scholarly journals Thermometer screens and the geographies of uniformity in nineteenth-century meteorology

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Naylor
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Uniform Pattern ◽  
Stevenson Screen ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Scientific Infrastructure ◽  
Comparability Of Results

By the 1860s a number of thermometer stands, screens and boxes were being used at public observatories and in private settings. The ultimate object of these humble pieces of scientific infrastructure was to protect the thermometers from precipitation and radiation. In response to concerns over the quality of designs and the comparability of results a trial of the various apparatuses was staged at Strathfield Turgiss, Hampshire, in 1868, and subsequent discussions were organized by Britain's Meteorological Society (from 1883 the Royal Meteorological Society). In an attempt to guarantee uniformity of exposure, the Society recommended the adoption of the Stevenson screen, a double-louvred box designed by Thomas Stevenson in 1866. It was promoted as an essential part of the Society's network of second-order and climatological stations across England. Despite the Meteorological Society's aim of overcoming the idiosyncrasies of geography through recourse to a uniform pattern screen, their chosen design ended up embodying a particular geography: the aesthetic and moral codes of the suburban domestic garden.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 157-166
Author(s):  
Patricia Cove
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Production ◽  
Henry James ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Vernon Lee ◽  
Italian Politics ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Italian Unification

The Conclusion focuses on the delicate balance between investment in Italy and disenchantment with the Risorgimento’s outcome in the period following official Italian unification in 1861. Late nineteenth-century writers like Henry James and Vernon Lee step back from Risorgimento politics to depoliticise Italy, returning it to the aesthetic domain; yet, an unsettling quality of resurgence, or risorgimento, lingers in the skeletal Juliana Bordereau of James’s ‘The Aspern Papers’ (1888) and the revived corpse Medea da Carpi of Lee’s ‘Amour Dure’ (1887/1890). George Meredith’s post-unification Vittoria (1866), in particular, points to the conflicts that the creation of an Italian nation-state failed to resolve; these contests, the Risorgimento’s cultural remains, reveal the centrality of loss, dissent and struggle to the Risorgimento’s legacy. However, Italian politics also played an invigorating, energising role for nineteenth-century British literature and culture, enlivening political discourse, cultural production and literary experimentation through its oppositionalist character.

scholarly journals An Academic Edition of a Russian Gothic Novel

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxim Chernyshov
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Black Woman ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Scholarly Work ◽  
Gothic Novel ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries ◽  
Artistic Quality

The book under review is an edition of the novel The Black Woman (1834) by the nineteenth-century Russian writer Nikolai Gretsch, part of the academic series “Literary Monuments”. It was prepared for publication by E. V. Markasova: the edition is supported by an extensive scholarly apparatus, including two supplemental texts from the 1830s, two scholarly articles, notes on the text, a chronicle of Gretsch’s life and work, a bibliography, and a list of illustrations. The reviewer evaluates the scholarly work of Markasova and her colleagues higher than the artistic quality of the novel itself, which suffers from the imperfections characteristic of early experiments in popular fiction. The reviewer believes that the aesthetic context in which Gretsch’s Gothic novel is considered must include not only genre, but also the artistic movements of the epoch, especially Romanticism. The lack of attention to this issue leads to some doubtful and controversial assertions in the notes concerning literary trends in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. At the end of the review, the author comes to the conclusion that academic studies are currently experiencing heightened interest in the mystical and irrational in literature.

Sleep in western culture

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Ekirch
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Sleep Deprivation ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Sleep Onset ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Predominant Form ◽  
Artificial Illumination ◽  
Illness Anxiety

Although a universal necessity, sleep, as the past powerfully indicates, is not a biological constant. Before the Industrial Revolution, sleep in western households differed in a variety of respects from that of today. Arising chiefly from a dearth of artificial illumination, the predominant form of sleep was segmented, consisting of two intervals of roughly 3 hours apiece bridged by up to an hour or so of wakefulness. Notwithstanding steps taken by families to preserve the tranquillity of their slumber, the quality of pre-industrial sleep was poor, owing to illness, anxiety, and environmental vexations. Large portions of the labouring population almost certainly suffered from sleep deprivation. Despite the prevalence of sleep-onset insomnia, awakening in the middle of the night was thought normal. Not until the turn of the nineteenth century and sleep’s consolidation did physicians view segmented sleep as a disorder requiring medication.

The Power of Everyday Aesthetics in World-Making

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuriko Saito
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
Interpersonal Relationships ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Everyday Aesthetics ◽  
The World ◽  
The Aesthetic

This chapter argues for the importance of cultivating aesthetic literacy and vigilance, as well as practicing aesthetic expressions of moral virtues. In light of the considerable power of the aesthetic to affect, sometimes determine, people’s choices, decisions, and actions in daily life, everyday aesthetics discourse has a social responsibility to guide its power toward enriching personal life, facilitating respectful and satisfying interpersonal relationships, creating a civil and humane society, and ensuring the sustainable future. As an aesthetics discourse, its distinct domain unencumbered by these life concerns needs to be protected. At the same time, denying or ignoring the connection with them decontextualizes and marginalizes aesthetics. Aesthetics is an indispensable instrument for assessing and improving the quality of life and the state of the world, and it behooves everyday aesthetics discourse to reclaim its rightful place and to actively engage with the world-making project.

