Peverell’s Castle in the Peak

The church at Hardham is a small simple building constructed of sandstone and ironstone rubble interspersed with Roman tiles; originally it was whitewashed. It was built without a tower, but a bell turret was added in Victorian times. There are no features which prove that it was built before the Conquest, but three of the deeply-splayed windows are primitive; one of them has a rebate on the outside for a shutter. Other windows were cut later, the earliest being a double lancet behind the altar which dates from the thirteenth century. The church consists of a nave, 9.6 m x 5.8 m (31 ft 6 in x 19 ft), and chancel, 5.2 m x 4.7 m (17 ft x 15 ft 6 in). The insertion of the lancet window has destroyed the centrepiece of the decorative scheme of paintings which extended over both parts of the church and formed an integrated whole (Johnston 1901a, 74; 1901b, 62; Milner Gulland 1985, 27, 43; Baker 1986, 49–49). In both nave and chancel the theme of the decoration is the contrast between good and evil. Thus, in the nave the Sacrificial Lamb with angels waving censers is placed over the chancel arch and is confronted by a representation of the damned in hell which faces it on the west wall. In the chancel, Christ seated in Majesty, adored by Cherubim and the Elders of the Apocalypse, was painted on the east wall and faced a representation of the Fall of Man and the history of Adam and Eve on the east face of the chancel arch. This scheme interprets the words of St Paul, As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive' (I Corinthians xv, v 22). The central part of this composition was destroyed by the insertion of the thirteenth-century window. The theological idea that sin was brought into the world by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and could only be expunged by the Life and Passion of Christ, is often illustrated in the Middle Ages. This, for instance, is the theme of the illustrations in the St Albans Psalter, which was produced during the first half of the twelfth century (Dodwell et al. 1960, 49; see especially Pacht 1962, 49–53).     

Russia’s Natural Resources in the World Economy: history,review and reassessment

Abstract

Russia’s role in the global economic system today, and the Soviet Union’s in the past, is dominated by the export of natural resources, particularly oil and gas. The rents earned from these exports are both a source of strength and weakness, as they link the fortunes of Russia’s domestic economy to the volatility of global resource markets. This paper returns to a major research project conducted through the offices of the Association of American Geographers that resulted in Soviet Natural Resources in the World Economy, published in 1983. The project was first conceived in the aftermath of the resource crisis in the 1970s and concluded in the early 1980s as the Soviet Union sought to increase resource exports to support a failing domestic economy. This paper examines the origins, evolution, and management of this seminal work and presents a re-reading of the book in a contemporary context. We develop some of the key themes of the original project and conclude that it has contemporary relevance, as a reliance upon the resource sector remains a defining characteristic of Russia’s political economy and continues to shape Russia’s role in the global economy. We find that the regional dimension that was so important in the original project remains critical as Russia seeks to extend the resource frontier into new regions in the Arctic and the East and, at the same time, reduce its reliance on European markets – that are both stagnant and hostile – by developing new markets in Asia.     

Western plague literature,the Irish Famine and Anthony Trollope’s Castle Richmond

This article places Castle Richmond, Anthony Trollope’s controversial Irish Famine novel, within the context of Western plague narratives as outlined by recent plague narrative scholars and by René Girard in his seminal 1974 essay “The Plague in Literature and Myth”. By demonstrating Castle Richmond’s conformity to a very particular cluster of attributes found in Western plague literature, this article helps expand our reading of Trollope’s novel, a work that is otherwise often seen as an incoherent failure. This article proposes that Trollope used Western plague discourse to structure and organise his response to Ireland’s Great Hunger. I contend here that we see in his novel’s construction the scaffolding of Judaic, Greco-Roman, Medieval and Renaissance plague narrative traditions, traditions that follow a predictable pattern of transgression, punishment, near social collapse, atonement achieved by expelling or sacrificing a scapegoat or scapegoats, followed by the restoration of an improved social order. This line of reasoning encapsulates Castle Richmond’s overt logical structure. Yet, this article goes on to argue that there are numerous ways in which Trollope undermines the logical “inevitability” and the “divine ordination” of the Famine which his use of Western plague discourse implies.     

