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Travels from Winterfell to King’s Landing: The imaginary geographies of Game of Thrones and the creation of new transnational heritage landscapes through pop-culture
Get PDFThe fantasy series Game of Thrones (2011–2019) has become a global pop-cultural phenomenon with a reach far beyond the television screen. Through extensive on-location filming, the series has linked its diegetic world of Westeros and Essos to countless heritage sites across Northern Ireland, Croatia, Spain, Iceland, Malta and Morocco, overcoding them with their on-screen identities through narratives and special effects. Fictional locations such as ‘Winterfell’ or ‘King’s Landing’ have since become popular tourist destinations, leading to an emergence of countless tours, experiences, products, and destination marketing intended to sell the ‘authentic’ fantasy to those who are seeking these imaginary geographies. However, Game of Thrones’ manifestations across its filming locations go beyond tourist products but created a complex landscape of new spatial, visual, material, and performative signifiers. Re-framing and restaging scenes, dressing up and using fictional toponyms while documenting and sharing these performances through social media photography have territorialised the diegetic heritage of Game of Thrones onto the filming locations. These practices have created liminal spaces that share aspects of pilgrimage, heritage- and nation-building processes, and established a new transnational heritage space with its own transnational imagined community, habitus and ‘hyper-traditions’. Furthermore, these new diegetic heritage landscapes are affecting previously established global perceptions and local identities. The post-conflict contexts of Northern Ireland and Dubrovnik illustrate how asserting new narratives, even if they are entirely fictional, can both overcome and create dissonant heritage as well as resolve and evoke memory conflicts. A multi-sited visual ethnography has been undertaken across Game of Thrones’ filming locations in Northern Ireland (UK), Dalmatia (Croatia) and Andalusia (Spain) to examine not only how Game of Thrones specifically has impacted the filming locations but how modern mass-media, social media and pop-culture is affecting how heritage is created, used and engaged with in the 21st century
Music in Conflict: Contemporary Concepts of Classical Music in the Musico-Literary Novel
No full textThis thesis introduces the ‘musico-literary novel’, which thematically engages with musicological and music philosophy concerns throughout its narrative. The term identifies a distinct cultural phenomenon and emphasises the value to be found in analysing thematic literary uses of music. The specific novels discussed are part of a sub-trend for musico-literary novels which use Western classical music (understood in the vernacular) in a political or armed conflict setting, a trend which reveals certain popular ideas about the power of music, but also places music in a unique, extreme context. As pressure produces refinement, the pressure of armed conflict on music pushes understandings of music’s importance, significance, and limits to the test.
Six novels are covered across four chapters, each focused on a key concept of Western classical music: the productive paradox of absolute music as both something and nothing in the political regimes of Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Thien) and The Noise of Time (Barnes); the transgressive transcendence of classical music in the terrorist contexts of Bel Canto (Patchett) and Orfeo (Powers); classical music as an aid to conflict resolution and transformation in the siege of The Cellist of Sarajevo (Galloway); and the silencing of music as akin to the experience of post-conflict trauma in Fugitive Pieces (Michaels). Offering new literary analysis which demonstrates the value of thematic uses (rather than formal imitation) of music in literature, this thesis reveals how musico-literary novels engage complexly with the musical experience. It also demonstrates how literary analysis can both contribute to cross-disciplinary discussions and be augmented by an interdisciplinary methodology through the use of musicology, conflict, and trauma studies to discuss Western classical music when represented in the armed conflict context of the contemporary novel
The Harmonic Susceptibility Series of High Field Superconductors for Fusion Energy Applications
Get PDFThe magnetic phase diagram of superconductors is a rich and diverse research
landscape in which the properties of vortex matter relate closely to the maximum lossless current density which can flow through the superconductor,
JC(B, T). The growing requirement for high field magnets in academic and
industry environments, especially in applications such as fusion energy where
the superconducting magnets and local magnetic fields intersect at oblique
angles, means we need to understand how the complex pinning landscape
of high field superconductors impacts the achievable transport currents, JC.
