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Perspective and Perception: Terrorism Then and Now in Conrad, Chesterton, Hamid and Shamsie.
Get PDFThe aim of this thesis is to develop a perspectival and perceptional approach to terrorism through its literary representations. The understanding of terrorism is characterised by a unidirectional perspective that prevents inclusive and varied interpretation of the intricacies of terrorism. In the aim of achieving the intention of this study, four primary texts have been selected: The Secret Agent: Simple Tale (1907), The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908), The Reluctant Fundamentalist (2007) and Home Fire (2017). The textual analysis of the novels is based on different aspects of perspective and perception that include pictorial metaphors structured around disguise, deceit and the changing insights that these suggest, as a way of mirroring the existing multidimensional aspect of terrorism. Sound as in narrative points of view, being an element that contributes to the formation of perception, is another analytical apparatus that serves to uncover the multifaceted character of terrorism. The primary texts, although not covering the period of colonial and postcolonial period, pave the way for the wider purpose of this study. They cover both representations of anarchist and contemporary violence. They are geographically diverse, which permits the exploration of the influence of geopolitics on the perception of terrorism. Moreover, the research analyses the representation of the terrorist from different contexts in the aim of revealing the different perceptions that can be associated with the choice of terrorism. This research aims at exploring the literary representation of all voices existing within terrorism but are absent from the mainstream terrorism discourse and perspective. It creates a literary grey space outside the unidirectional formulation of terrorism, that paints the images, the sounds and silence within terrorism to mimic the kaleidoscope effect of perspectives and perceptions through Conrad, Chesterton, Hamid and Shamsie
Agency and Organisation: The Dialectics of Nature and Life
Get PDFIn recent decades, there have been major theoretical changes within evolutionary biology. In this dissertation, I critically reconstruct these developments through philosophy to assess how it may inform these debates. The overall aim is to show the mutual relevance between current trends in biology and the dialectical approach to nature. I argue that the repetition of the neglected tradition of organicism is anticipated both by a dialectical tradition within science and by Hegel’s philosophy – and that these theories may together inform the ongoing shift within evolutionary biology called the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES).
I stage the discussion by outlining the tenets and history of the modern synthesis (MS) and the alternative: the extended evolutionary synthesis (EES). It takes us into topics such as autonomy, organisation, reduction, and autopoiesis. Based on these discussions, I make the case that the most promising alternative to the MS is the so-called organisational approach formulated within theoretical biology and apply dialectics to strengthen this claim. In my view, they share a fundamental premise: Biology must surpass the physical worldview and adopt a more complex model to comprehend life as an ongoing regeneration of organisation and an expression of self-determination.
To bring out the philosophical stakes of this shift, I take on Hegel’s writings on nature, life, and purposiveness and relate them to contemporary thinkers. The main contribution of this work lies not in a particularly novel reading of any of the theories I examine but in bringing them together – both within philosophy and biology and between them – and systematically mapping how philosophy and the humanities should deal with the natural sciences. The new kind of naturalism suggested here, which places life at its core, also calls for another scientific ideal which strives for unification without subsumption or eradication of differences
The Role of Translation in the Remediation and Reconstruction of Palestinian Collective Memory
No full textResearch at the intersection of Translation Studies (TS) and Memory Studies investigates the remediation of memory across lingual, cultural, medial, and spatiotemporal boundaries through processes of translation. While recent studies focus on the transmission of memory through interlingual translation, this thesis recognizes that verbal signs are only but one form of communication through which memory work takes place. Thus, it adopts a broader conceptualization of translation and investigates the role intersemiotic translation plays in the remediation and reconstruction of memory in the Palestinian context. Palestinian collective memory is primarily built around the Nakba, an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the establishment of the Israeli settler colonial project in 1948. In the absence of a state with official institutions and archives to document their narrative, Palestinians have resorted to oral history and multimodal forms of cultural production for the articulation, preservation, and transmission of their collective memory. This thesis argues that translation processes lie at the heart of these remediations and are central to our understanding of the decolonial function of Palestinian memory and its intergenerational and transcultural circulation.
The thesis problematizes key concepts in TS including the translator, the source-target binary, and the translation process, illustrating the need to reconceptualize them in relation to contemporary multimodal forms of communication. It analyzes three case studies: a biographical graphic novel in which the artist translates her intergenerationally inherited memory into a visual-verbal text, an audiovisual oral history archive by Nakba survivors and its translations into written publications, exhibitions, and theater and oral storytelling performances, and a project of documenting and translating Palestinian folktales into written and illustrated publications. Overall, the thesis illustrates the multifaceted ways in which translation and memory intersect, introduces a new methodology in Palestinian Studies, and offers a theoretical framework that can be applied to other contexts
Yielding Transitions in Amorphous Materials
Get PDFAmorphous materials form a part of a wide array of common materials, including foams, emulsions, colloidal and metallic glasses and polymeric systems. Many amorphous materials exhibit yielding transitions from a solid-like to a fluid-like state under shear, and characterising and predicting these transitions is of key importance in a variety of industrial and biological applications. We study the yielding of amorphous materials in three separate studies.
