Sex, Politics and Religion: The Transformation of the Figure of the Fairy Queen from Thomas off Ersseldoune to ‘‘Thomas Rymer’’

Our earliest version of the Thomas Rymer story is the medieval romance Thomas off Ersseldoune (c.1430). There is a four hundred year lacuna before the ballad “Thomas Rymer”, our next surviving version, is recorded in the early 1800s. In the intervening time the narrative changed very little but the dynamic of the piece, radically. The romance transformed into the highly subversive ballad, “Thomas Rymer”. Central to this transformation is the reconceptualization of the romance's heroine. Referred to simply as the “lufly lady” and caught between her husband, the fay King, and a mere mortal, Thomas, she becomes in the ballad the powerful Queen of the Fairies. The ballad is structured around a series of revelations in which the enigmatic Queen assumes the roles of Eve and Mary, and finally Christ Himself. I will explore the implications of this extraordinary ballad. Moreover, I suggest that it is Queen Elizabeth herself who, ironically, enables the heroine's transformation. “Ironically” because it appears that it was Elizabeth's own restrictions, designed to suppress heretical, seditious or radical literature, which forced Thomas off Ersseldoune (and many other romances which employed religious imagery or figures) out of the written domain and into the oral tradition. And yet, it is Elizabeth who, in creating the image of herself as a female prince, as the Faerie Queen, inspires a new literary vocabulary designed to describe female executive power, without which it would have been impossible to imagine a figure such as the ballad's Queen of the Fairies.

Trading off dietary choices, physical exercise and cardiovascular disease risks

Despite several decades of decline, cardiovascular diseases are still the most common causes of death in Western societies. Sedentary living and high fat diets contribute to the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. This paper analyses the trade-offs between lifestyle choices defined in terms of diet, physical activity, cost, and risk of cardiovascular disease that a representative sample of the population of Northern Ireland aged 40-65 are willing to make. Using computer assisted personal interviews, we survey 493 individuals at their homes using a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) questionnaire administered between February and July 2011 in Northern Ireland. Unlike most DCE studies for valuing public health programs, this questionnaire uses a tailored exercise, based on the individuals’ baseline choices. A “fat screener” module in the questionnaire links personal cardiovascular disease risk to each specific choice set in terms of dietary constituents. Individuals are informed about their real status quo risk of a fatal cardiovascular event, based on an initial set of health questions. Thus, actual risks, real diet and exercise choices are the elements that constitute the choice task. Our results show that our respondents are willing to pay for reducing mortality risk and, more importantly, are willing to change physical exercise and dietary behaviours. In particular, we find that to improve their lifestyles, overweight and obese people would be more likely to do more physical activity than to change their diets. Therefore, public policies aimed to target obesity and its related illnesses in Northern Ireland should invest public money in promoting physical activity rather than healthier diets.

Irony as discipline: Self-help and gender in the knowledge economy:Self-help and gender in the knowledge economy

In this article, we explore the role of self-help literature within the knowledge economy. We point to the recent growth of ironic humour within such texts, and examine how this operates to construct gendered and embodied subjectivities that position women according to a masculine gaze. Drawing on empirical data from self-help books for career women published between 1997 and 2007, we analyse the styles of embodiment that these texts promote. We find that career women are encouraged to maintain a stance of constant attention to themselves and their bodily presentations, a position that is in line with wider cultural features of contemporary knowledge economy working. We note that ironic humour is deployed in ways that subtly reinforce existing gender relations within contemporary organizations. Our article contributes to debates on subjectivity within the knowledge economy; while scholars have pointed to an increasing normative emphasis on embodied performances, we provide insights into the mechanisms by which this occurs, with a specific focus upon the growing genre of self-help literature and its recent shift to ironic humour.

‘My city’s million voices chiding me’::‘Answerability’ and Modern Irish Working-Class Writers

Published as part of a special edition on working-class writers, this article explores the work of Paula Meehan, Martin Lynch and Dermot Bolger.