This requires a detailed understanding of vortex matter and anisotropy in High
Temperature Superconducting (HTS) materials, due to both the intrinsic anisotropy of the Cuprate superconductors and the geometric anisotropy of the
high aspect ratio superconducting layer in these tapes.
This thesis presents detailed measurements of the irreversibility transition in
HTS tapes using an harmonic AC susceptibility methodology in fields up to
35 T perpendicular to the tape normal and in oblique fields up to 24 T. A
numerical procedure for modelling the susceptibility of high aspect ratio superconducting tapes is presented and used to extract JC(B, T) for a Superpower
2G HTS tape without artificial pinning. An extension to this model which includes the effect of anisotropic pinning forces in superconductors with oblique
fields is presented and compared to the measured susceptibility in fields up to
24 T to extract JC(B, T, θ). This work provides fresh insight into the behaviour of vortex matter in 2G HTS tapes in high, oblique fields and suggests
how improvements can be made to inductive measurements methodologies in
superconductors with very high critical current densitie
Crisis and Chimeras; an Anthropological investigation of the stories and lives of young, Greek professional migrants living in post-referendum UK
Get PDFThis PhD thesis is based on my ethnographic study of Greek professional migrants living in London, England. Based on my ethnographic fieldwork between 2018-2020, using methods of participant observation and semi-structured interviewing, my thesis explores the stories and lives of Greek migrants living in London, in the context of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union; a process known as ‘Brexit’. My thesis explores the impacts of the financial crisis and Brexit on my informants’ hopes for the future, which I explore through the lens of temporality and affect. In the context of financial crisis, some of my informants felt that life in Greece had become miseri (miserable); they felt that Greece’s potentiality for modernist success had become a chimera- illusory and impossible to achieve. In my thesis I apply theories of crypto-colonialism to explore these informants’ view of Greece as ‘behind’ the rest of Europe, and I argue that many modernists are now post-ambivalent in relation to the disemia (Eastern/Western sides) of Greek identity because they no longer consider Greece to be their home. In my thesis I explore emplacement and displacement beyond a spatial framework and contribute to anthropological understandings of the ‘abject’ and the ‘uncanny’. I reform existing approaches to xenitia (misery and hardship abroad); I view xenitia as a trope rather than a topological register. Throughout my thesis I explore the affective, (micro)material and sensory aspects of migration and belonging and I demonstrate the value of a negative methodological approach
Role Theory and China’s Relations with Iran: All-weather Friends on Beijing’s Terms
Get PDFThe present thesis investigates the role that China has developed, taken, and enacted in its relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran. In this work, the term “role” has a precise connotation that refers to the conceptualisation of international roles as defined and investigated by the so-called Role Theory of International Relations. In that context, this study has the modest theoretical objective of developing a two- dimensional interactionist model that identifies two fundamental dimensions – one structural and one ideational – constitutive of international roles. These two dimensions, by interacting together, also assure the performance and resilience of roles. In the case of China’s role in the partnership with Iran, the structural dimension is defined by the middle power-great power framework, which describes a (highly) asymmetrical relationship within which material and strategic interests are conceived and pursued. Vice versa, the ideational dimension is constituted by those identity concepts, historical references, and mutually understandable ideas that Chinese policymakers employ when interacting with their Iranian counterparts, which form altogether what can be described as a non-Western friendship. The interaction of these two dimensions defines the role that China has taken and enacted in its relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The thesis presents it as that of the friendly stakeholder. As with every international role, the friendly stakeholder role has its dynamicity. In fact, it is subject to intra-role conflicts caused by Iran’s contestation or China’s underperformance. At the same time, the competition and confrontation with China’s other international roles cause role conflicts. Therefore, to understand how China has taken and enacted this role and managed the related conflicts, this study adopts a historical perspective on China- Iran relations, considering a timeframe from 1979 to 2015. Within these temporal boundaries, the thesis explores China’s role-taking and role performance in the relationship with Iran through four historical episodes: the 1979 Revolution in Iran, the Iraq-Iran War, China’s partial disengagement from cooperating with Iran in 1997, and the negotiations that led to the approval of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly known as the Iran Deal, in 2015. Each historical episode is located within the broader history of China’s foreign relations, emphasising the relationship with the United States as the most significant external intervening variable in China’s relationship with Iran. Ultimately, the objective of the thesis is threefold. Firstly, presenting the abovementioned theoretical model for the definition of international roles. Secondly, providing an original framework for understanding the bilateral dimension of Sino-Iranian relations. Lastly, helping to critically locate Iran within China’s Persian Gulf strategy, its relationship with the United States, and its rise as great power