First, we use a thermal fluidity model to explore the yielding transitions of an amorphous material under a shear startup protocol and categorise the yielding transitions as either brittle or ductile. We find that ductile and brittle yielding both occur in systems with a stress overshoot as a function of strain, with no need for an overhang, in contrast to recent claims in the literature.
Second, we use the Soft Glassy Rheology (SGR) model and a thermal elastoplastic model (EPM) to study slow fatigue followed by sudden catastrophic failure of amorphous materials subjected to a large amplitude oscillatory shear strain protocol. We find that both models display delayed yielding, in which there is a significant stress drop after many cycles. We fit the number of cycles before yielding to functions of the relevant physical parameters. In the SGR model, we find a critical amplitude below which the yielding is delayed but insignificant, and in the EPM we find a temperature-dependant critical amplitude at which the yielding cycle diverges.
Third, we attempt to derive a continuum model of epithelial tissue rheology. We present several model variants, and compare them to published Self-Propelled Voronoi (SPV) model simulations of epithelial rheology. While we are unable to derive a model that fully captures all of the features seen in the SPV Model, we do identify several necessary ingredients of an eventual successful model
To what extent are Contextualised Admission policies in China just and fair? And how could they be improved?
Get PDFContextualised admission (CA) to higher education (HE) is a policy attempt to reduce the stratification of student intakes, in widespread use internationally. This study examined whether the use of residence in impoverished provinces, a rural hukou or a minority ethnicity in China could reliably, steadily and accurately identify disadvantaged students for contextualised admission purposes. And it examined where there are better indicators that could be used instead, or as well.
This study involved a structured review of existing evidence on the disparities in HE participation in terms of popularly discussed indicators in China. It then employed secondary data analysis including administrative data, universities’ data, and two nationally representative cohort datasets with more than 10,000 cases (Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) and China Family Panel Study (CFPS)) to answer research questions. Finally, in order to bring this data up to date and obtain some further information, a cross-sectional survey of 800 middle school students was conducted asking about their plans for higher education.
The findings of the structured review and descriptive analysis of CGSS and CFPS confirmed that there are important disparities in university participation between different provinces in China, especially in terms of hukou (residential registration) status, and family socio-economic background. According to CGSS and CFPS, the currently used indicators also include living in an under-developed province, a rural hukou and having a minority ethnicity. Not all of these indicators are necessarily appropriate to be used for contextualised admissions.
For example, group-level or area-based indicators such as ethnicity, or province or urban/rural residence will exclude some truly disadvantaged students, and falsely include some clearly advantaged students. The analysis of CGSS/CFPS showed that both false identification of disadvantage, and non-identification of disadvantage, were relatively common.
The results of CGSS and CFPS analyses also showed that other potential indicators could be problematic. They provided no evidence that the sex of the student and their month of birth are clearly associated with disadvantage. Other indicators such as social class and parental occupation are hard to define and hard for administrators to verify. Furthermore, some indicators such as having non-party member parents cover a very large sub-set of the population, and school-level indicators have the same deficits as area ones – they mistake the individual for their peers.
The most promising single indicator, according to the findings, might be parental educational credentials. Students with parents who have only completed compulsory education have more difficulty in accessing HE, and they are more likely to be part of a less advantaged family. Parental education information is usually officially verifiable and this information is accessible to higher education institutions (HEIs), making it safe and relatively easy to use.
The survey results illustrate the key point that current contextualised admission policies in China only focus on National College Entrance Examination (NCEE) candidates, and so ignore around half of students in each age cohort. This means that the policies are only concerned with students who are already on track to university. There is little or no widening participation on offer for the large group who do not take NCEE and are largely invisible. This group is stratified by sex, age-in-year, and other contextual variables, as well as by parental education, socio-economic status (SES), and province.
The study has several suggested implications. For non-NCEE students, alternative policies are needed leading to a possible HE future for them, or else they need to have at least the chance to be part of contextualised admissions. For all, removal of artificial barriers such as the restrictions associated with hukou status would be a major step towards a fairer system, less predicated on accidents of birth. For contextualised admissions, authorities need to move away from reliance on group or area-based indicators, and towards use of accessible, verifiable indicators of genuine disadvantage
Contextualising Title Pages by Material Culture: Typography & List of Rarities A Case Study Don Saltero’s Coffeehouse Catalogues, 1729 – 1795.
