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Basic service security is inadequate for many urban households situated in urban slums in low and middle income countries. Given the local state's slow and inadequate efforts to improve service provision, households and collectively-organized resident groups often resort to employing their own strategies to secure services. This study draws on the experience of the collectively-organized Basti Vikas Manch initiative (hereafter BVM, English: Slum Development Network) in four slums in Hyderabad, India. The broad goal of the BVM is to bring about greater transparency and public participation in local government decision-making regarding basic service provision to slums. Although much of the literature on basic service access inequality describes the complete absence or antagonism of the public sector, it is the slow and uneven pace of public improvements relative to needs that motivates slum residents in Hyderabad to engage local agencies to provide better service access. The dissertation takes the form of an introductory essay and three standalone papers. The introductory essay reviews the mechanisms by which inequalities in basic service access degrade quality of life for low-income urban households, explains why basic service is worse in slums, and traces the historical arc of policy responses to substandard service conditions. Using data from a survey of 752 Hyderabadi slum households, and synthesizing the exit-voice-loyalty and collective action frameworks, Paper 1 models household participation in solitary and collective strategies to improve service security. Paper 2 uses data from structured interviews and program files to document the origins of the BVM, the engagement strategies it employs, and the implications of the BVM for other slum upgrading programs. Paper 3 develops a typology which reorients collective service access strategies identified in disparate literatures with reference to the extent of pressure they exert on the local state to improve service provision. This study argues that strategies to change the choice architecture of the state are the most promising to mediate the oft-cited tension between short-term and long-term service needs.

The ambition of this issue of Portal is to reach across the methodological boundaries of history, politics, literature and geography to apply their complementary perspectives to the study of identity and its relation to space and place, an aim that involves attempting to identify the many different ways the notoriously slippery concepts of identity and geography may intersect.For this issue we have selected articles that cast a fresh perspective on two areas where identity and geography intersect: the construction of identity through the imaginative recreation of place in literature: Mapping Literary Spaces; and the study of the shifting relationships of centre and periphery, exclusion and inclusion in urban settings and geopolitical confrontations: Social and Political Peripheries.Gerard Toal has written that geography is not a noun but a verb: it does not describe what space is but studies what we do with space, imaginatively and politically. The articles in this issue illustrate the exercise of the literary and political imagination and the role of materiality and memory in the creation of geographic representation. They show too a new awareness of the centrality of space in the constitution of identities, and the need for a new geocritical reading of its discourse, as the interrelations of place and community are played out on the many scales of social and political life, from the local to the global. The special issue is organised thus:IntroductionMatthew Graves (Aix-Marseille University) & Liz Rechniewski (Sydney University): "Imagining Geographies, Mapping Identities."I. Mapping Literary Spaces- Isabelle Avila (University of Paris XIII), "Les Cartes de l'Afrique au XIXe siècle et Joseph Conrad : Perceptions d'une Révolution Cartographique."- Daniela Rogobete (University of Craiova), "Global vs Glocal: Dimensions of the post-1981 Indian English Novel."II. Social and Political Peripheries- Elizabeth Rechniewski (Sydney University), "The Perils of Proximity: The Geopolitical Underpinnings of Australian views of New Caledonia in the 19th Century."- Annie Ousset-Krief (Paris III), "Le Yiddishland newyorkais."- Carolyn Stott (Sydney University), "Belleville: Space, Place and Identity."- Esme Cleall (University of Sheffield), "Silencing Deafness: Marginalising Disability in the 19th century."

Background: Sedation in palliative care has received growing attention in recent years; and so have guidelines, position statements, and related literature that provide recommendations for its practice. Yet little is known collectively about the content, scope and methodological quality of these materials. According to research, there are large variations in palliative sedation practice, depending on the definition and methodology used. However, a standardised approach to comparing and contrasting related documents, across countries, associations and governmental bodies is lacking. This paper reports on a protocol designed to enable thorough and systematic comparison of guidelines and guidance documents on palliative sedation. Methods and design. A multidisciplinary and international group of palliative care researchers, identified themes and clinical issues on palliative sedation based on expert consultations and evidence drawn from the EAPC (European Association of Palliative Care) framework for palliative sedation and AGREE II (Appraisal Guideline Research and Evaluation) instrument for guideline assessment. The most relevant themes were selected and built into a comprehensive checklist. This was tested on people working closely with practitioners and patients, for user-friendliness and comprehensibility, and modified where necessary. Next, a systematic search was conducted for guidelines in English, Dutch, Flemish, or Italian. The search was performed in multiple databases (PubMed, CancerLit, CNAHL, Cochrane Library, NHS Evidence and Google Scholar), and via other Internet resources. Hereafter, the final version of the checklist will be used to extract data from selected literature, and the same will be compiled, entered into SPSS, cleaned and analysed systematically for publication. Discussion. We have together developed a comprehensive checklist in a scientifically rigorous manner to allow standardised and systematic comparison. The protocol is applicable to all guidelines on palliative sedation, and the approach will contribute to rigorous and systematic comparison of international guidelines on any challenging topic such as this. Results from the study will provide valuable insights into common core elements and differences between the selected guidelines, and the extent to which recommendations are derived from, or match those in the EAPC framework. The outcomes of the study will be disseminated via peer-reviewed journals and directly to appropriate audiences.

