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Lament as a genre in contemporary Christian music : a grassroots theology in the Hong Kong protests
Get PDFLament has not been a popular genre in contemporary Christian music (CCM), whether in the West or in Hong Kong. However, in the late 2010s Hong Kong saw an increasing number of compositions related to this genre, especially during the protests surrounding the anti-extradition law between June 2019 and early 2020. This article aims to explore that phenomenon and argues that these laments illustrate a type of grassroots theology by Hong Kong Christian musicians. Categorising these compositions as ‘Hong Kongese City Lament’, the article begins by examining the usage of the city lament in the ancient Near Eastern world, especially in the context of the Hebrew Bible. It then discusses the adaptation of the city lament into CCM and how lament has become popular since the Hong Kong protests. Three CCM laments from Hong Kong are analysed in terms of their musical composition, visual effects illustrated in the music videos, and the texts in the lyrics and captions. The article offers an alternative voice for the way in which grassroots Christians construct their theologies through music in the Hong Kong context.Peer reviewe
Permutation groups, partition lattices and block structures
Get PDFFunding: The first author thanks the School of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of St Andrews for supporting part of this work with an undergraduate StARIS scholarship. The rest of the work was undertaken during the first author’s doctoral studies at the University of Bristol and she thanks the Heilbronn Institute for Mathematical Research for the financial support.Let G be a finite transitive permutation group on Ω. The G-invariant partitions form a sublattice of the lattice of all partitions of Ω, having the further property that all its elements are uniform (that is, have all parts of the same size). If, in addition, all the equivalence relations defining the partitions commute, then the relations form an orthogonal block structure, a concept from statistics; in this case the lattice is modular. If it is distributive, then we have a poset block structure, whose automorphism group is a generalised wreath product. We examine permutation groups with these properties, which we call the OB property and PB property respectively, and in particular investigate when direct and wreath products of groups with these properties also have these properties. A famous theorem on permutation groups asserts that a transitive imprimitive group G is embeddable in the wreath product of two factors obtained from the group (the group induced on a block by its setwise stabiliser, and the group induced on the set of blocks by G). We extend this theorem to groups with the PB property, embedding them into generalised wreath products. We show that the map from posets to generalised wreath products preserves intersections and inclusions. We have included background and historical material on these concepts.Peer reviewe
South Street
No full textThis extract begins halfway through Chapter II of the novel with two unreliable narrators whose conflicting accounts gradually reveal a shared history. Their timelines begin two years apart, but the narrative weaves their stories together until the truth becomes apparent.
In previous chapters Aoife, a queer American student, claims she was murdered during her first year at the University of St Andrews and reveals her twin brother Ace didn’t know this for two years after her death. Estranged from her conservative parents after being outed, Aoife moves to Scotland alone. She focuses on a university tradition of being adopted by an ‘academic family’ to make friends. Aoife meets Harlow, a third-year who invites her to a dinner-party. There, Aoife reunites with Siobhan, another first-year, and meets Guy, a second-year from Hong Kong, and Mircalla (Mer-Cah-Lah). The night ends in Aoife kissing Mircalla. Chapter III picks up the morning after this clubbing night. By the conclusion of Chapter III Harlow adopts Aoife.
Chapter II jumps ahead two years and shifts to Mircalla’s perspective now in her third year. Her chapters are marked by grief: Siobhan vanished during a demon-hunting mission two years prior. This chapter introduces the supernatural elements of the novel. Mircalla and Siobhan come from a lineage of exorcists trained to protect the world from supernatural entities.
Mircalla’s narration opens with the discovery of a gory, ritualistic ‘false altar’. This triggers traumatic memories of the night Siobhan disappeared. The extract begins after Mircalla’s superior, Palmer, orders her to not investigate the altar and to instead retrieve an American exorcist, Richard ‘Ace’ Best, transferring to their cohort to investigate reports of lycanthrope activity. Over a Guinness Ace asks Mircalla if she knows his sister, Aoife. Mircalla denies knowing her and this is where the two narrators’ stories begin to clash
Will the real “fragile state” please stand up?
