A metropolitan line : Robert LaPalme (1908-1997) : caricature and power in the age of Duplessis (1936-1959)

This dissertation proposes that the caricatures of Robert LaPalme, from his virtuoso celebrity portraits of the 1930s to the graphic political satires that focused on Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis in the 1950s, provided a body of work that fulfilled the conditions of a "golden age of caricature," as it is characteristically defined in the historiography of caricature studies in European and North American traditions, for the history of visual arts in Quebec. These "national" models are seen as fundamentally metropolitan productions that represent themselves as national in scope by addressing and trading in the identity markings which provide the material for ideological conflicts within national traditions. Robert LaPalme's imagery was developed in concert with a generation of leaders who laid the groundwork for the Quiet Revolution, the secularisation and modernisation of Quebec society, through a dynamic and contesting relationship with the Duplessis administrations of 1936-40 and 1944-59. LaPalme's caricature harnessed urban anxieties and licence, both depending on and mocking them: it represented the breaches between competing images of Quebec that were rehearsed throughout the culture, from the rural/urban ideological split to the swiftly reconfigured ground of sexual behaviour and freedoms. Caricature in LaPalme's hands was the expression of the troubled, corrupt, powerful and exciting city of Montreal as a centre where the future for Quebec was imagined around the wily and traitorous figure of Maurice Duplessis. The thesis examines through a broadly chronological framework LaPalme's treatment of subjects, his visual style, through his approach to the body and space, and his close collaboration with many of the leading artists editors, journalists, publishers and writers of his er

Avant-propos

L’idée d’un colloque consacré au « visuel de la satire » remonte à 2013, au terme d’une première série d’initiatives qui avait aidé à faire éclore la question. Dominic Hardy travaillait depuis 2009, avec Annie Gérin, sur le passage de l’objet satire depuis son espace considéré comme « naturel » et « légitime », celui de l’imprimé, dans lequel il existait depuis le xviiie siècle, au registre du satirique, dans un autre espace, celui de l’art contemporain, du musée et des centres d’art, en part..

Modalités visuelles du satirique

Dans le flot des nouvelles pratiques de l’image, la caricature, aussi ancien que soit ce mode de déformation graphique, peut paraître marginalisée : bien que le mot soit toujours usité dans son acception la plus générale de « portrait-charge », il tend à être remplacé par l’expression « satire graphique », voire « satire visuelle ». Ces appellations rendent bien compte des transformations du champ de l’image que l’on peut qualifier de « railleuse », soit une représentation visuelle à vocation..

QED_3 theory of underdoped high temperature superconductors II: the quantum critical point

We study the effect of gapless quasiparticles in a d-wave superconductor on the T=0 end point of the Kosterlitz-Thouless transition line in underdoped high-temperature superconductors. Starting from a lattice model that has gapless fermions coupled to 3D XY phase fluctuations of the superconducting order parameter, we propose a continuum field theory to describe the quantum phase transition between the d-wave superconductor and the spin-density-wave insulator. Without fermions the theory reduces to the standard Higgs scalar electrodynamics (HSE), which is known to have the critical point in the inverted XY universality class. Extending the renormalization group calculation for the HSE to include the coupling to fermions, we find that the qualitative effect of fermions is to increase the portion of the space of coupling constants where the transition is discontinuous. The critical exponents at the stable fixed point vary continuously with the number of fermion fields $N$, and we estimate the correlation length exponent (nu = 0.65) and the vortex field anomalous dimension(eta_Phi=-0.48) at the quantum critical point for the physical case N=2. The stable critical point in the theory disappears for the number of Dirac fermions N > N_c, with N_c ~ 3.4 in our approximation. We discuss the relationship between the superconducting and the chiral (SDW) transitions, and point to some interesting parallels between our theory and the Thirring model.Comment: 13 pages including figures in tex

“The Stones Would Cry Out” (Luke 19.40): A Lukan Contribution to a Hermeneutics of Creation’s Praise

publication-status: Publishedtypes: Article© 2011 by Cambridge University Press. Publisher's version.Beginning from Richard Bauckham's proposal that the biblical theme of creation's praise is of considerable importance for an ecological spirituality, this article takes a close look at Luke 19:40, a text largely ignored in ecological readings of the Bible. An examination of Luke's distinctive account of the entry into Jerusalem and a consideration of the relevant Jewish parallels to the motif of the crying stone leads to a view of the stones’ cry as one of both praise and protest. The ecotheological potential of this text is then discussed and, in contrast to Bauckham's view of creation's praise as something creation always and already does simply by being itself, an eschatological view of creation's praise – and the combined expression of praise and protest – is presented as important, not least for its ecotheological and ethical potential.AHRCResearch project: Uses of the Bible in Environmental Ethic

Ocean warming drives rapid dynamic activation of a marine-terminating glacier on the west Antarctic Peninsula

Ice dynamic change is the primary cause of mass loss from the Antarctic Ice Sheet, thus it is important to understand the processes driving ice-ocean interactions and the timescale on which major change can occur. Here we use satellite observations to measure a rapid increase in speed and collapse of the ice shelf fronting Cadman Glacier in the absence of surface meltwater ponding. Between November 2018 and December 2019 ice speed increased by 94 ± 4% (1.47 ± 0.6 km/yr), ice discharge increased by 0.52 ± 0.21 Gt/yr, and the calving front retreated by 8 km with dynamic thinning on grounded ice of 20.1 ± 2.6 m/yr. This change was concurrent with a positive temperature anomaly in the upper ocean, where a 400 m deep channel allowed warm water to reach Cadman Glacier driving the dynamic activation, while neighbouring Funk and Lever Glaciers were protected by bathymetric sills across their fjords. Our results show that forcing by warm ocean water can cause the rapid onset of dynamic imbalance and increased ice discharge from glaciers on the Antarctic Peninsula, highlighting the region’s sensitivity to future climate variability

Modulation of SF1 neuron activity coordinately regulates both feeding behaviour and associated emotional states

Feeding requires the integration of homeostatic drives with emotional states relevant to food procurement in potentially hostile environments. The ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) regulates feeding and anxiety, but how these are controlled in a concerted manner remains unclear. Using pharmacogenetic, optogenetic, and calcium imaging approaches with a battery of behavioral assays, we demonstrate that VMH steroidogenic factor 1 (SF1) neurons constitute a nutritionally sensitive switch, modulating the competing motivations of feeding and avoidance of potentially dangerous environments. Acute alteration of SF1 neuronal activity alters food intake via changes in appetite and feeding-related behaviors, including locomotion, exploration, anxiety, and valence. In turn, intrinsic SF1 neuron activity is low during feeding and increases with both feeding termination and stress. Our findings identify SF1 neurons as a key part of the neurocircuitry that controls both feeding and related affective states, giving potential insights into the relationship between disordered eating and stress-associated psychological disorders in humans