This thesis outlines the Chinese laws, judicial interpretations, scholarly views and government policies relating to contractual formality for land sale contracts in their historical and modern settings. The thesis also employs a comparative methodology to critically evaluate the Statute of Frauds literature in some selected Common Law jurisdictions such as the United States, Australia and England. This investigation includes English legal history, the development of the Statute of Frauds legislation, associated scholarly views and judicial interpretations. These positions and arguments are compared and contrasted with their counterpart in mainland China and other Civil Law jurisdictions such as Germany and Taiwan, including Chinese legal history, the principle of freedom of contract and the Chinese version of Healing Theory.The most important original contribution is the examination and integration of the functions of formality (particularly writing) in both Sino-Civilian (mainland China, Germany and Taiwan) and Anglo-American literature which forms the theoretical framework of the thesis. Formality is also examined against the theory of freedom of contract in mainland China. Additionally, the thesis compares and contrasts the contractual consequences where the statutory writing obligation is not observed, as well as the legal techniques to address oral land sale contracts across the selected Common Law and Civil Law jurisdictions.Arising out of this, the thesis proposes a legal reform measure for mainland China and argues for a clear requirement of writing for real property sale contracts in modern mainland China. The reform recommendation also includes contractual consequence for lack of writing and the legal techniques to address the informal and sale contracts. This reform has legal, political, economic and social significance. The reform increases legal certainty and clarity in land sale contracts, one of the most important dealings in Chinese society, and could be integrated into China's unified Civil Code in the making. The reform also addresses some of the essential issues outlined by the Central Committee of Communist Party of China. Furthermore, the reform underpins the issues relating to the real property industry which constitutes a significant portion of the Chinese national economy.

IntroductionDespite the emerging body of literature on increased vulnerability to HIV among people with disabilities (PWDs), there is a dearth of evidence related to experiences of PWDs who have become HIV‐positive. This priority was identified by a disability advocacy organization in Lusaka, Zambia, where the prevalence of HIV and of disability is each approximately 15%. The purpose of this study was to explore perceptions and experiences of HIV‐related health services for PWDs who are also living with HIV in Lusaka, Zambia.MethodsThis qualitative, interpretive study involved in‐depth, semi‐structured, one‐on‐one interviews with two groups of participants in Lusaka, Zambia: 21 PWDs who had become HIV‐positive, and 11 people working in HIV and/or disability. PWDs had physical, hearing, visual and/or intellectual impairments. Interviews were conducted in English, Nyanja, Bemba or Zambian sign language. Descriptive and thematic analyses were conducted by a multidisciplinary, international research team.ResultsParticipants described their experiences with HIV‐related health services in terms of the challenges they faced. In particular, they encountered three main challenges while seeking care and treatment: (1) disability‐related discrimination heightened when seeking HIV services, (2) communication barriers and related concerns with confidentiality, and (3) movement and mobility challenges related to seeking care and collecting antiretroviral therapy. These experiences were further shaped by participants' profound concerns about poverty and unmet basic needs.DiscussionThis study demonstrates how PWDs who are HIV‐positive have the same HIV care, treatment and support needs as able‐bodied counterparts, but face avoidable barriers to care. Many challenges mirror concerns identified with HIV prevention, suggesting that efforts to promote inclusion and reduce stigma could have widespread benefits.ConclusionsDespite the growing body of literature on increased risk of exposure to HIV among HIV‐negative PWDs, this is the first published study to examine perceptions of testing, treatment and other HIV services for PWDs who have become HIV‐positive. Findings reveal far‐reaching opportunities for improving the quality of care for this population.

Books reviewed in this article:Bulmer‐Thomas, Victor (ed.) (1996), Thirty Years of Latin American Studies in the United Kingdom 1965–1995Peter F. Guardino (1996), Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State Guerrero, 1800–1857William B. Taylor (1996), Magistrates of the Sacred. Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth‐Century MexicoMartin, Cheryl English (1996), Governance and Society in Colonial Mexico: Chihuahua in the Eighteenth CenturyBerman Santana, Déborah (1996), Kicking off the Bootstraps: Environment, Development and Community Power in Puerto RicoDupuy, Alex (1997), Haiti in the New World Order: The Limits of the Democratic RevolutionFarer, Tom (ed) (1996), Beyond Sovereignity: Collectively Defending Democracy in the Americas.Mainwaring, Scott and Soberg Shugart, Matthew (eds) (1997), Presidentialism and Democracy in Latin AmericaAitken, R., Craske, N., Jones G. A. and Stansfield, D. E. (eds)(1996), Dismantling the Mexican State?Mahon, James E. (1996), Mobile Capital and Latin American DevelopmentTokman, Victor E. and Klein E. (eds) (1996), Regulation and the Informal Economy: Micro‐enterprises in Chile, Ecuador and JamaicaZimmerer, Karl S, (1997), Changing Fortune. Biodiversity and Campesino Livelihood in the Peruvian AndesDrake, Paul W. (1996), Labor Movements and Dictatorships: The Southern Cone in Comparative PerspectivePereira, Anthony W. (1997), The End of the PeasantryMacdonald, Laura (1997), Supporting Civil Society: The Political Role of Non‐Governmental Organisations in Central AmericaFox, Jonathan and Aranda, Josefina (1996), Decentralization and Rural Development in Mexico: Community Participation in Oaxaca's Municipal Funds ProgramKeeling, David J. (1996), Buenos Aires: Global Dreams, Local CrisesMcGuirk, Bernard (1997), Latin American Literature: Symptoms, Risks and Strategies of Post‐Structuralist CriticismGoodrich, Diana Sorensen (1996), Facundo and the Construction of Argentine CultureZimmerman, Marc (1995), Literature and Resistance in Guatemala: Textual modes and Cultural Politics from 'El señor Presidente' to Rigoberta MenchúFischer, Edwin F. and Brown, R. McKenna (eds) (1996), Maya Cultural Activism in GuatemalaHershfield, Joanne (1996), Mexican Cinema/ Mexican Woman, 1940–1950Melhuus, Marit and Stølen, Kristi Anne (eds) (1997), Machos, Mistresses, Madonnas. Contesting the Power of Latin American Gender ImageryRadcliffe, Sarah and Westwood, Sally (1996), Remaking the Nation: Place, Identity and Politics in Latin AmericaBerryman, Philip (1996), Religion in the Megacity: Catholic and Protestant Portraits from Latin America

