It Was So, It Was Not So: The Use of Fairy Tale in the Fiction of Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie

This thesis explores the use made of fairy tales by two contemporary writers, Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie. Its aim is to investigate the ways in which fairy tale has enabled them to formulate and further their political positions. In Carter's case I suggest that the fairy tale has enabled her to explore and revise the roles played by women in society. In Rushdie's case I suggest that the fairy tale has provided a means by which he can investigate issues of cultural identity, and also functions as a tool with which ethnocentric assumptions can be challenged. By focusing upon their work I attempt to identify a specific and dominant strain in the contemporary appropriation of fairy tale that can be summarised briefly here as the use of fairy tale in fiction that aims to make statements in the field of identity politics. I concentrate, in Carter's case, upon The Bloody Chamber, Nights at the Circus and Wise Children. In Rushdie's case I look at the work in which he explores the concept of fairy tale most explicitly, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and then I look in more detail at his use of The Arabian Nights in Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses. By way of conclusion I suggest that they both use fairy tale as a tentative but nonetheless productive means of outlining utopian solutions to social problems

Supporting Supervisors to Support Others:Enabling Social Work Through Emotionally Informed Practice

This paper discusses the design and delivery of a continuing professional development module for experienced social work practitioners with responsibilities for either the development, management or supervision of others – primarily early career social workers (those newly graduated with less than two years’ post qualification experience). The focus of the course was on enhancing the knowledge and skills relevant to developing the practice of others, whilst promoting their emotional wellbeing and emotional awareness, doing so by utilising key elements of emotionally informed practice and strengths-based feedback. Informed by literature spanning emotion and vulnerability in social work to strengths-based feedback and supervision, an emotionally informed approach gives enhanced attention to practitioner histories, emotional challenges and potential wellbeing needs. Within this paper the rationale underpinning the module design is discussed and examples of learning tasks are outlined. It also considers the experiences of those on the course, providing examples of transformative learning stemming from their perspectives on the ‘use of the self’ and ‘self’ within social work practice which, post completion, appeared more integrated. The course was developed and provided by a university in England. <br/

Introduction to Fairy Tales and Fashion

Introduction to the special issu

Doing cold smarter

Cold has been much neglected in the energy debate. Governments are developing strategies and policies to green everything from electricity to transport to heat, but the energy and environmental impacts of cooling have so far been largely ignored. This is a serious oversight, since making things cold is energy intensive and can be highly polluting, and demand for cooling in all its forms is booming worldwide – especially in developing countries. According to one projection, by the end of this century global demand for air conditioning alone could consume the equivalent of half our worldwide electricity generation today – and most of the increase will come in developing markets. The ‘greening’ of cold is clearly an urgent global problem – but it may also offer Britain a massive business opportunity. Cold may have been ignored but is vitally important to many aspects of modern life. An effective cold chain, for example, is essential for tackling problems such as food waste, food security, water conservation and public health. Cooling is also critical for many less obvious but essential functions: data centres couldn’t operate without it, nor for example MRI scanners in medicine or superconductors in power electronics. Cooling also provides modern levels of comfort in hot countries – and can make the difference between some regions being habitable or not. At the same time, vast amounts of cold are wasted – for instance during the regasification of LNG – which could in principle be recycled to satisfy some of this demand and start to reduce the environmental damage caused by cooling. Such a system-level approach – which starts by asking what energy services we need, and what is the least damaging way to provide them, rather than accepting existing practices as a fait accompli – has recently been coined the ‘Cold Economy’. It is clear the Cold Economy could unleash a wide range of innovative clean cold technologies and provide energy resilience, economic growth and environmental benefits, but there is an urgent need to develop a system-level analysis of this problem and the potential solutions to inform both industry and policymakers. The Birmingham Policy Commission: Doing Cold Smarter was convened to start this work

‘The Fairy-Tale Collections of Andrew Lang and Joseph Jacobs: Identity, Nation, Empire.’

An examination of Joseph Jacobs' collections English Fairy Tales and More English Fairy Tales and Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Books that explores the significance of these collections in the context of late nineteenth century ideas about empire and Englishness

The differential expression of the genes encoding glutamine synthetase in developing root modules

Glutamine synthetase (GS) is one of the key enzymes involved in the assimilation of ammonia into organic nitrogen in plants. It is important in legume root nodules where ammonia, produced by the Rhizobium-legume symbiosis, is converted to organic nitrogen before it can be transported to other parts of the plant. In Phaseolus vulgaris three cytosolic and one plastidic GS polypeptide have been identified. One or more of these polypeptides assemble to form distinct octameric GS isoenzymes. GS activity increases significantly in P. vulgaris during nodulation and this is associated with the Increased (or repressed) expression of the three cytosclic polypeptide genes jln-a, gln-β and gln-γ. The temporal and spatial pattern of mRNA and protein distribution of these genes has been investigated using in situ hybridation and immunocytochemistry. An in situ hybridization protocol has been established using photobiotinylated cRNA probes, visualised with alkaline phosphatase, or streptavidin gold with silver enhancement. The fixation, embedding, section pretreatments and hybridization conditions have all been optimized for legume root nodule sections, the mRNA distributions corresponding to the gln-α, gln-β and gln-γ genes within P. vulgaris root-nodule sections indicate that the the assembly of the GS isoenzymes is at least partially controlled by the differential temporal and spatial expression of these genes throughout the nodule tissues during nodulation. These results have been compared with the expression of the β- glucuronidase (GUS) gene fused with the 5' flanking regions of the P. vulgaris GS genes in chimaeric Lotus corniculatus plants. The GUS expression was demonstrated by the optimized in situ hybridization tecniques in conjunction with immunocytoeheinica1 and GUS histochemical localization tecniques. Results indicate the control of GS gene expression is at the transcriptional level and at least partially determined by the 5' flanking regions of these genes

Random amplified polymorphic DNA variation within and among bean landrace mixtures (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) from Tanzania

Genetic characterization of 51 individual pure lines from 13 landraces of three common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) mixtures from the southern highlands of Tanzania was undertaken using random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis. A dendrogram generated by cluster analysis from data derived from fragments amplified by 12 random 10-base primers divided the bean individuals onto two main branches with less than 60% genetic similarity. Branches A and B subdivided into two and four clusters, respectively. Mixture 2, comprising three landraces, was the most uniform, most plants appearing on cluster 4 of branch B. Three of the four landraces of mixture 1 appeared on cluster 3 of branch B while the fourth landrace appeared on major branch A. Mixture 3 showed the greatest genetic variation with components appearing on both major branches. The clear separation of the 13 landraces onto two main branches of the dendrogram together with phenotypic characters, notably variation in bean size, suggests that the two groups might represent two distinct gene pools of P. vulgari