Literary studies and the academy

In 1885 the University of Oxford invited applications for the newly created Merton Professorship of English Language and Literature. The holder of the chair was, according to the statutes, to ‘lecture and give instruction on the broad history and criticism of English Language and Literature, and on the works of approved English authors’. This was not in itself a particularly innovatory move, as the study of English vernacular literature had played some part in higher education in Britain for over a century. Oxford University had put English as a subject into its pass degree in 1873, had been participating since 1878 in extension teaching, of which literary study formed a significant part, and had since 1881 been setting special examinations in the subject for its non-graduating women students. What was new was the fact that this ancient university appeared to be on the verge of granting the solid academic legitimacy of an established chair to an institutionally marginal and often contentious intellectual pursuit, acknowledging the study of literary texts in English to be a fit subject not just for women and the educationally disadvantaged but also for university men

'Voyaging in': colonialism and migration

A major reference chapter on the history of the literature of colonialism and migration 1945-70. The book marks an intervention into conventional histories of British Literature. The chapter illustrates and analyses the influential formation of alternative modernities by migrant writers resident in Britain during this period; it also extends the gaze to the period before 1945 earlier in the twentieth century. Maps new ways of reading literary history; broad and wideranging discussion of migration during this period

Reservoir quality of Cenozoic carbonate buildups and coral reef terraces

Almost half of SE Asia's considerable hydrocarbon reserves are contained in carbonates. The majority of these reservoirs are Miocene buildups up to tens of kilometres across. However, with the exception of a few fields, there is little detailed data on how local depositional and diagenetic conditions influence the considerable heterogeneities in reservoir quality often encountered. This study focuses on factors influencing the facies, diagenetic and reservoir variability of comparable Modern, Quaternary and Neogene reef associated deposits from the Tukang Besi Archipelago, Central Indonesia.The Archipelago includes large atolls, a number of smaller buildups and 4 main islands each with modern rimmed shelves or fringing reefs. On the islands, over ten late Neogene and Quaternary coral reef terraces have been uplifted to maximum heights of ~300 m. Analysis of the modern deposits allows initial reservoir potential to be assessed and related to local environmental conditions. The influence of diagenesis on final reservoir quality is evaluated for the depositional facies exposed in the uplifted terraces. The overall spatial distribution of effective porosity across the area is strongly dependent on local energy conditions, water depth, carbonate producers, size of atolls or islands, climate and local meteoric diagenetic processes. This evaluation of spatial variability in carbonate reservoir characteristics provides much needed analogue data as the hydrocarbon industry focuses on improving recovery from existing fields and exploring for new reserves