Safe Enactments of Difference: An Ethnographic Study of Cricket and Social Change in Post-War Sri Lanka
Get PDFIn the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s civil war (1983-2009), claims have been made that cricket can help with ongoing processes of reconciliation. In this thesis, I critically assess these claims through an ethnographic study of Sri Lankan cricket, detailing the potential and limits of the social relations that sport can produce. In doing so, I explore whether and how sport can indeed play a reconciliatory role in post-conflict states. Predominantly based in Colombo, my ethnographic research covers a diverse cross-section of the Sri Lankan ‘cricket community’, homing in on one amateur cricket club. By considering a wide range of cricketing activity, including playing, spectating, coaching, and development, I convey how my interlocutors come to understand themselves and others through cricket. I show how people deploy and negotiate social ideals derived from cricket, mapping out the various tensions that emerge when individual and collective interests come into conflict. I argue that in managing these tensions, my interlocutors learn also to manage differences between persons. As such, I argue that cricket involves engagement in ‘safe enactments of difference’. I suggest this is evidence that cricket has some merit as a tool for social good. However, I also contend that cricket promotes personal responsibility to the wider whole, placing excessive emphasis on individual change. Through cricket people are taught control, learning how to manage their circumstances. So, while cricket helps individuals make change in their own lives, it rarely leads them to question the social system they exist within. As such, I conclude that cricket seems unlikely to effect social change at a systemic, structural level, and the prospect of using cricket for reconciliation is limited. In this ethnographic study I therefore reflect on the wider issues around attempting to use sports in the hope of enacting positive social change
Courting Celebrity: Creating the Courtesan on the Popular Parisian Stage and Beyond, 1831–1859
Get PDFCourting Celebrity excavates the careers of celebrity women actors on the Parisian popular stage c.1831–1859. Historically, these performers have been neglected by scholarship, which has largely focused on stars from the capital’s few privileged stages, or explored later nineteenth-century popular artists, instead of the boulevard performers from the post-restoration decades 1830–1860 when the popular stage became established. I argue that these boulevard performers created fantasies that enabled a new kind of women’s celebrity and challenged the binary between the primary and secondary stages. Specifically, their example nuances celebrity theory which considers the most esteemed women actors to evade historical associations with courtesans. While this is true for performers on Paris’s primary stages, women actors at the secondary theatres established an alternative model that reappropriated the association with courtesans, which was more prominent on the popular stage.
This thesis draws on contemporary and modern theory, bringing them into conversation with archival sources, and is formed of five chapters. The first contrasts how the rivals Mlle Mars (1779–1847) and Marie Dorval (1798–1849) created historically remote courtesan characters in the battle between Classicism and Romanticism in the 1830s. The second and third chapters explore how subsequent rivals, Adèle Page (1822–1882) and Eugénie Doche (1821–1900), premiered real, contemporary courtesan characters at the dawn of the Second Empire. Chapter 4 studies how Anaïs Fargueil (1819–1896) positioned herself against Doche, through her creation of the heartless, anti-heroine fille de marbre type; chapter 5 studies how Rose Chéri (1824–1861), contrasted her courtesan characters with her Christian celebrity image. I conclude by establishing how these actors mobilised their courtesan creations to gain celebrity and rehabilitate the figure of the boulevard star. I argue for the significant influence of Parisian popular theatre women on French cultural history and Western celebrity more broadly
Planning for future climate and land-use change in the protection of global avian and mammalian biodiversity
Get PDFGlobal biodiversity is deteriorating, largely due to habitat loss, but increasingly because of climate change. To stop and reverse this trend, we must anticipate how climate change is likely to affect the natural world, understand how climate impacts interact with other major pressures such as land-use, and identify conservation strategies that will safeguard biodiversity amid dramatic global change. In this thesis, I make use of recent advances in data availability and modelling techniques to contribute towards this challenge.
