'It was as if she had said....': May Sinclair and reading narratives of cure

May Sinclair was one of the most widely read and successful English women novelists of the first half of the twentieth century. She had interests and themes in common with many of those now considered to have been at the heart of English modernism. In terms of formal experimentation too her concerns chime with the aesthetic innovations of, for example, pound, Eliot and Woolf. Her early interest in psychoanalysis and support for the suffrage campaign also mark her out as a modern. Despite some work from feminist literary critics and her partial categorisation as modernist, however, her work still lacks a critical framework within which it can be read. Indeed, some of the work done by feminist critics on her has paradoxically re-marginalised her. In this thesis I aim to provide one critical framework through which Sinclair's work can be read. My contention is that the occluding of one aspect of her work and thought- its movement toward intellectual, emotional and aesthetic wholeness - has marred previous critical readings of her. By paying attention to this through a focus on discourses of cure, this thesis reads Sinclair's work with an awareness of its language, cultural context and intertextual relations. Early twentieth-century medical discourse, psychoanalysis, mysticism, the chivalric and the psychical are all used to read the works. At the same time, my aim is to read Sinclair's work without eliding its difficulties. Rather, I aim to read her in a way that acknowledges the difficulties of and fraught moments in her writing as markers of its significance.

The potential for neighbourhood regeneration in a period of austerity: changing forms of neighbourhood governance in two cities

Localism is an active political strategy, developed in a period of austerity by the UK's coalition government as a justification for the restructuring of state-civil society relationships. The deprived neighbourhood has long been a site for service delivery and a scale for intervention and action, giving rise to a variety of forms of neighbourhood governance. Prior international comparative research indicated convergence with the US given the rise of the self-help conjuncture and the decline of neighbourhood governance as a medium of regeneration. The subsequent shift in the UK paradigm from ‘big’ to ‘small state’ localism and deficit-reducing cuts to public expenditure confirm these trends, raising questions about the forms of neighbourhood governance currently being established, the role being played by local and central government, and the implications for neighbourhood regeneration. Two emerging forms of neighbourhood governance are examined in two urban local authorities and compared with prior forms examined in earlier research in the case study sites. The emerging forms differ significantly in their design and purpose, but as both are voluntary and receive no additional funding, better organised and more affluent communities are more likely to pursue their development. While it is still rather early to assess the capacity of these forms to promote neighbourhood regeneration, the potential in a period of austerity appears limited. Reduced funding for local services increases the imperative to self-help, while rights to local voice remain limited and the emerging forms provide little scope to influence (declining) local services and (still centralised) planning decisions, especially in neighbourhoods with regeneration needs which are likely to lack the requisite capacities, particularly stores of linking social capital. Initial conclusions suggest greater polarity and the further containment of deprived neighbourhoods.