scholarly journals More comprehensively measuring quality of life in life-threatening illness: the McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire – Expanded

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Robin Cohen ◽  
Lara B. Russell ◽  
Anne Leis ◽  
Javad Shahidi ◽  
Pat Porterfield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Model Fit ◽  
Life Questionnaire ◽  
Quality Of Life Questionnaire ◽  
Healthcare Environment ◽  
Life Threatening Illness ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Order Factor

Abstract Background Domains other than those commonly measured (physical, psychological, social, and sometimes existential/spiritual) are important to the quality of life of people with life-threatening illness. The McGill Quality of Life Questionnaire (MQOL) – Revised measures the four common domains. The aim of this study was to create a psychometrically sound instrument, MQOL – Expanded, to comprehensively measure quality of life by adding to MQOL-Revised the domains of cognition, healthcare, environment, (feeling like a) burden, and possibly, finance. Methods Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted on three datasets to ascertain whether seven new items belonged with existing MQOL-Revised domains, whether good model fit was obtained with their addition as five separate domains to MQOL-Revised, and whether a second-order factor representing overall quality of life was present. People with life-threatening illnesses (mainly cancer) or aged > 80 were recruited from 15 healthcare sites in seven Canadian provinces. Settings included: palliative home care and inpatient units; acute care units; oncology outpatient clinics. Results Good model fit was obtained when adding each of the five domains separately to MQOL-Revised and for the nine correlated domains. Fit was acceptable for a second-order factor model. The financial domain was removed because of low importance. The resulting MQOL-Expanded is a 21-item instrument with eight domains (fit of eight correlated domains: Comparative Fit Index = .96; Root Mean Square Error of Approximation = .033). Conclusions MQOL-Expanded builds on MQOL-Revised to more comprehensively measure the quality of life of people with life-threatening illness. Our analyses provide validity evidence for the MQOL-Expanded domain and summary scores; the need for further validation research is discussed. Use of MQOL-Expanded will enable a more holistic understanding of the quality of life of people with a life-threatening illness and the impact of treatments and interventions upon it. It will allow for a better understanding of less commonly assessed but important life domains (cognition, healthcare, environment, feeling like a burden) and their relationship to the more commonly assessed domains (physical, psychological, social, existential/spiritual).

II.—A Plea for the Study of Literature from the æsthetic Standpoint

PMLA ◽  
1891 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-40
Author(s):  
John P. Fruit
Keyword(s):  
Divine Attributes ◽  
External Quality ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Divine Justice ◽  
The Aesthetic

That teacher of literature who has not comprehended the significance of a work of Art, has never been endued with the spirit and power of his high calling. He stands unwittingly in the place of an apostle of “that external quality of bodies which may be shown to be in some sort typical of the Divine attributes.”“Those qualities, or types,” according to Ruskin, “on whose combination is dependent the power of mere material loveliness” are:“Infinity, or the type of Divine Incomprehensibility; Unity, or the type of the Divine Comprehensibility; Repose, or the type of the Divine Permanence; Symmetry, or the type of the Divine Justice; Purity, or the type of the Divine Energy; Moderation, or the type of Government by Law.”

Colonialism and the Decline of the Traditional Metal Industry of the Igbo, Nigeria

Itinerario ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
O.N. Njoku
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Metal Industry ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Agricultural Equipment ◽  
High Level

At the close of the nineteenth century, that is on the eve of colonial rule in Igboland, Igbo metal industry was flourishing. Production had attained a high level in the range and the quality of output. The output included agricultural equipment, traps and guns as well as title insignia and ornaments, mosdy made of copper and brass. The demand for die smiths' products were widespread and seemingly insatiable. To serve the need of dieir widely dispersed customers and patrons, Igbo smiths from Abiriba, Agulu Amokwe, Agulu Umana, Awka, and Nkwere undertook regular tours of parts of soudi-eastern Nigeria and even beyond – up to die Niger-Benue confluence area; past die Edo country to Ondo Yorubaland; and to the Bamenda district of die Cameroons. The superiority of Igbo metalworking led, in some of these places, to the demise of the local industry.

THE ROLE OF URBAN AESTHETICS ON ENHANCING VITALITY OF URBAN SPACES

2021 ◽  
pp. xx-xx
Keyword(s):  
Urban Design ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Urban Setting ◽  
Aesthetic Quality ◽  
Aesthetic Design ◽  
Active Involvement ◽  
The Aesthetic

Several scholars have focused on the different approaches in designing convivial urban spaces, but literary evidence shows that the essence of aesthetic design in public urban spaces, by referring to the main dimensions involved in the shaping of urban vitality, has not been adequately researched. In this regard, this study, by hypothesizing that the quality of urban design leads to a vital urban environment, focuses on urban vitality from the aesthetic point of view. Thus, in using qualitative grounded theory as a main methodological tool and using a systematic review of the related literature as the main induction approach for collecting qualitative data, five main dimensions of urban vitality, which are necessary to attain a correlation with the aesthetic quality of urban design, were conceptualized. The study concludes that the aesthetic design of an urban setting has a direct effect on the active involvement of its users and that this, therefore, has a direct consequence on the level of public urban vitality, manifested. Integrating the complexity theory with the five main dimensions used for assessing urban vitality was suggested as a viable area for further research.

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