Edmund Tilney dedicated to Queen Elizabeth in I568-a time when she was under considerable pressure to marry-a spirited dialogue concerning appropriate behavior in marriage. In Tilney's conduct book, which was modeled on Erasmus's Conjugium and Castiglione's Courtier, fictional counterparts to such notables as Vives, Erasmus, Heloise, and the queen herself all make an appearance to offer advice on how to nurture the flower of friendship within marriage. Extraordinarily popular for a generation following its first publication, it is available here for the first time in a critical edition that includes a comprehensive essay by Valerie Wayne. In her introduction, Wayne examines the dialogue's competing notions of conjugality within their historical and literary contexts and illustrates the impact of humanism on Protestant and Puritan positions. Since marriage was the most common means by which Renaissance women in Protestant countries could sustain themselves outside their parental home, ideologies of marriage became a primary means by which women were constructed as subjects. Wayne explores the range of ideologies presented in The Flower of Friendship, illuminating the contradictory claims of the humanist position in relation to the conflicts within Elizabethan culture over the queen's resistance to marriage. This edition of a lively debate on marital and sexual conduct in the Renaissance will be welcomed by students and scholars of Renaissance literature, culture, and history, and by others interested in gender issues and the history of marriage

A talk by Anthony Pym in a course in variation in English. - Transcript below: What is diglossia? It's from Greek: di- means two; gloss, the tongue. Two languages. Not to be confused, however, with bilingualism, which is from Latin: bi-, two: lingua, the tongue. Two languages. There is, however, in English social linguistics a systematic difference between the two terms, diglossia and bilingualism. Usually, bilingualism is the capacity of the individual, of a person, to speak one, two, or three—more than one—language, let's say: bilingualism, okay? You could call them polyglots, that's a nice term for describing people, and French and French-inspired social linguistics talks about plurilingualism for the capacity of the individual. Now, diglossia is something quite different. Diglossia is a social situation; it's not concerning individuals, it concerns a society in which there are two languages related in such a way that they have different social functions. Okay? That's diglossia: a social situation; bilingualism, plurilingualism is concerned with the capacities of the individual. Now, a standard definition of diglossia—this is [Charles] Ferguson, 1959—oh, it's long and complicated, but anyway, diglossia is a relatively stable language situation. And that's important; it's not a transitory thing, it's not a bad thing, it's something that we observe occurring over centuries in many parts of the world. So, a situation in which, in addition to the primary dialects of the language, there is a very divergent, highly codified (often grammatically more complex) superposed variety. So we have these two kinds of varieties happening within the same language; one would be spoken—the dialects, etc.—and the other would be learned, standardized, the language of literature. Then he goes on of written literature either of an earlier period or in another speech community, which is learned largely by formal education—so you get to this other one by going to school—and is used for written and formal spoken purposes but is not used by any section of the community for ordinary conversation. So it's easier to understand if you go to Zurich, for example, where you've got people speaking Swiss German in the street and on television, on local television, and then going and studying in standard German and learning to write standard German, and they wouldn't write down their spoken language. These two varieties of the language with different social functions, and they are highly separate. Another classic example would be Arabic in Morocco, where we do have classical Arabic for religious functions, certainly for the King, and then spoken Moroccan Arabic in the street, although Moroccan Arabic does get into the press in that case, okay, So those are cases where the one language has varieties with different social functions. The functions are traditionally called H and L in English. H stands for high, but you don't say high; H stands for the written, official social functions. L stands for the spoken, non-official, vernacular social functions; low, okay. We try to avoid high and low because that was Charles Darwin's mistake, when he talked about the higher species, that led to all sorts of racism and misunderstandings. H and L are there not in the sense of H being superior but of them simply being different. That's why the decision has been made to use H and L as letters rather than as descriptors. Now that's a strict definition of diglossia. There's a more relaxed definition, and that would be when the two varieties in question don't have to belong to the same language, okay? So in parts of the complex society around us here, we find Spanish being used for official functions. Certainly, here, 50 years ago, Spanish would be absolutely the H variety and Catalan would be the L variety. They are different languages—cognate, but different—and yet they would satisfy most non-demanding definitions of diglossia. So that would be the relaxed definition, or the loose definition: the two varieties, two different functions. The varieties don't have to belong to the same language; they can, but they don't have to, okay. I'll point out that now with the standardization of Catalan—so it's become very much the H variety around us here—we find situations where Catalan occupies H functions in official society, certainly Barcelona. Spanish can move to L for many of the immigrant groups and occupy those functions, and then we have another Catalan, which is that of the farmers and the