What Remains: Repatriating and Entombing a Canadian Unknown Soldier of the Great War in the Nation’s Capital

This article chronicles and contextualizes the creation of a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Canada’s capital. In so doing, it traces the myriad considerations, as well as complexities — political, procedural, and practical — that abounded in bringing this major memorial installation into being, namely the repatriation, from a Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in France, of a Canadian unknown soldier of the Great War and his ceremonial reburial in Ottawa. Moreover, it argues that the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, situated within an existing monumental space, functions, in the coinage of geographer Owen Dwyer, as an allied symbolic accretion to the National War Memorial.     

Grace Mildmay and the painted glass window in the Mildmay chapel at St Leonard’s church,Apethorpe, Northamptonshire

?????The 1621 painted glass window in the Mildmay chapel of St Leonard’s church, Apethorpe, Northamptonshire, belongs to the revival of figurative glass in churches during the first half of the seventeenth century. Its four subjects, the Fall of Adam and Eve, Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection, and the Last Judgement, express orthodox reformed belief in original sin and salvation only through faith in Christ’s saving grace. But the window’s design and unusual iconographic details are atypical of the period. Theme and imagery closely parallel sixteenth-century bible illustrations and both can be understood in relation to the volume of meditations compiled over her lifetime by Grace, Lady Mildmay, who was the patron of the chapel. The paper argues for her close involvement in the evolution of the imagery; the window can be seen as a visual equivalent of her meditations, and expresses her preoccupation with sinfulness, redemption, resurrection, and the afterlife.     

Cerebral Automatism,the Brain,and the Soul in Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Neither literary critics nor historians of science have acknowledged the extent to which Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) is indebted to late-Victorian neurologists, particularly David Ferrier, John Burdon-Sanderson, Thomas Huxley, and William Carpenter. Stoker came from a family of distinguished Irish physicians and obtained an M.A. in mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin. His personal library contained volumes on physiology, and his composition notes for Dracula include typewritten pages on somnambulism, trance states, and cranial injuries.

Stoker used his knowledge of neurology extensively in Dracula. The automatic behaviors practiced by Dracula and his vampiric minions, such as somnambulism and hypnotic trance states, reflect theories about reflex action postulated by Ferrier and other physiologists. These scientists traced such automatic behaviors to the brain stem and suggested that human behavior was “determined” through the reflex action of the body and brain—a position that threatened to undermine entrenched beliefs in free will and the immortal soul. I suggest that Stoker’s vampire protagonist dramatizes the pervasive late-nineteenth-century fear that human beings are soulless machines motivated solely by physiological factors.     

Saints,Poets, and Rubber Ducks: Crafting the Sacred at St Nectan’s Glen

This article focuses on St Nectan’s Glen, Cornwall, where layers of ritual deposition imply a long history of spiritual significance—an implication that is debunked by a diachronic examination of the site, which reveals a relatively recent, and conscious, crafting of the sacred.     

Drawing,Etching, and Experiment in Christopher Wren’s Figure of the Brain

Abstract

Christopher Wren’s figure of the brain ‘viewed from below’ in Thomas Willis’s Cerebri anatome (1664) set a precedent, not only for subsequent images of the brain, but for scientific illustration. The image is the visual proof of a Baconian experiment conducted by the Oxford dissection team, in which dye was pumped into the carotid arteries of animal and human specimens in order to imitate the natural flow of blood, thereby applying William Harvey’s theory of circulation to the brain. Usually described as engravings, Wren’s images are in fact etchings (produced by the acid process), significant because etching for book illustration was then in its infancy in England. In addition to considering Wren as an experimental etcher, this article frames our understanding of Wren’s contributions to Willis’s project in terms of his virtuosic talents as amateur draughtsman, natural historian, anatomist, and his use of optical and draughting instruments.     

