Soap-bubbles, their colours and the forces which mould them ; being the substance of many lectures delivered to juvenile and popular audiences with the addition of several new and original sections /

Mode of access: Internet.

Our secret friends and foes : expanded from lectures delivered before popular audiences in London, Edinburgh, and elsewhere /

'Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee'.

Veteranness : Representations of Combat-related PTSD in U.S. Popular Visual Media

Posttraumatic stress and PTSD are becoming familiar terms to refer to what we often call the invisible wounds of war, yet these are recent additions to a popular discourse in which images of and ideas about combat-affected veterans have long circulated. A legacy of ideas about combat veterans and war trauma thus intersects with more recent clinical information about PTSD to become part of a discourse of visual media that has defined and continues to redefine veteran for popular audiences. In this dissertation I examine realist combat veteran representations in selected films and other visual media from three periods: during and after World Wars I and II (James Allen from I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Fred Derry and Al Stephenson from The Best Years of Our Lives); after the Vietnam War (Michael from The Deer Hunter, Eriksson from Casualties of War), and post 9/11 (Will James from The Hurt Locker, a collection of veterans from Wartorn: 1861-2010.) Employing a theoretical framework informed by visual media studies, Barthes’ concept of myth, and Foucault’s concept ofdiscursive unity, I analyze how these veteran representations are endowed with PTSD symptom-like behaviors and responses that seem reasonable and natural within the narrative arc. I contend that veteran myths appear through each veteran representation as the narrative develops and resolves. I argue that these veteran myths are many and varied but that they crystallize in a dominant veteran discourse, a discursive unity that I term veteranness. I further argue that veteranness entangles discrete categories such as veteran, combat veteran, and PTSD with veteran myths, often tying dominant discourse about combat-related PTSD to outdated or outmoded notions that significantly affect our attitudes about and treatment of veterans. A basic premise of my research is that unless and until we learn about the lasting effects of the trauma inherent to combat, we hinder our ability to fulfill our responsibilities to war veterans. A society that limits its understanding of posttraumatic stress, PTSD and post-war experiences of actual veterans affected by war trauma to veteranness or veteran myths risks normalizing or naturalizing an unexamined set of sociocultural expectations of all veterans, rendering them voice-less, invisible, and, ultimately disposable.

Of castles and fairytales

1,000-word travel article describing a journey on the Moselle River in Germany. "Step back in time with Germany’s historical landmarks along the country’s beautiful Mosel River, writes Kari Gislason"--publisher website

Sail into one of Europe's greatest cities

A travel article about the university towns of Heidelberg and Tubingen in Germany. "DURING an extended visit to Heidelberg, Germany's oldest university town, Mark Twain was shocked to see students out and about at all hours of the day and night..."--publisher website

Conflicted city with a duel personality

A 1,000-word travel article about Amsterdam. "Amsterdam is a modern take on the theme of duelling and, in many ways, he couldn't have chosen a more appropriate place for his title. This is a city that duels with itself..."--publisher website

Pearl of a town may entrap you

A 1,000-word travel article about Broome in Western Australia. "BY THE end of a weekend in Broome, you are quite sure that this town is a fiction, an imagining. I am in a provincial comedy. On my way from the airport, I will be kidnapped, driven to the newspaper offices and told to write the local shipping news, or the pearler news, or the gas works news - the news of whichever resources boom is next..."--publisher website

Going sideways in New Zealand

A 1,000-word travel article about wineries near Queenstown, New Zealand. "GRANT Taylor holds a glass of pinot noir to his ear and says, "I listen to it." It's 11 in the morning. I steal a glance at my guide, Mike Stevens, an English ex-pat who's lived in Queenstown for nearly 20 years, and so is very nearly a local. He's brought me here and knows Taylor well. We are all quite sober..."---publisher website

Letter from Zambia

An 800-word travel article about the Dag Hammarskjold Memorial site in Ndola, Zambia.

In the footsteps of a man of peace

A 1,000-word travel article about Ndola, Zambia.

Letter from Iceland

A 1,000-word travel story about Icelandic literature and culture.

Would you like ice with that?

900-word travel article about Iceland.

Iceland's so cool

900-word travel article about Iceland.

The Icelandic Army of Foreign Secretaries

1,000 piece of memoir about Iceland

A walk through Reykjavik

A 1,000-word travel article about Iceland