Materiality and Meaning in Literary Studies

Recently, non- and paraverbal properties of literary texts at the level of documentary inscription (i.e. materiality), seen individually or as aspects of a so-called ‘material text’, that is, the union of materiality and verbal sign systems, received an increasing amount of attention in textual scholarship and literary studies. Here, ‘meaning’ or at least ‘semantic potentiality’ has been attributed to both or either and physical features of texts have been construed as hitherto neglected aspects of literary communication and literary aesthetics. In what follows, I will present a brief conspectus of the current debate and then try to provide a reconstruction of underlying ideas by answering the question ‘how does a material text mean?’. Taking a descriptive meta-perspective and focusing on conceptual and methodological clarification, I try to clarify the somewhat blurry expressions ‘meaning’, ‘to mean’ and the like by translating them into the distinct terminology of semiotics and transferring them into the theoretical framework of an instrumentalist notion of signs

Friedrich Zarncke und die Edition des Narrenschiffs von Sebastian Brant

Talk about the first historical-critical edition of the "Ship of Fools" by Friedrich Zarncke in 1854. It is based on the research I did in my masters thesis

NorKorr - Norwegian Correspondences and Linked Open Data

Poster presentation at the conference Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries 2019, København, 06.02. - 08.03.19, arranged by Digital Humanities in the Nordic Countries (http://dig-hum-nord.eu/).The National Library of Norway has a substantial amount of private historical correspondences in its holdings,1 many of which are scholarly edited and published, either in printed editions or in digital form. In addition, other Norwegian cultural heritage institutions, like the Munch Museum,2 but also the university libraries of the Arctic University of Norway3 and the University of Bergen4 and the Gunnerus Library at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology,5 hold significant collections of letters and are preparing digital editions of letters and correspondences of key figures of Norwegian public and academic life. Yet, all these correspondence projects lead a solitary existence – hidden either in editions of single authors or as digitized collections or individual pieces on institutional servers. As a dialogical genre by nature, the full potential of letters and other correspondance material lies in the connection of the individuals writing and receiving letters, postcards, and telegrams – at a specific time and from and to a specific place. But because the collections of letters and individual pieces of a correspondence are historically distributed wide and far in regards to geography and institution, there rarely exist links between them. Thus research on correspondence networks that existed in Norway, the Nordic Countries - and beyond, to Europe and the rest of the world - as well as research on the letter as the main means of written communication for centuries is almost impossible. The project Norwegian Correspondences (NorKorr, from Norwegian "Norske korrespondanser") aims to link these individual letters and similar materials not only to each other but to correspondences in entire Norway, Europe and beyond by use of the CorrespSearch infrastructure. CorrespSearch is both an infrastructure for connecting correspondences accross editions and collections and a web service that aggregates specific correspondence metadata from digital and printed scholarly editions.6 These data can be easily searched via the CorrespSearch web interface or queried via their open API. By integrating Norwegian correspondences in the corpus of letters that already exists on CorrespSearch, they will become for the first time visible as part of a greater international network of letters and allow for a macroscopic view on the correspondence networks that existed throughout the centuries

Positron studies of surfaces, structure and electronic properties of nanocrystals

A brief review is given of recent positron studies of metal and semiconductor nanocrystals. The prospects offered by positron annihilation as a sensitive method to access nanocrystal (NC) properties are described and compared with other experimental methods. The tunability of the electronic structure of nanocrystals underlies their great potential for application in many areas. Owing to their large surface-to-volume ratio, the surfaces and interfaces of NCs play a crucial role in determining their properties. Here we focus on positron 2D angular correlation of annihilation radiation (2D-ACAR) and (two-detector) Doppler studies for investigating surfaces and electronic properties of CdSe NCs.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Physica Status Solidi (b) - basic solid state physics, presented at the 14th International Conference of Positron Annihilation ICPA-1

Hybrid materials through linkage of chalcogenide tetrahedral clusters

Tetrahedral chalcogenide clusters, with their well-defined molecular structures and interesting properties, are attractive building blocks for hybrid materials, in which porosity may be integrated with electronic or optical properties. Linkage of tetrahedral clusters often occurs through bridging chalcogenolate ligands, and results in extended structures of inorganic connectivity. However, linkage of tetrahedral clusters via organic ligands is also possible and a number of coordination polymers have already been reported. Recent advances on the synthesis and crystal structures of extended hybrid structures based on tetrahedral clusters are described here

Preparation of Fe3O4Spherical Nanoporous Particles Facilitated by Polyethylene Glycol 4000

Much interest has been attracted to the magnetic materials with porous structure because of their unique properties and potential applications. In this report, Fe3O4nanoporous particles assembled from small Fe3O4nanoparticles have been prepared by thermal decomposition of iron acetylacetonate in the presence of polyethylene glycol 4000. The size of the spherical nanoporous particles is 100–200 nm. Surface area measurement shows that these Fe3O4nanoporous particles have a high surface area of 87.5 m2/g. Magnetization measurement and Mössbauer spectrum indicate that these particles are nearly superparamagnetic at room temperature. It is found that the morphology of the products is greatly influenced by polyethylene glycol concentration and the polymerization degree of polyethylene glycol. Polyethylene glycol molecules are believed to facilitate the formation of the spherical assembly

Size-Tailored Physicochemical Properties of Monodisperse Polystyrene Nanoparticles and the Nanocomposites Made Thereof

The latex monodisperse polystyrene (PS) colloids are important for different advanced applications (e.g. in coating, biotechnology etc.). However, the size dependency of their structural properties that impacts the characteristics of the nanocomposites composed thereof is largely unknown. Here, monodisperse PS nanoparticles (MPNPs) are synthesized via emulsion polymerization in five sizes (50, 150, 300, 350, and 450 nm). The size of the PS MPNPs is tailored by controlling the reaction time, temperature, and amount of surfactant and initiator. The correlation between the particle size and structural properties of the PS MPNPs is established by different thermomechanical and optical characterizations. The smaller particles (50 and 150 nm) show a lower glass transition (Tg) and thermal decomposition temperature and a lower Raman peak intensity. Yet, they trigger a higher IR absorption, thanks to a larger surface area. When incorporated in a polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) matrix, the smaller particles impart the resulting nanocomposite a higher tensile strength, and elastic and storage moduli. Whereas, they decline the elongation and loss factor. The very few examples of the MPNPs incorporated polymeric nanocomposites have been unstudied from this perspective. Thus, these tangible knowledge can profit scalable production of this kind of nanocomposite materials for different applications in a cost/energy efficient manner.Peer reviewe