The Formation of Giant Elliptical Galaxies and Their Globular Cluster Systems

The bimodal globular cluster (GC) metallicity distributions of many giant elliptical galaxies are often cited as evidence for the formation of such galaxies through mergers involving gas-rich spirals. In such models, the metal- rich GCs are assumed to have formed during the merger process. We explore an alternative possibility: that these metal-rich clusters represent the galaxy's intrinsic GC population and that the metal-poor component of the observed GC metallicity distribution arises from the capture of GCs from other galaxies, either through mergers or through tidal stripping. Starting with plausible assumptions for the initial galaxy luminosity function and for the dependence of GC metallicity on parent galaxy luminosity, we show that the growth of a pre-existing seed galaxy through mergers and tidal stripping is accompanied by the capture of metal-poor GCs whose properties are similar to those which are observed to surround giant ellipticals. We describe a method of using the observed number of metal-poor and metal-rich GCs to infer the merger histories of individual elliptical galaxies, and use this technique to derive limits on the number of galaxies and total luminosity accreted to date by M49. We argue that although GC specific frequency is conserved in galaxy mergers, the same may not be true of tidal stripping by the mean field of the host galaxy cluster. Comparisons of model GC metallicity distributions and specific frequencies to those observed for the well-studied galaxies M49 and M87 show that it is possible to explain their bimodal GC metallicity distributions and discordant specific frequencies without resorting to the formation of new GCs in mergers or by invoking multiple bursts of GC formation.Comment: 39 pages AAS Latex and 10 postscript figures. Also available at http://astro.caltech.edu/~pc. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

‘Coded in a code of the world\u27 : minor literature and the time-image hidden in Janet Frame’s late fiction?

This article seeks to demonstrate how Janet Frame’s late fiction can be read as a theoretical engagement with the conceptual investigations of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, especially the notions of minor literature and the in her late novels Living in the Maniototo (1981) and The Carpathians (1989). For this reason, my approach must be sharply distinguished from a more commonplace analogical framing of Frame or a simple one-to-one translation of her fiction into alternative terms. By weaving theory through her fiction, Frame makes a significant contribution to literature that responds to the still-emerging field of Deleuzean literary critical theory

Abjection and midwifery : towards a revision of Julia Kristeva\u27s theory of the maternal

This paper will develop a specific reading of Julia Kristeva&rsquo;s analysis of the Mother in psychoanalytic contexts and artistic production. I want to suggest a particular connection between the Mother and a second figure closely associated with her: the Midwife. Such a move opens up the possibility for a new understanding of Kristeva&rsquo;s correlation of the Mother with the psychoanalytic concept of &ldquo;abjection&rdquo;. I wish to identify the Midwife as the crucial intersection of a masculine and feminine subjectivity. I will undertake this project via a historical study of Midwifery, which will include an exploration of the Midwife&rsquo;s relationship to masculine ideologies of medical thought, as well as an account of the problematic rise of the &ldquo;Man-Midwife&rdquo;. My strategy will be to extend the submerged historical and material content of Kristeva&rsquo;s own theories, with particular reference to Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection.<br /

Lying idiots: reality television & lie to me

This article addresses perhaps the key question for Television Studies: Who does television think you are? It argues that Reality Television answers this question by producing its viewers as, in the Classical Greek sense, idiots (meaning private and ignorant persons). Idiots are the perfect target for the advertising dollar that supports commercial television production. As Reg Grundy observes, Reality Television is anything but reality. With its tight framings of reality, it paradoxically operates to sever the viewing self from reality&mdash;from the &ldquo;truth&rdquo; of life. Lie to Me is the type of television we are left with after the demise of Reality Television. Lie to Me makes us self-conscious, in the strongest sense, and thus sustains the mission of Reality Television. By dragging the notion of reality into its self-serving fictions, it puts the viewer into the dangerous position of being unable to lie to television. If Reality Television constrained reality to falsity, Lie to Me implicates the viewer in the zone where falsity transforms into reality. Lastly, this article enquires into the possibilities, in today&rsquo;s television ecology, for a mode of TV citizenship that would counter the abject viewing position of the consumerist idiot

