Writing about war: Jung, Much Ado About Nothing, and the Troy novels of Lindsay Clarke

Arguably, in a time of war literature, and indeed all writing, is saturated with deep psychic responses to conflict. So that not only in literary genres such as epic and tragedy, but also in the novel and comedy, can writing about war be discerned. C.G. Jung, Shakespeare and Lindsay Clarke are fundamentally writers of war who share allied literary strategies. Moreover, they diagnose similar origins to the malaise of a culture tending to war in the neglect of aspects of the feminine that patriarchy prefers to ignore. In repressing or evading the dark feminine, cultures as dissimilar as ancient Greece, the 21st century, Shakespeare's England and Jung's Europe prevent the healing energies of the conjunctio of masculine and feminine from stabilising an increasingly fragile consciousness. In the Troy novels of Clarke, Answer to Job by Jung and Much Ado About Nothing by Shakespeare, some attempt at spiritual nourishment is made through the writing. [From the Publisher]

Reality-experiential history documentaries: the Trench (BBC, 2002) and Britain's modern memory of the First World War

Culloden (BBC, 1964) The Great War (BBC, 1964) 1914-18 (BBC/KCET, 1996) Haig: the Unknown Soldier (BBC, 1996) Veterans: the Last Survivors of the Great War (BBC, 1998) 1900s House (Channel 4, 1999) The Western Front (BBC, 1999) History of Britain (BBC, 2000) 1940s House (Channel 4, 2001) The Ship (BBC, 2002) Surviving the Iron Age (BBC, 2001) The Trench (BBC, 2002) Frontier House (Channel 4, 2002) Lad's Army (BBC, 2002) Edwardian Country House (Channel 4, 2002) Spitfire Ace (Channel 4, 2003) World War One in Colour (Channel 5, 2003) 1914: the War Revolution (BBC, 2003) The First World War (Channel 4, 2003) Dunkirk (BBC, 2004) Dunkirk: The Soldier's Story (BBC, 2004) D-Day to Berlin (BBC, 2004) Bad Lad's Army (ITV, 2004) Destination D-Day: Raw Recruits (BBC, 2004) Bomber Crew (Channel 4, 2004) Battlefield Britain (BBC, 2004) The Last Battle (ARTE/ZDF, 2005) Who Do You Think You Are? (BBC, 2004, 2006) The Somme (Channel 4, 2005) [From the Publisher]

A small screen alternative to stone and bronze: The Great War series and British television

This article examines the first major British television series about the First World War, The Great War (BBC, 1964), in terms of its cultural, historical and aesthetic significance. As a central component of the BBC`s 50th anniversary commemorative programme to mark the outbreak of war, the series was a major media event -a small-screen memorial cast in sounds and images instead of stone and bronze. This article looks at how the British television audience responded to this form of on-screen commemoration. Material for this article was derived from the series' extensive production records housed in the BBC Written Archives Centre at Caversham, Berkshire. This was supplemented by, among other sources, material from interviews and correspondence with several surviving members of the production team. This allows a broader understanding of the motivations of those involved in the production of a groundbreaking historical series, while acknowledging the wide-ranging nature of its audience. [From the Publisher]

The Great War on the small screen: televisual narratives of the First World War.

In Britain since the 1960s television has been the site where the Western Front of popular culture has clashed with the Western Front of history. This talk will examine the ways in which those involved in the production of historical documentaries for this most influential media have struggled to communicate the stories of the First World War to British audiences. From the landmark epic series The Great War (BBC, 1964) up to more recent controversial productions such as The Trench (BBC, 2002) and Not Forgotten: The Men Who Wouldn't Fight (BBC, 2008), Emma Hanna will give an overview of the production, broadcast and reception of a number of British television documentaries to examine the difficult relationship between the war's history and its popular memory. [From the Author]

Fostering 'habits of reflection, independent study and free inquiry': an analysis of the short-lived phenomenon of General/Liberal Studies in English vocational education and training