Dissidents with an innovation cause? Non-institutionalized actors ’ online social knowledge sharing, solution-finding tensions and technology management innovation

Purpose
– Traditionally, most studies focus on institutionalized management-driven actors to understand technology management innovation. The purpose of this paper is to argue that there is a need for research to study the nature and role of dissident non-institutionalized actors’ (i.e. outsourced web designers and rapid application software developers). The authors propose that through online social knowledge sharing, non-institutionalized actors’ solution-finding tensions enable technology management innovation.

Design/methodology/approach
– A synthesis of the literature and an analysis of the data (21 interviews) provided insights in three areas of solution-finding tensions enabling management innovation. The authors frame the analysis on the peripherally deviant work and the nature of the ways that dissident non-institutionalized actors deviate from their clients (understood as the firm) original contracted objectives.

Findings
– The findings provide insights into the productive role of solution-finding tensions in enabling opportunities for management service innovation. Furthermore, deviant practices that leverage non-institutionalized actors’ online social knowledge to fulfill customers’ requirements are not interpreted negatively, but as a positive willingness to proactively explore alternative paths.

Research limitations/implications
– The findings demonstrate the importance of dissident non-institutionalized actors in technology management innovation. However, this work is based on a single country (USA) and additional research is needed to validate and generalize the findings in other cultural and institutional settings.

Originality/value
– This paper provides new insights into the perceptions of dissident non-institutionalized actors in the practice of IT managerial decision making. The work departs from, but also extends, the previous literature, demonstrating that peripherally deviant work in solution-finding practice creates tensions, enabling management innovation between IT providers and users.

(Re)-Introducing Themes of Religion and Spirituality to Professional Social Work Training in the Land of ‘Saints and Scholars’.

This chapter begins by alluding to Ireland’s historical reputation as the land of “Saints and Scholars” and then briefly charts its demise from this position. A parallel process in relation to religiously motivated provision of health and social care is outlined. The inclusion of themes of religion and spirituality within the current professional social work codes in the USA and Britain and the framework for social work training in Northern Ireland is noted. In this context the lack of any substantive inclusion of themes of religion and/or spirituality within the Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) degree at Queens University Belfast will be situated. A series of intersecting reasons for this lack of inclusion are proposed in terms of the experience of living through the recent troubled history of Northern Ireland and a variety of biases in academic thought.
A rationale for the re-introduction of inputs on religion and spirituality is articulated in terms of the widespread resurgence of these themes within health and social care and psychotherapy literature and the new emphasis on practicing in culturally sensitive ways in Britain. The first steps to re-introduce these themes under the higher context marker of “culturally competent practice” are described and an analysis of data from the students’ feedback presented along with illustrative quotations. The dissonance between the initial misgivings of staff and the overwhelmingly positive responses of students are highlighted. The chapter concludes with a discussion of lessons learned through the process with an emphasis on how the inclusion of these themes can result in better practice for service users, including those impacted by “the Troubles” in Northern Ireland.

Polemic and apocalyptic in the Cromwellian invasion of Scotland

This article describes the culture of print and polemic associated with the Cromwellian invasion of Scotland and the resistance of the Church of Scotland. It argues that print solidified Parliamentary ideas during the invasion but that it did not continue to do so after English dominance had been established. These texts illustrate the divisions between the mentalité of the Cromwellian rank-and-file and that of the rather small and probably unrepresentative body of opinion formers who sought to control and represent it.

Germany and the New Global History of Secularism: Questioning the Postcolonial Genealogy

Secularism has emerged as a central category of twenty-first century political thought that in many ways has replaced the theory of secularization. According to postcolonial scholars, neither the theory nor the practice of secularization was politically neutral. They define secularism as the set of discourses, policies, and constitutional arrangements whereby modern states and liberal elites have sought to unify nations and divide colonial populations. This definition is quite different from the original meaning of secularism, as an immanent scientific worldview linked to anticlericalism. Anthropologist Talal Asad has connected nineteenth-century worldview secularism to twenty-first century political secularism through a genealogical account that stresses continuities of liberal hegemony. This essay challenges this account. It argues that liberal elites did not merely subsume worldview secularism in their drive for state secularization. Using the tools of conceptual history, the essay shows that one reason that “secularization” only achieved its contemporary meaning in Germany after 1945 was that radical freethinkers and other anticlerical secularists had previously resisted liberal hegemony. The essay concludes by offering an agenda for research into the discontinuous history of these two types of secularism.

