Artykuły w czasopismach na temat „Trail riding – Europe, Western”

Invasive exotic species threaten the biodiversity and function of native ecosystems. Existing models, attempting to predict successful invaders, often emphasize isolated stages of biological invasions and fail to formalize interactions between exotic species and recipient environments. By integrating the native climatic range and biological traits of exotic vascular plants reported inside and outside Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, Canada, we present a model where invasion risk is predicted using the likelihood of establishment and proliferation of exotic species. Exotic vascular plants constituted 11.5% (77/669) of the total vascular flora of Riding Mountain National Park and approximately 14.2% (202/1418) of the flora of Manitoba. Based on their climatic range in Europe, 155 among 174 exotic species absent from the Park, including those found in Manitoba and other natural areas in Canada, were predicted to establish within its boundaries. Among the biological traits of exotic plants, perenniality and vegetative reproduction correctly identified 61% of documented invaders of natural areas in Canada and helped to further define a subset of 40 exotic plants with the highest potential to proliferate within the Park’s natural areas. Among these, 11 are still absent from inside its boundaries and 17 are not yet reported in Manitoba. Our results demonstrate that Riding Mountain National Park and natural areas in western Canada will continue to be impacted by exotic vascular plants. By integrating establishment and proliferation, key stages in the progress of biological invasions, our model offers a synthetic approach to the prediction and management of biological invasions inside natural areas; such integration is critical to the protection of Canada’s endemic biodiversity. Key words: Biological invasions, invasive alien plants, climate-matching model, life history, natural areas, risk assessment

The article analyzes the concept of green routes and the peculiarities of their distribution and development in the countries of Western Europe. The activity of initiators of green ways in Ukraine is explored. The basic principles of the concept of sustainable development are set forth. The main components of the Green Way are described, in particular: the main axis “backbone trail” is marked, the network of various thematic trails and local routes is marked, the tourism product is consistent with the principles of sustainable tourism, there is regional partnership and a route coordinator, local initiatives are aimed at protecting the natural and cultural heritage The specified stages of the creation of the Green Way: Stage I: “Organization”, Stage II: “Visualization”, Stage III: Promotion and Distribution of the Tourist Product, Stage IV: “Support for Local Initiatives”, Stage V: “Creating Infrastructure on the Itinerary”. Three Greenways created in Ukraine are analyzed in detail. The first of them – “Valley of Two Years” was designed in 2016 in Kiev-Svyatoshinsky district of Kiev region. The peculiarity of this Green Way is primarily the activity of local residents. Thanks to their efforts, traditional activitiesnow include fairs, artistic and other events, triathlon and horse riding competitions, cycling routes. The River Irpin, which, despite overregulation, has preserved many features of the “wild” river, is now a venue for rafting. “Honey Circle” – the basis of the way is formed by theHoryn and Sluchabasins , passes along or near the river valleys. That is why the honey circle is the key to hiking in thecountryside – green, ecological, active, sports and other niche activities, as well as health and recreation. “PradavniiVelet – the basis of the route is formed by the valley of the Dniester River (almost 300 km) and its left-hand tributaries the Koropets, Strypa, Dzhurin, Seret, Tupa, Nichlava and Zbruch. The main tourist resources of the region are concentrated in the river valleys. That is why green (including ecological) tourism is the basis of the concept of development of tourism in the Dniester area. A new green way project has been proposed on the territory of the Lviv region, namely in Yavoriv district. Travelling inRoztochya, tourists, besides many nature reserve objects, can explore many architectural and archaeological sites, sacred buildings, and visit theirmuseums and galleries to see their history.

The popularity of off-highway vehicle (OHV) recreation has increased substantially in recent decades in the USA. The purpose of this study is to address the question of whether it might be a viable tourism strategy to position European destinations for such OHV recreationists. This study conducted a national survey of OHV recreationists in the U.S. The key finding is that 68.3 percent of those who have not previously ridden in Europe either strongly agree or somewhat agree that they would like to experience OHV riding in Europe if they had the time and money. Of those who had previously ridden in Europe, 100 percent either strongly agree or somewhat agree that they would like to return to Europe for more riding. Furthermore, this study finds that those with an interest in riding in Europe record an increased importance in the quantity of trail miles / large size of the OHV attraction in comparison to those with little or no interest in riding in Europe. These preliminary findings suggest that future research is warranted to further explore whether it could be worthwhile for European destinations to actively attract this large and growing segment of recreationists.

SUMMARYThe wild ancestor of the present day domestic horse was equus ferus Woddaert which included two distinct sub-species - the tarpan and the taki or the Ptzevalsky horse. The tarpan is the main ancestor of the- Present day domestic type. Its domestication irst started in East Europe in the Neolithic period from where it spread in different directions, moving in successive waves to the Carpathian Basin and Moravia in the west, Caucasus in the southeast and Mesopotamia in the Near East, finally reaching western Europe in the Bronze Age.The early domestic horses were small compared to present day animals, measuring only 137 cm at the withers. They were chiefly used to provide mobile power - either draught or riding. Later, during the Iron Age, the Scythians brought these eastern horses to Austria, Italy and Greece, where they were much in demand for their superior power and size, a result of conscious breeding by the Scythians. In contrast, the horses indigenous to the western half of Europe, represented by the Celtic horse, were smaller and slender. These were later improved by crossing with the eastern Scythian horses. From the Greeks, the eastern horses reached the Romans and contributed to the development of the Roman horse.,

Fifty years ago, South Asian medicines were regarded as ethnomedicines devoid of scientific credibility as they were not verifiable under controlled laboratory conditions. By the 1990s, however, South Asian medicines entered the global health market, specially, Western Europe and North America despite the opposition from scientific lobbies. Ayurveda’s presence in Europe is not comparable to Chinese medicine and is probably fourth or fifth in the scale of importance among other complementary therapies, but it is crucial to note that it entered Europe not riding on Indian migrants or capital investment but as cultural goods promoted by European followers of Indian gurus. In other words, unlike Asian cuisines and garments taken to foreign lands by immigrants, yoga and ayurveda were directly accessed and consumed by the white-middle and upper-middle classes and were paid for privately. Does globalisation of ayurveda mean that it has also become universal? What is the relation between biomedicalisation of ayurveda in India and its spiritualisation in Europe? How is ayurveda transmitted and practiced outside India? What are the issues raised by the globalisation of ayurveda? Based on fieldwork with European practitioners of ayurveda in three European countries, this article intends to address some of these questions by tracing the trajectory of the global ayurveda through the experience of its European practitioners.

Military revolutions are a normal consequence of the central role of military institutions in complex societies. They have everywhere occurred regularly, if infrequently; they are scarcely limited to Western Europe, or even to the modern world. This essay discusses recent writings on two military revolutions in the ancient world, both centered on the military horse: first, its domestication and its role in pulling war chariots; second, the transition from horse driving to horse riding in battle. The chariot revolution of the second millennium BC profoundly reshaped warfare and transformed polities all across Eurasia. The cavalry revolution of the first millennium BC proved equally transformative and far longer lasting. Despite the controversy that has come to surround the concept of military revolution, it may still be fruitfully applied to important aspects of the large-scale historical interactions between societies and their armed forces.

Abstract Tourism development in transition economies is characterized by hazards and incomplete setups. Tourists encounter lacking accommodation standard, full trash bins, insufficient health care and security infrastructure. Hence, tourism development actors in transition economies are often criticized for the incomplete touristic product. In this article we will have a more detailed look on this criticism and analyse the background of this discussion. We follow the criticism and analyse the given institutional constrains that influence tourism development in transition economies. We therefore question, what are the effects of these institutional constrains on tourism development in transition economies. We follow a qualitative approach with a single case study from a cross-border hiking trail in southeast Europe. Our data is based on secondary data, participant observer material and interviews with local actors. We demonstrate that transition economies face institutional voids, while performing well, when it comes to increasing tourism numbers. Therefore, the contribution aims on providing possible explanation on the obvious contradiction of a partly incomplete, but successful tourism product. The authors question the importance of classical quality criteria in case of the specific tourism product and the specific clientele while stressing the dimensions of authenticity, credibility and homogeneity of the given tourism setting.

AbstractDomestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare1. However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling2–4 at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 bc3. Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia5 and Anatolia6, have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 bc, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association7 between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 bc8,9 driving the spread of Indo-European languages10. This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium bc Sintashta culture11,12.

The data presented in this article on horse burials in the Scandinavian burial ground of Birka (Sweden) suggest the existence of trade relations between the population of southeastern Scandinavia of the Viking Age and the western Baltic inhabitants of the Amber Coast. These contacts could be based on the supply of raw amber to the north of Europe. In parallel, Prussian horses were supplied to Scandinavia, equipped with authentic headbands for funeral ceremonies. This part of the Balto-Scandinavian contacts is extremely interesting, first of all, because the cult of the horse and its role in the funeral ceremony, associated with the solar cult of the Ashvin twins, is a specific feature of the spiritual culture of the Baltic population of the entire Eastern Baltic region. The representation of horse burials in the Scandinavian funerary antiquities of the Viking Age suggests the influence of the features of the Baltic spiritual culture on the cult of the northerners of Europe. In truth, the burial of a horse with riding equipment, which accompanied the grave of the leader, is known in Scandinavian legends about pre-Christian times.

Tours and hiking trips were very popular among Galician youth at the end of the 19th century. They were initiated by junior high schools students and university students themselves who wanted to gain experience, knowledge and to spend time in a pleasant way. Such enterprises were supported by the school administration and management of particular secondary school and institutions of higher education, thus acquiring educational and scientific dimension. The length of such trips varied from several days to several weeks. Trips, on foot, sometimes by train, by horse and cart or by means of rafting, included the territory of Galicia, especially mountain trail in the Carpathian Mountains, the territory of the Habsburg Empire, the countries in southern, northern and western Europe. During the travels, the participants could become familiar with geography, history, economy, morals and the traditions of their own and the neighbouring region.

This paper examines the ugly effects of colonial legacies on Caribbean women. It adopts the postcolonial feminist theory and textual analysis method to analyze five selected stories from Stories from Blue Latitudes. These stories are: Alecia McKenzie’s “Firstborn”, Donna Hemans’ “Mother’s Collections”, Michelle Cliff’s “Transactions”, Velma Pollard’s “Smile (God loves you)”, and Sharon Leach’s “Sugar”. This manuscript demonstrates the uniqueness of the experiences of the Caribbean (Third World) woman. It states unapologetically that the harrowing conditions of excruciating poverty, brazen sexual abuse of the girl child, and the matrifocal family unit are deeply rooted in the relations between Europe, America, and the Caribbean Islands. This research submits that it is too pretentious to conclude that the brand of feminism championed by the Western woman is aimed at addressing the global challenges confronting woman. Unlike her European counterpart, the Caribbean woman believes that she has had an uneasy past that continues to trail her social, economic, and political life.

Topicality. Physical education of student youth is an important component of the higher education system of Ukraine. The traditions of the foundation of physical education in domestic universities of the first half of the 19th century have significant scientific and practical potential, therefore they require a more detailed study. The Purpose of the Research is to analyze the development of physical education in universities in the times, when Ukraine was a part of Russian Empire to use valuable historical experience. To solve it, we used a complex of general scientific (analysis, synthesis, generalization) and special-historical (historical-typological, source-scientific, chronological and historical-systemic) Research Methods. Results and Conclusions. In the first half of the 19th century, physical traіning had the status of «secular» exercises and had an entertaining character. With the appearance of the first universities at the state level, the need for physical and aesthetic education of students was confirmed. In addition to the main subjects, drawing, music, dancing, fencing, horse riding were taught as optional courses. The publications talk about the benefits of gymnastics, which at that time meant any physical exercises from sporting activity. Reputable teachers, many of whom received a European education, provided a high level of student training. Thanks to university teachers from the countries of Western Europe, progressive ideas about the benefits of fencing and horse riding for improving health and developing physical, willful and moral qualities of a young person were brought to the territory of Ukraine. The sports movement was born in the country during this period. The first sports clubs appear in large cities, the initiators of its creation mainly were former students of universities. The first impromptu competitions are held. Significant scientific and scientific-applied work is carried out by university teachers with the aim of spreading physical education, hardening children, young people, and the general population, prevention and treatment of various diseases.

SUMMARYMonitoring ammonia (NH3) emission is time consuming and requires specialized measurement equipment. The measurement time can be reduced if there is a close relationship between time and subsequent cumulated NH3 emission values. A statistical analysis was employed to study the relationship between cumulative NH3 emissions over varying time intervals and final NH3 loss after 3 days of measurement. A large number of multi-plot field experiments on NH3 loss after the application of animal and biogas slurries by trail hoses to crops in Northern Germany were carried out from 2007 to 2010. Based on data from 2007, measured using a passive sampler method, a linear empirical model was developed to calculate final cumulated NH3 loss from intermediate cumulated losses. Linear model fitting showed that cumulative NH3 losses after 24 h were significantly correlated with final cumulated NH3 losses, explaining more than 0·98 of its variation. The linear coefficient was 1·34, implying that c. 0·73 of final NH3 loss occurred within the first 24 h. Validation by datasets obtained from another year (2008), two additional measurement methods and another agro-region (marsh area, 2009/10) resulted in a close agreement of model predictions with measured data within the range of model uncertainty and data variation. The results underpin the feasibility of calculating final NH3 losses from cumulative losses during first 24 h after slurry application and can be used to simplify NH3 loss measurement after the application of liquid slurries in multi-plot field experiments. The slope of the linear relationship is only valid for liquid slurries and the environmental conditions of the present study, which are typical for many agro-regions in north-western Europe, and will have to be adapted for different climatic conditions. A time-efficient measurement of emissions from solid organic fertilizers might require a different time span.

Rabies is a neglected but preventable viral zoonosis that poses a substantial threat to public health. In this regard, a global program has been initiated for the elimination of human rabies caused by rabid dogs through the mass vaccination of canine populations. Geographic areas vary greatly towards attainment of this objective. For example, while dog-mediated and wildlife rabies have been largely controlled in major parts of the Americas and Western Europe, the Middle East still grapples with human rabies transmitted by unvaccinated dogs and cats. Rabies prevention and control in the Middle East is quite difficult because the region is transcontinental, encompassing portions of Africa, Asia, and Europe, while consisting of politically, culturally, and economically diverse countries that are often subject to war and unrest. Consequently, one over-riding dilemma is the misinformation or complete lack of rabies surveillance data from this area. This communication is an attempt to provide an overview of rabies in the Middle East, as a cohesive approach for the honing of disease management in each area, based on data compiled from multiple sources. In addition, the related regional transboundary movement of rabies was investigated through phylogenetic studies of available viral gene sequences. Thereafter, the epidemiological status of rabies was assessed for the region. Finally, localities were classified first by the Stepwise Approach towards Rabies Elimination framework and then categorized into four different groups based on management theme: “rabies free”; owned dog and domestic animal vaccination; community dog vaccination; and wildlife vaccination. The classification system proposed herein may serve as a baseline for future efforts. This is especially important due to the severe lack of rabies information available for the Middle East as a whole and a need for a comprehensive program focusing on the entirety of the region in light of renewed international commitment towards canine rabies elimination.