In 1957, 12 years after the end of World War II, the Ministry of Education issued Circular 323 to promote the development of an element of ‘liberal studies’ in courses offered by technical and further education (FE) colleges in England. This was perceived to be in some ways a peculiar or uncharacteristic development. However, it lasted over 20 years, during which time most students on courses in FE colleges participated in what were termed General or Liberal Studies classes that complemented and/or contrasted with the technical content of their vocational programmes. By the end of the 1970s, these classes had changed in character, moving away from the concept of a ‘liberal education’ towards a prescribed diet of ‘communication studies’. The steady decline in apprenticeship numbers from the late 1960s onwards accelerated in the late 1970s, resulting in a new type of student (the state-funded ‘trainee’) into colleges whose curriculum would be prescribed by the Manpower Services Commission. This paper examines the Ministry’s thinking and charts the rise and fall of a curriculum phenomenon that became immortalised in the ‘Wilt’ novels of Tom Sharpe. The paper argues that the Ministry of Education’s concerns half a century ago are still relevant now, particularly as fresh calls are being made to raise the leaving age from compulsory education to 18, and in light of attempts in England to develop new vocational diplomas for full-time students in schools and colleges.

Oceans and Human Health (OHH): a European Perspective from the Marine Board of the European Science Foundation (Marine Board-ESF)

The oceans and coastal seas provide mankind with many benefits including food for around a third of the global population, the air that we breathe and our climate system which enables habitation of much of the planet. However, the converse is that generation of natural events (such as hurricanes, severe storms and tsunamis) can have devastating impacts on coastal populations, while pollution of the seas by pathogens and toxic waste can cause illness and death in humans and animals. Harmful effects from biogenic toxins produced by algal blooms (HABs) and from the pathogens associated with microbial pollution are also a health hazard in seafood and from direct contact with water. The overall global burden of human disease caused by sewage pollution of coastal waters has been estimated at 4 million lost person-years annually. Finally, the impacts of all of these issues will be exacerbated by climate change. A holistic systems approach is needed. It must consider whole ecosystems, and their sustainability, such as integrated coastal zone management, is necessary to address the highly interconnected scientific challenges of increased human population pressure, pollution and over-exploitation of food (and other) resources as drivers of adverse ecological, social and economic impacts. There is also an urgent and critical requirement for effective and integrated public health solutions to be developed through the formulation of politically and environmentally meaningful policies. The research community required to address "Oceans & Human Health" in Europe is currently very fragmented, and recognition by policy makers of some of the problems, outlined in the list of challenges above, is limited. Nevertheless, relevant key policy issues for governments worldwide include the reduction of the burden of disease (including the early detection of emerging pathogens and other threats) and improving the quality of the global environment. Failure to effectively address these issues will impact adversely on efforts to alleviate poverty, sustain the availability of environmental goods and services and improve health and social and economic stability; and thus, will impinge on many policy decisions, both nationally and internationally. Knowledge exchange (KE) will be a key element of any ensuing research. KE will facilitate the integration of biological, medical, epidemiological, social and economic disciplines, as well as the emergence of synergies between seemingly unconnected areas of science and socio-economic issues, and will help to leverage knowledge transfer across the European Union (EU) and beyond. An integrated interdisciplinary systems approach is an effective way to bring together the appropriate groups of scientists, social scientists, economists, industry and other stakeholders with the policy formulators in order to address the complexities of interfacial problems in the area of environment and human health. The Marine Board of the European Science Foundation Working Group on "Oceans and Human Health" has been charged with developing a position paper on this topic with a view to identifying the scientific, social and economic challenges and making recommendations to the EU on policy-relevant research and development activities in this arena. This paper includes the background to health-related issues linked to the coastal environment and highlights the main arguments for an ecosystem-based whole systems approach.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS) (I): Measures of prevention and control

Measures of prevention and control against polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) focus on an official food control, a code of best practice to reduce PAHs levels by controlling industry and in the development of a chemopreventive strategy. Regulation (EU) 835/2011 establishes maximum levels of PAHs for each food group. In addition, Regulations (EU) 333/2007 and 836/2011 set up the methods of sampling and analysis for its official control. Scientific studies prove that the chemopreventive strategy is effective against these genotoxic compounds effects. Most chemopreventive compounds studied with proven protective effects against PAHs are found in fruit and vegetables.

