Outlandish Fictions: The Eighteenth-Century French Novel and Marriage on Women\u27s Terms

ABSTRACT OUTLANDISH FICTIONS: THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTRY FRENCH NOVEL AND MARRIAGE ON WOMEN\u27S TERMS Ekaterina R. Alexandrova Joan DeJean Focusing on plots that depict life after marriage, this dissertation studies the novel as a medium for imagining a spousal relationship transformed to promote new positive social, political, and familial roles and possibilities for women. I re-establish these fictions\u27 thrust as primarily concerned with individual freedom and fulfillment, rather than with affection in marriage. I begin by exploring the relationship between the rising appeal of conjugal sentiment and the novel, situating the genre within the general context of social and political shift in eighteenth-century France. Viewing emergent subversive marriage plots in light of the founding seventeenth-century tradition tying the novel genre to women\u27s interests, I suggest that attempts to contain fictions deemed outlandish may have warped our present vision of the heroine\u27s plot, or the range of roles and experiences imagined for women by Enlightenment novelists. Chapter 1 examines how specific changes in marital legislation wrought by the centralizing French state progressively limited women\u27s legal and social prerogatives, showing that the novel of marriage engaged with these concerns from the outset through a study of Lafayette\u27s La Princesse de Clèves (1678). Subsequent chapters consider novels that envision marriage as a platform for societal transformation. In Chapter 2, I compare fictional utopian communities created through the heroine\u27s conjugal union: the contained patriarchal autarky of Rousseau\u27s La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761) and the expanding matriarchy of Le Prince de Beaumont\u27s La Nouvelle Clarice (1767). Chapter 3 analyzes Riccoboni\u27s portrayal of the platonic marriage of M. and Mme de Monglas in Lettres de Vallière (1772), an explicitly aristocratic vision of the ideal matrimonial relationship that insists on the fundamental importance of women\u27s control of their body and their sexuality by privileging friendship and arranged marriage over the destructive forces of romantic passion. Finally, the mise-en-abîme of reading\u27s effect on the conjugal relationship of the heroines of Charrière\u27s Lettres de Mistriss Henley (1784) and Montolieu\u27s Caroline de Lichtfield (1786), interrogates the genre\u27s potential influence on marriage. The dissertation draws attention to eighteenth-century novels that have to date been understudied, and proposes new readings of prominent Enlightenment fictions that foreground questions of authority, the evolution of family relations, and women\u27s roles in the private and public sphere

(Photo)Electrocatalytic CO2 Reduction at the Defective Anatase TiO2 (101) Surface

Excessive carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by combustion of fossil fuels are linked to global warming and rapid climate change. One promising route to lowering the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is to reduce it to useful small molecules via photoelectrocatalytic hydrogenation, which would enable solar energy storage with a zero-carbon emission cycle and perform a more efficient separation of the photogenerated electron and hole pair than pure photocatalysis. Indeed, photoelectrocatalytic CO2 reduction has been an intense focus of research. Using the density functional theory (DFT), we studied the CO2 reduction reaction on the defective anatase TiO2 (101) surface, at both the solvent/catalyst and the electrolyte/catalyst interfaces. The analysis of the electronic structure of the surface shows a contrast between the solvent/catalyst and the electrolyte/catalyst interfaces, which results in the two corresponding catalytic cycles being distinct. Our study explains at the electronic and mechanistic levels why methanol is the main product in the presence of the electrolyte and why the overpotential is not only controlled by the reaction process but also by the diffusion process

Overweight and obesity prevalence in schoolchildren and evaluation of their healthy nutrition knowledge

Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate over weight and obesity prevalence and healthy nutrition knowledge in adolescents aged 11-14 years, living in the town of Parvomai in district of Plovdiv.Material and methods: The over weight and obesity prevalence was assessed according to the international cut off points for body mass index for over weight and obesity proposed by Cole et al, 2000. A questionnaire of V. Duleva, 2005 was used for evaluation of healthy nutrition knowledge.Results: The results show that 20% of the studied boys and 12% of the girls are with over weight and obesity. The questionnaire's data show that a considerable part of the adolescents have not good information about healthy nutrition. Conclusion: Recommendations about elaboration of adequate educational programs for nutrition in the schools were made. The aim of this strategy is the development of healthy nutritional behavior in adolescents.Scripta Scientifica Medica 2009; 41(2): 187-189