I use best-practice statistical models to project how the distributions of terrestrial mammals and birds will change by 2070 under different socioeconomic development scenarios. Impacts are severe under high emissions scenarios, but the worst impacts can be avoided if we limit greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. I also show that the biogeographic properties of species’ distributions can be used to predict which species will be most affected. In subsequent chapters, I explore important contextual information that will influence how species respond to climate change, or influence our ability to protect them.
First, I show that without rapid emissions cuts, climate impacts on nature will be inequitably distributed between countries, and demonstrate the importance of collaboration across political borders as many species shift across them. Next, I show that the expansion of human land-use over nearly half the planet is a key constraint for species on the move, since large areas of habitat they would otherwise have been expected to colonise have been lost. When considering future land-use change projections, stark contrasts appear between future development scenarios, and if we are to stop biodiversity loss, stringent emissions reductions need to be coupled with a declining land-use footprint to help species cope. Finally, it’s not just the availability but also the connectivity of habitats that is important. I reveal where a lack of habitat connectivity between protected areas is most likely to impact range-shifting species, and where conservation efforts should be targeted to preserve and restore this connectivity.
Together, my research shows that severe biodiversity losses this century are not inevitable – but to avoid them, we will need to coordinate ambitious conservation action at broad spatial scales and tackle multiple interacting pressures at once
Development of a novel in vitro model of the cornea to investigate cell dynamics within the mammalian limbal niche
Get PDFThe cornea, the transparent tissue overlying the front of the eye, is vital for protecting the delicate internal ocular structures and transmitting light onto the retina.
Our understanding of how the cornea functions and develops, as well as its response to damage, has been derived historically from non-human studies, but more recently, this has transitioned to in vitro equivalents. However, most equivalents poorly recapitulate the cornea, and in particular the cornea’s tissue-specific adult stem cell niche, the limbus.
This thesis therefore begins with a thorough characterisation of the rabbit limbal niche in vivo, with the findings then contextualising and further developing a novel 3D microscale model of the rabbit cornea. The corneal model is based on a hybrid of the hanging drop spheroid and organoid techniques and consists of a core of primary stromal fibroblasts surrounded by an envelope of primary limbal epithelial cells. 3D culture enables the core to produce fibrillar collagen, providing early indications of physiological function. Interactions between the core and epithelium also enable the epithelial population to self-stratify, forming a complex layer which extensively recapitulates the limbal niche and which matches several in vivo observations as made earlier.
The highest quality corneal models can be characterised by a CK12+3- and CK14+ basal epithelial layer, and recapitulation of the vimentin+ and Pax6(low) basal epithelial phenotype, as this thesis has also identified in vivo. This phenotype has not been reported in vivo before and may represent a crucial species-specific difference between the rabbit and human.