Get PDFThis article considers the rapid rise and fall of an international development project in Papua New Guinea (PNG) funded by the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). USIP was tasked with identifying local peace-building initiatives to support under the Global Fragility Act 2019, a US law that sought to change how international interventions were chosen and designed. The USIP-funded project in PNG collapsed when USIP itself was dismantled by the current White House, leaving partners in PNG suddenly unemployed and without funding. These events illuminate the nature of ‘state fragility’, an increasingly popular discourse in development circles, and the ironies inherent in how this fragility concept was used to frame interventions by a state that has itself proven extremely fragile in its international commitments.Peer reviewe
Single-molecule characterisation of OB-fold carrying proteins and their interactions with nucleic acids
No full textAbstract redacte
Criminal matters : nonhuman things and relational agency in late imperial Russophone detective fiction
No full textThis thesis explores the depiction of agency and the nonhuman in works of late imperial Russophone detective fiction (1860-1917). Specifically, it will examine agency and interactions between humans and nonhumans within literary-fictional narratives in terms of relationality. As contended in new materialist theory, to be outlined below, agency is not dependent upon or granted by the human subject but is relational. In light of this contention, action can be understood in terms of assemblages, or the interaction of many bodies and forces, both human and nonhuman. This thesis challenges existing anthropocentric approaches to detective fiction as a means of interrogating the boundaries between various binaries, such as subject-object, knower-known, past-present, and animate-inanimate. In so doing, this thesis will offer new ontological and epistemological approaches to the detective fiction genre and literary studies more broadly."This research was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council through the Scottish
Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (grant number AH/R012717/1)."--Acknowledgement
Neighborhood deprivation and midlife cognition : evidence of a modifiable vascular pathway involving health behaviors and cerebral small vessel disease
Get PDFFunding: Alzheimer’s Association, Grant/Award Number: TriBEKa-17-519007; Alzheimer’s Society, Grant/Award Numbers: 178, 264, 329; Race Against Dementia; Alzheimer’s Research UK, Grant/Award Number: ARUK-SRF2017B-1; Osteopathic Heritage Foundation; NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre, Grant/Award Number: BRC-1215-20014; Wellcome Trust, Grant/Award Number: 203914/Z/16/Z.Introduction: Neighborhood deprivation increases dementia risk, although mechanisms remain unclear. We tested a framework in which modifiable risk factors and cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) mediate the link between neighborhood deprivation and cognition. Methods: In 585 cognitively healthy midlife adults (ages 40-59), neighborhood deprivation was derived from postcodes, cognition was assessed using the COGNITO, lifestyle risk factors were measured using clinical assessments, and SVD (white matter hyperintensities, lacunes, microbleeds, perivascular spaces) was assessed on 3T magnetic resonance imaging. Multivariate analyses examined association pathways among these variables. Results: Neighborhood deprivation was associated with poorer cognition (r = 0.36, p < 0.001), greater prevalence of modifiable risk factors (r = 0.36, p < 0.001), and greater SVD burden (β = 0.18, p = 0.008). Serial mediation showed that the effects of deprivation on cognition were indirect, possibly operating via lifestyle risk and SVD, explaining 20% of the total effect, whereas SVD alone explained 28%. Discussion: Neighborhood disadvantage relates to poorer cognition, possibly mediated through vascular risk factors and cerebrovascular disease. Highlights Neighborhood deprivation linked to poorer cognition in healthy midlife adults Deprivation linked to small vessel disease (SVD) and modifiable risk factors (chiefly cardiovascular risk) Association between deprivation and cognition mediated by modifiable risk and SVD Mediation was exclusive to hypertensive SVD, but not cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA)-related SVD.Peer reviewe
In touch with the past : a sensory approach to objects, memory and wellbeing
No full textWith collections that intrigue, inspire and reconnect us to our past, museums are ideally placed to provide meaningful, uplifting experiences for people with dementia. Object handling and reminiscence encourage social interaction and prove that a dementia diagnosis need not signal withdrawal from activities that provide purpose and intellectual challenge. At the same time, museums have developed innovative online experiences, from 3D digital collections to virtual 360’ tours, yet many of these innovations are biased towards visual presentation, diminishing opportunities to appreciate the sensory, material properties of artefacts.
This research has addressed current concerns relating to the needs of visitors living with dementia, by identifying the advantages and disadvantages of digital and physical interpretation and by measuring their respective effects on memory and wellbeing. Since previous psychological studies indicate that typical reminiscence activities may pressurise people to retrieve specific memories and information, it also tested whether archaeological collections, with their air of mystery, could pique curiosity and create more relaxed opportunities for learning than 20th century collections.
