Walter Scott and the American Historical Novel

Final text made available, with permission, as a free access link, November 2013

Scott in 2013: New Scholarship, Old Connections, and the Case of 'Rokeby'

One of the oldest traditions in Scott scholarship contextualises his writings in terms of place – often, detailed and specific localities – and of personal connection. Begun by Scott himself in the frame narratives of his poems and novels, most innovatively of all in the introductory epistles to each canto of Marmion (1808), and already a biographical and critical industry by the time of the publication of John Gibson Lockhart’s Life of Scott in 1837-8, the desire to locate Scott, in landscapes and in personal friendships and encounters, remained strong in the early twentieth century and was a major factor in the biographically-orientated surge of new readings which marked the centenary of his death (1932).1 In this essay, I will argue for a new way of articulating the ‘place’ of Scott, by examining his still-neglected poem of 1813, Rokeby. When, in his introduction to this poem in the collected Poetical Works eventually published after his death, Scott looked back (in April 1830), at Rokeby, he wrote relatively little about the ideas and genesis of the poem and a great deal about the genesis of his ‘romance in stone’, Abbotsford, by which ‘the smallest of possible cottages was progressively expanded into a sort of dream of a mansion-house, whimsical in the exterior, but convenient within’.2 The connections between literature and architecture, this essay suggests, are of special interest and importance in Scott scholarship in the present year, 2013, which sees the re-opening and reinvention of Abbotsford House, and a new era of invention for Scott and his cultural legacy. [Author's introduction

Creating and communicating value through integrated reporting : findings emerging from action research in five European HEIs

If ever there was a time to conclude that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to integrate sustainability into their strategic planning processes it is now. HEIs have been grappling with climate change for many years and it appears inevitable that COVID-19 will have an enduring impact on the way HEIs think about the value that they create for a range of different stakeholders. To be successful in this new, ever-changing world, HEIs will need to clearly identify the drivers of value in an academic setting and communicate how they create value for a variety of stakeholders both now and in the future. This paper draws on the role that Integrated Reporting (IR) can play in strategic planning and enhancing connections between management practice, value creation and reporting. According to the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), Integrated Reporting (IR) is the concise communication about how an organization's strategy, governance, performance, and prospects lead to the creation of value over the short, medium, and long term. It helps to bring the different stakeholders of a HEI into the same arena when it comes to understanding impacts and outcomes and clearly illustrates the value created by an HEI in terms of multiple capitals. This is much deeper and wider than value for money. It is about understanding the relationships between the resources available to a university, the stakeholders impacted by the activities of the institution, and the consequent creation (or destruction) of value across multiple capitals. Despite the clear benefits associated with IR, many organisations face considerable barriers associated with implementing the IIRC framework. In this study we use action research to explore and bridge the strategy-implementation gap in five HEIs in five different European countries as they seek to develop their first prototype IR as part of an Erasmus+ funded project (ISSUE). The analysis draws on data collected by each HEI including stakeholder analysis, various planning documents, questionnaires and qualitative data collected through a variety of face to face and e-meetings during the IR development period. The analysis draws on comparisons to identify similarities and differences between the approaches, analysis, and experiences of the participating HEIs. This research contributes to the improvement of the knowledge base associated with the understanding of the implementation of IR in an HEI context and provides evidence-based intelligence to inform practice and help to bridge the implementation gap

Testing Dividend Signalling Models

This paper derives a key monotonicity property common to all dividend signaling models: the greater the rate that dividend income is taxed relative to capital gains income, the greater the value of information revealed by a given dividend, and hence the greater the associated excess return. This monotonicity condition is tested with robust non-parametric techniques. No evidence is found to support dividend signaling models. The same results are inconsistent with tax-based CAPM arguments

A systematic review of energy systems: The role of policymaking in sustainable transitions

The language of systems can be highly useful when defined clearly. It can help make sense of the interconnectedness of key actors, the ‘emergence’ of outcomes from large numbers of interactions, and the proposed transformation – by many governments - towards sustainable energy systems. However, ‘whole systems analysis’ and ‘systems thinking’ is often too vague to guide this project well. To explore these issues in depth, we show how they arise frequently in UK energy policy research and its impact on policymaking. First, our systematic review shows how researchers present patchy or inconsistent stories, in which the role of policy and policymaking is unclear, when they describe energy systems. Second, UK and devolved governments often use the language of systems to propose paradigmatic energy policy change, but refer to a metaphor rather than academic insights. Third, we outline three ways to make clearer sense of energy transitions and policy with reference to socio-technical, complex, and social-ecological systems

People’s beliefs about the meaning of crepitus in patellofemoral pain and the impact of these beliefs on their behaviour : a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: A feature of patellofemoral pain is joint crepitus. Several causes of crepitus have been described, but previous research has focused on the pathological meaning of crepitus. No research has demonstrated a definitive link between noise and pathology and its importance and meaning to patients is unresearched. OBJECTIVE: To explore the beliefs of patients with non-osteoarthritic patellofemoral pain regarding their crepitus, and how this impacts on their behaviour. DESIGN: Qualitative design using semi-structured interviews. METHOD: A general inductive approach was used as this is a previously unresearched topic. Underpinned by the health beliefs model, an interview schedule was used to reflect different elements. Inductive thematic analysis was used to generate themes to represent the dataset. Participants were 11 patients diagnosed with non-osteoarthritic patellofemoral pain, crepitus as one of their symptoms, referred to an outpatient clinic. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Three key themes emerged all with sub-themes within them. Firstly, belief about the noise had a sub-theme of search for and perceived meaning of noise. Symbolising ageing was another sub-theme whereby participants described feelings of premature ageing. The final sub-theme was emotional response with participants feeling a range of negative emotions. The second theme of the influence of others reveals participants describing two distinctly different relationships, one with friends and family and one with professionals. The final theme was avoiding the noise. A sub-theme of altering movement shows participants describing fear-avoidant behaviour. CONCLUSION: Crepitus is a poorly understood symptom that creates negative emotions, inaccurate etiological beliefs and ultimately leads to altered behaviour

