‘I’ll Say the Bad Words I Have’: Anne Enright and Eimear McBride’s Subversive Modernisms

There has been an increasing tendency within literary critical discourse to refer to at least two developing trends, both in the context of Ireland and internationally. The first is an upsurge in the volume of quality work being produced by young Irish writers, and the second is a resurgence of novel-writing that re-engages modernist aesthetics, which can be seen in the fiction of writers such as Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Mike McCormack. It’s worth remarking on the centrality afforded to women’s writing in the articulation of both of these developing strands, such as Sara Baume, Claire-Louise Bennett, Joanna Walsh, Eimear McBride and Anne Enright. Brian Dillon, in his review of Bennett’s Pond (2015) in the London Review of Books, sounds a dissenting note, touching on the somewhat parochial overtones of this nascent discourse: She [Bennett] has somewhat misleadingly been set aside Eimear McBride as representative of a modernist turn among young writers in Ireland, especially women writers. Misleadingly, not because they don't share something — a commitment to voice, a syntax that is speedy, bristling and strange at first encounter — but because they sound so different…If there is a modernism of sorts at work in current fiction in Ireland, it’s less a return in the manner called for by authors such as Tom McCarthy, and more an acknowledgement of the variety of experimental traditions on which young writers now draw (Dillon, 2016, 37–38)

Diachronic Delta: A computational and dialectical method for analysing literary corpora

Much has been written on computational literary studies' (CLS) rigidity and reductiveness in comparison with literary criticism's more pragmatic and intuitive means of approaching its object of study. This thesis attempts to undermine this antinomy via dialectical materialist philosophy as proposed by George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and developed by Karl Marx. As a science and a method of social critique, dialectics not only has a long history of usage within literary criticism, but they also provide a means of mediating the distinctions between empirical evidence, logic and intuition. We do so by operationalising .John Burrows' 'Delta' method across time mther than as it is conventionally applied, across text (.T. Burrows, "'Delta': a Measure of Stylistic Difference and a Guide to Likely Authorship"). We thereby identify particular years as being associated with extensive amounts of 'novelty' (which years introduce the most amount of distance from proceeding years) and also possess extensive amounts of 'resonance' (are relatively proximate to their successor years). This is undertaken on the basis that agents within a dataset which score highly for both of these metrics are highly innovative, as they are significantly different from the years which come before, and relatively similar to the years which come after (Barron et al., "Individuals, institutions, and innovation in the debates of the French Revolution."; Barron et al., "Supplementary Information: Individuals, Institutions, and Innovation in the Debates of the French Revolution"). We refer to these years as 'breaks' and identify them in order to contrast their behaviour with the longue-dunie approach increasingly prevalent within CLS (Underwood, Distant Horizons: Digital Evidence and Literary Change 25). Though this theory of incremental change ultimately remains in overall terms robust, this thesis nevertheless presents significant results arising from this method and demonstrates the ways in which dialectical materialist philosophy may ground the use of empirical methods more coherently within contemporary literary critical practice

New Perspectives: Postgraduate Symposium for the Humanities - Reflections, Volume 2

Writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, Michel Foucault wrote that ‘history has a more important task than to be a handmaiden to philosophy, to recount the necessary birth of truth and values; it should become a differential knowledge of energies and failings, heights and degenerations, poisons and antidotes’ (1997, 126). Foucault’s words capture two opposing conceptions of historical change that ‘NPPSH 2017: Progress and Degeneration’ aimed to deconstruct and critique: the ‘necessary birth of truth and values’ assumed by the progressive view of historical change, and the contrasting ‘poisons’ and ‘failings’ of seeming degeneration. In the face of apparent narratives of historical progress and degeneration, we must ask: ‘Progress for whom, and according to whom?’ When our symposium took place, these questions appeared more necessary than they have been for many years. This time was marked by the re-emergence of nationalist politics, evident in Brexit and the violence in Catalonia; the resurgence of fascistic political discourse, considered unthinkable after the collapse of the brutal regimes of the twentieth century; the growth of xenophobic politics in the wake of mass east-west migration; and the continued pillaging of the natural environment. In the time that has elapsed since the symposium, we have witnessed the return of republican tensions in Northern Ireland, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the solidification of far-right political currents in Poland, and terrorist attacks on churches, mosques and synagogues in the US, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka: such ongoing and disturbing issues force us to engage with the legacy and nature of ‘progressive’ thought. The importance of the humanities in exploring such questions cannot be overstated: the impressive range of papers on show in this publication—covering everything from censorship and medical practice in the Irish Free State to French political cartoons to the political potential of William Burroughs’s cut-up technique, pedagogical practice, and the digital lives of older people—demonstrates the continued importance of the humanities to the investigation of political, social and cultural issues. It is our intention that NPPSH Reflections: Volume 2 will provide a space for early career scholars to continue to reflect on these questions, while contributing to debates that are situated at the leading edge of humanities research

New Perspectives: Postgraduate Symposium for the Humanities - Reflections, Volume 2

Writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, Michel Foucault wrote that ‘history has a more important task than to be a handmaiden to philosophy, to recount the necessary birth of truth and values; it should become a differential knowledge of energies and failings, heights and degenerations, poisons and antidotes’ (1997, 126). Foucault’s words capture two opposing conceptions of historical change that ‘NPPSH 2017: Progress and Degeneration’ aimed to deconstruct and critique: the ‘necessary birth of truth and values’ assumed by the progressive view of historical change, and the contrasting ‘poisons’ and ‘failings’ of seeming degeneration. In the face of apparent narratives of historical progress and degeneration, we must ask: ‘Progress for whom, and according to whom?’ When our symposium took place, these questions appeared more necessary than they have been for many years. This time was marked by the re-emergence of nationalist politics, evident in Brexit and the violence in Catalonia; the resurgence of fascistic political discourse, considered unthinkable after the collapse of the brutal regimes of the twentieth century; the growth of xenophobic politics in the wake of mass east-west migration; and the continued pillaging of the natural environment. In the time that has elapsed since the symposium, we have witnessed the return of republican tensions in Northern Ireland, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the solidification of far-right political currents in Poland, and terrorist attacks on churches, mosques and synagogues in the US, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka: such ongoing and disturbing issues force us to engage with the legacy and nature of ‘progressive’ thought. The importance of the humanities in exploring such questions cannot be overstated: the impressive range of papers on show in this publication—covering everything from censorship and medical practice in the Irish Free State to French political cartoons to the political potential of William Burroughs’s cut-up technique, pedagogical practice, and the digital lives of older people—demonstrates the continued importance of the humanities to the investigation of political, social and cultural issues. It is our intention that NPPSH Reflections: Volume 2 will provide a space for early career scholars to continue to reflect on these questions, while contributing to debates that are situated at the leading edge of humanities research

‘I’ll Say the Bad Words I Have’: Anne Enright and Eimear McBride’s Subversive Modernisms

There has been an increasing tendency within literary critical discourse to refer to at least two developing trends, both in the context of Ireland and internationally. The first is an upsurge in the volume of quality work being produced by young Irish writers, and the second is a resurgence of novel-writing that re-engages modernist aesthetics, which can be seen in the fiction of writers such as Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Mike McCormack. It’s worth remarking on the centrality afforded to women’s writing in the articulation of both of these developing strands, such as Sara Baume, Claire-Louise Bennett, Joanna Walsh, Eimear McBride and Anne Enright. Brian Dillon, in his review of Bennett’s Pond (2015) in the London Review of Books, sounds a dissenting note, touching on the somewhat parochial overtones of this nascent discourse: She [Bennett] has somewhat misleadingly been set aside Eimear McBride as representative of a modernist turn among young writers in Ireland, especially women writers. Misleadingly, not because they don't share something — a commitment to voice, a syntax that is speedy, bristling and strange at first encounter — but because they sound so different…If there is a modernism of sorts at work in current fiction in Ireland, it’s less a return in the manner called for by authors such as Tom McCarthy, and more an acknowledgement of the variety of experimental traditions on which young writers now draw (Dillon, 2016, 37–38)

A Brief History of the Theory and Practice of Computational Literary Criticism (1963-2020)

This paper will construct a history of computational literary criticism (CLS) which has engaged statistical methods by providing an historical account of the journal articles as well as other publications which have advanced the field to the most significant extent since 1963. This paper divides the history of CLS into three distinct epochs, within each of which the methods and theories CLS scholars utilise undergo significant qualitative transformation. The decisive factor in each of these epochs is CLS’ relationship to traditional literary criticism. Partly as a result of this, CLS scholarship initially cleaves to organic theories of literary style and adopts a highly polemicised opposition to then-regnant post-structuralist theories of authorship

‘I’ll Say the Bad Words I Have’: Anne Enright and Eimear McBride’s Subversive Modernisms

There has been an increasing tendency within literary critical discourse to refer to at least two developing trends, both in the context of Ireland and internationally. The first is an upsurge in the volume of quality work being produced by young Irish writers, and the second is a resurgence of novel-writing that re-engages modernist aesthetics, which can be seen in the fiction of writers such as Will Self, Tom McCarthy and Mike McCormack. It’s worth remarking on the centrality afforded to women’s writing in the articulation of both of these developing strands, such as Sara Baume, Claire-Louise Bennett, Joanna Walsh, Eimear McBride and Anne Enright. Brian Dillon, in his review of Bennett’s Pond (2015) in the London Review of Books, sounds a dissenting note, touching on the somewhat parochial overtones of this nascent discourse: She [Bennett] has somewhat misleadingly been set aside Eimear McBride as representative of a modernist turn among young writers in Ireland, especially women writers. Misleadingly, not because they don't share something — a commitment to voice, a syntax that is speedy, bristling and strange at first encounter — but because they sound so different…If there is a modernism of sorts at work in current fiction in Ireland, it’s less a return in the manner called for by authors such as Tom McCarthy, and more an acknowledgement of the variety of experimental traditions on which young writers now draw (Dillon, 2016, 37–38)

New Perspectives: Postgraduate Symposium for the Humanities - Reflections, Volume 2

Writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, Michel Foucault wrote that ‘history has a more important task than to be a handmaiden to philosophy, to recount the necessary birth of truth and values; it should become a differential knowledge of energies and failings, heights and degenerations, poisons and antidotes’ (1997, 126). Foucault’s words capture two opposing conceptions of historical change that ‘NPPSH 2017: Progress and Degeneration’ aimed to deconstruct and critique: the ‘necessary birth of truth and values’ assumed by the progressive view of historical change, and the contrasting ‘poisons’ and ‘failings’ of seeming degeneration. In the face of apparent narratives of historical progress and degeneration, we must ask: ‘Progress for whom, and according to whom?’ When our symposium took place, these questions appeared more necessary than they have been for many years. This time was marked by the re-emergence of nationalist politics, evident in Brexit and the violence in Catalonia; the resurgence of fascistic political discourse, considered unthinkable after the collapse of the brutal regimes of the twentieth century; the growth of xenophobic politics in the wake of mass east-west migration; and the continued pillaging of the natural environment. In the time that has elapsed since the symposium, we have witnessed the return of republican tensions in Northern Ireland, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the solidification of far-right political currents in Poland, and terrorist attacks on churches, mosques and synagogues in the US, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka: such ongoing and disturbing issues force us to engage with the legacy and nature of ‘progressive’ thought. The importance of the humanities in exploring such questions cannot be overstated: the impressive range of papers on show in this publication—covering everything from censorship and medical practice in the Irish Free State to French political cartoons to the political potential of William Burroughs’s cut-up technique, pedagogical practice, and the digital lives of older people—demonstrates the continued importance of the humanities to the investigation of political, social and cultural issues. It is our intention that NPPSH Reflections: Volume 2 will provide a space for early career scholars to continue to reflect on these questions, while contributing to debates that are situated at the leading edge of humanities research

New Perspectives: Postgraduate Symposium for the Humanities - Reflections, Volume 2

Writing in the aftermath of the Second World War, Michel Foucault wrote that ‘history has a more important task than to be a handmaiden to philosophy, to recount the necessary birth of truth and values; it should become a differential knowledge of energies and failings, heights and degenerations, poisons and antidotes’ (1997, 126). Foucault’s words capture two opposing conceptions of historical change that ‘NPPSH 2017: Progress and Degeneration’ aimed to deconstruct and critique: the ‘necessary birth of truth and values’ assumed by the progressive view of historical change, and the contrasting ‘poisons’ and ‘failings’ of seeming degeneration. In the face of apparent narratives of historical progress and degeneration, we must ask: ‘Progress for whom, and according to whom?’ When our symposium took place, these questions appeared more necessary than they have been for many years. This time was marked by the re-emergence of nationalist politics, evident in Brexit and the violence in Catalonia; the resurgence of fascistic political discourse, considered unthinkable after the collapse of the brutal regimes of the twentieth century; the growth of xenophobic politics in the wake of mass east-west migration; and the continued pillaging of the natural environment. In the time that has elapsed since the symposium, we have witnessed the return of republican tensions in Northern Ireland, the rise of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the solidification of far-right political currents in Poland, and terrorist attacks on churches, mosques and synagogues in the US, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka: such ongoing and disturbing issues force us to engage with the legacy and nature of ‘progressive’ thought. The importance of the humanities in exploring such questions cannot be overstated: the impressive range of papers on show in this publication—covering everything from censorship and medical practice in the Irish Free State to French political cartoons to the political potential of William Burroughs’s cut-up technique, pedagogical practice, and the digital lives of older people—demonstrates the continued importance of the humanities to the investigation of political, social and cultural issues. It is our intention that NPPSH Reflections: Volume 2 will provide a space for early career scholars to continue to reflect on these questions, while contributing to debates that are situated at the leading edge of humanities research

Microvascular stabilization via blood-brain barrier regulation prevents seizure activity

Blood-brain barrier (BBB) dysfunction is associated with worse epilepsy outcomes however the underlying molecular mechanisms of BBB dysfunction remain to be elucidated. Tight junction proteins are important regulators of BBB integrity and in particular, the tight junction protein claudin-5 is the most enriched in brain endothelial cells and regulates size-selectivity at the BBB. Additionally, disruption of claudin-5 expression has been implicated in numerous disorders including schizophrenia, depression and traumatic brain injury, yet its role in epilepsy has not been fully deciphered. Here we report that claudin-5 protein levels are significantly diminished in surgically resected brain tissue from patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy. Concomitantly, dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI in these patients showed widespread BBB disruption. We show that targeted disruption of claudin-5 in the hippocampus or genetic heterozygosity of claudin-5 in mice exacerbates kainic acid-induced seizures and BBB disruption. Additionally, inducible knockdown of claudin-5 in mice leads to spontaneous recurrent seizures, severe neuroinflammation, and mortality. Finally, we identify that RepSox, a regulator of claudin-5 expression, can prevent seizure activity in experimental epilepsy. Altogether, we propose that BBB stabilizing drugs could represent a new generation of agents to prevent seizure activity in epilepsy patients