Staging Governance

Between 1770 and 1800, transformations in the relationship between metropolitan British society and its colonial holdings, and in the concept of the nation itself, left Britons with a new sense of themselves. Over the same period, the consolidation of the middle classes was accompanied by growing social constraints on sexuality and family life. Staging Governance locates the intersection of these two trends in the representation of British India on the London stage. Theatrical productions, especially those representing colonial life, pushed the limits of public discourse on sexuality and colonialism even as the government made efforts to shape and narrow them. At the same time, official discourse on colonial practices, such as the public trials of Clive and Hastings, became theatrical events themselves. Exploring this rapidly shifting world through a series of original readings of dramatic texts and important moments of oratory, Staging Governance demonstrates how the perceived crises of imperial and domestic Britain joined these spheres in the popular imagination. The economics of political and sexual exchange not only became entwined but functioned as mutual supports during a period of social, cultural, and political readjustment

Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770–1790

Honorable Mention, 2012 Joe A. Callaway Prize in Drama and TheaterFirst Place, Large Not-for-Profit Publisher, Typographic Cover, 2011 Washington Book Publishers Design and Effectiveness AwardsLess than twenty years after asserting global dominance in the Seven Years' War, Britain suffered a devastating defeat when it lost the American colonies. Daniel O'Quinn explores how the theaters and the newspapers worked in concert to mediate the events of the American war for British audiences and how these convergent media attempted to articulate a post-American future for British imperial society.Building on the methodological innovations of his 2005 publication Staging Governance: Theatrical Imperialism in London, 1770-1800, O’Quinn demonstrates how the reconstitution of British imperial subjectivities involved an almost nightly engagement with a rich entertainment culture that necessarily incorporated information circulated in the daily press. Each chapter investigates different moments in the American crisis through the analysis of scenes of social and theatrical performance and through careful readings of works by figures such as Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Cowper, Hannah More, Arthur Murphy, Hannah Cowley, George Colman, and Georg Friedrich Handel. Through a close engagement with this diverse entertainment archive, O'Quinn traces the hollowing out of elite British masculinity during the 1770s and examines the resulting strategies for reconfiguring ideas of gender, sexuality, and sociability that would stabilize national and imperial relations in the 1780s. Together, O'Quinn's two books offer a dramatic account of the global shifts in British imperial culture that will be of interest to scholars in theater and performance studies, eighteenth-century studies, Romanticism, and trans-Atlantic studies

Sporting Cultures, 1650–1850

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“The Physical Powers of Man”: The Emergence of Physical Training in the Eighteenth Century

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Systematic study of short- and long-range correlations in RE3TaO7 weberite-type compounds by neutron total scattering and X-ray diffraction

International audienceThe atomic structures of the lanthanide tantalates, Ln3TaO7, series (Ln = Pr, Tb, Dy, Ho, Tm, Yb) were systematically investigated using total scattering techniques. High-energy X-ray and neutron diffraction analysis revealed that the long-range structures can be grouped into three distinct families: (1) ordered Cmcm (Ln = Pr), (2) ordered Ccmm (Ln = Tb, Dy, Ho), and (3) disordered, defect-fluorite Fm[3 with combining macron]m (Ln = Ho, Tm, Yb). These findings help to clarify the symmetry discrepancy for the already reported long-range structures in the literature. The short-range analysis of neutron total scattering data via pair distribution functions reveals a high degree of structural heterogeneity across length scales for all compounds, with distinct local atomic arrangements that are not fully captured by the average, long-range structure. The short-range structures at the level of coordination polyhedra are better captured by a set of alternative non-centrosymmetric structural models: (1) C2cm, (2) C2221, and (3) C2mm. This establishes a short-range multiferroic character for weberite-type tantalates because ferroelectric interactions compete with magnetic correlations. These ferroelectric interactions are particularly pronounced for the disordered compounds Tm3TaO7 and Yb3TaO7. The structural differences among the three families are the result of changes in TaO6 polyhedral tilt (transition between families 1 and 2) and dipolar interactions of off-centered Ta cations (transition between families 2 and 3)

A proposed mechanism for texture proterty of woody breast in broilers

OBJECTIVE: Woody breast is a myopathy observed in chicken breast meat (Pectoralis major) characterized by its tough and rubbery texture. However, the exact causation of woody breast texture is still unknown. The objective of this preliminary study was to evaluate if the abnormal meat texture observed in woody breast meat is due to sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) dysfunctionality due to rapid leakage of intracellular calcium. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fourteen Ross line broiler breast fillets (7 severe woody breast and 7 normal) were collected at 3 h postmortem from a commercial processing plant in the southeast United States. The 7 woody breast samples exhibited moderate to severe white striping. Each sample was trimmed, weighed, vacuum packaged and frozen at -20°C at approximately 8 hrs. postmortem. One 1.9 cm strip across the cranial end of each fillet was fabricated and pulverized in liquid nitrogen to measure sarcomere length, calpain activity, proteolysis and collagen content. Purge was collected from each sample to evaluate protein and free calcium concentration. RESULTS: Woody breast fillets were heavier than normal breast fillets (522.9vs.446.9g; P<0.05). Woody breast samples tended to have shorter sarcomeres (1.70vs.2.02µm; P=0.0543) and less intact troponin-T (relative intact troponin-T band density: 49.98vs.56.97%; P=0.0515). All µ-calpain was completely autolyzed for both the woody breast and normal samples at 8 hrs. postmortem, so no µ-calpain band was detected through immunoblotting. In addition, the purge from woody breast samples also had higher levels of free calcium (6.2vs.4.2nmol calcium/mg protein; P<0.05). Lastly, there was more collagen present in the woody breast samples (3.89vs.2.08mg collagen/g muscle tissue; P<0.05). CONCLUSION: The results indicated that the cause of texture abnormality of woody breast may be the combined effects of more calcium being released from the SR early postmortem resulting in shorter sarcomere length and more collagen being deposited in the chicken breast meat