'Is there no work in hand?' : the idle son theme at mid-century

This article presents work as the possible site of a generational conflict over the definition of masculinity between parents and children, focusing on the father and son dynamic. It tackles cases of idle sons, or educated young men who cannot establish themselves in any one career, in the middle classes around the middle of the 19th century. It discusses the changing attitudes to what forms masculine work in these classes. It gives emphasis to the case of widowed mother Margaret Oliphant who expressed mixed signals about the significance of work

Charles Kingsley's Anthropology of the Generations

In 1852, Charles Kingsley (1819-75) declared his wish to ‘put the anthropology of men of my own generation on as sound a footing as I can,’ so that they would have clear religious and moral principles with which to face the challenges ahead of them. He expresses a strong sense of belonging to a significant generation, both in terms of his family, school and Cambridge contemporaries, as well as the Christian Socialists with whom he formed a lifelong association. This chapter will argue that, having lived through the historical turning points of the Bristol Riots of 1831 and the Chartist campaigns, Kingsley drew on generational models and a vocabulary of generational shared identity to delineate the moral seriousness of the times in which he lived. Karl Mannheim’s ‘The Problem with Generations’ (1927), which theorizes the challenges of demonstrating that people born around the same time necessarily share similar values, contextualizes discussion of Kingsley’s lifelong fascination with a common experience of social change and moral and spiritual awakening. Beginning with an overview of Kingsley’s personal circumstances, the chapter will demonstrate how a generational model helped him articulate his disappointment with the working-class poetry that followed Burns’s authentic recording of what he called the ‘heart experiences of his generation.’ Discussion will then turn to Kingsley’s fiction, especially Lancelot Smith’s earnest wrestling with his sense of moral responsibility, in Yeast (1848/1851) and the growing urgency for social reform, echoed by the heroes of Alton Locke (1850) and Two Years Ago (1857). While Kingsley’s heroes see themselves as morally superior to the previous generation, with a responsibility to compensate for the shortcomings of their predecessors, he also indicates that this is likely to emerge as a jumbled self-regeneration, both of individuals and societies, in the face of continuing challenges

Joyful Convulsions: Dickens's Comings and Goings

When Dickens returned home from his six-month tour of America in 1842, his eldest son Charley, aged five, nearly died of joy at being reunited with his parents. Focusing on Dickens’s complex emotions as a father, this article considers his response to the wild emotionalism of partings and reunions, first within his own family, as he dispatched his young sons to careers in the colonies, and then in his treatment of parent–child separations in some of his novels. As a father who frequently played down the drama of ‘real life’ partings in his family, it considers the gap, in 'Dombey and Son' and 'Bleak House', between the child’s impulse for reconciliation, and the parent’s shame or silence. The family reunion that segues unstoppably into another parting becomes a way of confronting failed elements that in terms of Dickens’s domestic ideology cannot be subsumed invisibly into a new and improved version of the family. With fathers, however, the outlook is more hopeful than with mothers, and Dickens shows how the prospects of reunion between errant daughters and unforgiving fathers are ultimately more positive than those between errant mothers and forgiving daughters

Losing and finding oneself in a book: the mysterious immersive experience of reading literary fiction

This research explores the process of immersive literary reading, seeking to understand what happens within the psyche of the reader whilst engaged with a work of fiction. Drawing on a bricolage methodology combining conceptual research, heuristic enquiry, and the innovative practice of using a novel itself as a methodology, the experience is investigated from theoretical, literary, and personal perspectives. Theoretical ideas come from a broad psychoanalytic base as well as concepts from literary theory, and the portal novel is Alain-Fournier’s Le grand Meaulnes. The researcher also analyses her own personal experience of reading, documented through the keeping of reading journals, as raw data from which to derive insight into the process. The thesis is that successful engagement in the reading of a literary novel can be a therapeutic and transformational experience, and four key paradoxes are identified: (1) that this type of reading requires a sophisticated level of literary ability, whilst at the same time the reader is required to engage in a regressed, childlike mentality, which juxtaposition is termed a sophisticated paranoid schizoid position, (2) that it is incumbent upon the reader to let go at a deep level of egoic concerns, whilst deriving simultaneously a sense of omnipotence in creating that which is being read in the imagination, (3) that as the reader loses herself in the pages of the book, she also finds herself reflected back within them and has the possibility of transformational understanding of previously unconscious aspects of herself, and (4) that while reading is an intensely private and personal undertaking (the whole process taking place within the reader’s imagination), the reader is at the point of reading connecting to humanity at large (by virtue of suspending boundaries between self and other) and specifically those who have previously read the book across the ages

The democratic engagement of Britain's ethnic minorities

Democratic engagement is a multi-faceted phenomenon that embraces citizens' involvement with electoral politics, their participation in ‘conventional’ extra-parliamentary political activity, their satisfaction with democracy and trust in state institutions, and their rejection of the use of violence for political ends. Evidence from the 2010 BES and EMBES shows that there are important variations in patterns of democratic engagement across Britain's different ethnic-minority groups and across generations. Overall, ethnic-minority engagement is at a similar level to and moved by the same general factors that influence the political dispositions of whites. However, minority democratic engagement is also strongly affected by a set of distinctive ethnic-minority perceptions and experiences, associated particularly with discrimination and patterns of minority and majority cultural engagement. Second-generation minorities who grew up in Britain are less, rather than more, likely to be engaged