State power matters: power, the state and political struggle in the post-war American novel

This article is concerned with resituating the state at the centre of the analytical stage and, concomitantly, with drawing attention to the dangers of losing sight of the state as a locus of power. It seeks to uncover the relationship between two related lines of critical inquiry: Marxist and Foucauldian theories of the state; and the attempts by three postwar American novelist (Ken Kesey, William Burroughs and E.L. Doctorow) to determine the nature and extent of this power and to consider under what conditions political struggle might be possible. It argues that such a move is needed because recent critical analysis has been too preoccupied by corporeal micropolitics and global macropolitics, and that the postwar American novel can help us in this move because it is centrally concerned with the repressive potentiality of the US state. It maintains that the resuscitation of Marxist state theories in early 1970s and a debate between Poulantzas and Foucault is intriguingly foreshadowed and even critiqued by these novels. Consequently, it concludes that these novels constitute an unrecognized pre-history of what would become one of the key intellectual debates of the late twentieth century: an engagement between Marxist and post-structuralist conceptions of the power and resistance.

Towards An Acoustic Model-Based Poroelastic Imaging Method: I. Theoretical Foundation

The ultrasonic measurement and imaging of tissue elasticity is currently under wide investigation and development as a clinical tool for the assessment of a broad range of diseases, but little account in this field has yet been taken of the fact that soft tissue is porous and contains mobile fluid. The ability to squeeze fluid out of tissue may have implications for conventional elasticity imaging, and may present opportunities for new investigative tools. When a homogeneous, isotropic, fluid-saturated poroelastic material with a linearly elastic solid phase and incompressible solid and fluid constituents is subjected to stress, the behaviour of the induced internal strain field is influenced by three material constants: the Young's modulus (E(s)) and Poisson's ratio (nu(s)) of the solid matrix and the permeability (k) of the solid matrix to the pore fluid. New analytical expressions were derived and used to model the time-dependent behaviour of the strain field inside simulated homogeneous cylindrical samples of such a poroelastic material undergoing sustained unconfined compression. A model-based reconstruction technique was developed to produce images of parameters related to the poroelastic material constants (E(s), nu(s), k) from a comparison of the measured and predicted time-dependent spatially varying radial strain. Tests of the method using simulated noisy strain data showed that it is capable of producing three unique parametric images: an image of the Poisson's ratio of the solid matrix, an image of the axial strain (which was not time-dependent subsequent to the application of the compression) and an image representing the product of the aggregate modulus E(s)(1-nu(s))/(1+nu(s))(1-2nu(s)) of the solid matrix and the permeability of the solid matrix to the pore fluid. The analytical expressions were further used to numerically validate a finite element model and to clarify previous work on poroelastography.

Famine and land in Ireland and India 1845-1880: James Caird and the political economy of hunger

The perception of Ireland and India as ‘zones of famine’ led many nineteenth-century observers to draw analogies between these two troublesome parts of the British empire. This article investigates this parallel through the career of James Caird (1816–92), and specifically his interventions in the latter stages of both the Great Irish Famine of 1845–50, and the Indian famines of 1876–9. Caird is best remembered as the joint author of the controversial dissenting minute in the Indian famine commission report of 1880; this article locates the roots of his stance in his previous engagements with Irish policy. Caird's interventions are used to track the trajectory of an evolving ‘Peelite’ position on famine relief, agricultural reconstruction, and land reform between the 1840s and 1880s. Despite some divergences, strong continuities exist between the two interventions – not least concern for the promotion of agricultural entrepreneurship, for actively assisting economic development in ‘backward’ economies, and an acknowledgement of state responsibility for preserving life as an end in itself. Above all in both cases it involved a critique of a laissez-faire dogmatism – whether manifest in the ‘Trevelyanism’ of 1846–50 or the Lytton–Temple system of 1876–9.