Spinoza/space/speed/sublime: Problems of philosophy and politics in the post-colonial fiction of Gerald Murnane

This article takes account of the &lsquo;spontaneity&rsquo; of the post-colonial fiction of Gerald Murnane within the &lsquo;dominating space&rsquo; of the philosophy of Spinoza. My use of Paul Carter&rsquo;s terms here is strategic. The compact of fiction and philosophy in Murnane corresponds with the relationship of spontaneity to the dominating organization of desire in Carter&rsquo;s rendering of an Aboriginal hunter. Carter&rsquo;s phrase &ldquo;&lsquo;a figure at once spontaneous and wholly dominated by the space of his desire&rsquo;&rdquo; worries Ken Gelder and Jane M. Jacobs, who suggest that it subjugates the formation of Aboriginal desire (incorporating spontaneity) to impulses of imperialism. The captivating immanence of Spinoza&rsquo;s philosophy in Murnane&rsquo;s fiction, which I will demonstrate with various examples, puts pressure on the fiction to occupy the same space as the space of the philosophy. Here is a clue to why Murnane&rsquo;s post-colonial thematics have been little explored by critics with an interest in post-colonial politics. The desire of Spinoza&rsquo;s philosophy creates a spatial textuality within which the spontaneity of Murnane&rsquo;s fiction, to the degree that it maximizes or fills the philosophy, is minimized in its political effects. That is to say, the fiction shifts politics into an external space of what Roland Barthes calls &ldquo;resistance or condemnation&rdquo;. However, the different speeds (or timings) of Murnane and Spinoza, within the one space, mitigate this resistance of the outside, at least in respect of certain circumstances of post-coloniality. It is especially productive, I suggest, to engage Carter&rsquo;s representation of an Aboriginal hunter through the compact of coincidental spaces and differential speeds created by Murnane&rsquo;s fiction in Spinoza&rsquo;s philosophy. This produces a ceaseless activation of desire and domination, evidenced in Murnane&rsquo;s short story &lsquo;Land Deal&rsquo;, and indexed by a post-Romantic sublime. What limits the value of Murnane&rsquo;s fiction in most contexts of post-colonial politics, is precisely what makes it useful in the matter of Carter&rsquo;s Aboriginal hunter

Is near to . . . and is . . . distant from : exegetical manoeuvres in Janet Frame’s The Carpathians

This paper argues that Janet Frame&rsquo;s 1988 novel, The Carpathians, can be read as a series of manoeuvres operating at the frontiers of exegesis and fiction. The overall effect of these manoeuvres is to interrogate the conditions of an exegetical (or literary critical) engagement with Frame&rsquo;s writings. In particular, The Carpathians drills down into the metaphorics of one of the key notions of literary criticism: critical distance. Critical distance is a catch phrase of exegesis, as well as of literary criticism, because it serves to appropriately position the exegete (like the literary critic) as both near to and distant from the object of study: the literary text. However, Frame&rsquo;s fictional/Scientific concept of the Gravity Star deconstructs the metaphorics of distance and, by extension, critical distance itself, by suggesting a para-doxical relationship of propinquity and remoteness. The Gravity Star is &lsquo;both relatively close and seven billion light years away.&rsquo; Thus, Frame introduces chaos into language and logic, with the dual effect of undermining exegetical activity (which depends on the&nbsp; metaphorics linked to critical distance) and of creatively multiplying the meanings of The Carpathians. In this way, Frame&rsquo;s novel replaces conventional exegesis with creative exegesis. My paper also looks at the games Frame plays, in this novel and in Towards Another Summer (2007), with Roland Barthes&rsquo;s notion of the &lsquo;death of the Author.&rsquo; Like critical distance, the Author is a prop for exegesis that certain manoeuvres of writing can undermine, thus allowing the literary text to reproduce itself on an interior plane.<br /