Horses are transported in the United States more than any other livestock species and co-mingle at various events; therefore, they are considered to be at an increased risk for infectious disease transmission. The fragmented movement of horses combined with numerous sites of co-mingling makes tracing the potential spread of a disease outbreak a necessary part of an infection control plan, both locally and nationally. The cross-movement of personnel with horses and the persistence of endemic diseases make biosecurity implementation an ongoing challenge. Although many of the risks for infection are known, there is limited documentation about the usefulness of prospective control measures. The objective of this survey was to determine horse owners’ understanding and knowledge of biosecurity practices for preventing infectious diseases in the United States. Questions covered owner demographic information, including horse use which was divided into 10 categories as follows: Pleasure/Trail Riding, Lessons/School, Western Show, English Show, Breeding, Farm/Ranch, Retired, Racing, Driving and Other. The survey was distributed by sending requests to a list of horse owner organizations, which then sent emails to their members. The email request described the survey and provided a website link to start the survey. A total of 2413 responses were collected. Analysis of the results included cross-tabulation to identify significant differences in biosecurity knowledge and awareness by horse use. Significant differences by horse use were identified for vaccination, biosecurity planning, use of isolation, disease risk, monitoring for diseases, co-mingling of horses, sanitation, medical decision making and health record requirements for horse events. In summary, the results suggest that most owners are not highly concerned about the risk of disease or the use of biosecurity. There are several biosecurity applications and techniques which can be increased and will benefit horse health and welfare. These include reliance on temperature monitoring, isolation of new horses at facilities, risks of horse mingling, entry requirements such as vaccination and health certificates at events, and an emphasis on having biosecurity plans for facilities and events where horses co-mingle. The information from this study will be used to create tools and information that horse owners and veterinarians can use to implement appropriate biosecurity practices for different types of horse uses and events.

The text discusses the techniques of combat use of the spear on horseback by the Sarmathian cavalry reflected in visual sources. The author attempts to interpret the «Sarmatian military iconography» on the base of Western European martial treatises of the XV—XVI centuries and expressed his arguments about the presence or absence of mounted shock combat and a spear’s two-handed grip in the Sarmatian military practices. In conclusion full discussion of the «Sarmatian seat» is based on an a priori statement that the Sarmatians possessed the technique of mounted shock combat. The historical sources do not confirm this thesis. Instea, if we assume that the Sarmatians used the riding horse primarily as means of transport on the battlefield (rather than as a means of radically increasing the power of the blow, as did the knights during shock attack), then various techniques of holding and using a spear, including two-handed grip, look quite possible, especially at low speeds of the horse. But they should not look at the «Sarmatian seat» for anything specifically Sarmatian, their battle tactics were based on the tactical and technical characteristics of the spear as a weapon. To master the military technology of mounted shock combat a range of conditions were required: widespread use of metal armor, specially bred and trained horses, the presence of a saddle of special design and stirrups, as well as specific rider skills, including special landing in this saddle in «long» stirrups, and, most importantly, the appropriate economic base and cultural background on which the horseman who practiced such military technology were able to improve on their experience and to transfer competencies to the next generation of military elites. Such conditions developed as a result of the long evolution of military technology and military culture, relatively late, in the middle of the eleventh century. not everywhere in Europe, but exclusively in the Franco-Norman area and led to the genesis of Western European chivalry. Whereas no nomadic culture, even in the Middle Ages, was able to adapt the technology of mounted shock combat.

The genesis of the European university dates back to the Middle Ages. It was then that the original university models that would be transformed in the subsequent centuries were developed. It seems that we are currently observing yet another stage of this ongoing transformation entailing challenges that result from the progressing, multifaceted process of verifying the model of W. von Humboldt’s classical university. There is a trend indicating that after the common reception of the idea of enterprising university, European universities are now faced with the need to adapt to the reality of knowledge-based economy. Undoubtedly, one of the key aspects related to the direction of said changes revolves around the security of academic financing. There is a growing pressure on universities to become active participants in the process of developing knowledge-based economy. Under these new circumstances, universities seem, on the one hand, predestined to play a significant role in the same, and on the other, faced with the threat of decline resulting from the gradual limitation of access to public financing. They now find themselves at the centre of the financial game of budgetary subsidisation. Public spending in this sphere is strongly affected by the given country’s overall financial standing and the adopted public spending policies. In ageing Europe, politicians cannot afford to ignore the needs of a wide group of voters who are more inclined to support arguments advocating increased financing of e.g. the healthcare system, rather than young people’s education. In this context, it becomes apparent that universities must take active steps towards securing additional financing from the so-called third revenue stream, primarily the private sector. The research financing target of 3% GDP, adopted in the Lisbon and Barcelona Declarations (over 20 years ago), has yet to be achieved in Western Europe, despite intensive reforms implemented to that end. In this context, European universities continue to trail significantly behind their North American counterparts. At the same time, in order to maintain their historically high social standing and prestige, such institutions must not ignore relevant social and economic expectations.

Introduction.The main environmental risks posed by roads are population depletion (deaths on roads) and barrier effects (habitat fragmentation). Barrier effects - animals avoid crossing roads, which leads to a decrease in the size and quality of habitat, optimal population size, reduced ability to find food and partner, increased genetic structuring and local extinction (Forman et al. 2003; Andrews et al. 2015; van der Ree et al. 2015). These risks against the background of other stressors, in particular the presence of invasive species, pollution, pesticide use, climate change, plant and animal diseases, may threaten the survival of populations.This issue is especially relevant for herpetofauna due to their biological characteristics. In particular, reptiles and amphibians move slowly, are too small (for drivers to see), do not avoid roads, and in cold periods roads attract amphibians (thermoregulation) because the coating absorbs and retains heat (Case and Fisher 2001; Jochimsen et al. 2004).The principle of ensuring ecological continuity is to identify priority efforts to mitigate environmental risks for animals and reduce the negative impact of the transport complex as a spatial barrier and source of pollution by introducing a number of technical means (eco-crossings, screens, embankments, landscaping). As it is not possible to change the environmental risks on all roads and for all species at present, it is necessary to identify the most vulnerable species, assess the risks to populations and the need for mitigation based on analysis of road density and traffic intensity.Problem Statement. With the advent of land transport there was a progressive environmental problem - the transformation of landscapes, it first appeared in countries with developed road infrastructure in Western Europe and the United States, and quickly spread around the globe (Ellenberg, et al., 1981; Fetisov, 1999; Zagorodnyuk, 2006, Ilyukh, Khokhlov, 2012). Numerous publications by both foreign and domestic authors are devoted to the study of the impact of transport infrastructure. Special attention of European authors is paid to the study of the phenomenon of fragmentation of natural ecosystems. In Europe, there is a network of experts and institutions of IENE, which is studying the possibility of implementing preventive measures for landscape fragmentation, promotes the development of transport infrastructure in accordance with environmental requirements, by creating a safe, environmentally sustainable European transport infrastructure.The ecological trail of the road network significantly exceeds its length (Vozniuk, 2014). This is due to the effects of, in particular, mortality on the roads of mammals, reptiles, reptiles (Forman et al. 2003), landscape fragmentation (roads divide the area into isolated areas, with low populations (sometimes below the minimum), so such populations lose genetic diversity and may become extinct locally), the loss of habitats of species and a decrease in the level of connectivity. In addition to these obvious effects, noise and vibration pollution are added, which inhibit the ability of reptiles, birds and mammals to detect prey or avoid predators (Forman et al. 2003), disturbed light regime (Rich and Longcore 2006). Roads contribute to the development of soil erosion processes, the spread of invasive and introduced species (300-800 seeds/m2 per year are transported to roadside ecotones by vehicles (Von der Lippe and Kowarik 2007), which contributes to the formation of local pseudo-populations), create obstacles and sources. (Forman et al. 2003).Purpose. Substantiation of the principle of ecological continuity regarding the negative impact of transport infrastructure on natural ecosystems and search for possible ways to minimize and prevent such impact.Materials and methods. The main research methods are the application of theoretical general scientific approaches to study: analysis and synthesis of international and domestic scientific and theoretical works, EU documentation (charters, design requirements), Ukrainian legal framework, literature sources; collection and analysis of statistical data to identify the dangers of the impact of road infrastructure on biodiversity and determine the value of the natural landscape.Results. The result is an analysis of the scientific literature on the negative impact of transport infrastructure on animals, systematization of the main impacts for the preparation of methodological documents for organizations planning and designing transport infrastructure in Ukraine to reduce the negative impact.Conclusions. The principle of ensuring ecological continuity is to minimize the negative consequences for the environment. In particular, by leveling the spatial barrier of the public highway. When laying a road through natural ecosystems, it is necessary to build transitions and passages for animals. In this case, their density and type must correspond to the natural rank of the territory. The construction of crossings for animals should be mandatory for all types of roads that cross ecological corridors. This is especially true for smaller roads, completely devoid of any transitions for animals, noise shields (on such roads are more likely to hit animals). An important point is the need to plan preventive methods at the planning stage of road construction. The analysis of the European experience shows that the negative impact of transport infrastructure on biota can be solved by consolidating the efforts of road transport specialists and specialists in the field of nature protection.Keywords:motor road,wildlife crossing, biodiversity, road infrastructure, ecological continuity

Abstract During summer 2010, exceptional heat and drought in western Russia (WRU) occurred simultaneously with heavy rainfall and flooding in northern Pakistan (NPK). Here, we use the Great Eurasian Drought Atlas (GEDA), a new 1,021 year tree-ring reconstruction of summer soil moisture, to investigate the variability and dynamics of this exceptional spatially concurrent climate extreme over the last millennium. Summer 2010 in the GEDA was the second driest year over WRU and the largest wet–dry contrast between NPK and WRU; it was also the second warmest year over WRU in an independent 1,015 year temperature reconstruction. Soil moisture variability is only weakly correlated between the two regions and 2010 event analogues are rare, occurring in 31 (3.0%) or 52 (5.1%) years in the GEDA, depending on the definition used. Post-1900 is significantly drier in WRU and wetter in NPK compared to previous centuries, increasing the likelihood of concurrent wet NPK–dry WRU extremes, with over 20% of the events in the record occurring in this interval. The dynamics of wet NPK–dry WRU events like 2010 are well captured by two principal components in the GEDA, modes correlated with ridging over northern Europe and western Russia and a pan-hemispheric extratropical wave train pattern similar to that observed in 2010. Our results highlight how high resolution paleoclimate reconstructions can be used to capture some of the most extreme events in the climate system, investigate their physical drivers, and allow us to assess their behavior across longer timescales than available from shorter instrumental records.

Paradise for an orchid collector is a trail that runs through rich orchid habitat. Preferably the trail should decrease in elevation from 3000 to 500 meters over a protracted distance, it should be in a high annual rainfall area with the rain distributed evenly throughout the year, it also should be in a region of extremely high biodiversity and very pronounced local endemism. The adjoining forests, cliffs and embankments would be festooned with the natural epiphytes and terrestrials of the zone. In the Western Hemisphere, prior to the development of roads and highways, such trails from the lowlands to the Andean highlands existed from northwestern Colombia to southern Ecuador and northern Peru and provided the means of communication for people traveling by foot or mule back. Each of those trails might have had more than 1,000 orchid species distributed along their length. Curiously, each trail may have had a very different species’ composition from the next closest trail. The mountains of this region were clothed in mature montane wet forest that appeared to provide very similar conditions from one locality to the next. Yet, careful analysis and comparison of the composition of the orchid flora of several parallel trails reveals a very low commonality of the species. Recent reports suggest that the highest orchid diversity on earth may be in this region. Many collectors visited the zone from the time of Humboldt and Bonpland, C. Mutis, Ruiz & Pavón and Juan Tafalla at the turn of the 18th century. A wave of horticultural collectors were sent out from Europe by the major plant nurseries up through the turn of the 19th century. Most of those collectors were Europe-based and did not remain in the rich regions for prolonged periods of time. Very few actually lived in the orchid-rich regions, partly because those areas were inhospitable climate-wise. By establishing his home near Popayan in southern Colombia, Friederich Carl Lehmann (1850-1903) lived in the midst of those orchid populations, but in quite agreeable climate. He married a local girl, Doña Maria Josefa Mosquera and established a family. He arrived in Colombia about 1876 and collected for about 28 years. That period coincided with the fashion of maintaining large orchid collections by the wealthy of Europe. Lehmann communicated with Professor H.G. Reichenbach f., the leading orchid taxonomist of the time, and after Reichenbach died in 1884, worked with Dr. F. Kraenzlin describing new species of orchids from Colombia and Ecuador. He also sent a large set of his collections to Kew, where many were identified by Robert A. Rolfe. Lehmann travelled by trail and by boat for much of western Colombia and Ecuador, and made a brief plant- collecting trip to Costa Rica and Guatemala. Between 1880 and 1902 he made 7 trips to Ecuador. On those trips he collected live orchids and shipped them to Europe to be sold in the great auction houses such as Hugh Low & Co., Steven’s salesroom and Sanders. The nurseries established the plants and sold them as soon as they flowered at substantial prices. Some were sent home to Popayan where he grew them on to flower. He prepared dry herbarium specimens (collection numbers exceeding 10,000). He also produced paintings of excellent quality of outstanding species. The majority of his paintings have been housed in the orchid herbarium at Kew. Unfortunately, other than for visiting scientists and the staff of Kew, they have not been available to the public. Most have not been published until now. Lehmann’s herbarium specimens were prepared in abundance so that he was able to sell sets to several of the major herbaria of Europe. The orchid specimen collections prepared by Lehmann in the Neotropics over a 25 year period have made a major contribution to the knowledge of the orchids of the region.