traditional working class, with its many regional varieties, and that's becoming an L as well. So it needn't be just H and L. There can be other languages, or the same language can move into those two positions if, uh, if the society takes on that sort of form. Um, when we— when we use— Catalan linguists don't like the theory of diglossia and the basic reason is this: diglossia sort of accepts asymmetries; it accepts that language is going to have different power relations, and that this is a stable and normal thing. Whereas their fight has long been for Catalan to assume full H functions, and the official language policy in Spain is for all co-official languages to have full H functions. So they want a situation that they call bilingüisme, which is H and H full capacity in everything. Why not? That can happen; there's no law against it. The simple observation in English-language social linguistics is that it needn't happen, that we have long-term stable asymmetries in language functions. So, if you find that you haven't got it, it's not because you're an aberration, it's just because your societies tend to suggest that we can have asymmetric language functions without any disaster befalling anybody. The other thing that, um, that my students will say is that "we don't want our language to have an L function—L means powerless; H means power. Give me power, empower me, make my language big and strong and written and standardized." Which, of course, is what any linguist would do because linguists are the people who do that sort of work. Great work for ourselves, yeah. All right, but be careful. Over history, the languages that die are often those that are in the H position. Look no further than classical Greek or Latin. All the romance languages that we speak had an L function in relation to H-variety Latin. Which one won out over history? The L varieties, not the H. English itself is the result of a diglossic situation where we had Old French in H we had Anglo-Saxon varieties in L. And did H repress L and kill L over time? Quite the opposite. The result, the English that we have is a merger of the two but with a rising influence, I suspect over time, of the L. The L came up and absorbed the H. So it's not true that it's bad, historically, to be in an L position. An L position is close to where the people are and economic activity is and where people vote, after all. In our course we look, of course, at certain things that depend on diglossia. Diglossia is like the basic social situation that sets up the possibility of, for example, a lot of code-switching that we find. And then if you think of the example of Oberwart where, uh, Hungarian and German were in contact we found that the language shift that we saw there was a classic case of what we now know and would call diglossia, where German had the official function, the H functions, Hungarian had the social life, the association with territory over time. And in that particular case, because of the political shift of the village, the H took over and displaced L in that particular situation. There are no fatalities. It's not always bad to be in the L position, and H and L relations in diglossia can continue and be stable for many centuries. That's the lesson, at least, of English social linguistics. You're welcome to find counter-examples.

Diese Arbeit setzt es sich zum Ziel, die besonders von Gerd Althoff verbreitete Theorie von der Bedeutung demonstrativen und ritualisierten Verhaltens im Mittelalter auf ihre Anwendbarkeit für das England Edwards des Bekenners zu überprüfen. Zwar gibt es auf diesem Gebiet bereits reichliche Literatur, doch mit England vor der normannischen Eroberung befasst sich nur ein einzelner Artikel von Julia Barrow. Dieser zeigt, dass demonstratives Verhalten prinzipiell auch schon vor der Eroberung Englands durch Wilhelm den Eroberer und der damit verbundenen Einführung politischer Gepflogenheiten vom Kontinent nach England üblich war. Barrows Schlussfolgerung soll hier nun noch präzisiert und erweitert werden. Der erste Teil dieser Arbeit untersucht daher zunächst das demonstrative Verhalten der politisch Handelnden in England auf Basis der von Althoff und anderen erarbeiteten Erkenntnisse über demonstratives Verhalten im Karolingerreich und seinen Nachfolgern. Dies ermöglicht es uns, den relativen Mangel an zeitgenössischen englischen Quellen in gewissem Maße auszugleichen. So zeigen sich beispielsweise beim Konfliktverlauf einerseits zahlreiche Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen beiden Regionen, andererseits zeigen sich aber auch signifikante Unterschiede. Der zweite Teil der Arbeit befasst sich wiederum mit der Thronfolgefrage während der Herrschaft Edwards des Bekenners. Da dieses Forschungsgebiet das wohl am intensivsten bearbeitete der englischen Mediävistik ist, soll hier versucht werden, durch den kontinentalen Forschungsansatz des demonstrativen Verhaltens neue Erkenntnisse zur Interpretation dieser äußerst umstrittenen Frage beizutragen. Dabei werden wir von der Prämisse ausgehen, dass sowohl ein englischer König in der Wahl seines Nachfolgers, wie auch der englische Adel bei der schlussendlichen Königswahl nach dem Tod des Herrschers, keineswegs völlig frei war. Stattdessen gab es bestimmte Kriterien, die ein Kandidat erfüllen musste, wenn er nach den Erfordernissen der englischen Tradition für die Thronfolge in Frage kommen sollte. Um herauszufinden welche Kriterien das waren, werden zunächst die verschiedenen Thronwechsel in der Zeit von der Herrschaft Alfreds des Großen bis zur Königswahl Edgar Athelings nach dem Tod Harald Godwinsons auf dem Schlachtfeld von Hastings untersucht. Die beiden wichtigsten Kriterien waren die Zugehörigkeit zum Haus Cerdics und der Sohn eines vorangegangenen englischen Königs zu sein. Zwar spielte auch die militärische Befähigung des Kandidaten eine Rolle, allerdings war sie von geringerer Bedeutung als die ersten beiden Kriterien. Dies war der Grund warum zuweilen, wenn die Söhne eines verstorbenen Königs noch minderjährig waren - und nur dann - an ihrer Statt dessen Bruder den Thron bestieg, der ja ebenfalls die beiden oben genannten Kriterien erfüllte. Schließlich soll die Herrschaftszeit Edwards des Bekenners auf Anzeichen dafür untersucht werden, wen er als Nachfolger favorisierte. Dabei erscheint es wenig glaubwürdig, wenn die normannischen Quellen behaupten, Edward habe Wilhelm den Eroberer von Beginn seiner Herrschaft als Nachfolger favorisiert. In den ersten Jahren ruhten seine Hoffnungen zweifellos auf einem eigenen Sohn, den er durch seine Ehe mit Godwins Tochter Edith zu haben hoffte. Als dieser