Gothic Matters: Introduction

Once considered escapist or closely linked to fantasy, the Gothic genre (or mode, as scholars increasingly call it) has recently begun to be explored for its material concerns and engagement with real-world matters. This special issue of Text Matters features essays that develop this line of inquiry, focusing on how the Gothic attempts to matter in concrete and critical ways, and maps its rhetorical and aesthetic strategies of intervention and narration, affect and influence. Chapters include work on the French Revolution and the representation of the female body, Frankenstein, colonialism and museum displays in the 19th century, disembodied hands, Native American vampires, neoliberal anxieties in horror film, gender, and post-industrial culture

Practical aspects of the use of phosphate binding materials in refractory mixtures, mortars and putties

Phosphate binders, particularly acidic phosphates of Al and Cr, are used for binding Al silicate refractories used for lining of burners, SiC refractories, and refractory mortars. The binders have apparent d. 2.13-2.18 g/cu cm, porosity 21.4-23.8%, compressive strength 223 71 kg/ sq cm, total shrinkage 0.2-0.8%, and refractoriness 1240 deg

Odour nuisance as a consequence of preparation for circular economy

Purpose: The main objective of this article is to assess the intensity of odour nuisance in urban areas, as resulting from the current solid waste disposal management policy. Design/Methodology/Approach: During the study severaal parameters were evaluated: in-situ odour concentration using the NasalRanger method (expressed in ouE/m3), hedonic odour sensory quality and description of odours using predefined descriptors (the list of descriptors included 109 items). For the purpose of evaluation of the hedonic sensory quality, a five-point scale was used in accordance with VDI 3883 recommendation: 1- pleasant, 2-neutral, 3-unpleasant, 4-very unpleasant, and 5-extremely unpleasant. Findings: The analysis of the results has confirmed a considerable impact of the average air temperature on the occurrence of odour nuisance. Practical Implications: A solution that may translate into the reduction of odour nuisances in urban areas is a closed-loop economy, which has become an important issue for the future and competitiveness of enterprises. Reuse and recycling of materials are two of the main characteristics of a closed-loop economy. Originality/Value: On the basis of the conducted sensory tests it is plausible to state that the smell nuisance depends on numerous factors.peer-reviewe

All is Connected to All (Beyond Normative Perception): Maxine Hong Kingston and the Psychedelic Politics of the Counterculture

Few moments in history are so intensely associated with widespread drug use as the 1960s in the United States. The American counterculture scene is unimaginable without its defining attitudes towards and sustained practice of smoking marijuana and “dropping acid,” i.e. taking LSD (other drugs were used but none became as foundational to the counterculture lifestyle and ethos as these two). Yet, regrettably, these psychedelic experiences produced relatively little memorable literature as much of the creative energy of the drug movement went into the visual arts, music, guerrilla theater and experimental performance art. Although the Beats (Ginsberg, Kerouac, Burroughs) engaged with drug use in their literary work of the 1950s, they referred mainly to heroine, marijuana and amphetamines. In the 1960s, the few authors of what we could call a literature of psychedelic experience are Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Tom Woolf (writing about Ken Kesey), and the anthropologist (and possibly hoaxer) Carlos Castaneda (writing of peyote). Yet there is another writer who has produced a rich and sustained literary archive of West Coast counterculture and its fascination with psychedelia. Maxine Hong Kingston has been read and studied since the mis-1970s as a foundational figure of Chinese American literature and studies, and a key author of American women’s literary autobiography, but she has never been read as a literary hippie or major voice of the 1960s counterculture. This essay aims to challenge that oversight, showing how Kingston's novels constitute a profound and extensive account of psychedelic experience as it was lived and understood in the Bay Area of the 1960s