The Netflix/BBC eight-part limited true crime series The Serpent (2021) provides a commentary on the impact of the tourist industry in South-East Asia in the 1970s. The series portrays the story of French serial killer Charles Sobhraj (played by Tahar Rahim)—a psychopathic international con artist of Vietnamese-Indian descent—who regularly targeted Western travellers, especially the long-term wanderers of the legendary “Hippie Trail” (or the “Overland”), running between eastern Europe and Asia. The series, which was filmed on location in Thailand—in Bangkok and the Thai town of Hua Hin—is set in a range of travel destinations along the route of the Hippie Trail, as the narrative follows the many crimes of Sobhraj. Cities such as Kathmandu, Goa, Varanasi, Hong Kong, and Kabul are featured on the show. The series is loosely based upon Australian writers Richard Neville and Julie Clarke’s true crime biography The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj (1979). Another true crime text by Thomas Thompson called Serpentine: Charles Sobhraj’s Reign of Terror from Europe to South Asia (also published in 1979) is a second reference. The show portrays the disappearance and murders of many young victims at the hands of Sobhraj. Certainly, Sobhraj is represented as a monstrous figure, but what about the business of tourism itself? Arguably, in its reflective examination of twentieth-century travel, the series also poses the hedonism of tourism as monstrous. Here, attention is drawn to Western privilege and a neo-orientalist gaze that presented Asia as an exotic playground for its visitors. The television series focuses on Sobhraj, his French-Canadian girlfriend Marie-Andrée Leclerc (played by Jenna Coleman), and the glamourous life they lead in Bangkok. The fashionable couple’s operation presents Sobhraj as a legitimate gem dealer: outwardly, they seem to embody the epitome of fun and glamour, as well as the cross-cultural sophistication of the international jet set. In reality, they drug and then steal from tourists who believe their story. Sobhraj uses stolen passports and cash to travel internationally and acquire more gems. Then, with an accomplice called Ajay Chowdhury (played by Amesh Adireweera), Sobhraj murders his victims if he thinks they could expose his fraud. Often depicted as humourless and seething with anger, the Sobhraj of the series often wears dark aviator sunglasses, a detail that enhances the sense of his impenetrability. One of the first crimes featured in The Serpent is the double-murder of an innocent Dutch couple. The murders lead to an investigation by Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg (played by Billy Howle), wanting to provide closure for the families of the victims. Knippenberg enlists neighbours to go undercover at Sobhraj’s home to collect evidence. This exposes Sobhraj’s crimes, so he flees the country with Marie-Andrée and Ajay. While they were apprehended, Sobhraj would be later given pardon from a prison in India: he would only received a life sentence for murder when he is arrested in Nepal in 2003. His ability to evade punishment—and inability to admit to and atone for his crimes—become features of his monstrosity in the television series. Clearly, Sobhraj is represented as the “serpent” of this drama, a metaphor regularly reinforced both textually and visually across the length of the series. As an example, the opening credit sequence for the series coalesces shots of vintage film in Asia—including hitchhiking backpackers, VW Kombi vans, swimming pools, religious tourist sites, corrupt Asian police forces—against an animated map of central and South-East Asia and the Hippie Trail. The map is encased by the giant, slithering tail of some monstrous, reptilian creature. Situating the geographic context of the narrative, the serpentine monster appears to be rising out of continental Asia itself, figuratively stalking and then entrapping the tourists and travellers who move along its route. So, what of the other readings about the monstrosity of the tourism industry that appears on the show? The Hippie Trail was arguably a site—a serpentine cross-continental thoroughfare—of Western excess. The Hippie Trail emerged as the result of the ease of travel across continental Europe and Asia. It was an extension of a countercultural movement that first emerged in the United States in the mid 1960s. Agnieszka Sobocinska has suggested that the travellers of the Hippie Trail were motivated by “widespread dissatisfaction with the perceived conservatism of Western society and its conventions”, and that it was characterised by “youth, rebellion, self-expression and the performance of personal freedom” (par. 8). The Trail appealed to a particular subcultural group who wanted to differentiate themselves from other travellers. Culturally, the Hippie Trail has become a historical site of enduring fascination, written about in popular histories and Western travel narratives, such as A Season in Heaven: True Tales from the Road to Kathmandu (Tomory 1998), Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India (MacLean 2007), The Hippie Trail: A History (Gemie and Ireland 2017), and The Hippie Trail: After Europe, Turn Left (Kreamer 2019). Despite these positive memoirs, the route also has a reputation for being destructive and even neo-imperialist: it irrevocably altered the politics of these Asian regions, especially as crowds of Western visitors would party at its cities along the way. In The Serpent, while the crimes take place on its route, on face value the Hippie Trail still appears to be romanticised and nostalgically re-imagined, especially as it represents a stark difference from our contemporary world with its heavily-policed international borders. Indeed, the travellers seem even freer from the perspective of 2021, given the show’s production phase and release in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when international travel was halted for many. As Kylie Northover has written in a review for the series in the Sydney Morning Herald, the production design of the programme and the on-location shoot in Thailand is affectionately evocative and nostalgic. Northover suggests that it “successfully evokes a very specific era of travel—the Vietnam War has just ended, the Summer of Love is over and contact with family back home was usually only through the post restante” (13). On the show, there is certainly critique of the tourist industry. For example, one scene demonstrates the “dark side” of the Hippie Trail dream. Firstly, we see a psychedelic-coloured bus of travellers driving through Nepal. The outside of the bus is covered with its planned destinations: “Istanbul. Teheran. Kabul. Delhi”. The Western travellers are young and dressed in peasant clothing and smoking marijuana. Looking over at the Himalayas, one hippie calls the mountains a “Shangri-La”, the fictional utopia of an Eastern mountain paradise. Then, the screen contracts to show old footage of Kathmandu— using the small-screen dimensions of a Super-8 film—which highlights a “hashish centre” with young children working at the front. The child labour is ignored. As the foreign hippie travellers—American and English—move through Kathmandu, they seem self-absorbed and anti-social. Rather than meeting and learning from locals, they just gather at parties with other hippies. By night-time, the series depicts drugged up travellers on heroin or other opiates, disconnected from place and culture as they stare around aimlessly. The negative representation of hippies has been observed in some of the critical reviews about The Serpent. For example, writing about the series for The Guardian, Dorian Lynskey cites Joan Didion’s famous “serpentine” interpretation of the hippie culture in the United States, applying this to the search for meaning on the Hippie Trail: the subculture of expats and travellers in south-east Asia feels rather like Joan Didion’s 60s California, crisscrossed by lost young people trying to find themselves anew in religion, drugs, or simply unfamiliar places. In Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Didion writes of those who “drifted from city to torn city, sloughing off both the past and the future as snakes shed their skins”. (Lynskey) We could apply cultural theories about tourism to a critique of the industry in the series too. Many cultural researchers have critiqued tourists and the tourism industry, as well as the powers that tourists can wield over destination cultures. In Time and Commodity Culture, John Frow has suggested that the logic of tourism is “that of a relentless extension of commodity relations, and the consequent inequalities of power, between centre and periphery, First and Third World, developed and undeveloped regions, metropolis and countryside”, as well as one that has developed from the colonial era (151). Similarly, Derek Gregory’s sensitive analyses of cultural geographies of postcolonial space showed that Nineteenth-century Orientalism is a continuing process within globalised mass tourism (114). The problem of Orientalism as a Western travel ideology is made prominent in The Serpent through Sobhraj’s denouncement of Western tourists, even though there is much irony at play here, as the series itself arguably is presenting its own retro version of Orientalism to Western audiences. Even the choice of Netflix to produce this true crime story—with its two murderers of Asian descent—is arguably a way of reinforcing negative representations about Asian identity. Then, Western characters take on the role of hero and/or central protagonist, especially the character of Knippenberg. One could ask: where is the Netflix show that depicts a positive story about a central character of Vietnamese-Indian descent? Edward Said famously defined Orientalism as “a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on the Orient’s special place in European Western experience” (1). It became a way for Western cultures to interpret and understand the East, and for reducing and homogenising it into a more simplistic package. Orientalism explored discourses that grew to encompass India and the Far East in tandem with the expansion of Western imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It examined a dualistic ideology: a way of looking that divided the globe into two limited types without any room for nuance and diversity. Inclusive and exclusive, Orientalism assumed and promoted an “us and them” binary, privileging a Western gaze as the normative cultural position, while the East was relegated to the ambiguous role of “other”. Orientalism is a field in which stereotypes of the East and West have power: as Said suggests, “the West is the actor, the Orient is a passive reactor… . The West is the spectator, the judge and jury, of every facet of Oriental behaviour” (109). Interestingly, despite the primacy in which Sobhraj is posited as the show’s central monster, he is also the character in the series most critical of the neo-colonial oppression caused by this counter-cultural tourism, which indicates ambiguity and complexity in the representation of monstrosity. Sobhraj appears to have read Said. As he looks scornfully at a stoner hippie woman who has befriended Ajay, he seems to perceive the hippies as drop-outs and drifters, but he also connects them more thoroughly as perpetrators of neo-imperialist processes. Indicating his contempt for the sightseers of the Hippie Trail as they seek enlightenment on their travels, he interrogates his companion Ajay: why do you think these white children deny the comfort and wealth of the life they were given to come to a place like this? Worship the same gods. Wear the same rags. Live in the same filth. Each experience is only then taken home to wear like a piece of fake tribal jewellery. They travel only to acquire. It’s another form of imperialism. And she has just colonised you! Sobhraj’s speech is political but it is also menacing, and he quickly sets upon Ajay and physically punishes him for his tryst with the hippie woman. Yet, ultimately, the main Western tourists of the Hippie Trail are presented positively in The Serpent, especially as many of them are depcited as naïve innocents within the story—hopeful, idealistic and excited to travel—and simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time. In this way, the series still draws upon the conventions of the true crime genre, which is to differentiate clearly between good/evil and right/wrong, and to create an emotional connection to the victims as symbols of virtue. As the crimes and deaths accumulate within the series, Sobhraj’s opinions are deceptive, designed to manipulate those around him (such as Ajay) rather than being drawn from genuine feelings of political angst about the neo-imperialist project of Western tourism. The uncertainty around Sobhraj’s motivation for his crimes remains one of the fascinating aspects of the series. It problematises the way that the monstrosity of this character is constructed within the narrative of the show. The character of Sobhraj frequently engages with these essentialising issues about Orientalism, but he appears to do so with the aim to remove the privilege that comes from a Western gaze. In the series, Sobhraj’s motivations for targeting Western travellers are often insinuated as being due to personal reasons, such as revenge for his treatment as a child in Europe, where he says he was disparaged for being of Asian heritage. For example, as he speaks to one of his drugged French-speaking victims, Sobhraj suggests that when he moved from Vietnam to France as a child, he was subject to violence and poor treatment from others: “a half-caste boy from Saigon. You can imagine how I was bullied”. In this instance, the suffering French man placed in Sobhraj’s power has been promoted as fitting into one of these “us and them” binaries, but in this set-up, there is also a reversal of power relations and Sobhraj has set himself as both the “actor” and the “spectator”. Here, he has reversed the “Orientalist” gaze onto a passive Western man, homogenising a “Western body”, and hence radically destabilising the construct of Orientalism as an ideological force. This is also deeply troubling: it goes on to sustain a problematic and essentialising binary that, no matter which way it faces, aims to denigrate and stereotype a cultural group. In this way, the character of Sobhraj demonstrates that while he is angry at the way that Orientalist ideologies have victimised him in the past, he will continue to perpetrate its basic ideological assumptions as a way of administering justice and seeking personal retribution. Ultimately, perhaps one of the more powerful readings of The Serpent is that it is difficult to move away from the ideological constructs of travel. We could also suggest that same thing for the tourists. In her real-life analysis of the Hippie Trail, Agnieszka Sobocinska has suggested that while it was presented and understood as something profoundly different from older travel tours and expeditions, it could not help but be bound up in the same ideological colonial and imperial impulses that constituted earlier forms of travel: Orientalist images and imperial behaviours were augmented to suit a new generation that liked to think of itself as radically breaking from the past. Ironically, this facilitated the view that ‘alternative’ travel was a statement in anti-colonial politics, even as it perpetuated some of the inequalities inherent to imperialism. This plays out in The Serpent. We see that this supposedly radically different new group – with a relaxed and open-minded identity—is bound within the same old ideological constructs. Part of the problem of the Hippie Trail traveller was a failure to recognise the fundamentally imperialist origins of their understanding of travel. This is the same kind of concern mapped out by Turner and Ash in their analysis of neo-imperial forms of travel called The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery (1976), written and published in the same era as the events of The Serpent. Presciently gauging the effect that mass tourism would have on developing nations, Turner and Ash used the metaphor of “hordes” of tourists taking over various poorer destinations to intend a complete reversal of the stereotype of a horde of barbaric and non-Western hosts. By inferring that tourists are the “hordes” reverses Orientalist conceptions of de-personalised non-Western cultures, and shows the problem that over-tourism and unsustainable visitation can pose to host locations, especially with the acceleration of mass travel in the late Twentieth century. Certainly, the concept of a touristic “horde” is one of the monstrous ideas in travel, and can signify the worst aspects contained within mass tourism. To conclude, it is useful to return to the consideration of what is presented as monstrous in The Serpent. Here, there is the obvious monster in the sinister, impassive figure of serial killer Charles Sobhraj. Julie Clarke, in a new epilogue for The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj (2020), posits that Sobhraj’s actions are monstrous and unchangeable, demonstrating the need to understand impermeable cases of human evil as a part of human society: one of the lessons of this cautionary tale should be an awareness that such ‘inhuman humans’ do live amongst us. Many don’t end up in jail, but rather reach the highest level in the corporate and political spheres. (Neville and Clarke, 2020) Then, there is the exploitational spectre of mass tourism from the Hippie Trail that has had the ability to “invade” and ruin the authenticity and/or sustainability of a particular place or location as it is overrun by the “golden hordes”. Finally, we might consider the Orientalist, imperialist and globalised ideologies of mass tourism as one of the insidious and serpentine forces that entrap the central characters in this television series. This leads to a failure to understand what is really going on as the tourists are deluded by visions of an exotic paradise. References Frow, John. Time and Commodity Culture: Essays on Culture Theory and Postmodernity. Oxford UP, 1997. Gemie, Sharif, and Brian Ireland. The Hippie Trail: A History. Manchester UP, 2017. Gregory, Derek. “Scripting Egypt: Orientalism and the Cultures of Travel.” In Writes of Passage: Reading Travel Writing. Eds. Duncan James and Derek Gregor. Routledge, 1999. 114-150 . Kreamer, Robert. The Hippie Trail: After Europe, Turn Left. Fonthill Media, 2019. Lynskey, Dorian. “The Serpent: A Slow-Burn TV Success That’s More than a Killer Thriller.” The Guardian, 30 Jan. 2021. 1 Oct. 2021 <https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jan/29/the-serpent-more-than-a-killer-thriller-bbc-iplayer>. MacLean, Rory. Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India. Penguin, 2006. Neville, Richard, and Julie Clarke. The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj. Jonathan Cape, 1979. ———. On the Trail of the Serpent: The Life and Crimes of Charles Sobhraj. Revised ed. Vintage, 2020. Northover, Kylie. “The Ice-Cold Conman of the ‘Hippie Trail’.” Sydney Morning Herald, 27 Mar. 2021: 13. Price, Roberta. “Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India.” The Sixties: A Journal of History, Politics and Culture 2.2 (2009): 273-276. Said, Edward. Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient. Penguin, 1995. Sobocinska, Agnieszka. “Following the ‘Hippie Sahibs’: Colonial Cultures of Travel and the Hippie Trail.” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 15.2 (2014). DOI: 10.1353/cch.2014.0024. Thompson, Thomas. Serpentine: Charles Sobhraj’s Reign of Terror from Europe to South Asia. Doubleday, 1979. Tomory, David, ed. A Season in Heaven: True Tales from the Road to Kathmandu. Lonely Planet, 1998. Turner, Louis, and John Ash. The Golden Hordes: International Tourism and the Pleasure Periphery. St Martin’s Press, 1976.