Wunsch durch Ediths Kinderlosigkeit und die fehlgeschlagene Scheidung im Jahr 1052 unerfüllbar geworden war, wurden Missionen nach Kontinentaleuropa entsandt, um nach dem Verbleib der Söhne Edmund Eisenseites zu forschen. Nur einer der beiden hatte überlebt, aber dieser kehrte im Jahr 1057 nach England zurück. Wenn nun Edward einen Sohn eines früheren Königs Englands aus dem Haus Cerdics, und zwar den einzigen, der noch lebte, zurück in sein Reich holen ließ, so kann er nur eines damit beabsichtigt haben: er wollte ihn zu seinem Nachfolger machen. Edward der Verbannte starb fast unmittelbar nach seiner Rückkehr nach England, doch sein Sohn überlebte. Und uns ist ein Eintrag im Liber Vitae des New Minster in Winchester aus dem Jahr 1057 überliefert, der Edward den Bekenner, Edith und Edgar Atheling, den Sohn Edwards des Verbannten, als zusammengehörige Gruppe zeigt. Dieser ist ein eindeutiges Beispiel für demonstratives Verhalten, für eine Demonstration Edwards, wer sein Nachfolger sein sollte. Er ist deshalb von so großer Bedeutung, weil es sich bei diesem Eintrag nicht um Propaganda eines Thronfolgekandidaten für sich selbst handelt, sondern um Propaganda des Erblassers zu Gunsten eines, nämlich seines favorisierten, Kandidaten. Dies würde auch erklären, warum Edward der Bekenner kurz vor seinem Tod Harald Godwinson zum Regenten ernennen sollte. Harald hatte die Position des Regenten de facto schon während des letzten Jahrzehnts von Edwards Herrschaft mit großem Erfolg und unfehlbarer Zuverlässigkeit ausgefüllt. Es ist daher nicht vermessen anzunehmen, dass Edward ihm genau dieselbe Position auch unter der Herrschaft des Kindkönigs Edgar zudachte. ; This dissertation sets out to explore whether the theory of the importance of demonstrative and ritualised behaviour in the Middle Ages, championed by Gerd Althoff, is applicable to England during the reign of Edward the Confessor, from around 1042 to 1066. It also aims to see what conclusions this allows us regarding the question of succession to the throne during that same time. There is as yet only one article in this field concerning England before the Norman Conquest, written by Julia Barrow. Her article only takes some thirty pages to deal with the two and a half centuries from Alfred the Great to the Norman Conquest, so there is still much left to do. The first part of this dissertation takes a look at the demonstrative behaviour of England's political actors, with the conclusions of Althoff and others on demonstrative behaviour in the Carolingian empire and the realms that succeeded it as a starting point to make up for the relative dearth of contemporary English sources. The high esteem in which negotiations were held is among the most obvious similarities between the two regions. During a conflict, almost incessant negotiations between the two parties were expected. But the same conflicts also reveal significant differences between England and continental Europe. Contrary to the continental custom, English nobles, when in a conflict with the king, actually left England if they were banished. There they would gather mercenary forces with which to attack and devastate the English countryside. These attacks were intended to show the king that a full reinstatement of the banished nobleman and a negotiated end to their conflict was more in the king's interest than to fight it out until the end. The second part of this work aims at reinterpreting the question of succession during the reign of Edward the Confessor. As this particular question is among the most thoroughly explored by English medievalists, we will try to gain some new insights through the continental theory of demonstrative behaviour. In doing so we will assume that neither the king of the English, when choosing his designated heir, nor the English nobles, when electing the new king, were completely free to select whomever they wanted. Any candidate who was to be considered throne-worthy by the English public had to meet certain criteria. In order to find out what those criteria were, we will take a look at the various successions to the throne from the reign of Alfred the Great to the election of Edgar Atheling after Harold Godwinson's death on the battlefield at Senlac. Most importantly, a candidate for the English throne had to be a member of the house of Cerdic and he had to be the son of a former king of the English. This is made obvious on the few occasions when a minor was elected king. A candidate's military ability, while less important than the first two criteria, was of some moment too. That is why, occasionally, the minor son of a deceased king would be passed over in favour of that king's brother. Last, we will probe Edward the Confessor's reign for clues as to whom he preferred as his successor. The Norman sources claim that Edward wanted William the Conqueror to be his heir from the beginning of his reign, but this is highly incredible. Undoubtedly, in the first years of his reign, Edward's hopes rested in a son that he expected to be born from his marriage to Edith, Godwin's daughter. When Edward's attempt at divorcing Edith failed in 1052, his wish had become impossible to fulfil because it had become obvious that Edith would not bear him children. That is why, shortly afterwards, missions were sent to continental Europe to find out the whereabouts of the sons of Edmund Ironside. Only one had survived, but he returned to England in 1057. As Edward had the son of a former king from the house of Cerdic, the only one left anywhere in the world, brought back to his realm, he must have intended him to be his successor. Edward the Exile died almost immediately upon his return, but his son, Edgar Atheling, survived. And the year of Edward's death has left us an entry in the Liber Vitae of New Minster, Winchester that depicts Edward the Confessor, Edith and Edgar Atheling as a group. Such an entry is a demonstrative act, a demonstration by Edward whom he wanted to be his successor. Most importantly, it is not propaganda of a candidate to the throne for himself but of the testator in favour of his preferred candidate. Edgar as Edward's heir to the throne would also explain why the king would appoint Harold Godwinson regent shortly before his death. Edgar would not be able to rule and defend his realm unaided. Harold, on the other hand, had filled the position of regent de facto for the last decade of Edward's reign and he had done so with great success and unfailing loyalty to the king. So it is no stretch of the imagination to think that Edward intended the very same role for him under the rule of the child king Edgar.

With Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola as primary subject, this paper at[1]tempts to understand the construction of sociocultural identities in Nigeria in the wake of independence. Despite the international success of his literary publications, Tutuola was denied access to the most intimate discourses on the development of African literature by his Nigerian elite contemporaries, who emerged from University College, Ibadan, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Having completed only a few years of colonial schooling, Tutuola was differentiated from his elite literary contemporaries in terms of education. Yet if education represented a rather concrete, institutionalized divide between the elite and the everyday Nigerian, this paper will suggest that the resulting epistemological difference served as a more fluid, ideological divide. Both Western epistemology, rooted in Western academic spaces, and African epistemology, preserved from African traditions like proverbs and storytelling, informed the elite and Tutuola's worldviews. The varying degrees to which one epistemology was privileged over the other reinforced the boundary between Tutuola and the elite. Furthermore, educational experiences and sociocultural identities informed the ways in which independent Nigeria was envisioned by both Tutuola and the elite writers. While the elites' discourse on independence reflected their proximity to Nigeria's political elite, Tutuola positioned himself as a distinctly Yoruba writer in the new Nigeria. He envisioned a state in which traditional knowledge remained central to the African identity. Ultimately, his life and work attest to the endurance of indigenous epistemology through years of European colonialism and into independence. 148 Mackenzie Finley During a lecture series at the University of Palermo, Italy, Nigerian novelist Amos Tutuola presented himself, his work, and his Yoruba heritage to an audience of Italian students and professors of English and Anglophone literatures. During his first lecture, the Yoruba elder asked his audience, "Why are we people afraid to go to the burial ground at night?" An audience member ventured a guess: "Perhaps we are afraid to know what we cannot know." Tutuola replied, "But, you remember, we Africans believe that death is not the end of life. We know that when one dies, that is not the end of his life [. . .] So why are all people afraid to go to the burial ground at night? They're afraid to meet the ghosts from the dead" (emphasis in original).1 Amos Tutuola (1920–1997) was recognized globally for his perpetuation of Yoruba folklore tradition via novels and short stories written in unconventional English. His works, especially The Palm-Wine Drinkard (1952) and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1954), were translated into numerous European languages, including Italian. Given the chance to speak directly with an Italian audience at Palermo, Tutuola elaborated on the elements of Yoruba culture that saturated his fiction. His lectures reflected the same sense of purpose that drove his writing. Tutuola explained, "As much as I could [in my novels], I tried my best to bring out for the people to see the secrets of my tribe—I mean, the Yoruba people—and of Nigerian people, and African people as a whole. I'm trying my best to bring out our traditional things for the people to know a little about us, about our beliefs, our character, and so on."2 Tutuola's didactics during the lecture at Palermo reflect his distinct intellectual and cultural commitment to a Yoruba cosmology, one that was not so much learned in his short years of schooling in the colonial education system as it was absorbed from his life of engagement with Yoruba oral tradition. With Tutuola as primary subject, this paper attempts to understand the construction of sociocultural identities in Nigeria in the wake of independence. The educated elite writers, such as Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, who emerged from University College, Ibadan, during the same time period, will serve as a point of comparison. On October 1, 1960, when Nigeria gained independence from Britain, Tutuola occupied an unusual place relative to the university-educated elite, the semi-literate "average man," the international 1 Alassandra di Maio, Tutuola at the University: The Italian Voice of a Yoruba Ancestor, with an Interview with the Author and an Afterword by Claudio Gorlier (Rome: Bulzoni, 2000), 38. The lecture's transcriber utilized graphic devices (italicized and bolded words, brackets denoting pauses and movements) to preserve the dynamic oral experience of the lecture. However, so that the dialogue reads more easily in the context of this paper, I have removed the graphic devices but maintained what the transcriber presented as Tutuola's emphasized words, simply italicizing what was originally in bold. 2 Di Maio, Tutuola at the University, 148. Constructing Identities 149 stage of literary criticism, and the emerging field of African literature. This position helped shape his sense of identity. Despite the success of his literary publications, Tutuola was not allowed to participate in the most intimate dis[1]courses on the development of African literature by his elite contemporaries. In addition to his lack of access to higher education, Tutuola was differentiated from his elite literary contemporaries on epistemological grounds. If education represented a rather concrete, institutionalized divide between the elite and the everyday Nigerian, an epistemological difference served as a more fluid, ideological divide. Both Western epistemology, rooted in Western academic spaces, and African epistemology, preserved from African traditions like proverbs and storytelling, informed the elite and Tutuola's worldviews. The varying degrees to which one epistemology was privileged over the other reinforced the boundary between the elite and Tutuola. This paper draws largely on correspondence, conference reports, and the personal papers of Tutuola and his elite contemporaries housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, as well as on interviews transcribed by the Transcription Centre in London, the periodical Africa Report (1960–1970), and Robert M. Wren and Claudio Gorlier, concentrating on primary sources produced during the years immediately prior to and shortly after Nigerian independence in 1960. Tutuola's ideas generally did not fit into the sociocultural objectives of his elite counterparts. Though they would come in contact with one another via the world of English-language literature, Tutuola usually remained absent from or relegated to the margins of elite discussions on African creative writing. Accordingly, the historical record has less to say about his intellectual ruminations than about those of his elite contemporaries. Nonetheless, his hand-written drafts, interviews, and correspondences with European agents offer a glimpse at the epistemology and sense of identity of an "average" Nigerian in the aftermath of colonialism and independence.