Hybrid Public Offerings In China: The Case Of Class B Shares

When raising equity capital through the recently opened Shanghai stock exchange, Chinese companies can issue stock to Chinese nationals (A shares) or to non-Chinese nationals (B shares). Between 1990 and 1996 40 issuances of B shares took place, often by firms that had previously issued A shares. These class B initial offerings are found to exhibit underpricing relative to first day trading prices, but to a much less severe degree than class A share IPOs. Indeed, the extent of underpricing of class B shares is found to be in line with underpricing in the U.S. This is surprising because for the most part these offerings are hybrids of IPOs and seasoned equity offerings, representing offerings of old (traded) claims in a new market setting. We examine a variety of standard explanations for underpricing of IPOs finding either no empirical support for the hypotheses, or that many of these explanations are not relevant to the characteristics of the Chinese market.Two features of Chinese IPOs particularly seem to set them apart from new issues in the U.S. First, the capital market is not fully established, and second, the issuer of all IPOs is the government. The Chinese IPOs represent an attempt to transform a non-market economy, therefore, the prime objective may be the very creation of a viable market mechanism rather than a mere maximization of issue proceeds. We examine whether underpricing may be explained by this desire by the government (who also happens to be the issuer) to establish a market, and suggest a variety of lines for future research to cast further light on this hypothesis

tit-bits

'tit-bits' Press Release An Exhibition of Drawings and Sculptures by Fiona Robertson tit-bits… a pleasing bit of something, a morsel, this and that; a title borrowed from the infamous,though shortlived British magazine of the 1880s, which collated for its readers a selection ofinformative snippets, jokes, and stories. To the millions who read them each week, these tit-bits were a source of light entertainment. To the generation of modernist writers that reached adolescence during the magazine’s peak, they were the epitome of low culture, a sure sign of the degradation of society at the hands of the masses….tit-bits…the rag that Joyce’s Leopold Bloom paws over while squatting at his privy. tit-bits… the stuff from which these drawings and sculptures are made: the detritus of everyday,half-forgotten conversations, misformed impressions, shards of clothing, and broken mobile phones. Here is the ugliness of every day; the farce of modern consumer culture. It is an ugliness that binds the work to the long lineage of the historical grotesque in art, a lineage that, as Mikhail Bakhtin once observed, possesses a critical dimension wherever it appears. In its ability toparody and debase, the grotesque can reverse hierarchical structures and thus subvert the valuesystems of the society from which it emerges – a process that Bakhtin saw at work wherever the grotesque was employed by popular culture and christened the carnivalesque. tit-bits… amusing, perhaps absurd, glimpses at life. For all their apparent horror these figures arenonetheless funny, always retaining the ability to provoke laughter. This humour often flowsfrom a preoccupation with the body’s margins, an ongoing parody of its quotidian functions –particularly those of the ‘lower stratum’. Mouths, noses, breasts, and stomachs are variously amplified, yet peel back this fictitious artifice, and a more fundamental truth is revealed. Whatremains are fragile, singular beings, their conceits, pretensions and indignities laid bare. The exhibition ‘tit-bits” took place in November the 14th-27th 2023 at South block Wasps in Glasgow. The exhibition will consisted of 11 small figurine’s and a large frieze compiled of over 100 drawings. A poster publication that accompanied the Exhibition was distributed to the audience

Needs and readiness assessments: Tools for promoting community-university engagement with Aboriginal communities

Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is an important means of connecting the perspectives of community members with critical social issues, such as health and wellness. As beneficial as CBPR can be, effective engagement with community members remains a difficult goal to achieve. In this article, we draw on the international literature around needs and readiness assessments to explore their potential for establishing solid foundations for engaged research. We examine the stages and dimensions identified in the literature, and use these as a framework for a needs and readiness assessment project undertaken with a Métis Settlement community in Alberta, Canada. We share how the needs and readiness assessments helped to foster the emergence of community priorities, informing the next steps in research design, program content and evaluation methods, and heightening community-university engagement. It is our hope that our example of engagement, which focuses on the role of needs and readiness assessments in strengthening community-university partnerships, will better inform engagement approaches so that they become relevant, culturally appropriate and community specific. Keywords: Métis, Aboriginal, community-based participatory research, needs assessment, readiness assessment, community-university partnershi

Understanding students’ experiences in a PE, health and well-being context:a self-determination theory perspective

Framed by Self-Determination Theory, this investigation explored student experience as they engaged in their physical education (PE), health and well-being (HWB) curriculum in Scotland for the first time. We aimed to uncover the features of various learning environments that appeared to impact upon student motivation in PE over the period one academic year. We carried out focus group interviews with students from one state secondary school (secondary 1 and 2; ages 12–14) and its feeder primary schools (primary 7; age 11 years) immediately after a selection of PE lessons throughout the year. Furthermore, to provide some additional context for our analysis, the students in each year completed a questionnaire (pre–post) to identify and understand their motivation for PE over time. The results from the interviews indicated that students had a number of positive and negative PE experiences. However, the results from the questionnaire demonstrate that the students’ experiences during the first year of this ‘new’ curriculum had little impact on their motivation for PE. The findings highlight the importance of mixed methods research to provide context-specific account of student experience. This detail may be critical for the development of informed and effective pedagogy that supports student learning, health and well-being