The paper publishes information on the riding gear items (namely, spurs and their fragments, a miniature stirrup, as well as horse teeth) discovered during the archaeological excavations of 2010–2011 and 2013–2014 at the Jurgionys cemetery located in the Aukštadvaris eldership of the Trakai district and dating to the late fourteenth– early fifteenth centuries. The paper aims to introduce the artefacts to the scientific archaeological array establishing their typology and chronology and their place in the context of other finds discovered at Lithuanian medieval inhumation burials. The Jurgionys cemetery of the late fourteenth–early fifteenth century (Aukštadvaris eldership, Trakai district) contained numerous items of riding gear. Burials 2 (Fig. 1) and 16 had one spur in each, whereas burial 11 (Fig. 2) had two spurs. Random finds from disturbed burials picked from the ploughed layer added two more fragments of spurs and a piece of a miniature stirrup. The level of preservation of the spurs varied, some of the finds were highly corroded and surviving only partially. Yet the spurs were typical of Western and Central Europe (although spurs with star-shaped spikes are also found in the lands of the former Grand Duchy of Moscow, there are no close analogues to the ones discovered at the Jurgionys cemetery). Two of the three spur finds came from the burials containing weapons (burial 11 contained an axe and a spearhead and burial 16 contained a sword). The rich array of burial goods found in burial 16 (Fig. 3) implies that the person buried therein enjoyed a high social status. The spur found in burial 16 (Fig. 4) is typologically very similar to the ones discovered at the Palace of the Grand Dukes of the Lower Castle of Vilnius and in London. It goes without saying that typologically similar spurs can also be found elsewhere. One of the randomly found spurs has survived only partially (Fig. 5). The other randomly found spur bears strap holders decorated with a scallop shell ornament (Fig. 6). Such an ornament could be related to the cult of St James the Great which used to be rather widespread in medieval Europe. A miniature stirrup (Fig. 7) is similar to the stirrups of the eastern type found in the territory of modern Ukraine and southern Russia; they are related to the nomadic peoples of the steppe. Materials of the Jurgionys cemetery considerably broaden our knowledge about the riding gear used by medieval Lithuanian horsemen, and horse teeth found in burials 35 and 37 should be perceived as horsemen’s symbols. They are unique finds for the cemetery of the Jurgionys community, which was only barely influenced by Christianity at the time.

Introduction One of the ways in which ‘country’ is made to work discursively is in ‘country music’ – defining a genre and sensibility in music production, marketing and consumption. This article seeks to excavate one small niche in the historical geography of country music to explore exactly how discursive antecedents emerged, and crucially, how images associated with ‘country’ surfaced and travelled internationally via one of the new ‘global’ media of the first half of the twentieth century – sheet music. My central arguments are twofold: first, that alongside aural qualities and lyrical content, the visual elements of sheet music were important and thus far have been under-acknowledged. Sheet music diffused the imagery connecting ‘country’ to music, to particular landscapes, and masculinities. In the literature on country music much emphasis has been placed on film, radio and television (Tichi; Peterson). Yet, sheet music was for several decades the most common way people bought personal copies of songs they liked and intended to play at home on piano, guitar or ukulele. This was particularly the case in Australia – geographically distant, and rarely included in international tours by American country music stars. Sheet music is thus a rich text to reveal the historical contours of ‘country’. My second and related argument is that that the possibilities for the globalising of ‘country’ were first explored in music. The idea of transnational discourses associated with ‘country’ and ‘rurality’ is relatively new (Cloke et al; Gorman-Murray et al; McCarthy), but in music we see early evidence of a globalising discourse of ‘country’ well ahead of the time period usually analysed. Accordingly, my focus is on the sheet music of country songs in Australia in the first half of the twentieth century and on how visual representations hybridised travelling themes to create a new vernacular ‘country’ in Australia. Creating ‘Country’ Music Country music, as its name suggests, is perceived as the music of rural areas, “defined in contrast to metropolitan norms” (Smith 301). However, the ‘naturalness’ of associations between country music and rurality belies a history of urban capitalism and the refinement of deliberate methods of marketing music through associated visual imagery. Early groups wore suits and dressed for urban audiences – but then altered appearances later, on the insistence of urban record companies, to emphasise rurality and cowboy heritage. Post-1950, ‘country’ came to replace ‘folk’ music as a marketing label, as the latter was considered to have too many communistic references (Hemphill 5), and the ethnic mixing of earlier folk styles was conveniently forgotten in the marketing of ‘country’ music as distinct from African American ‘race’ and ‘r and b’ music. Now an industry of its own with multinational headquarters in Nashville, country music is a ‘cash cow’ for entertainment corporations, with lower average production costs, considerable profit margins, and marketing advantages that stem from tropes of working class identity and ‘rural’ honesty (see Lewis; Arango). Another of country music’s associations is with American geography – and an imagined heartland in the colonial frontier of the American West. Slippages between ‘country’ and ‘western’ in music, film and dress enhance this. But historical fictions are masked: ‘purists’ argue that western dress and music have nothing to do with ‘country’ (see truewesternmusic.com), while recognition of the Spanish-Mexican, Native American and Hawaiian origins of ‘cowboy’ mythology is meagre (George-Warren and Freedman). Similarly, the highly international diffusion and adaptation of country music as it rose to prominence in the 1940s is frequently downplayed (Connell and Gibson), as are the destructive elements of colonialism and dispossession of indigenous peoples in frontier America (though Johnny Cash’s 1964 album The Ballads Of The American Indian: Bitter Tears was an exception). Adding to the above is the way ‘country’ operates discursively in music as a means to construct particular masculinities. Again, linked to rural imagery and the American frontier, the dominant masculinity is of rugged men wrestling nature, negotiating hardships and the pressures of family life. Country music valorises ‘heroic masculinities’ (Holt and Thompson), with echoes of earlier cowboy identities reverberating into contemporary performance through dress style, lyrical content and marketing imagery. The men of country music mythology live an isolated existence, working hard to earn an income for dependent families. Their music speaks to the triumph of hard work, honest values (meaning in this context a musical style, and lyrical concerns that are ‘down to earth’, ‘straightforward’ and ‘without pretence’) and physical strength, in spite of neglect from national governments and uncaring urban leaders. Country music has often come to be associated with conservative politics, heteronormativity, and whiteness (Gibson and Davidson), echoing the wider politics of ‘country’ – it is no coincidence, for example, that the slogan for the 2008 Republican National Convention in America was ‘country first’. And yet, throughout its history, country music has also enabled more diverse gender performances to emerge – from those emphasising (or bemoaning) domesticity; assertive femininity; creative negotiation of ‘country’ norms by gay men; and ‘alternative’ culture (captured in the marketing tag, ‘alt.country’); to those acknowledging white male victimhood, criminality (‘the outlaw’), vulnerability and cruelty (see Johnson; McCusker and Pecknold; Saucier). Despite dominant tropes of ‘honesty’, country music is far from transparent, standing for certain values and identities, and yet enabling the construction of diverse and contradictory others. Historical analysis is therefore required to trace the emergence of ‘country’ in music, as it travelled beyond America. A Note on Sheet Music as Media Source Sheet music was one of the main modes of distribution of music from the 1930s through to the 1950s – a formative period in which an eclectic group of otherwise distinct ‘hillbilly’ and ‘folk’ styles moved into a single genre identity, and after which vinyl singles and LP records with picture covers dominated. Sheet music was prevalent in everyday life: beyond radio, a hit song was one that was widely purchased as sheet music, while pianos and sheet music collections (stored in a piece of furniture called a ‘music canterbury’) in family homes were commonplace. Sheet music is in many respects preferable to recorded music as a form of evidence for historical analysis of country music. Picture LP covers did not arrive until the late 1950s (by which time rock and roll had surpassed country music). Until then, 78 rpm shellac discs, the main form of pre-recorded music, featured generic brown paper sleeves from the individual record companies, or city retail stores. Also, while radio was clearly central to the consumption of music in this period, it obviously also lacked the pictorial element that sheet music could provide. Sheet music bridged the music and printing industries – the latter already well-equipped with colour printing, graphic design and marketing tools. Sheet music was often literally crammed with information, providing the researcher with musical notation, lyrics, cover art and embedded advertisements – aural and visual texts combined. These multiple dimensions of sheet music proved useful here, for clues to the context of the music/media industries and geography of distribution (for instance, in addresses for publishers and sheet music retail shops). Moreover, most sheet music of the time used rich, sometimes exaggerated, images to convince passing shoppers to buy songs that they had possibly never heard. As sheet music required caricature rather than detail or historical accuracy, it enabled fantasy without distraction. In terms of representations of ‘country’, then, sheet music is perhaps even more evocative than film or television. Hundreds of sheet music items were collected for this research over several years, through deliberate searching (for instance, in library archives and specialist sheet music stores) and with some serendipity (for instance, when buying second hand sheet music in charity shops or garage sales). The collected material is probably not representative of all music available at the time – it is as much a specialised personal collection as a comprehensive survey. However, at least some material from all the major Australian country music performers of the time were found, and the resulting collection appears to be several times larger than that held currently by the National Library of Australia (from which some entries were sourced). All examples here are of songs written by, or cover art designed for Australian country music performers. For brevity’s sake, the following analysis of the sheet music follows a crudely chronological framework. Country Music in Australia Before ‘Country’ Country music did not ‘arrive’ in Australia from America as a fully-finished genre category; nor was Australia at the time without rural mythology or its own folk music traditions. Associations between Australian national identity, rurality and popular culture were entrenched in a period of intense creativity and renewed national pride in the decades prior to and after Federation in 1901. This period saw an outpouring of art, poetry, music and writing in new nationalist idiom, rooted in ‘the bush’ (though drawing heavily on Celtic expressions), and celebrating themes of mateship, rural adversity and ‘battlers’. By the turn of the twentieth century, such myths, invoked through memory and nostalgia, had already been popularised. Australia had a fully-established system of colonies, capital cities and state governments, and was highly urbanised. Yet the poetry, folk music and art, invariably set in rural locales, looked back to the early 1800s, romanticising bush characters and frontier events. The ‘bush ballad’ was a central and recurring motif, one that commentators have argued was distinctly, and essentially ‘Australian’ (Watson; Smith). Sheet music from this early period reflects the nationalistic, bush-orientated popular culture of the time: iconic Australian fauna and flora are prominent, and Australian folk culture is emphasised as ‘native’ (being the first era of cultural expressions from Australian-born residents). Pioneer life and achievements are celebrated. ‘Along the road to Gundagai’, for instance, was about an iconic Australian country town and depicted sheep droving along rustic trails with overhanging eucalypts. Male figures are either absent, or are depicted in situ as lone drovers in the archetypal ‘shepherd’ image, behind their flocks of sheep (Figure 1). Figure 1: No. 1 Magpie Ballads – The Pioneer (c1900) and Along the road to Gundagai (1923). Further colonial ruralities developed in Australia from the 1910s to 1940s, when agrarian values grew in the promotion of Australian agricultural exports. Australia ‘rode on the sheep’s back’ to industrialisation, and governments promoted rural development and inland migration. It was a period in which rural lifestyles were seen as superior to those in the crowded inner city, and government strategies sought to create a landed proletariat through post-war land settlement and farm allotment schemes. National security was said to rely on populating the inland with those of European descent, developing rural industries, and breeding a healthier and yet compliant population (Dufty), from which armies of war-ready men could be recruited in times of conflict. Popular culture served these national interests, and thus during these decades, when ‘hillbilly’ and other North American music forms were imported, they were transformed, adapted and reworked (as in other places such as Canada – see Lehr). There were definite parallels in the frontier narratives of the United States (Whiteoak), and several local adaptations followed: Tex Morton became Australia’s ‘Yodelling boundary rider’ and Gordon Parsons became ‘Australia’s yodelling bushman’. American songs were re-recorded and performed, and new original songs written with Australian lyrics, titles and themes. Visual imagery in sheet music built upon earlier folk/bush frontier themes to re-cast Australian pastoralism in a more settled, modernist and nationalist aesthetic; farms were places for the production of a robust nation. Where male figures were present on sheet music covers in the early twentieth century, they became more prominent in this period, and wore Akubras (Figure 2). The lyrics to John Ashe’s Growin’ the Golden Fleece (1952) exemplify this mix of Australian frontier imagery, new pastoralist/nationalist rhetoric, and the importation of American cowboy masculinity: Go west and take up sheep, man, North Queensland is the shot But if you don’t get rich, man, you’re sure to get dry rot Oh! Growin’ the golden fleece, battlin’ a-way out west Is bound to break your flamin’ heart, or else expand your chest… We westerners are handy, we can’t afford to crack Not while the whole darn’d country is riding on our back Figure 2: Eric Tutin’s Shearers’ Jamboree (1946). As in America, country music struck a chord because it emerged “at a point in history when the project of the creation and settlement of a new society was underway but had been neither completed nor abandoned” (Dyer 33). Governments pressed on with the colonial project of inland expansion in Australia, despite the theft of indigenous country this entailed, and popular culture such as music became a means to normalise and naturalise the process. Again, mutations of American western imagery, and particular iconic male figures were important, as in Roy Darling’s (1945) Overlander Trail (Figure 3): Wagon wheels are rolling on, and the days seem mighty long Clouds of heat-dust in the air, bawling cattle everywhere They’re on the overlander trail Where only sheer determination will prevail Men of Aussie with a job to do, they’ll stick and drive the cattle through And though they sweat they know they surely must Keep on the trail that winds a-head thro’ heat and dust All sons of Aussie and they will not fail. Sheet music depicted silhouetted men in cowboy hats on horses (either riding solo or in small groups), riding into sunsets or before looming mountain ranges. Music – an important part of popular culture in the 1940s – furthered the colonial project of invading, securing and transforming the Australian interior by normalising its agendas and providing it with heroic male characters, stirring tales and catchy tunes. Figure 3: ‘Roy Darling’s (1945) Overlander Trail and Smoky Dawson’s The Overlander’s Song (1946). ‘Country Music’ Becomes a (Globalised) Genre Further growth in Australian country music followed waves of popularity in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, and was heavily influenced by new cross-media publicity opportunities. Radio shows expanded, and western TV shows such as Bonanza and On the Range fuelled a ‘golden age’. Australian performers such as Slim Dusty and Smokey Dawson rose to fame (see Fitzgerald and Hayward) in an era when rural-urban migration peaked. Sheet music reflected the further diffusion and adoption of American visual imagery: where male figures were present on sheet music covers, they became more prominent than before and wore Stetsons. Some were depicted as chiselled-faced but simple men, with plain clothing and square jaws. Others began to more enthusiastically embrace cowboy looks, with bandana neckerchiefs, rawhide waistcoats, embellished and harnessed tall shaft boots, pipe-edged western shirts with wide collars, smile pockets, snap fasteners and shotgun cuffs, and fringed leather jackets (Figure 4). Landscapes altered further too: cacti replaced eucalypts, and iconic ‘western’ imagery of dusty towns, deserts, mesas and buttes appeared (Figure 5). Any semblance of folk music’s appeal to rustic authenticity was jettisoned in favour of showmanship, as cowboy personas were constructed to maximise cinematic appeal. Figure 4: Al Dexter’s Pistol Packin’ Mama (1943) and Reg Lindsay’s (1954) Country and Western Song Album. Figure 5: Tim McNamara’s Hitching Post (1948) and Smoky Dawson’s Golden West Album (1951). Far from slavish mimicry of American culture, however, hybridisations were common. According to Australian music historian Graeme Smith (300): “Australian place names appear, seeking the same mythological resonance that American localisation evoked: hobos became bagmen […] cowboys become boundary riders.” Thus alongside reproductions of the musical notations of American songs by Lefty Frizzel, Roy Carter and Jimmie Rodgers were songs with localised themes by new Australian stars such as Reg Lindsay and Smoky Dawson: My curlyheaded buckaroo, My home way out back, and On the Murray Valley. On the cover of The square dance by the billabong (Figure 6) – the title of which itself was a conjunction of archetypal ‘country’ images from both America and Australia – a background of eucalypts and windmills frames dancers in classic 1940s western (American) garb. In the case of Tex Morton’s Beautiful Queensland (Figure 7), itself mutated from W. Lee O’Daniel’s Beautiful Texas (c1945), the sheet music instructed those playing the music that the ‘names of other states may be substituted for Queensland’. ‘Country’ music had become an established genre, with normative values, standardised images and themes and yet constituted a stylistic formula with enough polysemy to enable local adaptations and variations. Figure 6: The Square dance by the billabong, Vernon Lisle, 1951. Figure 7: Beautiful Queensland, Tex Morton, c1945 source: http://nla.gov.au/nla.mus-vn1793930. Conclusions In country music images of place and masculinity combine. In music, frontier landscapes are populated by rugged men living ‘on the range’ in neo-colonial attempts to tame the land and convert it to productive uses. This article has considered only one media – sheet music – in only one country (Australia) and in only one time period (1900-1950s). There is much more to say than was possible here about country music, place and gender – particularly recently, since ‘country’ has fragmented into several niches, and marketing of country music via cable television and the internet has ensued (see McCusker and Pecknold). My purpose here has been instead to explore the early origins of ‘country’ mythology in popular culture, through a media source rarely analysed. Images associated with ‘country’ travelled internationally via sheet music, immensely popular in the 1930s and 1940s before the advent of television. The visual elements of sheet music contributed to the popularisation and standardisation of genre expectations and appearances, and yet these too travelled and were adapted and varied in places like Australia which had their own colonial histories and folk music heritages. Evidenced here is how combinations of geographical and gender imagery embraced imported American cowboy imagery and adapted it to local markets and concerns. Australia saw itself as a modern rural utopia with export aspirations and a desire to secure permanence through taming and populating its inland. Sheet music reflected all this. So too, sheet music reveals the historical contours of ‘country’ as a transnational discourse – and the extent to which ‘country’ brought with it a clearly defined set of normative values, a somewhat exaggerated cowboy masculinity, and a remarkable capacity to be moulded to local circumstances. Well before later and more supposedly ‘global’ media such as the internet and television, the humble printed sheet of notated music was steadily shaping ‘country’ imagery, and an emergent international geography of cultural flows. References Arango, Tim. “Cashville USA.” Fortune, Jan 29, 2007. Sept 3, 2008, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/01/22/8397980/index.htm. Cloke, Paul, Marsden, Terry and Mooney, Patrick, eds. Handbook of Rural Studies, London: Sage, 2006. Connell, John and Gibson, Chris. Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place, London: Routledge, 2003. Dufty, Rae. Rethinking the politics of distribution: the geographies and governmentalities of housing assistance in rural New South Wales, Australia, PhD thesis, UNSW, 2008. Dyer, Richard. White: Essays on Race and Culture, London: Routledge, 1997. George-Warren, Holly and Freedman, Michelle. How the West was Worn: a History of Western Wear, New York: Abrams, 2000. Fitzgerald, Jon and Hayward, Phil. “At the confluence: Slim Dusty and Australian country music.” Outback and Urban: Australian Country Music. Ed. Phil Hayward. Gympie: Australian Institute of Country Music Press, 2003. 29-54. Gibson, Chris and Davidson, Deborah. “Tamworth, Australia’s ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rural narratives and resident reactions.” Journal of Rural Studies 20 (2004): 387-404. Gorman-Murray, Andrew, Darian-Smith, Kate and Gibson, Chris. “Scaling the rural: reflections on rural cultural studies.” Australian Humanities Review 45 (2008): in press. Hemphill, Paul. The Nashville Sound: Bright Lights and Country Music, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1970. Holt, Douglas B. and Thompson, Craig J. “Man-of-action heroes: the pursuit of heroic masculinity in everyday consumption.” Journal of Consumer Research 31 (2004). Johnson, Corey W. “‘The first step is the two-step’: hegemonic masculinity and dancing in a country western gay bar.” International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 18 (2004): 445-464. Lehr, John C. “‘Texas (When I die)’: national identity and images of place in Canadian country music broadcasts.” The Canadian Geographer 27 (1983): 361-370. Lewis, George H. “Lap dancer or hillbilly deluxe? The cultural construction of modern country music.” Journal of Popular Culture, 31 (1997): 163-173. McCarthy, James. “Rural geography: globalizing the countryside.” Progress in Human Geography 32 (2008): 132-137. McCusker, Kristine M. and Pecknold, Diane. Eds. A Boy Named Sue: Gender and Country Music. UP of Mississippi, 2004. Peterson, Richard A. Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1997. Saucier, Karen A. “Healers and heartbreakers: images of women and men in country music.” Journal of Popular Culture 20 (1986): 147-166. Smith, Graeme. “Australian country music and the hillbilly yodel.” Popular Music 13 (1994): 297-311. Tichi, Cecelia. Readin’ Country Music. Durham: Duke UP, 1998. truewesternmusic.com “True western music.”, Sept 3, 2008, http://truewesternmusic.com/. Watson, Eric. Country Music in Australia. Sydney: Rodeo Publications, 1984. Whiteoak, John. “Two frontiers: early cowboy music and Australian popular culture.” Outback and Urban: Australian Country Music. Ed. P. Hayward. Gympie: AICMP: 2003. 1-28.

