That's maybe where I come from but that’s not how I read: Diaspora, Location and Reading Identities

First paragraph: The historical neglect of readers within the field of postcolonial studies has produced what C. L. Innes suggests is a reductive and presumptuous idea of  "the reader": "most critical analyses of postcolonial writing implicitly or explicitly presume that the reader is either a member of the writer's nation, as in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities (1983) . . . or, more frequently, a generalized cosmopolitan Westerner"; even in those accounts that do exist "there is little differentiation between different kinds of Western reader" (2007, 200). Much of the haziness around readers here hinges upon commonsense assumptions about the location of reading, whether it is conceived in terms of national affiliation or in more generalised, global and diasporic terms of cosmopolitan consumption in "the" West. In what follows we explore some of the findings of a recent project that attempted to firm up current conceptions of readership by investigating how readers in a series of geographically dispersed locations made sense of the same, or similar works of fiction associated with postcolonial or diaspora writing. These works included canonical classics such as Things Fall Apart (1958), as well as proto-canonical contemporary works such as White Teeth (2001), experimental writers like Junot Diaz and more mainstream realist novelists like Andrea Levy and Monica Ali, poetry and short fiction, as well as novels, and prescribed works as well as books selected by the individual groups themselves. By recording and transcribing a series of isolated book group readings of these texts in Africa (Lagos, Kano, Nigeria; Tetuan, Morocco), India (New Delhi), Canada (Kingston), the Caribbean (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Kingston, Jamaica) and across the UK (from Cornwall to Glasgow), this project asked how (if at all) the reception of the same book differs according to the place in which it is read

That's maybe where I come from but that’s not how I read: Diaspora, Location and Reading Identities

First paragraph: The historical neglect of readers within the field of postcolonial studies has produced what C. L. Innes suggests is a reductive and presumptuous idea of  "the reader": "most critical analyses of postcolonial writing implicitly or explicitly presume that the reader is either a member of the writer's nation, as in Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities (1983) . . . or, more frequently, a generalized cosmopolitan Westerner"; even in those accounts that do exist "there is little differentiation between different kinds of Western reader" (2007, 200). Much of the haziness around readers here hinges upon commonsense assumptions about the location of reading, whether it is conceived in terms of national affiliation or in more generalised, global and diasporic terms of cosmopolitan consumption in "the" West. In what follows we explore some of the findings of a recent project that attempted to firm up current conceptions of readership by investigating how readers in a series of geographically dispersed locations made sense of the same, or similar works of fiction associated with postcolonial or diaspora writing. These works included canonical classics such as Things Fall Apart (1958), as well as proto-canonical contemporary works such as White Teeth (2001), experimental writers like Junot Diaz and more mainstream realist novelists like Andrea Levy and Monica Ali, poetry and short fiction, as well as novels, and prescribed works as well as books selected by the individual groups themselves. By recording and transcribing a series of isolated book group readings of these texts in Africa (Lagos, Kano, Nigeria; Tetuan, Morocco), India (New Delhi), Canada (Kingston), the Caribbean (Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago; Kingston, Jamaica) and across the UK (from Cornwall to Glasgow), this project asked how (if at all) the reception of the same book differs according to the place in which it is read

Not reading Brick Lane

When someone becomes or does not become a reader - and how we make a claim to or refuse these kinds of identity - clearly matters within globalised cultures, where the challenges of literary representation quickly become problems of cultural misrepresentation. Yet precisely because not reading would appear to amount to nothing, its significance remains unexplored. In order to trace the conjunctural and multiple meanings of not reading, this essay explores the embattled reception surrounding Monica Ali's novel Brick Lane (2003) and its adaptation into film (2007), and locates not reading within a longer history of book controversies that is overshadowed by the Rushdie Affair. Our paper argues that, far from mere negation, not reading is an intensely productive site of cross-cultural negotiation and conflict without which the contemporary significance of global readerships and reading acts makes only partial sense

Mapping Lyman Continuum escape in Tololo 1247-232

Low redshift, spatially resolved Lyman continuum (LyC) emitters allow us to clarify the processes for LyC escape from these starburst galaxies. We use Hubble Space Telescope (HST) WFC3 and ACS imaging of the confirmed low-redshift LyC emitter Tol 1247-232 to study the ionization structure of the gas and its relation to the ionizing star clusters. We perform ionization parameter mapping (IPM) using [O III]4959, 5007 and [O II]3727 imaging as the high- and low-ionization tracers, revealing broad, large-scale, optically thin regions originating from the center, and reaching the outskirts of the galaxy, consistent with LyC escape. We carry out stellar population synthesis modeling of the 26 brightest clusters using our HST photometry. Combining these data with the nebular photometry, we find a global LyC escape fraction of f_esc = 0.12, with uncertainties also consistent with zero escape and with all measured f_esc values for this galaxy. Our analysis suggests that, similar to other candidate LyC emitters, a two-stage starburst has taken place in this galaxy, with a 12 Myr old, massive, central cluster likely having pre-cleared regions in and around the center, and the second generation of 2 - 4 Myr old clusters dominating the current ionization, including some escape from the galaxy.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The effect of diffuse background on the spatially-resolved Schmidt relation in nearby spiral galaxies

The global Schmidt law of star formation provides a power-law relation between the surface densities of star-formation rate (SFR) and gas, and successfully explains plausible scenarios of galaxy formation and evolution. However, star formation being a multi-scale process, requires spatially-resolved analysis for a better understanding of the physics of star formation. It has been shown that the removal of a diffuse background from SFR tracers, such as H$\alpha$, far-ultraviolet (FUV), infrared, leads to an increase in the slope of the sub-galactic Schmidt relation. We reinvestigate the local Schmidt relations in nine nearby spiral galaxies taking into account the effect of inclusion and removal of diffuse background in SFR tracers as well as in the atomic gas.We used multiwavelength data obtained as part of the surveys such as SINGS, KINGFISH, THINGS, and HERACLES. Making use of a novel split of the overall light distribution as a function of spatial scale, we subtracted the diffuse background in the SFR tracers as well as the atomic gas. Using aperture photometry, we study the Schmidt relations on background subtracted and unsubtracted data at physical scales varying between 0.5--2 kpc. The fraction of diffuse background varies from galaxy to galaxy and accounts to $\sim$34 % in H$\alpha$, $\sim$43 % in FUV, $\sim$37 % in 24 $\mu$m, and $\sim$75\% in H I on average. We find that the inclusion of diffuse background in SFR tracers leads to a linear molecular gas Schmidt relation and a bimodal total gas Schmidt relation. However, the removal of diffuse background in SFR tracers leads to a super-linear molecular gas Schmidt relation. A further removal of the diffuse background from atomic gas results in a slope $\sim$1.4 $\pm$ 0.1, which agrees with dynamical models of star formation accounting for flaring effects in the outer regions of galaxies.Comment: 33 pages, 25 figures, 6 tables, accepted for publication in A&