Get PDFUsing A Catalogue of the Rarities to Be Seen at Don Saltero’s Coffeehouse in Chelsea. To Which Is Added, a Compleat List of the Donors Thereof - published in London, England between 1729 and 1795, this case study contextualises the catalogue’s title pages through a change over time examination of the typography and then listed of rarities through strategies from material culture to understand better the intersecting identities floating around the public sphere. What was reflected were characteristics of religion, nationhood, and gender. Don Saltero’s rarities catalogues were a topic of discussion for patrons of Don Saltero’s coffeehouse in London. Catalogues analysed in this research existed in the coffee house environment, private homes, and wherever these catalogues ended up. The catalogues added legitimacy to the collections they accompanied and did so by placing objects within various Enlightenment discussions and tying the listed objects to contemporary cultural knowledge. Additionally, the object’s descriptions allowed spectators and readers to interact with the ‘science’ of the emerging field of natural history. They presented catalogues in a way that emulated emerging scientific works within the academic sphere of the natural world. The sources used here gained further fame and legitimacy through the connection to well-known naturalist Sir Hans Sloane, a physician to the royal family, president of the Royal Society, and founder of the British Museum. Owning rarity collections was often an elite enterprise, but a collection’s stories were deliberately pitched to a much broader audience offering access to the collections and the ideas they represented. Thus, these catalogues add significance to their collections by expanding public discourse on objects known as rarities
Deconstructing and Reconstructing Local Identities in the Physical Landscape: The role(s) of Roman remains in the social changes of the sixth and seventh centuries in the former province of Britain
Get PDFThis thesis examines the evidence for engagement with and avoidance of Roman remains in the landscape of two regions within the former province of Britain, Sussex and the eastern part of the northern military frontier. This information is used to consider the attitudes that localised societies held towards the remain of the past, and how this engagement related to the social changes of the period.
Chapter 1 introduces the research context and the aims, setting out research questions. Chapter 2 presents the state of current knowledge and prior approaches to studies of the landscape and the early medieval period, and places the study within the wider theoretical and methodological contexts of landscape studies, the use of GIS, and the consideration of ‘the past in the past’. It then examines attitudes towards the Roman past as evidence in other forms of cultural expression, ranging from modes of displaying identity and authority to the recycling of Roman metalwork, considering the degree of consistency in attitudes towards the past. This is followed in chapter 3 by an explanation of the methodology adopted.
The following chapters look at engagement with Roman remains, in post-Roman Sussex in chapter 4, and the north-east military frontier, from southern Northumberland south to the North York Moors, in chapter 5. The evidence is contextualised against the distribution of activity in the physical landscape and the presence of prehistoric remains.
Chapter 6 pulls together these threads together with previous regional studies, with a focus on identifying regional and chronological similarities and contrasts, and the reasons underlying these patterns. Finally, chapter 7 considers the strengths and weaknesses of the study, and areas for future work
The Influence of the Translators’ Theology on Bible Translation: A Comparative Study of the Chinese Union Version and the Chinese Recovery Version of the New Testament
Get PDFThe influence of theology on Bible translation is a phenomenon that has been increasingly acknowledged by Bible translation scholars in recent decades, yet for various reasons including the long-established secular-sacred divide in modern academia, it has remained an underexplored subject in both the fields of Translation Studies (TS) and biblical translation studies (BTS). To address this gap, this study is the first study that examines the influence of the translators’ theology on Bible translation by a comparative study of two New Testament translations in their entirety, and it is also the first study of this kind on both the Chinese Union Version (CUV) and the Chinese Recovery Version (CRV), with the CUV being the most popular and influential Chinese Bible over the last hundred years. By adopting a new theoretical framework for studying theological influence in Bible translation, by following a methodology that minimizes the researcher’s subjectivity and overcomes the difficulties inherent in such a study, and by analyzing and presenting the empirical findings according to the main subjects of systematic theology, this study discovered that the translators’ understandings of what God’s overall plan is for mankind exerted the most dominant and overarching influence on their Bible translations in the cases of the CUV and the CRV. Besides revealing many other new insights concerning how the translators’ theology may influence Bible translation, this study also offers both methodological and theoretical contributions to the fields of BTS and TS, illuminates the way and importance of conducting similar studies on other Bible translations, points to the need of charting a new sub-field called ‘biblical translator studies’, and shows that to understand and speak about any Bible translation, we must thoroughly understand the translators’ theology
The changing role of the day centre for older people in addressing loneliness: a participatory action research study
Get PDFAmid global interest in a ‘loneliness epidemic’ narrative, a fixation on the health consequences of loneliness in old age and the effectiveness of interventions in reducing the experience has emerged. Despite this, a lack of appreciation and chronic defunding of day centres, services that may serve the very purpose of addressing loneliness, has also ensued. Instead, controlled and standardised interventions have been favoured. With increases in ageism and loneliness reported since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic however, the suitability of such interventions and the context of loneliness itself may have changed. To investigate the potentially significant contribution day centres may play in addressing loneliness, this study will present an intimate and detailed understanding of their role.