Every continent has its unique beauty, and Europe isn’t an exception. Here you will find a variety of tourist destinations ranging from beaches, beautiful sceneries, cultural and art centers among others. It’s no wonder Europe has always been voted among the best continents to visit. So, if you are planning for a romantic getaway, cultural tour, family vacation, or a getaway with your friends, this content has something to offer and more in what you are looking for. However, with 51 countries and thousands of destinations to discover, narrowing down on a single destination can be overwhelming. We are here to make your decision easier with the following 5 places that will guarantee you a getaway of your lifetime. Tuscany, Italy There is no better way to tour Tuscany than taking a road trip. Plan to land in Florence and start your tour there as it is home to the largest airport. While there, you can visit the Uffizi Gallery and savor the art in the display or enjoy a beautiful view of the city from up the hill at Piazzale Michelangelo. After enjoying the city, start your journey to the countryside stopping at stunning sceneries to enjoy the sites. You can make your first stop in Lucca. Enjoy the breathtaking Piazza d’Anfiteatro and take a stroll along the tops of the city’s fortifying walls. After that, make other stops at Pisa, San Gimignano, Siena, Val d’Orcia, and Montepulciano to enjoy all that these spots have to offer; beautiful sceneries, food and get to taste the local wine before heading back to Florence. While you can move around using public transport, renting a car and driving yourself around offers a more convenient option. To do this, however, you would need to possess an international driver's license, a document that allows you to drive in a foreign city. Make sure you obtain one before leaving for your trip. Madeira, Portugal If you love nature, Madeira in Portugal is one of the best destinations for this. This place is full of flowers, trees, beaches, and unique landscapes that are home to birds and other incredible wildlife. If you are in for some amazing scenery, head to the Valley of the Nuns also known as Camara De Lobos, or to Miradouro das Flores viewpoint to enjoy the cliffs around. The geological formation of Pico de Ana Ferreira will not disappoint either. If you haven’t experienced black sandy beaches, Madeira Island has this to offer. You can head to Praia do Porto do Seixal to savor this and enjoy a swim or to the sea to search for dolphins. Of course, a nature trip wouldn’t be complete without a hike to a nature trail; head to Ribeiro Frio Natural park for some rugged mountains and forest experience. San Sebastian, Spain If you are looking for the best beach experience, this gem along the northern coastline of the Basque Country is your best bet. The famous La Concha Beach offers the best atmosphere to chill out or take a walk. You can also go surfing off Zurriola Beach or take a ferry to Santa Clara Island. Apart from the beaches, San Sebastian is surrounded by green hills and numerous historical and cultural attractions. You can dive into this after you are done enjoying the beach. A visit to the San Vicente Church, the oldest in San Sebastian, a tour around the cobbled streets of the Old Town, or a funicular ride up the top of Monte Igueldo will leave you mesmerized. Paris, France Paris is one of the most romantic cities in the world. If you have been looking for the best destination for your honeymoon, proposal, anniversary or your spouse’s birthday weekend, the City of Love is perfect for a romantic getaway. Sip a glass of champagne from the top of the famous Eiffel Tower overlooking the beautiful views of the city and wait for the dark to see the tower sparkle with numerous gold lights. You can also take a stroll or cycle around the city and linger at romantic spots such as the iron footbridge at the intersection of rue de la Grange aux Belles and Quai de Jemmapes to see the road bridge open to let canal boats through. Explore the city’s art galleries to savor romantic works or go boat riding in Bois de Boulogne and afterward head to Jardin Shakespeare through the woods to see flowers, plants, and trees in Shakespeare plays grow. Rotterdam, Netherlands With diverse cultures, Rotterdam is one of the best destinations for a cultural tour. Start your tour at The Markthal, a huge, horseshoe-shaped building that houses a gigantic food court. You will enjoy different local cuisines as you marvel at some of the largest artworks the planet has to offer. You can then take a stroll through Witte de Withestraat to enjoy contemporary art in galleries located along the street. Head to WORM to enjoy some concerts of the local music or to Kinderdijk, a UNESCO heritage site to witness 300 years old windmills that pump water from swamps. Complete the cultural experience by renting a suite in one of the city’s iconic buildings such as Hotel New York and enjoy beautiful views from there. Conclusion There you have it! Five European destinations that are bound to blow your mind away. You can determine the best time to visit the continent by considering the weather, your budget, and your personal preferences. If you want the best weather for hikes and adventurous activities, the summer that runs from June to August is the best time to visit. However, be prepared to pay more and deal with crowds. The rest of the months can be cheaper since they are off-peak seasons, but you might have to endure unfavorable weather.

The traditional pagan view of human tragedy which existed several centuries back in the ancient Greek religious myths was transposed not only to Western Europe but also to the African context in the literary representation of reality in tragedy. Common religious metaphysics across cultures occasionally occasion common conception of human tragedy across generations of human history, but such cosmological cross-cultural convergence does not take for granted their dynamic perspectives on the role of fate in human tragedy. To be sure, the audiences of each time, view and appreciate tragedy within their unique geo-political and cultural milieu. In this sense, Erich Auerbach’s new historicist reading and post-modern montage of texts and commentaries validly confirms humanity’s representation of reality from their religious and traditional customary dispensations across space and time. Coming into the world in the West African Nigerian Yoruba metaphysical universe, the tragic personage holds his fate in his own hands. The gods and supernatural beings in the invisible realms claim foreknowledge of the fate which the tragic hero brings into the world, yet do not influence the fate-holder in the winding trail of life to the fulfillment of tragic fate. The gods in the mythico-religious worldview of the Yoruba natives permit the fulfilment of prehistoric fate based on the fate-holder’s individuality, as dictated by his carnal nature. This paper therefore posits that tragedy occurs as a product of the constant working of fate in the tragic hero which fulfills itself in a tragic conflict through the hero’s free-will, according to the prophecy of the gods in Ola Rotimi’s The gods are not to blame. This is more so in the Aristotelian concept of catharsis in tragedy due to the interplay between prehistoric fate and historic fate, the latter being the product of the former. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0876/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

