How intergroup friendship works: A longitudinal study of friendship effects on outgroup attitudes

Cross-sectional research has shown that frequency of self-disclosure to outgroup members mediates the positive relationship between intergroup friendship and outgroup attitudes. The current research investigated the relationship between self-disclosure and attitudes in more depth. New undergraduate students were asked to nominate an ingroup or outgroup friend and then report the intimacy of their disclosures to them, their anxiety and attitudes towards a series of social groups, in the first week of the semester and 6 weeks later. Intimacy of disclosure predicted more positive attitudes towards outgroups over time, but this association was only found among participants who nominated an outgroup friend. In the ingroup friend condition, a negative association was found. These associations were mediated by general intergroup anxiety. These relationships highlight the importance of integrating theories of interpersonal and intergroup relations when investigating intergroup contact. Copyright (C) 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Coelum non animum muto? Milton's Neo-Latin Poetry and Catholic Italy

Milton’s Elegiarum Liber, the first half of his Poemata published in Poems of Mr John Milton Both English and Latin (1645), concludes with a series of eight Latin epigrams: five bitterly anti-Catholic pieces on the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, followed by three encomiastic poems hymning the praises of an Italian soprano, Leonora Baroni, singing in Catholic Rome. The disparity in terms of subject matter and tone is self-evident yet surprising in an epigrammatic series that runs sequentially. Whereas the gunpowder epigrams denigrate Rome, the Leonora epigrams present the city as a cultured hub of inclusivity, the welcome host of a Neapolitan soprano. In providing the setting for a human song that both enthrals its audience and attests to the presence of a divine power, Rome now epitomizes something other than brute idolatry, clerical habit or doctrine. And for the poet this facilitates an interrogation of theological (especially Catholic) doctrines. Coelum non animum muto, dum trans mare curro wrote the homeward-bound Milton in the autograph book of Camillo Cardoini at Geneva on 10 June 1639. But that this was an animus that could indeed acclimatize to religious and cultural difference is suggested by the Latin poems which Milton “patch [ed] up” in the course of his Italian journey. Central to that acclimatisation, as this chapter argues, is Milton’s quasi-Catholic self-fashioning. Thus Mansus offers a poetic autobiography of sorts, a self-inscribed vita coloured by intertextually kaleidoscopic links with two Catholic poets of Renaissance Italy and their patron; Ad Leonoram 1 both invokes and interrogates Catholic doctrine before a Catholic audience only to view the whole through the lens of a neo-Platonic hermeticism that may refreshingly transcend religious difference. Finally, Epitaphium Damonis, composed upon Milton’s return home, seems to highlight the potential interconnectedness of Protestant England and Catholic Italy, through the Anglo-Italian identity of its deceased subject, and through a pseudo-monasticism suggested by the poem’s possible engagement with the hagiography of a Catholic Saint. Perhaps continental travel and the physical encounter with the symbols, personages and institutions of the other have engendered in the Milton of the Italian journey a tolerance or, more accurately, the manipulation of a seeming tolerance to serve poetic and cultural ends.


First reviewer:
Haan: a fine piece by the senior neo-Latinist in Milton studies.

Second reviewer:
Chapter 7 is ... a high-spot of the collection. Its argument that in his Latin poetry Milton’s is a ‘quasi-Catholic self-fashioning’ stressing ‘the potential interconnectedness of Protestant England and Catholic Italy’ is striking and is advanced with learning, clarity and insight. Its sensitive exploration of the paradox of Milton’s coupling of humanistically complimentary and tolerant address to Roman Catholic friends with fiercely Protestant partisanship demonstrates that there is much greater complexity to his poetic persona than the self-construction and self-presentation of the later works would suggest. The essay is always adroit and sure-footed, often critically acute and illuminating (as, for example, in its discussion of the adjective and adverb mollis and molliter in Mansus, or in the identification in n. 99 of hitherto unnoticed Virgilian echoes). It has the added merits of being very well written, precise and apt in its citation of evidence, and absolutely central to the concerns of the volume.

Luce Irigaray: Back to the Beginning

In 2014 it will be 40 years since Luce Irigaray’s (second) doctoral thesis Speculum de l'autre femme was first published. That book, widely recognized as the most important text in feminist philosophy, was to introduce Irigaray’s critique of western philosophy and psychoanalysis and her ethics of sexual difference for which she was to become so well known. Irigaray, well into her eighties now, has published continuously since Speculum, despite her exclusion from French academic life after her expulsion in 1974 from the Université de Paris VIII Vincennes. That her latest book In the Beginning, She Was, released on the eve of Speculum’s anniversary, is perhaps the most personally revelatory of her works and revisits many of the same themes and issues that concerned her in Speculum cannot be coincidental. In this critical notice we examine Irigaray’s latest offering arguing that her contribution is twofold as she combines with new clarity her longstanding critique of phallocratic culture and her transformative vision of humanity as a culture of sexuate difference. There are a number of important themes addressed in the six chapters of the book, but for the purposes of this discussion our analysis will focus mostly on elaborating her critique of Western culture, on the usefulness of her work for rethinking masculine subject formation and on the figure of Antigone, as a feminine subject on her own terms, as a way of imagining a possible relation between two subjects within a culture of sexuate difference. We argue that this book continues to illustrate Irigaray’s importance as one of the most radical and prophetic philosophers of our time.

