C. W. Marshall and G. Kovacs (eds), No Laughing Matter: Studies in Athenian Comedy (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012)

No abstract available

Stop making sense: the politics of Aristophanic madness

This paper discusses the use of madness in Aristophanic Comedy, and in particular how it is used as a means of evaluating and interrogating political interventions. The well-known theme of madness in Aristophanes's Wasps provides the frame. Interpreting Philocleon's madness has proved problematic because the complexity of comic madness has been under-estimated. Against negative models of madness that dominate in tragedy and in political discourse, madness in comedy can be not only a means of interrogating ideological and political norms, but also a constructive and even heroic form of behavior, which draws on epic and religious associations. Bdelycleon's attempt to cure his father removes the positive substance and political value that anchors his father's insanity, which leads to the aporetic finale

Forest biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services

Forests are critical habitats for biodiversity and they are also essential for the provision of a wide range of ecosystem services that are important to human well-being. There is increasing evidence that biodiversity contributes to forest ecosystem functioning and the provision of ecosystem services. Here we provide a review of forest ecosystem services including biomass production, habitat provisioning services, pollination, seed dispersal, resistance to wind storms, fire regulation and mitigation, pest regulation of native and invading insects, carbon sequestration, and cultural ecosystem services, in relation to forest type, structure and diversity. We also consider relationships between forest biodiversity and multifunctionality, and trade-offs among ecosystem services. We compare the concepts of ecosystem processes, functions and services to clarify their definitions. Our review of published studies indicates a lack of empirical studies that establish quantitative and causal relationships between forest biodiversity and many important ecosystem services. The literature is highly skewed; studies on provisioning of nutrition and energy, and on cultural services, delivered by mixed-species forests are under-represented. Planted forests offer ample opportunity for optimising their composition and diversity because replanting after harvesting is a recurring process. Planting mixed-species forests should be given more consideration as they are likely to provide a wider range of ecosystem services within the forest and for adjacent land uses. This review also serves as the introduction to this special issue of Biodiversity and Conservation on various aspects of forest biodiversity and ecosystem services

Aristophanes and his rivals - (M.) Telò Aristophanes and the Cloak of Comedy. Affect, Aesthetics, and the Canon.

Review of (M.) Telò Aristophanes and the Cloak of Comedy. Affect, Aesthetics, and the Canon. Pp. xiv + 237. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2016. Cased, £38.50, US$55. ISBN: 978-0-226-30969-9

The nurse's tale

No abstract available

Politics and Power

No abstract available

The Grotesque Comic Body between the Real and the Unreal

Ruffell Ian A., Bastin Hammou Malika, Orfanos Charalampos. The Grotesque Comic Body between the Real and the Unreal. In: , . Carnaval et comédie. Actes du colloque international organisé par l’équipe PLH-CRATA, 9-10 décembre 2009. Université de Toulouse Le Mirail. Besançon : Institut des Sciences et Techniques de l'Antiquité, 2015. pp. 37-73. (Collection « ISTA », 1344

The Lower Albian (Lower Cretaceous) Monk's Bay Sandstone Formation (formerly the Carstone) of the Isle of Wight

The Monk's Bay Sandstone Formation (MBSF) is the new name for the Lower Albian ferruginous sandstone that was formerly known as the Carstone of the Isle of Wight. The new term was proposed to remove any confusion with the Carstone, of similar age and lithology, described from the separate Lower Cretaceous sedimentary basin of Eastern England. This paper formalises the nomenclatural change outlined in the Lower Cretaceous Framework Report, ratified by the Geological Society Stratigraphy Commission. The MBSF, representing a major mid-Albian transgressive event, is described from a series of boreholes drilled by the British Geological Survey across the Isle of Wight, and from additional coastal exposures, together with reinterpretations of sections described in earlier works. The age range of the MBSF is determined in relation to recent biostratigraphical schemes supported with new data from the previously unknown presence of foraminifera. Deposits, belonging to the Leymeriella regularis Subzone, were previously considered to be absent from the succession and represent the stratigraphical gap separating the formation from the underlying Sandrock Formation. However a first occurrence of tubular foraminifera resembling Hyperammina/‘Rhizammina cf dichotomata’ suggest that the oldest part of the formation in the northeast of the island may be of regularis Subzone age. This unconformity is correlated with the sequence boundary LG4 of Hesselbo and the presence of the Sonneratia kitchini Subzone at the base of the MBSF on the Isle of Wight suggests that this boundary should be placed at the lower of two candidate horizons within the successions of the Weald. The formation is restricted to the Isle of Wight but is coeval with similar coarse-grained sediments, e.g. the Carstone and ‘JunctionBeds’ to the north. The palaeogeography of the formation and the relationship with these similar deposits and the implications for the timing of mid-Albian structural events is briefly discussed. The identification of older Lower Greensand Group sediments beneath the MBSF in boreholes north of the Isle of Wight structure, together with new survey data indicating north–south orientated faulting affecting the early Cretaceous implies a tectonic element to the distribution the Lower Greensand Group sediments. Taken together these imply a complex interaction of tectonics and transgressive events throughout the Aptian and Albian over this structural high