IntroductionNordic mythology, also known as Norse mythology, is a term used to describe Medieval creation myths and tales of Gods and otherworldly realms, told and retold by Northern Germanic and Scandinavian tribes of the ninth century AD (see for example Gaiman).I discuss a new type of Nordic mythology that is being created through popular culture, social media, books, and television shows. I am interested in how contemporary portrayals of the Nordic countries has created a kind of mythological place called Scandinavia, where things, people, and ideas are better than in other places.Whereas the old myths portray a fierce warrior race, the new myths create a utopian Scandinavia as a place that is inherently good; a place that is progressive and harmonious. In the creation of these new myths the underbelly of the North is often neglected, producing a homogenised representation of a group of countries that are in actuality diverse and inevitably imperfect.ScandimaniaGenerally the term Scandinavia always refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. When including Finland and Iceland, it is more accurate to refer to the five as the Nordic countries. I was born and grew up in Denmark. My observations are skewed towards a focus on Denmark, rather than Scandinavia as a whole. Though I will use the term Nordic and Scandinavia throughout the article, it is worth noting that these definitions describe a group of countries that despite some commonalities are also quite different in geography, and culture.Whether we are speaking strictly of Scandinavia or of the Nordic countries as a whole, one thing is certain: in recent years there has been a surge of popularity in all things Nordic. Scandinavian design has been popular since the 1950s, known for its functionality and simplistic beauty, and globalised through the Swedish furniture chain IKEA. Consequently, Nordic interior design has become a style widely praised and emulated, as has Nordic fashion, architecture, and innovation.The fact that Scandinavian people are often represented as being intelligent and beautiful adds to the notion of stylish and aesthetically pleasing ideals. This is partly why sperm from Danish sperm donors is the most sought after and widely distributed in the world: perhaps prospective parents find the idea of having a baby of Viking stock appealing (Kale). Nordic countries are also known for their egalitarian societies, which are described as “the holy grail of a healthy economy and society” (Cleary). These are countries where the collective good is cherished. Tax rates are high (in Denmark between 55 per cent and 60 per cent of income), which leads to excellent welfare systems.In recent years other terms have entered the collective Western vocabulary. New Nordic Cuisine describes a trend that has taken the culinary world by storm. This term refers to food that is created with seasonal, local, and foraged ingredients. The emphasis being a renewed connection to nature and old ways. In 2016 the Danish word hygge was shortlisted by the Oxford Dictionary as word of the year. A word, which has no direct English translation, it means “a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture)”. Countless books were published in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere, explaining the art of hygge. Other Scandinavian words are now becoming popular, such as the Swedish lagom, meaning “just enough”.In the past two years, the United Nations’ World Happiness Report listed Denmark and Norway as the happiest places on earth. Other surveys similarly put the Nordic countries on top as the most prosperous places on earth (Anderson).Mythologies and Discursive FormationsThe standard definition of myth is a “traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.” Or “A widely held but false belief or idea” (Oxford Dictionaries, Myth).During what became known as the “discursive turn”, both Barthes and Foucault expanded the conception of myth by placing it within a wider socio-political and historical contexts of power and truth. “Discursive formations” became a commonly accepted way of describing a cluster of ideas, images, and practices that define particular “truths” within a given cultural context (Hall 6). In other words, myths serve specific purposes within given socio-cultural constructions.I argue that the current idolisation of Scandinavia is creating a common global narrative of a superior society. A mythical place that has “figured it out”, and found the key to happiness. The mythologised North is based on an array of media stories, statistics, reports, articles, advertising, political rhetoric, books, films, TV series, exhibitions, and social media activity. These perpetuate a “truth” of the Nordic countries as being especially benign, cultured, and distinguished. The Smiling PolicemanIn his well-known essay Myth Today, Barthes analyses an image of a North African boy in uniform saluting the French flag on the front cover of a magazine. Barthes argues that by analysing the semiotic meaning of the image in two stages, one can identify the “myth”.The first level is the signifiers (what we see), a dark skinned boy, a uniform, a raised arm, a flag. The signified is our recognition of these as a North African boy raising his arm to the French flag. The second level of interpretation is the wider context in which we understand what we see: the greatness of France is signified in the depiction of one of her colonial subjects submitting to and glorifying the flag. That is to say, the myth generated by the image is the story of France as a great colonial and military nation.Now take a look at this image, which was distributed the world over in newspapers, online media, and in turn social media (Warren; Kolff). This image is interesting because it epitomises much of what is believed about Scandinavia (the new myths). If we approach the image through the semiotic lens of Barthes, we firstly describe what is seen in the picture (signifiers): a blonde policeman, a girl of dark complexion, a road in the countryside, a van in the distance, and some other people with backpacks on the side of the road. When we put these elements together in context, we understand that the image to be depicting a Danish policeman, blonde, smiling and handsome, playing with a Syrian refugee girl on an empty Danish highway, with her fellow refugees behind her.The second level of interpretation (the myth) is created by combining the elements into a story: A friendly police officer is playing with a refugee girl, which is unusual because policemen are commonly seen as authoritarian and unfriendly to illegal immigrants. This policeman is smiling. He is happy in his job. He is healthy, good-looking, and compassionate.This fits the image of Scandinavian men as good fathers (they have paternity leave, and often help equally with child rearing). The image confirms that the happiest people on earth would of course also have happy, friendly policemen. The belief that the Scandinavian social model is one to admire would appear to be endorsed.The fact that this is in a rural setting with green landscapes adds further to the notion of Nordic freshness, naturalness, environmentalism, and food that comes from the wild. The fact that the policeman is well-groomed, stylish, well-built, and handsome reinforces the notion that Scandinavia is a place of style and taste, where the good Viking gene pool produces fit and beautiful people.It makes sense that in a place with a focus on togetherness and the common good, refugees are also treated well. Just as the French image of a dark-skinned boy saluting the French flag sent out messages of French superiority, this image sends out messages of inherent Nordic goodness in a time where positive images of the European refugee crisis are few and far between.In a discursive discussion, one asks not only what meanings does this image convey, but why is this image chosen, distributed, shared, tweeted, and promoted over other images? What purpose does its proliferation serve? What is the historical context in which it is popularised? What is the cultural imagination/narrative that is served? In the current often depressing socio-political situation in Europe, people like to know that there is a place where compassion and play exists.Among other news stories of death, despair, and border protection, depictions of an idealised North can help calm anxieties by implying the existence of a place that is free of conflict. Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen writes:The flood of journalistic and popular ethnographic explorations of the Nordic region in the UK is an expression, perhaps, of a search for a lost sense of identity, a nostalgic longing for an imagined past society more in tune with pre-Thatcherite welfarist values, by way of consuming, appropriating and exoticising proximate cultural identities such as the now much hyped Danish or Nordic utopias. (Nordic Noir, 6)In The Almost Nearly Perfect People, British writer Michael Booth wonders: “one thing in particular about this new-found love of all things Scandinavian … which struck me as particularly odd: considering all this positive PR, and with awareness of the so-called Nordic miracle at an all-time high, why wasn’t everyone flocking to live here [in Denmark]?” (7).In actuality not many people in the West are interested in living in the Nordic countries. Rather, as Barbara Goodwin writes: “utopias hold up a mirror to the fears and aspirations of the time in which they were written” (2). In other words, in an age of anxiety, where traditional norms and stabilities are shifting, to believe that there is a place where contemporary societies have found a way of living in happiness and togetherness provides a sense of hope. People are not flocking to live in Scandinavia because it is not in their interests to have their utopian ideals shattered by the reality that, though the North has a lot to offer, it is inevitably not a utopia (Sougaard-Nielsen, The Truth Is).UnderbellyParadoxically, in recent years, Scandinavia has become well known for its “Nordic Noir” crime fiction and television. In the documentary TV series Scandimania, British TV personality Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall travels through Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, exploring the culture, scenery, and food. He finds it curious that Denmark has become so famous for its sombre crime series, such as The Killing and The Bridge, because it seems so far removed from the Denmark he experiences riding around the streets of Copenhagen on his bike.Fearnley-Whittingstall ponders that one has to look hard to find the dark side of Denmark, and that perhaps it does not actually exist at all. This observation points to something essential. Even though millions of viewers worldwide have seen shows such as The Killing, which are known for their dark story lines, bleak urban settings, complex but realistic characters, progressive gender equality, and social commentary, the positive mythologising of Scandinavia remains so strong that it engenders a belief that the underbelly shown in Nordic Noir is perhaps entirely fictional.Stougaard-Nielsen (see also Pitcher, Consuming Race) argues that perhaps the British obsession with Nordic Noir (and this could be applied to other western countries) can be attributed to “a more appropriate white cosmopolitan desire to imagine rooted identities in an age of globalisation steeped in complex identity politics” (Nordic Noir, 8). That is to say that, for a segment of society which feels overwhelmed by contemporary multiculturalism, there may be a pleasure in watching a show that is predominantly populated by white Nordic protagonists, where the homes and people are stylish, and where the Nordic model of welfare and progressive thinking provides a rich identity source for white people as a symbolic point of origin.The watching/reading of Nordic Noir, as well as other preoccupations with all things Nordic, help build upon a mythological sense of whiteness that sets itself apart from our usual notions of race politics, by being an accepted form of longing for the North of bygone ages: a place that is progressive, moral, stylish, and imbued with aspirational ways of living, thinking, and being (Pitcher, Racial Politics).The image of the Danish police officer and the refugee girl fits this ideal of a progressive society where race relations are uncomplicated. The policeman who epitomises the Nordic ideal is in a position of power, but this is an authority which is benevolent. The girl is non-threatening in her otherness, because she is a child and female, and therefore does not fit the culturally dreaded Muslim/terrorist stereotype. In this constellation the two can meet beautifully.The reality, of course, is that the race relations and issues surrounding immigration in Denmark, and in other Nordic countries, are as complicated and often messy and hateful as they are in other countries. In Sweden, as Fearnley-Whittingstall touches upon in Scandimania, there are escalating problems with integration of the many new Swedes and growing inequalities in wealth. In Norway, the underlying race tensions became acutely topical in the aftermath of the 2011 massacre, where right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed 77 people. Denmark has one of the harshest anti-immigration laws in Europe, laws that are continuously being tightened (Boserup); and whenever visiting Denmark I have been surprised to see how much space and time discussions about immigration and integration take up in the news and current affairs.If we contrast the previous image with the image above, taken within a similar timeframe on the same Danish highway, we can see the reality of Danish immigration policies. Here we are exposed to a different story. The scene and the location is the same, but the power dynamics have shifted from benign, peaceful, and playful to aggressive, authoritarian, and conflict ridden. A desperate father carries his daughter, determined to march on towards their destination of Sweden. The policeman is pulling his arm, attempting to detain the refugees so that they cannot go further, the goal being to deport the Syrians back to their previous place of detention, just over the border in Germany (Harticollis). While the previous image reflects the humanity of the refugee crisis, this image reflects the politics, policies, and to a large extent public opinion in Denmark, which is not refugee-friendly. This image, however, was not widely distributed, partly because it feeds into the same depressing narrative of an unsolvable refugee crisis seen so often elsewhere, and partly because it does not fit into the narrative of the infallible North. It could not be tweeted with the hashtag #Humanity, nor shared on Facebook with a smiley face and liked with an emoji heart.Another image from Denmark, in the form of a politically funded billboard, shows that there are deep-seated tendencies within Danish society that want to promote and retain a Denmark which adheres to its traditional values and ethnic whiteness. The image was displayed all over the country, at train stations, bus stops, and other public spaces when I visited in 2016. It was issued by Dansk Folkeparti (the Danish People’s Party); a party which is anti-immigration and which was until recently the country’s second largest party. The title says “Our Denmark”, while the byline cleverly plays with the double meaning of passe på: it can mean “there is so much we need to take care of”, but also “there is so much we need to beware of.” In other words, the white working-class family needs to take care of their Denmark, and beware of anyone who does not fit into this norm. Though hugely contested and criticised (Cremer; see a counter-reaction designed by opponents below), the fact that thinly veiled anti-immigration propaganda can be so readily distributed speaks of an underbelly in Danish society that is not made of the dark murder mysteries in The Killing, but rather of a quietly brewing distain for the foreigner that reigns within stylishly designed living rooms. ConclusionMyths are stories cultures tell and retell until they form a belief system that becomes a natural part of our collective narrative. For Barthes, these stories were intrinsically connected to our understanding of language and our ability to read images, films, artifacts, and popular culture more generally. To later cultural theorists, the notion of discursive formations expands this understanding, to see myth within a broader network of socio-political discourses placed within a certain place and time in history. When connected, small narratives (images, advertising, film, music, news stories, social media sharing, scientific evidence, etc.) come together to form a common narrative (the myth) about how things are and should be in relation to a particular topic. The culminating popularity of numerous Nordic themes (Nordic television/film, interior design, fashion, cuisine, architecture, lifestyle, sustainability, welfare system, school system, gender equality, etc.) has created a grand narrative of the Nordic countries as a type of utopia: one that shows the rest of the world that an egalitarian society of togetherness and progressive innovation is possible. This mythologisation serves to quell anxieties about the flux and uncertainty of contemporary times, and may also serve to legitimise a yearning for a simple, benign, and progressive whiteness, where we imagine Nordic families sitting peacefully at their beechwood dining tables, candles lit, playing board games. This is a projected yearning which is otherwise largely disallowed in today’s multicultural societies.ReferencesAnderson, Elizabeth. “The Most Prosperous Countries in the World, Based on Happiness and Financial Health.” The Telegraph, 2 Nov. 2015. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11966461/The-most-prosperous-countries-in-the-world-based-on-happiness-and-financial-health.html>.Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. London: Vintage, 2000 [1957].———. “Myth Today.” Mythologies. London: Vintage, 2000 [1957].Booth, Michael. The Almost Nearly Perfect People. London: Jonathan Cape, 2014.Boserup, Rasmus Alenius. “Denmark’s Harsh New Immigration Law Will End Badly for Everyone.” Huffington Post. <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/rasmus-alenius-boserup/denmark-immigration-law_b_9112148.html>.Bridge, The. (Danish: Broen.) Created by Hans Rosenfeldt. Sveriges Television and DR, 2013-present.Cleary, Paul. “Norway Is Proof That You Can Have It All.” The Australian, 15 July 2013. <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/norway-is-proof-that-you-can-have-it-all/news-story/3d2895adbace87431410e7b033ec84bf>.Colson, Thomas. “7 Reasons Denmark Is the Happiest Country in the World.” The Independent, 26 Sep. 2016. <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/7-reasons-denmark-is-the-happiest-country-in-the-world-a7331146.html>.Cremer, Justin. “The Strangest Political Story in Denmark Just Got Stranger.” The Local, 19 May 2016. <https://www.thelocal.dk/20160519/strangest-political-story-in-denmark-just-got-stranger>.Dregni, Eric. “Why Is Norway the Happiest Place on Earth?” Star Tribune, 11 June 2017. <http://www.startribune.com/the-height-of-happy/427321393/#1>.Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: The Will to Knowledge. London: Penguin Books, 1998 [1976]. Gaiman, Neil. “Neil Gaiman Retells Classic Norse Mythology.” Conversations. Radio National 30 Mar. 2017.Goodwin, Barbara, ed. The Philosophy of Utopia. London: Frank Cass, 2001.Hall, Stuart, ed. Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage, 1997.Hartocollis, Anemona. “Traveling in Europe’s River of Migrants.” New York Times, 9 Sep. 2015. <https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/migrants/denmark-refugees-migrants>.Helliwell, J., R. Layard, and J. Sachs. World Happiness Report 2017. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2017.Kale, Sirin. “Women Are Now Pillaging Sperm Banks for Viking Babies.” Vice, 2 Oct. 2015. <https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/3dx9nj/women-are-now-pillaging-sperm-banks-for-viking-babies>.Killing, The. (Danish: Forbrydelsen.) Created by Søren Sveistrup. DR, 2007-2012.Kolff, Louise. “Part III: The Hunk & the Refugee.” Perspectra, 3 Dec. 2015. <https://perspectra.org/2015/12/03/danish-police-and-refugee-girl/>.Oxford Dictionaries. “Hygge.” <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hygge>.Oxford Dictionaries. “Myth.” <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/myth>.Pitcher, Ben. Consuming Race. London: Routledge, 2014.———. “The Racial Politics of Nordic Noir.” Mecetes, 9 April 2014. <http://mecetes.co.uk/racial-politics-nordic-noir/>.Scandimania. Featuring H. Fearnley-Whittingstall. Channel 4, 2014.Sougaard-Nielsen, Jacob. “Nordic Noir in the UK: The Allure of Accessible Difference.” Journal of Aesthetics & Culture 8.1 (2016). 1 Oct. 2017 <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/jac.v8.32704>.———. “The Truth Is, Scandinavia Is Neither Heaven nor Hell.” The Conversation, 19 Aug. 2014. <https://theconversation.com/the-truth-is-scandinavia-is-neither-heaven-nor-hell-30641>.Warren, Rossalyn. “The Touching Moment a Policeman Sat Down to Play with a Syrian Refugee.” BuzzFeed News, 15 Sep. 2015. <https://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/the-adorable-moment-a-policeman-sat-down-to-play-with-a-syri?utm_term=.qjzl2WEk7#.kgZXOp76M>.

