflects valuation, abnormal valuation could explain abnormal emotional experience in MDD, reflect a core pathophysiological process and be a target of treatment