In collaboration with an adult day centre in the North-East of England, a Participatory Action Research (PAR) study commenced in September 2020 in an attempt to understand the nature of the day centre in the lives of older people, and their experiences of loneliness in this context. Led by the voices of seventeen older co-researchers, telephone questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, walking methods, photovoice and life story work were carried out, alternating between face-to-face and telephone contact across a sixteen-month period.
A story of the collective emerged that demonstrates both the value of a PAR approach to loneliness-based research with older adults and the methodological adaptations needed to better empower older people to participate as co-researchers. This led to a reconceptualisation of loneliness that challenges the individual pathology narrative inherent within existing theorisations, to look beyond medicalisation and toward a more contextual, and inherently relational, understanding that allows for the negotiation of loneliness. The community loneliness experience and framework, respectively, capture the nature of the feeling of loneliness, and how it manifests in one’s community through the configuration of social capital and social ties, social and spatial conditions and processes. In moving towards a contextualised understanding of loneliness, this thesis calls for the reframing of day centres as sites for relational practice, and the need for social work practitioners to assume a more central role in identifying and addressing loneliness experienced by older people
The impacts of climate change and biotic interactions on non-native plants in Norway
Get PDFInvasive species are considered one of the greatest threats to biodiversity today, causing huge ecological and economic impacts globally. Understanding the factors which may contribute to their success is therefore of paramount importance, particularly in a changing climate. Global warming is predicted to benefit invasive plants by increasing their potential range sizes, causing expansion into higher latitudes, and may result in increased plant performance due to the phenotypic plasticity traits shared by many invasive plants which facilitate their rapid response to change. In addition, biotic interactions, particularly in the form of herbivory, can largely impact the performance of invasive species. The enemy release hypothesis is a leading hypothesis to explain why invasive plants become successful in their invaded ranges, positing that their success is in part due to release from natural enemies. Other biotic interactions which might influence invasive plants include competition with native plants, which may limit the performance of invasive plants or even completely suppress their growth. Research into factors which may limit or facilitate invasive plants is even more important in high-latitude regions such as Norway where climate change is occurring at a faster rate. Norway is already home to over 2,000 non-native species and research into the effects of climate change or biotic interactions on non-native plants in Norway is lacking. In this thesis, I address climate change in terms of future temperature and precipitation changes, and I use latitude as a proxy to represent future climatic warming. I investigate biotic interactions mostly in terms of insect herbivory, but with some focus on competition with native plants. The majority of this work focuses on a variety of different non-native plant species in Norway, but I also include a study across Central and Northern Europe with a Norwegian focus. More specifically, I identified a set of high-risk species which are not yet present in Norway but could become naturalised or invasive if introduced, and investigated the areas of Norway most suitable to these species. I then investigated the enemy release hypothesis and how this changes across latitude, to predict changes in biotic interactions under climate change, using herbarium specimens and botanical garden survey data. Finally, I carried out a common-garden experiment in Norway to determine the effects of artificial warming, herbivore exclusion and native plant competition on the performance of a set of non-native species. From this research, I first found that Norway is already suitable to a large number of non-native species and that its suitability increases under climate change. I then found evidence both contradicting and supporting the enemy release hypothesis, and found that in some contexts herbivory levels are reduced at higher latitudes but in others herbivory does not differ across a latitudinal gradient. Finally, I found that artificial warming increases the performance of non-native species and that presence of herbivores and competition with native plants can limit non-native species performance. These results suggest that in Norway, climate
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change is likely to benefit non-native species either by causing Norway’s climate to be more hospitable and easier to invade, or by facilitating faster growth of non-native plants. Not all non-native plants benefit from enemy release and climate change may result in greater levels of herbivory in some contexts. Finally, non-native plants in Norway may be limited by native biota. These results, particularly in terms of enemy release, show how ecological trends can vary, and therefore highlight how generalisations within invasion science must be avoided and the importance of system-specific research. This research has implications for invasive species management in Norway, by demonstrating which factors may limit non-native plants in Norway and how they might respond to climate change, and should inform biosecurity decisions about which species’ import should be regulated
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