Neil Jordan’s Breakfast on Pluto (2005) reconceives transience and domesticity together. This queer Irish road film collapses opposition between mobility and home by uncoupling them from heteronormative structures of gender, desire, and space—male/female, public/private. The film’s protagonist, Patrick “Kitten” Braden (Cillian Murphy), wanders in search of a loved one without whom she does not feel at home. Along the way, the film exposes and exploits the doubleness of both “mobility” and “home” in the traditional road narrative, queering the conventions of the road film to convey the desire and possibilities for an alternative domesticity. In its rerouting of the traditional road plot, Breakfast on Pluto does not follow a hero escaping the obligations of home and family to find autonomy on the road. Instead, the film charts Kitten’s quest to realise a sense of home through trans-domesticity—that is, to find shelter in non-heteronormative, mutual care while in both transient and public spaces.I affix “trans-” to “domesticity” to signal both the queerness and mobility that transform understandings of domestic spaces and practices in Breakfast on Pluto. To clarify, trans-domesticity is not queer assimilation to heteronormative domesticity, nor is it a relegation of queer culture to privatised and demobilised spaces. Rather, trans-domesticity challenges the assumption that all forms of domesticity are inherently normalising and demobilising. In other words, trans-domesticity uncovers tensions and violence swept under the rugs of hegemonic domesticity. Moreover, this alternative domesticity moves between and beyond the terms of gender and spatial oppositions that delimit the normative home.Specifically, “trans-domesticity” names non-normative homemaking practices that arise out of the “desire to feel at home”, a desire that Anne-Marie Fortier identifies in queer diasporic narratives (1890-90). Accordingly, “trans-domesticity” also registers the affective processes that foster the connectedness and belonging of “home” away from private domestic spaces and places of origin, a “rethinking of the concept of home”, which Ed Madden traces in lesbian and gay migrant narratives (175-77). Building on the assumption of queer diaspora theorists “that not only can one be at home in movement, but that movement can be one’s very own home” (Rapport and Dawson 27), trans-domesticity focuses critical attention on the everyday practices and emotional labour that create a home in transience.As Breakfast on Pluto tracks its transgender protagonist’s movement between a small Irish border town, Northern Ireland, and London, the film invokes both a specifically Irish migration and the broader queer diaspora of which it is a part. While trans-domesticity is a recurring theme across a wide range of queer diasporic narratives, in Breakfast on Pluto it also simultaneously drives the plot and functions as a narrative frame. The film begins and ends with Kitten telling her story as she wanders through the streets of Soho and cares for a member of her made family, her friend Charlie’s baby.Although I am concerned with the film adaptation, Patrick McCabe’s “Prelude” to his novel, Breakfast on Pluto (1998), offers a useful point of departure: Patrick “Pussy” Braden’s dream, “as he negotiates the minefields of this world”, is “ending, once and for all, this ugly state of perpetual limbo” and “finding a map which might lead to that place called home” (McCabe x). In such a place, McCabe’s hero might lay “his head beneath a flower-bordered print that bears the words at last ‘You’re home’”(McCabe xi). By contrast, the film posits that “home” is never a “place” apart from “the minefields of this world”, and that while being in transit and in limbo might be a perpetual state, it is not necessarily an ugly one.Jordan’s film thus addresses the same questions as does Susan Fraiman in her book Extreme Domesticity: “But what about those for whom dislocation is not back story but main event? Those who, having pulled themselves apart, realize no timely arrival at a place of their own, so that being not-unpacked is an ongoing condition?” (155). Through her trans-domestic shelter-making and caregiving practices, Kitten enacts “home” in motion and in public spaces, and thereby realises the elision in the flower-bordered print in McCabe’s “Prelude” (xi), which does not assure “You are at home” but, rather, “You are home”.From Housed to Trans-Domestic SubjectivitySelf and home are equated in the dominant cultural narratives of Western modernity, but “home” in such formulations is assumed to be a self-owned, self-contained space. Psychoanalytic theorist Carl Jung describes this Ur-house as “a concretization of the individuation process, […] a symbol of psychic wholeness” (225). Philosopher Gaston Bachelard sees in the home “the topography of our intimate being”, a structure that “concentrates being within limits that protect” (xxxii). However, as historian Carolyn Steedman suggests, the mythic house that has become “the stuff of our ‘cultural psychology,’ the system of everyday metaphors by which we see ourselves”, is far from universal; rather, it reflects “the topography of the houses” of those who stand “in a central relationship to the dominant culture” (75, 17).For others, the lack of such housing correlates with political marginalisation, as the house functions as both a metaphor and material marker for culturally-recognised selfhood. As cultural geographer John Agnew argues, in capitalist societies the self-owned home is both a sign of autonomous individuality and a prerequisite for full political subjectivity (60). Philosopher Rosi Braidotti asserts that this figuration of subjectivity in “the phallo-Eurocentric master code” treats as “disposable” the “bodies of women, youth, and others who are racialised or marked off by age, gender, sexuality, and income” (6). These bodies are “reduced to marginality” and subsequently “experience dispossession of their embodied and embedded selves, in a political economy of repeated and structurally enforced eviction” (Braidotti 6).To shift the meaning of “home” and the intimately-linked “self” from a privately-owned, autonomous structure to trans-domesticity, to an ethos of care enacted even, and especially in, transient and public spaces, is not to romanticise homelessness or to deny the urgent necessity of material shelter. Breakfast on Pluto certainly does not allow viewers to do either. Rather, the figure of a trans-domestic self, like Braidotti’s “nomadic subject”, has the potential to challenge and transform the terms of power relations. Those now on the margins might then be seen as equally-embodied selves and full political subjects with the right to shelter and care.Such a political project also entails recognising and revaluing—without appropriating and demobilising—existing trans-domesticity. As Fraiman argues, “domesticity” must be “map[ped] from the margins” in order to include the homemaking practices of gender rebels and the precariously housed, of castaways and outcasts (4-5). This alternative map would allow “outsiders to normative domesticity” to “claim domesticity while wrenching it away from such things as compulsory heterosexuality […] and the illusion of a safely barricaded life” (Fraiman 4-5). Breakfast on Pluto shares in this re-mapping work by exposing the violence embedded in heteronormative domestic structures, and by charting the radical political potential of trans-domesticity.Unsettling HousesIn the traditional road narrative, “home” tends to be a static, confining structure from which the protagonist escapes, a space that then functions as “a structuring absence” on the road (Robertson 271). Bachelard describes this normative structure as a “dream house” that constitutes “a body of images that give mankind proofs or illusions of stability” (17); the house functions, Henri Lefebvre argues, as “the epitome of immobility” (92). Whether the dream is to escape and/or to return, “to write of houses”, as Adam Hanna asserts, “is to raise ideas of shelters that are fixed and secure” (113).Breakfast on Pluto quickly gives lie to those expectations. Kitten is adopted by Ma Braden (Ruth McCabe), a single woman who raises Kitten and her adopted sister in domestic space that is connected to, and part of, a public house. That spatial contiguity undermines any illusion of privacy and security, as is evident in the scene in which a school-aged Kitten, who thought herself safely home alone and thus able to dress in her mother’s and sister’s clothes, is discovered in the act by her mother and sister from the pub’s street entrance. Further, the film lays bare the built-in mechanisms of surveillance and violence that reinforce heteronormative, patriarchal structures. After discovering Kitten in women’s clothes, Ma Braden violently scrubs her clean and whacks her with a brush until Kitten says, “I’m a boy, not a girl”. The public/house space facilitates Ma Braden’s close monitoring of Kitten thereafter.As a young writer in secondary school, Kitten satirises the violence within the hegemonic home by narrating the story of the rape of her biological mother, Eily Bergin (Eva Birthistle), by Kitten’s father, Father Liam (Liam Neeson) in a scene of hyper-domesticity set in the rectory kitchen. As Patrick Mullen notes, “the rendition of the event follows the bubble-gum logic and tone of 1950s Hollywood culture” (130). The relationship between the ideal domesticity thereby invoked and the rape then depicted exposes the sexual violence for what it is: not an external violation of the double sanctity of church and home space, but rather an internal and even intrinsic violence that reinforces and is shielded by the power structures from which normative domesticity is never separate.The only sense of home that seems to bind Kitten to her place of origin is based in her affective bonds to friends Charlie (Ruth Negga) and Lawrence (Seamus Reilly). When Lawrence is killed by a bomb, Kitten is no longer at home, and she leaves town to search for the “phantom” mother she never knew. The impetus for Kitten’s wandering, then, is connection rather than autonomy, and neither the home she leaves, nor the sense of home she seeks, are fixed structures.Mobile Homes and Queering of the Western RoadBreakfast on Pluto tracks how the oppositions that seem to structure traditional road films—such as that between home and mobility, and between domestic and open spaces—continually collapse. The film invokes the “cowboy and Indian” mythology from which the Western road narrative descends (Boyle 19), but to different ends: to capture a desire for non-heteronormative affective bonds rather than “lone ranger” autonomy, and to convey a longing for domesticity on the trail, for a home that is both mobile and open. Across the past century of Irish fiction and film, “cowboy and Indian” mythology has often intersected with queer wandering, from James Joyce’s Dubliners story “An Encounter” (1914) to Lenny Abrahamson’s film Adam & Paul (2004). In this tradition, Breakfast on Pluto queers “cowboy and Indian” iconography to convey an alternative conception of domesticity and home. The prevailing ethos in the film’s queered Western scenes is of trans-domesticity—of inclusion and care during transience and in open spaces. After bar bouncers exclude Kitten and friends because of her transgenderism and Lawrence’s Down syndrome, “The Border Knights” (hippie-bikers-cum-cowboys) ride to their rescue and bring them to their temporary home under the stars. Once settled around the campfire, the first biker shares his philosophy with a cuddled-up Kitten: “When I’m riding my hog, you think I’m riding the road? No way, man. I’m travelling from the past into the future with a druid at my back”. “Druid man or woman?” Kitten asks. “That doesn’t matter”, the biker clarifies, “What matters is the journey”. What matters is not place as fixed destination or gender as static difference, but rather the practice of travelling with open relationships to space, to time, and to others. The bikers welcome all to their fire and include both Kitten and Lawrence in their sharing of jokes and joints. The only exclusion is of reference to political violence, which Charlie’s boyfriend, Irwin (Laurence Kinlan), tries to bring into the conversation.Further, Kitten uses domesticity to try to establish a place for herself while on the road with “Billy Hatchett and The Mohawks”, the touring band that picks her up when she leaves Ma Braden’s. As Mullen notes, “Kitten literally works herself into the band by hand sewing a ‘squaw’ outfit to complement the group’s glam-rock Native American image” (Mullen 141). The duet that Kitten performs with Billy (Gavin Friday), a song about a woman inviting “a wandering man” to share the temporary shelter of her campfire, invokes trans-domesticity. But the film intercuts their performance with scenes of violent border-policing: first, by British soldiers at a checkpoint who threaten the group and boast about the “13 less to deal with” in Derry, and then by members of the Republican Prisoners Welfare Association, who throw cans at the group and yell them off stage. A number of critics have noted the postcolonial implications of Breakfast on Pluto’s use of Native American iconography, which in these intercut scenes clearly raises the national stakes of constructions of domestic belonging (see, for instance, Winston 153-71). In complementary ways, the film queers “cowboy and Indian” mythology to reimagine “mobility” and “home” together.After Kitten is forced out by the rest of the band, Billy sets her up in a caravan, a mobile home left to him by his mother. Though Billy “wouldn’t exactly call it a house”, Kitten sees in it her first chance at a Bachelardian “dream house”: she calls it a “house of dreams and longing” and cries, “Oh, to have a little house, to own the hearth, stool, and all”. Kitten ecstatically begins to tidy the place, performing what Fraiman terms a “hyper-investment in homemaking” that functions “as compensation for domestic deprivation” (20).Aisling Cormack suggests that Kitten’s hyper-investment in homemaking signals the film’s “radical disengagement with politics” to a “femininity that is inherently apolitical” (169-70). But that reading holds only if viewers assume a gendered, spatial divide between public and private, and between the political and the domestic. As Fraiman asserts, “the political meaning of fixating on domestic arrangements is more complex […] For the poor or transgendered person, the placeless immigrant or the woman on her own, aspiring to a safe, affirming home doesn’t reinforce hierarchical social relations but is pitched, precisely, against them” (20).Trans-Domesticity as Political ActEven as Kitten invokes the idea of a Bachelardian dream house, she performs a trans-domesticity that exposes the falseness of the gendered, spatial oppositions assumed to structure the normative home. Her domesticity is not an apolitical retreat; rather, it is pitched, precisely, against the violence that public/private and political/domestic oppositions enable within the house, as well as beyond it. As she cleans, Kitten discovers that violence is literally embedded in her caravan home when she finds a cache of Irish Republican Army (IRA) guns under the floor. After a bomb kills Lawrence, Kitten throws the guns into a reservoir, a defiant act that she describes to the IRA paramilitaries who come looking for the guns as “spring cleaning”. Cormack asserts that Kitten “describing her perilous destruction of the guns in terms of domestic labor” strips it “of all political significance” (179). I argue instead that it demonstrates the radical potential of trans-domesticity, of an ethos of care-taking and shelter-making asserted in public and political spaces. Kitten’s act is not apolitical, though it is decidedly anti-violence.From the beginning of Breakfast on Pluto, Kitten’s trans-domesticity exposes the violence structurally embedded in heteronormative domestic ideology. Additionally, the film’s regular juxtaposition of scenes of Kitten’s homemaking practices with scenes of political violence demonstrates that no form of domesticity functions as a private, apolitical retreat from “the minefields of this world” (McCabe x). This latter counterpoint throws into relief the political significance of Kitten’s trans-domesticity. Her domestic practices are her means of resisting and transforming the structural violence that poses an existential threat to marginalised and dispossessed people.After Kitten is accused of being responsible for an IRA bombing in London, the ruthless, violent interrogation of Kitten by British police officers begins to break down her sense of self. Throughout this brutal scene, Kitten compulsively straightens the chairs and tidies the room, and she responds to her interrogators with kindness and even affection. Fraiman’s theorisation of “extreme domesticity” helps to articulate how Kitten’s homemaking in carceral space—she calls it “My Sweet Little Cell”—is an “urgent” act that, “in the wake of dislocation”, can mean “safety, sanity, and self-expression; survival in the most basic sense” (25). Cormack reads Kitten’s reactions in this scene as “masochistic” and the male police officers’ nurturing response as of a piece with the film’s “more-feminine-than-feminine disengagement from political realities” (185-89). However, I disagree: Kitten’s trans-domesticity is a political act that both sustains her within structures that would erase her and converts officers of the state to an ethos of care and shelter. Inspector Routledge, for example, gently carries Kitten back to her cell, and after her release, PC Wallis ensures that she is safely (if not privately) housed with a cooperatively-run peep show, the address at which an atoning Father Liam locates her in London.After Kitten and a pregnant Charlie are burned out of the refuge that they temporarily find with Father Liam, Kitten and Charlie return to London, where Charlie’s baby is born soon after into the trans-domesticity that opens the film. Rejoining the story’s frame, Breakfast on Pluto ends close to where it begins: Kitten and the baby meet Charlie outside a London hospital, where Kitten sees Eily Bergin with her new son, Patrick. Instead of meeting where their paths intersect, the two families pass each other and turn in opposite directions. Kitten now knows that hers is both a different road and a different kind of home. “Home”, then, is not a place gained once and for all. Rather, home is a perpetual practice that does not separate one from the world, but can create the shelter of mutual care as one wanders through it.The Radical Potential and Structural Limits of Trans-DomesticityBreakfast on Pluto demonstrates the agency that trans-domesticity can afford in the lives of marginalised and dispossessed individuals, as well as the power of the structures that militate against its broader realisation. The radical political potential of trans-domesticity manifests in the transformation in the two police officers’ relational practices. Kitten’s trans-domesticity also inspires a reformation in Father Liam, the film’s representative of the Catholic Church and a man whose relationship to others transmutes from sexual violence and repressive secrecy to mutual nurturance and inclusive love. Although these individual conversions do not signify changes in structures of power, they do allow viewers to imagine the possibility of a state and a church that cherish, shelter, and care for all people equally. The film’s ending conveys this sense of fairy-tale-like possibility through its Disney-esque chattering birds and the bubble-gum pop song, “Sugar Baby Love”.In the end, the sense of hopefulness that closes Breakfast on Pluto coexists with the reality that dominant power structures will not recognise Kitten’s trans-domestic subjectivity and family, and that those structures will work to contain any perceived threat, just as the Catholic Church banishes the converted Father Liam to Kilburn Parish. That Kitten and Charlie nevertheless realise a clear contentment in themselves and in their made family demonstrates the vital importance of trans-domesticity and other forms of “extreme domesticity” in the lives of those who wander.ReferencesAgnew, John. “Home Ownership and Identity in Capitalist Societies.” Housing and Identity: Cross Cultural Perspectives. Ed. James S. Duncan. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1982. 60–97.Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. 1957. Trans. Maria Jolas. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969.Boyle, Kevin Jon, ed. Rear View Mirror: Automobile Images and American Identities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.Braidotti, Rosi. Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.Breakfast on Pluto. Dir. Neil Jordan. Pathé Pictures International, 2005.Cormack, Aisling B. “Toward a ‘Post-Troubles’ Cinema? The Troubled Intersection of Political Violence and Gender in Neil Jordan’s The Crying Game and Breakfast on Pluto.” Éire-Ireland 49.1–2 (2014): 164–92.Fortier, Anne-Marie. “Queer Diaspora.” Handbook of Lesbian and Gay Studies. Eds. Diane Richardson and Steven Seidman. London: Sage Publishing, 2002. 183–97.Fraiman, Susan. Extreme Domesticity: A View from the Margins. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017.Hanna, Adam. Northern Irish Poetry and Domestic Space. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Jung, Carl. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. 1957. Ed. Aniela Jaffe. Trans. Clara Winston and Richard Winston. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Social Space. Trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.Madden, Ed. “Queering the Irish Diaspora: David Rees and Padraig Rooney.” Éire-Ireland 47.1–2 (2012): 172–200.McCabe, Patrick. Breakfast on Pluto. London: Picador, 1998.Mullen, Patrick R. The Poor Bugger’s Tool: Irish Modernism, Queer Labor, and Postcolonial History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Rapport, Nigel, and Andrew Dawson. Migrants of Identity: Perceptions of ‘Home’ in a World of Movement. Oxford: Berg, 1998.Robertson, Pamela. “Home and Away: Friends of Dorothy on the Road in Oz.” The Road Movie Book. Eds. Steven Cohen and Ina Rae Hark. London: Routledge, 1997. 271–306.Steedman, Carolyn. Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1987.Winston, Greg. “‘Reluctant Indians’: Irish Identity and Racial Masquerade.” Irish Modernism and the Global Primitive. Eds. Maria McGarrity and Claire A. Culleton. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 153–71.