It's just a feeling: why economic models do not explain

Julian Reiss correctly identified a trilemma about economic models: we cannot maintain that they are false, but nevertheless explain and that only true accounts explain. In this reply we give reasons to reject the second premise – that economic models explain. Intuitions to the contrary should be distrusted

Structure, stability, and mobility of small Pd clusters on the stoichiometric and defective TiO2_2 (110) surfaces

We report on the structure and adsorption properties of Pd$_n$ ($n=1-4$) clusters supported on the rutile TiO$_2$ (110) surfaces with the possible presence of a surface oxygen vacancy or a subsurface Ti-interstitial atom. As predicted by the density functional theory, small Pd clusters prefer to bind to the stoichiometric titania surface or at sites near subsurface Ti-interstitial atoms. The adsorption of Pd clusters changes the electronic structure of the underlying surface. For the surface with an oxygen vacancy, the charge localization and ferromagnetic spin states are found to be largely attenuated owing to the adsorption of Pd clusters. The potential energy surfaces of the Pd monomer on different types of surfaces are also reported. The process of sintering is then simulated via the Metropolis Monte Carlo method. The presence of oxygen vacancy likely leads to the dissociation of Pd clusters. On the stoichiometric surface or surface with Ti-interstitial atom, the Pd monomers tend to sinter into larger clusters, whereas the Pd dimer, trimer and tetramer appear to be relatively stable below 600 K. This result agrees with the standard sintering model of transition metal clusters and experimental observations.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figure

Anisotropy of Solar Wind Turbulence between Ion and Electron Scales

The anisotropy of turbulence in the fast solar wind, between the ion and electron gyroscales, is directly observed using a multispacecraft analysis technique. Second order structure functions are calculated at different angles to the local magnetic field, for magnetic fluctuations both perpendicular and parallel to the mean field. In both components, the structure function value at large angles to the field S_perp is greater than at small angles S_par: in the perpendicular component S_perp/S_par = 5 +- 1 and in the parallel component S_perp/S_par > 3, implying spatially anisotropic fluctuations, k_perp > k_par. The spectral index of the perpendicular component is -2.6 at large angles and -3 at small angles, in broad agreement with critically balanced whistler and kinetic Alfven wave predictions. For the parallel component, however, it is shallower than -1.9, which is considerably less steep than predicted for a kinetic Alfven wave cascade.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, replaced to match published versio

Dynamical Bonding Driving Mixed Valency in a Metal Boride

Samarium hexaboride is an anomaly, having many exotic and seemingly mutually incompatible properties. It was proposed to be a mixed-valent semiconductor, and later - a topological Kondo insulator, and yet has a Fermi surface despite being an insulator. We propose a new and unified understanding of SmB$_6$ centered on the hitherto unrecognized dynamical bonding effect: the coexistence of two Sm-B bonding modes within SmB$_6$, corresponding to different oxidation states of the Sm. The mixed valency arises in SmB$_6$ from thermal population of these distinct minima enabled by motion of B. Our model simultaneously explains the thermal valence fluctuations, appearance of magnetic Fermi surface, excess entropy at low temperatures, pressure-induced phase transitions, and related features in Raman spectra and their unexpected dependence on temperature and boron isotope

Optical absorption in boron clusters B6_{6} and B6+_{6}^{+} : A first principles configuration interaction approach

The linear optical absorption spectra in neutral boron cluster B$_{6}$ and cationic B$_{6}^{+}$ are calculated using a first principles correlated electron approach. The geometries of several low-lying isomers of these clusters were optimized at the coupled-cluster singles doubles (CCSD) level of theory. With these optimized ground-state geometries, excited states of different isomers were computed using the singles configuration-interaction (SCI) approach. The many body wavefunctions of various excited states have been analysed and the nature of optical excitation involved are found to be of collective, plasmonic type.Comment: 22 pages, 38 figures. An invited article submitted to European Physical Journal D. This work was presented in the International Symposium on Small Particles and Inorganic Clusters - XVI, held in Leuven, Belgiu