‘A Just and Liberal Landlord’: Manliness,Work, and the Landed Gentleman in the Brontës’ Novels

The Brontës’ many striking depictions of landowners are rife with ambiguities, particularly as these characters are seldom presented at work in their traditional roles as landlord and magistrate. While the Victorian landed gentleman’s status was partially predicated on not having to work for money, both the new Victorian professional ideal and traditional conceptions of paternalist care affected the ways this class was viewed by middle-class commentators at mid-century. In the Brontës’ novels, traditional paternalist responsibilities are fused with aspects of the professional ideal in depictions of reformed landed gentlemen, but even this new, ideal figure is represented as unsatisfactory. In this article, I consider how landowners were written about in contemporary periodicals and how the Brontës engage with these expectations. The Irish tenant and landlord problem, which was covered extensively in the periodical press, shaped Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in a profound way, as the novel serves as an important, but until now overlooked, reworking of Maria Edgeworth’s representations of landowning masculinity in Castle Rackrent (1800). The Brontës repeatedly depict landowners retreating into the domestic sphere, which I argue forms an implicit narrative challenge to this figure’s social authority. This article opens up new ground for the examination of Victorian discourse on professionalization in relation to the Brontës’ works and a consideration of the ways in which this discourse was applied to landowners both in the periodical press and the Victorian novel.     

Stephenson’s Roundhouse in Context: Excavations at the Stratford Locomotive and Carriage Works,London Borough of Newham

This article explores the findings of a developer-funded archaeological investigation undertaken by Pre-Construct Archaeology at the Eastern Counties Railway’s Stratford Works, Angel Lane, London Borough of Newham. The investigations revealed truncated walls and in situ floor surfaces of terraced housing, as well as an early engine house and associated structures, constructed in accord with a design of Robert Stephenson’s. With a construction date of 1840, it represents an early example of a railway roundhouse, the first in London. In Britain, developer-funded archaeological projects have resulted in the preservation by record of several comparable sites prior to their adaptive reuse or demolition in recent years. As well as contextualising the results of the excavation more generally, this article therefore aims to improve the understanding of the evolution and life-history of the Stratford roundhouse and its environs, as well as British railway roundhouses more generally, via a comparative approach, the ultimate aim being to demonstrate that developments within the excavated sections of the Stratford site fit within a broader architectural, archaeological, and historical narrative.     

Politics of presence: women’s safety and respectability at night in Mumbai,India

This article focuses on women’s mobility in urban public space in Mumbai, India while working night shifts in outsourced call centres. The outsourced call centre industry is heralded as the beacon of modernity, and its entry was facilitated under a neoliberal political economy. This industry disproportionately employs women relative to India’s broader Information Technology sector, resulting in high numbers of women commuting at night. The state has reworked safety-centred policies for women working night shifts in call centres, which have been differentially implemented by companies. Expanding on this variegation, I sketch out the nightscape of transportation and mobility around outsourced call centres. This article analyses how women conceive of safety, as well as its interplay with convenience and considerations of respectability while making decisions about navigating urban public space at night. Women working in call centres find themselves in the crosshairs of narratives that demonize them as ‘bad women’ for being out on the street at night, while working in industries that specifically seek women willing to work in night shifts. Their navigation of this paradox exposes contradictions within the neoliberal modernization of Mumbai and the meaning of public safety for women who make this modernization possible through their labour.     

Looking through the mirrors: materiality and intimacy at Domenico Grillo’s mansion in Baroque Madrid

Abstract

In 1662, the Spanish crown granted Genoese banker Domenico Grillo an incredibly generous monopoly contract aiming at reactivating the slave trade to the Spanish colonies in the New World. Yet despite the fundamental role Grillo’s slaving business played in the transformation of the geopolitics of the Atlantic, his fleeting incursion into the field of human traffic has so far received limited historiographical attention. This paradox may result from the little information that, beyond the records of his commercial transactions, colonial archives appear to have retained about the complex personality of this Ligurian financier. Seeking to bypass this frustrating documentary gap, this work draws on alternative historical, genealogical and archaeological approaches in order to explore the social and cultural meaning of the various materialities once populating Domenico Grillo’s intimate lived spaces in Baroque Madrid.