In educational research literature the role of education as a means for social upward mobility is quite well accepted. However, there are examples where education conserves and perpetuates social class. Each year, after the campus placements, one comes across a familiar situation where some students get selected and some others with equal academic achievements get rejected. This event occurs when one has nearly completed one's education. The problem that lies at the root of this observation is that students do not enter school/college with equal cultural, social and economic capital. Teachers with their egalitarian values treat them as equals, making no distinctions among them. They ignore the obvious distinctions among students rather than addressing them, thereby, helping preserve these differences. The school teachers ignore, the college teachers ignore and finally the professional teachers also ignore the differences. Consequently, the differential in the cultural and social capital of students continues. To find out whether education preserves or bridges these differences the author studied the impact of annual family income, level of father's education, level of mother's education, father's profession, mother's profession, area of location of school and the medium of instruction at school on the preparation and performance of students in three different types of engineering colleges. Her sample consisted of 740 students studying in the third year of their 4-year engineering degree course. She compared the performance of students from highest income group with the students from lowest income group, performance of students whose fathers were uneducated with students with professionally educated fathers, students with uneducated mothers and those with professionally educated mothers, students whose fathers were engaged in agriculture with those whose fathers were in profession, students whose mothers were not working and those with mothers in profession, students from rural schools with those from urban schools, and performances of students from English medium schools and students from regional language medium schools through independent sample t-tests and found that though the means of students from high income families, from English medium schools, from schools located in urban areas were higher on all subjects in class ten and class twelve board examinations and higher Semester Grade Point Averages but some differences were not statistically significant. The findings are discussed along with educational implications. The paper is concluded with suggestions for the educators and their renewed responsibilities in the light of findings.

"Far, far away from our areas, somewhere beyond the Mountains of Darkness, on the other side of the Sambatyon River…there lives a nation known as the Red Jews." The Red Jews are best known from classic Yiddish writing, most notably from Mendele's Kitser masoes Binyomin hashlishi (The Brief Travels of Benjamin the Third). This novel, first published in 1878, represents the initial appearance of the Red Jews in modern Yiddish literature. This comical travelogue describes the adventures of Benjamin, who sets off in search of the legendary Red Jews. But who are these Red Jews or, in Yiddish, di royte yidelekh? The term denotes the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, the ten tribes that in biblical times had composed the Northern Kingdom of Israel until they were exiled by the Assyrians in the eighth century BCE. Over time, the myth of their return emerged, and they were said to live in an uncharted location beyond the mysterious Sambatyon River, where they would remain until the Messiah's arrival at the end of time, when they would rejoin the rest of the Jewish people. This article is part of a broader study of the Red Jews in Jewish popular culture from the Middle Ages through modernity. It is partially based on a chapter from my book, Umstrittene Erlöser: Politik, Ideologie und jüdisch-christlicher Messianismus in Deutschland, 1500–1600 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011). Several postdoctoral fellowships have generously supported my research on the Red Jews: a Dr. Meyer-Struckmann-Fellowship of the German Academic Foundation, a Harry Starr Fellowship in Judaica/Alan M. Stroock Fellowship for Advanced Research in Judaica at Harvard University, a research fellowship from the Heinrich Hertz-Foundation, and a YIVO Dina Abramowicz Emerging Scholar Fellowship. I thank the organizers of and participants in the colloquia and conferences where I have presented this material in various forms as well as the editors and anonymous reviewers of AJS Review for their valuable comments and suggestions. I am especially grateful to Jeremy Dauber and Elisheva Carlebach of the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies at Columbia University, where I was a Visiting Scholar in the fall of 2009, for their generous encouragement to write this article. Sue Oren considerably improved my English. The style employed for Romanization of Yiddish follows YIVO's transliteration standards. Unless otherwise noted, translations from the Yiddish, Hebrew, German, and Latin are my own. Quotations from the Bible follow the JPS translation, and those from the Babylonian Talmud are according to the Hebrew-English edition of the Soncino Talmud by Isidore Epstein.