The impact of interventions to promote physical activity in urban green space: A systematic review and recommendations for future research

Evidence is mounting on the association between the built environment and physical activity (PA) with a call for intervention research. A broader approach which recognizes the role of supportive environments that can make healthy choices easier is required. A systematic review was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of interventions to encourage PA in urban green space. Five databases were searched independently by two reviewers using search terms relating to 'physical activity', 'urban green space' and 'intervention' in July 2014. Eligibility criteria included: (i) intervention to encourage PA in urban green space which involved either a physical change to the urban green space or a PA intervention to promote use of urban green space or a combination of both; and (ii) primary outcome of PA. Of the 2405 studies identified, 12 were included. There was some evidence (4/9 studies showed positive effect) to support built environment only interventions for encouraging use and increasing PA in urban green space. There was more promising evidence (3/3 studies showed positive effect) to support PAprograms or PA programs combined with a physical change to the built environment, for increasing urban green space use and PAof users. Recommendations for future research include the need for longer term follow-up post-intervention, adequate control groups, sufficiently powered studies, and consideration of the social environment, which was identified as a significantly under-utilized resource in this area. Interventions that involve the use of PA programs combined with a physical change to the built environment are likely to have a positive effect on PA. Robust evaluations of such interventions are urgently required. The findings provide a platform to inform the design, implementation and evaluation of future urban green space and PAintervention research.

"No Artist has Ethical Sympathies": Oscar Wilde, Aesthetics, and Moral Evolution

“There is no mode of action, no form of emotion, that we do not share with the lower animals” (137). This evolutionary claim is not attributable to Darwin, but to Oscar Wilde, who allows Gilbert to voice this bold assertion in “The True Function of Criticism.” While critics have long wrestled with the ethical stance and coherence of Wilde's writings, they have overlooked a significant influence on his work: debates concerning the evolution of morality that animated the periodicals in which he was writing. Wilde was fascinated by the proposition that complex human behaviours, including moral and aesthetic responses, might be traced back to evolutionary impulses. Significantly, he also wrote for a readership already engaged with these controversies.

The Ocho Poetas Mexicanos and the marginalisation of Catholic authors in post-revolutionary Mexico

The group known as the Ocho Poetas Mexicanos were marginalised in post-revolutionary literary circles and remain largely forgotten by literary history because they were dismissed as Catholic authors by a literary establishment which favoured nation-building literature at a time when Catholicism was excluded from official constructions of nationhood. This article draws attention to the significant contribution made by group members to contemporary cultural life and re-evaluates the work they published in the 1955 anthology which announced their arrival onto the literary scene. An analysis of this collection demonstrates that there was scant justification for labelling the group as Catholic poets and suggests that they are best understood with reference to the “universal” strand of Mexican literature and as heirs to groups such as the Contemporáneos. The treatment of the Ocho Poetas provides important evidence of the way in which Catholic authors were marginalised in mid-twentieth century Mexico, even if they did not express religious beliefs in their work, and draws attention to the non-literary criteria which can come into play when evaluating texts.

Common causes and current guidelines

Chronic cough is a common and disabling symptom. Recent guidelines have attempted to provide direction in the clinical management of cough in both primary and secondary care. They have also provided a critical review of the available literature and identified gaps in current knowledge. Despite this they have been criticized for a reliance on a low quality evidence base. In this review, we summarize the current consensus on the clinical management of chronic cough and attempt to rationalize this based on recent evidence. We have also provided an overview of the likely pathophysiological mechanisms responsible for cough and highlighted areas, where knowledge deficits exist and suggest directions for future research. Such progress will be critical in the search for new and effective treatments for cough.

Women, letter-writing and the life of the mind in England, c.1650-1750

Drawing on national and regional letter collections dating from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, this article explores women's experiences of the life of the mind through an analysis of their letter-writing. This study also highlights the shortcomings of the compartmentalised nature of scholarship on women's writing and intellectual lives and proposes the letter both as a beneficial historical source and methodological tool for research on women's mental worlds. By employing an inclusive definition of intellectual and creative life, and eschewing traditional benchmarks of achievement, this article contends that women took a full part in the cultures of knowledge of their time.