The Decline of the Cow: Agricultural and Settlement Change in Early Medieval Ireland

This article considers cows and dairying as the basis a17of value system in early societies, particularly in Ireland. Only in a very few instances is it possible to demonstrate that such systems existed. When it does, it can be shown that cows and dairying were imbedded in the social or religious institutions of these cultures. Cattle had a value and meaning much greater than their economic worth in terms of food, hides, tallow etc. Such a systems, however, does not allow economic development as dairy produce does not easily lend itself to the production, and accumulation, of significant surplus nor is dairy produce particularly suitable for economic expansion based on trade. Its perishable nature militates against both roles. In order to develop political power that is based on economic power and wealth it is necessary to change the emphasis from livestock to cereal production.

Tolstoy, stories, and facilitating insight in end of life care: Exploring ethics through vicarious experience (with Glackin M and Henry R)

Facilitating moral insight in end of life care can be challenging, and the purpose of this paper is to illustrate how this can be nurtured by means of creative literature. Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych is presented as an example of such literature. Aristotle's Nichomean Ethics provides the philosophical underpinning for the method used. Sources also include the nursing literature, and students' evaluations of the impact of Tolstoy's novella on their ability to perceive the ethical issues arising in end of life care. Comments from evaluations were analysed and significant themes emerged. Students' comments clearly support the suggestion that use of this novella has facilitated insight into ethical issues at the end of life. Evaluations also indicate that vicarious experience gained through reading this novella has helped to nurture sensitivity and professional insight into the importance of compassion and offering ‘comfort’ to the dying person.

On Suffering and Sympathy: Jude the Obscure, Evolution and Ethics

This article links Thomas Hardy’s exploration of sympathy in Jude the Obscure to contemporary scientific debates over moral evolution. Tracing the relationship between pessimism, progressivism, and determinism in Hardy’s understanding of sympathy, it also considers Hardy’s conception of the author as enlarger of “social sympathies”--a position, I argue, that was shaped by Leslie Stephen’s advocacy of novel writing as moral art. Considering Hardy’s engagement with writings by Charles Darwin, T. H. Huxley, Herbert Spencer, and others, I explore the novel’s participation in a debate about the evolutionary significance of sympathy and its implications for Hardy’s understanding of moral agency. Hardy, I suggest, offered a stronger defence of morality based on biological determinism than Darwin, but this determinism was linked to an unexpected evolutionary optimism.

Geography's medieval history: A neglected enterprise?

This paper examines the marginal place of ‘medieval geography’ in contemporary geographical scholarship. Over the past two decades, geographers' studies of the subject’s historiography have tended to focus mainly on ‘modern’ and ‘early-modern’ rather than medieval geographies. This contrasts with the early 20th century when ‘medieval geography’ was seen by geographers to be part of the discipline’s long history. Set within the context of current discussion on writing geography’s histories, the paper examines how geographers, and latterly historians, have sought to characterize and represent medieval geographies. This reveals that the subject of geography in the Middle Ages shared in the same fluidities and ambivalences that characterize geography today. The paper thus helps to challenge orthodox views of geography’s history, and argues that the connections and continuities that have shaped geography for over two millennia cautions us against taking a compartmentalized approach to historiographies of geography.