A new life of Hans Christian Andersen : a study of the ‘peculiar nature’ of an author’s life

A review of "Hans Christian Andersen : European Witness" by Paul Binding (Yale UP, 2014). How a writer bears witness to his age is necessarily the expression of many things, not least the possibly quite peculiar nature of an author’s life. Literary works often emerge from complex upbringings, from periods of youthful isolation spent reading and writing. More still seem to have been written as a result of the fraught relationships that befall authors, perhaps because authors so often view their relationships with a degree of creative and critical distance. And yet, if a writer’s output evidences an unusual life, it also witnesses broader questions being asked by a community as a whole. At some level, even the most remarkable figures are typical of their age, and reflections of it. By the close of Paul Binding’s study of the life and works of Hans Christian Andersen (1805–75), we are reminded that extraordinary feats of originality and imagination are often the result of how unique minds enter wider discourses...

A cultural life in Samoa

A travel article about a tour of Samoa. I WAKE to the smell of smoke. Outside, a morning routine has begun - the burning of leaves that overnight settle in the backyards. Even in the capital, gardens are miniature farms. Chickens, bananas and coconuts. When the smoke haze lifts and the faint waves of a sea breeze come off Apia Harbour, the corrugated iron roofs shine through like headlights coming out of fog...

City that enjoys life

A travel article about lifestyle and architecture in Vancouver, Canada. I arrived in Vancouver on a Sunday morning and followed the smell of crepes to a café that had opened early. It was warm, and the outside tables were filling up. The others had a last-night look about them, except a family that smiled as they took the table next to mine. There were no shoppers yet, but the mall was busy with walkers and cyclists. Here and there the down-and-out found seats in the sun; their shadows ran the length of shop fronts...

Literary Studies : The Author Cat - Clemens's Life in Fiction

A review of The Author Cat: Clemens's Life in Fiction by Forrest G. Robinson (Fordham UP, 2007). Even at its most basic, guilt forms a counterweight to the hesitancy and unpleasantness of authorship, forcing writers back to the desk when they have come to despise their work. Guilt as task-master is familiar to most, even those to whom more elevated feelings, such as inspiration, make occasional visits. It seems that guilt is effective because writing is so seldom an organic or natural activity - rather, good writing emerges out of unhappy pressures that eventually overwhelm the writer's evasive strategies, from visits to the fridge door to the most sophisticated forms they take, such as when the author creates a narrative persona that claims to have owned up...

A biomechanical study of spherical grip

Use of the hand is vital in working life due to the grabbing and pinching it performs. Spherical grip is the most commonly used, due to similarity to the gripping of a computer mouse. Knowledge of its execution and the involved elements is essential. Analysis of this exertion with surface electromyography devices (to register muscular activity) and accelerometer devices (to register movement values ) can provide multiple variables. Six subjects performed ball gripping and registered real-time electromyography (thenar region, hypothenar region, first dorsal interosseous, flexors of the wrist, flexor carpi ulnaris and extensors of the wrist muscles) and accelerometer (thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky and palm) values. The obtained data was resampled “R software” and processed “Matlab Script” based on an automatic numerical sequence recognition program. Electromyography values were normalized on the basis of maximum voluntary contraction, whilst modular values were calculated for the acceleration vector. After processing and analysing the obtained data and signal, it was possible to identify five stages of movement in accordance with the module vector from the palm. The statistical analysis of the variables was descriptive: average and standard deviations. The outcome variables focus on the variations of the modules of the vector (between the maximum and minimum values of each module and phase) and the maximum values of the standardized electromyography of each muscle. Analysis of movement through accelerometer and electromyography variables can give us an insight into the operation of spherical grip. The protocol and treatment data can be used as a system to complement existing assessments in the hand.