For years, the American judicial system has unfairly punished the American people. These actions have led to serious societal consequences. We have prisons that sentence people to harsh punishment for nonviolent offenses, an overfunded and militarized police force, and racial biases that lead to the tragic killings of black people at the hands of the police that are intended to protect and serve us. This essay looks to diagnose the United States judicial system's woes. More importantly, we take a look at what steps can be taken immediately to begin reversing the negative impact of these issues.

Homeless people today struggle more with addiction than people who have stability in their life. Whether it's due to financial issues, or not having a support system, homeless people struggle to get the help they need for both their addiction and their homelessness. A high number of homeless people report to have started an addiction since being homeless, and they do so to stay alive, in turn people are continuing to stay homeless and many of these people are dying of overdoses or just staying stuck in the situation they are forced to deal with alone. There are some states starting to decriminalize small amounts of drugs which is a big step to seeing these people not as criminals but as people with a mental illness who need help. This is what we need to work towards to make things a little easier for the people stuck in these situations to get them out.

Includes bibliography (p. 331-349). ; Number of sources in the bibliography: 314 ; Thesis (Ph. D.) -- University of Cyprus, Faculty of Humanities, Department of English Studies, April 2015. ; The University of Cyprus Library holds the printed form of the thesis. ; Η υφιστάμενη διδακτορική διατριβή διερευνά τις αναπροσαρμογές των παραδοσιακών ειδών ποίησης και την ενασχόληση με καίρια πολιτικά ζητήματα της εποχής στο έργο της Ελισάβετ Μπάρετ-Μπράουνιγκ. Μέσα από την ανάλυση των βασικότερων έργων της, καταδεικνύεται ότι η ποιήτρια καταφέρνει να εισέλθει στην παροδοσιακά ανδροκρατούμενη λογοτεχνική περιοχή για να επαναπροσδιορίσει τα τυπολογικά στοιχεία του έπους, του σονέτου και του δραματικού μονόλογου οδηγούμενη από την επιθυμία της να ανανεώσει τις ποιητικές φόρμες αλλά και να αναταποκριθεί στις κοινωνικοπολιτικές συνθήκες της εποχής της. Το βασικό επιχείρημα αυτής της διατριβής έχει οδηγήσει στην αποδοχή της ύπαρξης μιας διαδραστικής λογοτεχνικής κοινότητας που απορρίπτει τη διαιώνιση της περιθωριοποίησης των ποιητριών λόγω της υποτιθέμενης τάσης τους προς το συναίσθημα. Αντίθετα, υποστηρίζεται ότι η απόδοση της αρμόζουσας ιστορικής προσοχής στο έργο της Ελισάβετ Μπάρετ-Μπράουνιγκ προϋποθέτει την απάμβλυνση της έντασης ανάμεσα σε αντιθετικά ζεύγη όπως άνδρας/δημόσια ζωή/πολιτικός λόγος και γυναίκα/ιδιωτική ζωή/συναισθηματικός λόγος, αναγνωρίζοντας έτσι τις πολιτικές προεκτάσεις του συναισθηματικού λόγου. Το Ρομαντικό της ιδεώδες για ένα νέο κόσμο αποδεικνύεται να είναι άμεσα συνδεδεμένο με τον επαναπροσδιορισμό της αντίληψης για τον εαυτό σε σχέση με τον άλλο και με τις μετασχηματιστικές δυνάμεις του ποιητή. Αποδεικνύεται ότι η ενασχόλησή της με κοινωνικοπολιτικά ζητήματα και η επιθυμία της να υψώσει μια επιβλητική φωνή στην ανροκρατούμενη λογοτεχνική κοινότητα υπήρξαν νευραλγικής σημασίας για την ποιητική της. Με σκοπό να προβληθεί ο τρόπος με τον οποίο επαναπροσδιορίζει την εμπειρία της γυναίκας συγγραφέως/ποιήτριας στοιχειοθετείται η καυστική κριτική της ενάντια στην κοινωνική ανισότητα, τα συστήματα καταπίεσης καθώς και η αξίωσή της για οικουμενική ειρήνη και εθνικό αυτοπροσδιορισμό. ; This thesis investigates Elizabeth Barrett Browning's revisions of traditional verse forms and her engagement with political debates of her time. Through an analysis of key works, I demonstrate how the poet trespasses traditionally male literary territory and rewrites the map of composition of the epic, the sonnet and the dramatic monologue, arguing that her revisionary impulse was cognate with the desire to address sociocultural contingencies. The main argument of this thesis has led to the acceptance of the existence of a dynamic interactive literary community and opposes the perpetuation of women poets' marginalization on account of their alleged predisposition to the sentimental. On the contrary, I argue that granting the deserved historical attention to the oeuvre of Elizabeth Barrett Browning presupposes the effacement of the tension between gendered antithetical pairs such as male/public/political and female/domestic/sentimental, thus acknowledging the political undercurrents informing the discourse of the sentimental. Her Romantic ideal of a new, transfigured world is shown to arise from her investment in re-calibrating the notion of the self in direct relation to the other and in assigning a transformative power to the function of the poet. Her entanglement with sociopolitical issues and her drive to assert an authoritative voice in the male dominated literary marketplace are shown to have played a seminal role in the shaping of her poetics. I demonstrate her trenchant critique of social inequality, and systems of oppression, as well as her plea for international conviviality and national self-definition showing how she manages to redefine female poetic experience.