Visits were made to 9 memory groups (N=91) attended by people living with dementia and their caregivers. Using a quasi-experimental design, participants explored both physical and 3D digital material dating from prehistoric times to the 1970s. Participants self-rated their wellbeing using a visual emoji system and behaviours were recorded using a new observational tool adapted from the NEF Five Ways to Wellbeing Framework. Quantitative analysis of self-reported wellbeing showed very little change between digital and physical conditions, but in the Five Ways analysis, physical artefact handling significantly improved wellbeing, most clearly in two categories, Keep Learning and Be Active. Greater animation, sustained conversation and playful reactions were noted. Tactile investigation of objects also stimulated procedural memory and embodied communication. This extends previous findings that multisensory experiences result in richer memories. Furthermore, participants expressed wonder at the age of the archaeological material and feelings of connection to their own lives, indicating its clear value in therapeutic programming."This work was funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) and the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC). I am indebted to SGSAH, whose generous funding enabled me to work full-time on my thesis,
whilst also benefiting from a superb training programme and the company of a fantastic community of scholars. I also wish to thank SLIC for funding our collaborative project, ‘Connecting Communities Through Cultural Heritage’, and the SGSAH Engagement Fund and the St Leonard's College Travel Fund for supporting my fieldwork with museums in Greece, where I encountered such fantastic examples of multisensory programming."--Acknowledgement
“We bear witness to unspeakable horrors” : historical violence, contemporary terrorism and collective trauma in Central Asia
No full textBeginning in 2012, thousands of Central Asians joined what they believed was a jihad in Syria and Iraq despite having no historical, cultural or linguistic ties to that conflict. While people joined from all over the world, unlike recruits from any other region the overwhelming majority of Central Asians mobilized to armed groups like ISIS were women and children. This work looks at this surprising mass mobilization through the lens of historical trauma, placing it in the context of adaptations to the multi-generational legacy of stark human suffering – the “unspeakable horrors” that the chapters to come will detail -- experienced by the indigenous peoples of Central Asia who saw their cultures, meaning-making mechanisms and social networks of mutual support and care decimated again and again in a cycle that has spanned four successive generations. These began with colonization by Russia, collectivization under Stalin, collapse of the Soviet order, and resulted in the consolidation of authoritarian regimes in what have become some of the least-free states in the world.
Drawing on original fieldwork in Central Asia spanning more than two decades, fifteen years of firsthand experience in the US intelligence community and programs designed to counter and prevent violent extremism, as well as hundreds of hours original language media produced by Central Asian militants in both Russian and Uzbek and dozens of interviews with former members of armed Islamist groups from the region, this work argues that the standard focus on individuals and their ideology not only fails to explain this mobilization, but that this failure also means that our core approaches to War on Terror writ large are often useless or directly counterproductive. It argues that we cannot prevent one specific form of violence related to extremist groups without addressing the underlying causes that produce so many other forms of violence and suffering in a larger cycle – from gender-based violence and domestic abuse to addiction, alcoholism, street gangs and organized crime – that plagued these same communities, especially in the chaos of the 1990s that followed the Soviet collapse."This work was supported by the University of St Andrews (School of International Relations) through the
Handa Studentship."--Fundin
The liturgies of streaming : sacramentality, enchantment, and quasi-religious experience in the emerging landscape of streaming television
Get PDFThis thesis argues for an analogical understanding of streaming television through natural theology. It builds this analogy to argue that streaming may carry the unintentional capability and potential for sacramentality and liturgical practice that can be tantamount to quasi-religious experience. By explicating Netflix and Disney+ as exemplars of technology growth and the televisual medium in the 21st Century, the models of sacramentality and liturgical practice seen as elements of natural theology bridge religious rituals and the dynamics of TV IV. With the liturgical elements of space, calendar, and sacramentality, streaming television participates in these elements especially in the ways that Netflix and Disney+ encourage their viewers to create and be members of communities. These communities of quasi-religion are shown to extend beyond in-person gatherings into dispersed and online settings in this nascent streaming era. Chapter one argues that the liturgical spaces that bring order to ritual sacramentality and liturgical practices can be seen as parallelled in streaming architecture. Chapter two contends that the disruption of the Protestant Reformation in Europe and England is analogous to the disruption that has occurred in the televisual sphere since the rise of these services. Chapter three places sacramentality and the re-enchantment of culture alongside the potential for streaming services to offer a space for transcendence and immanence to viewers. Overall, this thesis argues that the divine presence in the re-enchantment of culture after wide secularism is partly seen albeit unintentionally in the practice of streaming services, and that these aspects together form a liturgy of streaming
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