Making Space : Key Popular Women Writers Then and Now

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Plasma neurofilament light chain protein as a predictor of days in delirium and deep sedation, mortality and length of stay in critically ill patients

BACKGROUND: Delirium predicts poor outcomes, however identifying patients with the worst outcomes is challenging. Plasma neurofilament light protein (NfL) is a sensitive indicator of neuronal damage. We undertook an exploratory observational study to determine the association between plasma NfL and delirium in the critically ill. METHODS: MoDUS was a randomised placebo-controlled delirium trial of simvastatin done in an UK adult general ICU. We measured NfL levels in plasma samples using a Single molecule array (Simoa) platform. We explored associations between patient's plasma NfL levels and number of delirium days, and clinical outcomes. The control group for baseline NfL were preoperative patients undergoing major surgery. FINDINGS: The majority of critically ill patients already had a high NfL level on admission. Patients with higher plasma NfL levels at days one and three spent more days in delirium or deep sedation. Patients with zero or one day in delirium or deep sedation had day one mean concentrations of 37.8 pg/ml (SD 32.6) compared with 96.5 pg/ml (SD 106.1)) for patients with two days or more, p-value 0.002 linear mixed effects model. Survivors discharged before 14 days had lower mean plasma NfL concentrations compared to those with longer hospital stays and/or who died within six months. The area under ROC curve for predicting death within six months using day one NfL was 0.81 (0.7,0.9). INTERPRETATION: Measurement of plasma NfL within three days of admission may be useful to identify those patients with worse clinical outcomes, and as an enrichment strategy for future delirium interventional trials in the critically ill. FUNDING: Alzheimer's Society UK, UK Dementia Research Institute

Developmental and Molecular Changes Underlying the Vernalization-Induced Transition to Flowering in Aquilegia coerulea (James)

Reproductive success in plants is dependent on many factors but the precise timing of flowering is certainly among the most crucial. Perennial plants often have a vernalization or over-wintering requirement in order to successfully flower in the spring. The shoot apical meristem undergoes drastic developmental and molecular changes as it transitions into inflorescence meristem (IM) identity, which then gives rise to floral meristems (FMs). In this study, we have examined the developmental and gene expression changes underlying the transition from the vegetative to reproductive phases in the basal eudicot Aquilegia coerulea, which has evolved a vernalization response independently relative to other established model systems. Results from both our histology and scanning electron studies demonstrate that developmental changes in the meristem occur gradually during the third and fourth weeks of vernalization. Based on RNAseq data and cluster analysis, several known flowering time loci, including AqFT and AqFL1, exhibit dramatic changes in expression during the fourth week. Further consideration of candidate gene homologs as well as unexpected loci of interest creates a framework in which we can begin to explore the genetic basis of the flowering time transition in Aquilegia

Citrobacter rodentium Relies on Commensals for Colonization of the Colonic Mucosa.

We investigated the role of commensals at the peak of infection with the colonic mouse pathogen Citrobacter rodentium. Bioluminescent and kanamycin (Kan)-resistant C. rodentium persisted avirulently in the cecal lumen of mice continuously treated with Kan. A single Kan treatment was sufficient to displace C. rodentium from the colonic mucosa, a phenomenon not observed following treatment with vancomycin (Van) or metronidazole (Met). Kan, Van, and Met induce distinct dysbiosis, suggesting C. rodentium relies on specific commensals for colonic colonization. Expression of the master virulence regulator ler is induced in germ-free mice, yet C. rodentium is only seen in the cecal lumen. Moreover, in conventional mice, a single Kan treatment was sufficient to displace C. rodentium constitutively expressing Ler from the colonic mucosa. These results show that expression of virulence genes is not sufficient for colonization of the colonic mucosa and that commensals are essential for a physiological infection course

Plasma neurofilament light chain protein as a predictor of days in delirium and deep sedation, mortality and length of stay in critically ill patients

Background: Delirium predicts poor outcomes, however identifying patients with the worst outcomes is challenging. Plasma neurofilament light protein (NfL) is a sensitive indicator of neuronal damage. We undertook an exploratory observational study to determine the association between plasma NfL and delirium in the critically ill. Methods: MoDUS was a randomised placebo-controlled delirium trial of simvastatin done in an UK adult general ICU. We measured NfL levels in plasma samples using a Single molecule array (Simoa) platform. We explored associations between patient's plasma NfL levels and number of delirium days, and clinical outcomes. The control group for baseline NfL were preoperative patients undergoing major surgery. Findings: The majority of critically ill patients already had a high NfL level on admission. Patients with higher plasma NfL levels at days one and three spent more days in delirium or deep sedation. Patients with zero or one day in delirium or deep sedation had day one mean concentrations of 37.8 pg/ml (SD 32.6) compared with 96.5 pg/ml (SD 106.1)) for patients with two days or more, p-value 0.002 linear mixed effects model. Survivors discharged before 14 days had lower mean plasma NfL concentrations compared to those with longer hospital stays and/or who died within six months. The area under ROC curve for predicting death within six months using day one NfL was 0.81 (0.7,0.9). Interpretation: Measurement of plasma NfL within three days of admission may be useful to identify those patients with worse clinical outcomes, and as an enrichment strategy for future delirium interventional trials in the critically ill