War Worlds: Violence, Sociality, and the Forms of Twentieth-Century Transatlantic Literature

“War Worlds” reads twentieth-century British and Anglophone literature to examine the social practices of marginal groups (pacifists, strangers, traitors, anticolonial rebels, queer soldiers) during the world wars. This dissertation shows that these diverse “enemies within” England and its colonies—those often deemed expendable for, but nonetheless threatening to, British state and imperial projects—provided writers with alternative visions of collective life in periods of escalated violence and social control. By focusing on the social and political activities of those who were not loyal citizens or productive laborers within the British Empire, “War Worlds” foregrounds the small group, a form of collectivity frequently portrayed in the literature of the war years but typically overlooked in literary critical studies. I argue that this shift of focus from grand politics to small groups not only illuminates surprising social fissures within England and its colonies but provides a new vantage from which to view twentieth-century experiments in literary form.

Chaucer and the Disconsolations of Philosophy: Boethius, Agency, and Literary Form in Late Medieval Literature

This study argues that Chaucer's poetry belongs to a far-reaching conversation about the forms of consolation (philosophical, theological, and poetic) that are available to human persons. Chaucer's entry point to this conversation was Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, a sixth-century dialogue that tried to show how the Stoic ideals of autonomy and self-possession are not simply normative for human beings but remain within the grasp of every individual. Drawing on biblical commentary, consolation literature, and political theory, this study contends that Chaucer's interrogation of the moral and intellectual ideals of the Consolation took the form of philosophical disconsolations: scenes of profound poetic rupture in which a character, sometimes even Chaucer himself, turns to philosophy for solace and yet fails to be consoled. Indeed, philosophy itself becomes a source of despair. In staging these disconsolations, I contend that Chaucer asks his readers to consider the moral dimensions of the aspirations internal to ancient philosophy and the assumptions about the self that must be true if its insights are to console and instruct. For Chaucer, the self must be seen as a gift that flowers through reciprocity (both human and divine) and not as an object to be disciplined and regulated.

Chapter one focuses on the Consolation of Philosophy. I argue that recent attempts to characterize Chaucer's relationship to this text as skeptical fail to engage the Consolation on its own terms. The allegory of Lady Philosophy's revelation to a disconsolate Boethius enables philosophy to become both an agent and an object of inquiry. I argue that Boethius's initial skepticism about the pretentions of philosophy is in part what Philosophy's therapies are meant to respond to. The pressures that Chaucer's poetry exerts on the ideals of autonomy and self-possession sharpen one of the major absences of the Consolation: viz., the unanswered question of whether Philosophy's therapies have actually consoled Boethius. Chapter two considers one of the Consolation's fascinating and paradoxical afterlives: Robert Holcot's Postilla super librum sapientiae (1340-43). I argue that Holcot's Stoic conception of wisdom, a conception he explicitly links with Boethius's Consolation, relies on a model of agency that is strikingly similar to the powers of self-knowledge that Philosophy argues Boethius to posses. Chapter three examines Chaucer's fullest exploration of the Boethian model of selfhood and his ultimate rejection of it in Troilus and Criseyde. The poem, which Chaucer called his "tragedy," belonged to a genre of classical writing he knew of only from Philosophy's brief mention of it in the Consolation. Chaucer appropriates the genre to explore and recover mourning as a meaningful act. In Chapter four, I turn to Dante and the House of Fame to consider Chaucer's self-reflections about his ambitions as a poet and the demands of truth-telling.

Developmental toxicity from exposure to various forms of mercury compounds in medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) embryos.

This study examined developmental toxicity of different mercury compounds, including some used in traditional medicines. Medaka (Oryzias latipes) embryos were exposed to 0.001-10 µM concentrations of MeHg, HgCl2, α-HgS (Zhu Sha), and β-HgS (Zuotai) from stage 10 (6-7 hpf) to 10 days post fertilization (dpf). Of the forms of mercury in this study, the organic form (MeHg) proved the most toxic followed by inorganic mercury (HgCl2), both producing embryo developmental toxicity. Altered phenotypes included pericardial edema with elongated or tube heart, reduction of eye pigmentation, and failure of swim bladder inflation. Both α-HgS and β-HgS were less toxic than MeHg and HgCl2. Total RNA was extracted from survivors three days after exposure to MeHg (0.1 µM), HgCl2 (1 µM), α-HgS (10 µM), or β-HgS (10 µM) to examine toxicity-related gene expression. MeHg and HgCl2 markedly induced metallothionein (MT) and heme oxygenase-1 (Ho-1), while α-HgS and β-HgS failed to induce either gene. Chemical forms of mercury compounds proved to be a major determinant in their developmental toxicity.

Denitrification and inference of nitrogen sources in the karstic Floridan Aquifer

Aquifer denitrification is among the most poorly constrained fluxes in global and regional nitrogen budgets. The few direct measurements of denitrification in groundwaters provide limited information about its spatial and temporal variability, particularly at the scale of whole aquifers. Uncertainty in estimates of denitrification may also lead to underestimates of its effect on isotopic signatures of inorganic N, and thereby confound the inference of N source from these data. In this study, our objectives are to quantify the magnitude and variability of denitrification in the Upper Floridan Aquifer (UFA) and evaluate its effect on N isotopic signatures at the regional scale. Using dual noble gas tracers (Ne, Ar) to generate physical predictions of N2 gas concentrations for 112 observations from 61 UFA springs, we show that excess (i.e. denitrification-derived) N2 is highly variable in space and inversely correlated with dissolved oxygen (O2). Negative relationships between O2 and δ15N NO3 across a larger dataset of 113 springs, well-constrained isotopic fractionation coefficients, and strong 15N:18O covariation further support inferences of denitrification in this uniquely organic-matter-poor system. Despite relatively low average rates, denitrification accounted for 32 % of estimated aquifer N inputs across all sampled UFA springs. Back-calculations of source δ15N NO3 based on denitrification progression suggest that isotopically-enriched nitrate (NO3-) in many springs of the UFA reflects groundwater denitrification rather than urban- or animal-derived inputs. © Author(s) 2012.