Energy balance of SRC willow used for managing farmyard washings - how does it compare to a conventional wastewater treatment works?

The water and wastewater industry in the UK accounts for around 3% of total energy use and just over 1% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions. Targets for greenhouse gas emissions reduction and higher renewable energy penetration, coupled with rising energy costs, growing demand for wastewater services and tightening EU water quality requirements, have led to an increased interest in alternative wastewater treatment methods. The use of short rotation coppice (SRC) willow for the treatment of wastewater effluent is one such alternative, which brings with it the dual benefits of wastewater treatment and production of biomass for energy. In order to assess the effectiveness of SRC willow, it is important to analyse the overall energy balance in terms of energy input versus energy output. This paper carries out an energy life cycle analysis of a specific SRC willow plantation in Northern Ireland to which farmyard washings (dirty water) are applied. The system boundaries include the establishment, maintenance, and harvesting of the plantation, along with the transport and drying of the wood for biomass combustion. The analysis shows that the overall energy balance is positive, and that the direct and indirect energy demands are 12% and 8% of gross energy production respectively. The energy demands of the plantation are compared with the energy required to treat an equivalent nutrient load in a conventional wastewater treatment plant. While a conventional plant consumes 2.6 MJ/m3 , the irrigation system consumes 1.6 MJ/m3 and the net energy production of the scenario is 48 MJ/m3 .

Spectres of Shakespeare:Ong Keng Sen’s Search: Hamlet and the Intercultural Myth

Arguably, the myth of Shakespeare is a myth of universality. Much has been written about the dramatic, thematic and ‘humanistic’ transference of Shakespeare’s works: their permeability, transcendence of cultures and histories, geographies and temporalities. Located within this debate is a belief that this universality, among other dominating factors, is founded upon the power and poeticism of Shakespeare’s language. Subsequently, if we acknowledge Frank Kermode’s assertion that “the life of the plays is the language” and “the secret (of Shakespeare’s works) is in the detail,” what then becomes of this myth of universality, and how is Shakespeare’s language ‘transferred’ across cultures? In Asian intercultural adaptations, language becomes the primary site of confrontation as issues of semantic accuracy and poetic affiliation abound. Often, the language of the text is replaced with a cultural equivalent or reconceived with other languages of the stage – song and dance, movement and music; metaphor and imagery consequently find new voices. Yet if myth is, as Roland Barthes propounds, a second-order semiotic system that is predicated upon the already constituted sign, here being language, and myth is parasitical on language, what happens to the myth of Shakespeare in these cultural re-articulations? Wherein lies the ‘universality’? Or is ‘universality’ all that it is – an insubstantial (mythical) pageant? Using Ong Keng Sen’s Search Hamlet (2002), this paper would examine the transference of myth and / as language in intercultural Shakespeares. If, as Barthes argues, myths are to be understood as metalanguages that adumbrate social hegemonies, intercultural imaginings of Shakespeare can be said to expose the hollow myth of universality yet in a paradoxical double-bind reify and reinstate this self-same myth.

The Political Economy of Swift's Satires and other Prose Works

Jonathan Swift wrote perceptively about the emerging commercial society
in Britain in the early eighteenth century. His particular focus was on the
financial revolution and its implications for economic and political stability
as well as for shifts of power between the landed and commercial
classes. Following his return to Ireland Swift’s focus shifted to the developmental
problems of his native country. In several pamphlets he advocated
consumption of domestic products, challenged existing political
structures and made trenchant criticisms of absenteeism and other dysfunctional
aspects of the land tenure system. Swift’s politico-economic
concerns are fully reflected in his best known work, Gulliver’s Travels but
his most pointed criticism of the emerging commercial system is contained
in A Modest Proposal. Written in the form of an economic pamphlet, A
Modest Proposal is ostensibly designed to address the problem of poverty
in Ireland. In addition to its implicit criticism of economic policy in Ireland,
the pamphlet challenges the separation of economics and morality as
evidenced in the writings of William Petty and Bernard Mandeville. Swift
parodies Petty’s political arithmetic but it is suggested here that he also
had in his sights the consequentialist reasoning present in the work of
both authors but explicitly so in Mandeville.
Keywords: financial revolution, public debt, paper credit, rationality, political
arithmetic, consequentialism, Petty (William), Mandeville (Bernard)

Listening to the World Through New Ears:Reinvention of the soundtrack in the works of Lucrecia Martel and Sofia Coppola

This paper explores the production and post-production techniques and tensions in designing sound for film. Considering the films of Lucrecia Martel and Sofia Coppola, amongst others, Greene and Yang will discuss how the soundtrack takes on a primary role in these films and becomes a medium for symbolism, reflection, characterisation, as well as storytelling. There will be a close examination of the processes involved in creating character-orientated soundscapes. These processes are sensitive to the effects sound has on an audience. Exploring how these filmmakers (with their sound teams) utilise the listening experience, including attention to point of audition and sound perception, this paper will critically unpick how such creative decisions are arrived at during various stages of the production process. Outlining the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sound and the potential musicality of sound effect design, issues of reverberation, noise and intent are discussed to highlight the sonic framing of these creative teams. Greene will approach these soundtracks from a production/post-production perspective, while Yang will explore the composer’s/designer’s ear.