This model could have a range of end use applications, given its detailed level of complexity. Whilst preliminary work to assess how it responds to ocular irritants was ineffective, the method which was used does require optimisation before any further conclusions can be made. However, the model’s detailed complexity may also facilitate investigations beyond ocular irritancy, for example to study basic biological questions, limbal stem cell regulation, or as a tool to assess epithelial quality within clinical contexts
Aromatic Transformations Facilitated by η6–Coordination to Ruthenium (II)
Get PDFOver the last 70 years the chemistry of η6-arene transition metal complexes has been extensively developed, with the enhancement of aromatic reactivity through complexation being applied to extensive number of different synthetic targets. On η6-complexation to a metal, a C6-aromatic ring becomes much more susceptible to nucleophilic attack (SNAr), while the deprotonation of both aromatic and benzylic sites is made much more facile than for free arenes. Furthermore, the activating MLn fragment blocks the face of the aromatic ring it is bound to, meaning any attacks on the ring are inherently directed towards the free face, thus giving some steric control over the reactivity. Since the turn of the millennium, a resurgence in this field of organometallic chemistry has occurred with the realisation of metal-catalysed aromatic transformations via transient η6-coordination of the arene. Through an arene exchange process, the bound transformed aromatic ring can exchange with the starting material to regenerate the initial η6-arene complex, giving catalytic turnover. In this thesis, four projects exploring the reactivity of η6-arene complexes of ruthenium(II), their arene exchange and finally ruthenium-catalysed aromatic transformations via transient coordination.
The first project described is the attempted nucleophilic fluorination and difluoromethylations of arenes bound η6- to an activating [RuCp]+ fragment. The complex [(η6-C6H6)RuCp]+ was reacted with a series of different nucleophilic sources of fluoride, with only TBAF exhibiting any sort of reactivity. Due to the presence of moisture in the reaction, addition of a hydroxy group to the ring occurred, resulting in the formation of an η5-cyclohexadienyl (Meisenheimer) complex, which proved too unstable to isolate, while attempts at in-situ oxidation of the ring resulted in decomposition of the complex. Difluoromethylation of the complex [(η6-C6H5CN)RuCp]+ using the reagent CF2HSiMe3 in the presence of base and fluoride resulted in ortho-addition of a hydroxy group to the bound benzonitrile ring, giving another Meisenheimer complex. Unlike the previous one, this complex was sufficiently stable under ambient conditions to be isolated and characterised, while attempts to oxidise the ring resulted in formation of a free arene, most likely to be 2-cyanophenol.
The next project revolves around an enolate SNAr reaction of the aromatic ring in the complexes [(C6H5X)RuCp]+ (where X = leaving group), resulting in the formation of bound 2-aryl-1,3-diones. The presence of methyl groups ortho to the leaving group hindered the reaction significantly, as an increased temperature was required to facilitate SNAr. Experiments on rings containing multiple different leaving groups were used to establish the chemoselectivity of the SNAr on the bound ring, while a broad range of cyclic diones were successfully tested under the reaction conditions. Following the SNAr transformation, the free aromatic product could be liberated from the ruthenium centre by irradiating an acetonitrile solution of the complex with UV light. While attempts to translate the enolate SNAr into a process catalytic in ruthenium were unsuccessful, a one-pot stepwise synthesis of the free aromatic product, in which the activating [RuCp]+ fragment could be recycled was achieved.
The arene exchange of the complexes [(η6-arene)RuCp(*)]+ with hexamethylbenzene were investigated and the effects of changing the temperature and irradiating the system were established. Also, the tether-assisted arene exchange of a library of sandwich complexes containing Cp rings functionalised with tethered coordinating groups was explored, and enhanced rates of arene exchange were observed for some of the tether complexes.
Finally, two ruthenium-catalysed aromatic transformations proposed to occur via temporary η6-coordination were explored and optimised. The first was a previously established catalytic SNAr amination of 4-chlorotoluene, where the complexes bearing tethered coordinating groups were tested for their activity. A stoichiometric study on the SNAr amination with morpholine proved the existence of the suspected resting state of the catalytic cycle, [(η6-N(4-tolyl)morpholine)RuCp]+. Next, a ruthenium-catalysed hydrodeiodination of aryl iodides was further optimised with shorter reaction times under microwave heating. Further experiments were performed on iodoarenes functionalised with electron-donating or electron-withdrawing groups to obtain insight on the reaction mechanism and infer the nature of charge build-up in the transition state
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