IntroductionCirque du Soleil, the largest live entertainment company in the world, has eight standing shows in Las Vegas alone, KÀ, Love, Mystère, Zumanity, Believe, Michael Jackson ONE, Zarkana and O. Close to 150 million spectators have seen Cirque du Soleil shows since the company’s beginnings in 1984 and it is estimated that over 15 million spectators will see a Cirque du Soleil show in 2014 (Cirque du Soleil). The Cirque du Soleil concept of circus as a form of theatre, with simple, often archetypal, narrative arcs conveyed without words, virtuoso physicality with the circus artists presented as characters in a fictional world, cutting-edge lighting and visuals, extraordinary innovative staging, and the uptake of new technology for special effects can all be linked back to an early form of circus which is sometimes termed illegitimate circus. In the late 18th century and early 19th century, in the age of Romanticism, only two theatres in London, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, plus the summer theatre in the Haymarket, had royal patents allowing them to produce plays or text-based productions, and these were considered legitimate theatres. (These theatres retained this monopoly until the Theatre Regulation Act of 1843; Saxon 301.) Other circuses and theatres such as Astley’s Amphitheatre, which were precluded from performing text-based works by the terms of their licenses, have been termed illegitimate (Moody 1). Perversely, the effect of licensing venues in this way, instead of having the desired effect of enshrining some particular forms of expression and “casting all others beyond the cultural pale,” served instead to help to cultivate a different kind of theatrical landscape, “a theatrical terrain with a new, rich and varied dramatic ecology” (Reed 255). A fundamental change to the theatrical culture of London took place, and pivotal to “that transformation was the emergence of an illegitimate theatrical culture” (Moody 1) with circus at its heart. An innovative and different form of performance, a theatre of the body, featuring spectacle and athleticism emerged, with “a sensuous, spectacular aesthetic largely wordless except for the lyrics of songs” (Bratton 117).This writing sets out to explore some of the strong parallels between the aesthetic that emerged in this early illegitimate circus and the aesthetic of the Montreal-based, multi-billion dollar entertainment empire of Cirque du Soleil. Although it is not fighting against legal restrictions and can in no way be considered illegitimate, the circus of Cirque du Soleil can be seen to be the descendant of the early circus entrepreneurs and their illegitimate aesthetic which arose out of the desire to find ways to continue to attract audiences to their shows in spite of the restrictions of the licenses granted to them. BackgroundCircus has served as an inspiration for many innovatory theatre productions including Peter Brook’s Midsummer Night’s Dream (1970) and Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers (1972) as well as the earlier experiments of Meyerhold, Eisenstein, Mayakovsky and other Soviet directors of the 1920’s (Saxon 299). A. H. Saxon points out, however, that the relationship between circus and theatre is a long-standing one that begins in the late 18th century and the early 19th century, when circus itself was theatre (Saxon 299).Modern circus was founded in London in 1768 by an ex-cavalryman and his wife, Philip and Patty Astley, and consisted of spectacular stunt horse riding taking place in a ring, with acts from traditional fairs such as juggling, acrobatics, clowning and wire-walking inserted to cover the changeovers between riding acts. From the very first shows entry was by paid ticket only and the early history of circus was driven by innovative, risk-taking entrepreneurs such as Philip Astley, who indeed built so many new amphitheatres for his productions that he became known as Amphi-Philip (Jando). After years of legal tussles with the authorities concerning the legal status of this new entertainment, a limited license was finally granted in 1783 for Astley’s Amphitheatre. This license precluded the performing of plays, anything text-based, or anything which had a script that resembled a play. Instead the annual license granted allowed only for “public dancing and music” and “other public entertainments of like kind” (St. Leon 9).Corporeal Dramaturgy and TextIn the face of the ban on scripted text, illegitimate circus turned to the human body and privileged it as a means of dramatic expression. A resultant dramaturgy focusing on the expressive capabilities of the performers’ bodies emerged. “The primacy of rhetoric and the spoken word in legitimate drama gave way […] to a corporeal dramaturgy which privileged the galvanic, affective capacity of the human body as a vehicle of dramatic expression” (Moody 83). Moody proposes that the “iconography of illegitimacy participated in a broader cultural and scientific transformation in which the human body began to be understood as an eloquent compendium of visible signs” (83). Even though the company has the use of text and dramatic dialogue freely available to it, Cirque du Soleil, shares this investment in the bodies of the performers and their “galvanic, affective capacity” (83) to communicate with the audience directly without the use of a scripted text, and this remains a constant between the two forms of circus. Robert Lepage, the director of two Cirque du Soleil shows, KÀ (2004) and more recently Totem (2010), speaking about KÀ in 2004, said, “We wanted it to be an epic story told not with the use of words, but with the universal language of body movement” (Lepage cited in Fink).In accordance with David Graver’s system of classifying performers’ bodies, Cirque du Soleil’s productions most usually present performers’ ‘character bodies’ in which the performers are understood by spectators to be playing fictional roles or characters (Hurley n/p) and this was also the case with illegitimate circus which right from its very beginnings presented its performers within narratives in which the performers are understood to be playing characters. In Cirque du Soleil’s shows, as with illegitimate circus, this presentation of the performers’ character bodies is interspersed with acts “that emphasize the extraordinary training and physical skill of the performers, that is which draw attention to the ‘performer body’ but always within the context of an overall narrative” (Fricker n.p.).Insertion of Vital TextAfter audience feedback, text was eventually added into KÀ (2004) in the form of a pre-recorded prologue inserted to enable people to follow the narrative arc, and in the show Wintuk (2007) there are tales that are sung by Jim Comcoran (Leroux 126). Interestingly early illegitimate circus creators, in their efforts to circumvent the ban on using dramatic dialogue, often inserted text into their performances in similar ways to the methods Cirque du Soleil chose for KÀ and Wintuk. Illegitimate circus included dramatic recitatives accompanied by music to facilitate the following of the storyline (Moody 28) in the same way that Cirque du Soleil inserted a pre-recorded prologue to KÀ to enable audience members to understand the narrative. Performers in illegitimate circus often conveyed essential information to the audience as lyrics of songs (Bratton 117) in the same way that Jim Comcoran does in Wintuk. Dramaturgical StructuresAstley from his very first circus show in 1768 began to set his equestrian stunts within a narrative. Billy Button’s Ride to Brentford (1768), showed a tailor, a novice rider, mounting backwards, losing his belongings and being thrown off the horse when it bucks. The act ends with the tailor being chased around the ring by his horse (Schlicke 161). Early circus innovators, searching for dramaturgy for their shows drew on contemporary warfare, creating vivid physical enactments of contemporary battles. They also created a new dramatic form known as Hippodramas (literally ‘horse dramas’ from hippos the Attic Greek for Horse), a hybridization of melodrama and circus featuring the trick riding skills of the early circus pioneers. The narrative arcs chosen were often archetypal or sourced from well-known contemporary books or poems. As Moody writes, at the heart of many of these shows “lay an archetypal narrative of the villainous usurper finally defeated” (Moody 30).One of the first hippodramas, The Blood Red Knight, opened at Astley’s Amphitheatre in 1810.Presented in dumbshow, and interspersed with grand chivalric processions, the show featured Alphonso’s rescue of his wife Isabella from her imprisonment and forced marriage to the evil knight Sir Rowland and concluded with the spectacular, fiery destruction of the castle and Sir Rowland’s death. (Moody 69)Another later hippodrama, The Spectre Monarch and his Phantom Steed, or the Genii Horseman of the Air (1830) was set in China where the rightful prince was ousted by a Tartar usurper who entered into a pact with the Spectre Monarch and received,a magic ring, by aid of which his unlawful desires were instantly gratified. Virtue, predictably won out in the end, and the discomforted villain, in a final settling of accounts with his dread master was borne off through the air in a car of fire pursued by Daemon Horsemen above THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. (Saxon 303)Karen Fricker writes of early Cirque du Soleil shows that “while plot is doubtless too strong a word, each of Cirque’s recent shows has a distinct concept or theme, that is urbanity for Saltimbanco; nomadism in Varekai (2002) and humanity’s clownish spirit for Corteo (2005), and tend to follow the same very basic storyline, which is not narrated in words but suggested by the staging that connects the individual acts” (Fricker n/p). Leroux describes the early Cirque du Soleil shows as following a “proverbial and well-worn ‘collective transformation trope’” (Leroux 122) whilst Peta Tait points out that the narrative arc of Cirque du Soleil “ might be summarized as an innocent protagonist, often female, helped by an older identity, seemingly male, to face a challenging journey or search for identity; more generally, old versus young” (Tait 128). However Leroux discerns an increasing interest in narrative devices such as action and plot in Cirque du Soleil’s Las Vegas productions (Leroux 122). Fricker points out that “with KÀ, what Cirque sought – and indeed found in Lepage’s staging – was to push this storytelling tendency further into full-fledged plot and character” (Fricker n/p). Telling a story without words, apart from the inserted prologue, means that the narrative arc of Kà is, however, very simple. A young prince and princess, twins in a mythical Far Eastern kingdom, are separated when a ceremonial occasion is interrupted by an attack by a tribe of enemy warriors. A variety of adventures follow, most involving perilous escapes from bad guys with flaming arrows and fierce-looking body tattoos. After many trials, a happy reunion arrives. (Isherwood)This increasing emphasis on developing a plot and a narrative arc positions Cirque as moving closer in dramaturgical aesthetic to illegitimate circus.Visual TechnologiesTo increase the visual excitement of its shows and compensate for the absence of spoken dialogue, illegitimate circus in the late 18th and early 19th century drew on contemporaneous and emerging visual technologies. Some of the new visual technologies that Astley’s used have been termed pre-cinematic, including the panorama (or diorama as it is sometimes called) and “the phantasmagoria and other visual machines… [which] expanded the means through which an audience could be addressed” (O’Quinn, Governance 312). The panorama or diorama ran in the same way that a film runs in an analogue camera, rolling between vertical rollers on either side of the stage. In Astley’s production The Siege and Storming of Seringapatam (1800) he used another effect almost equivalent to a modern day camera zoom-in by showing scenic back drops which, as they moved through time, progressively moved geographically closer to the battle. This meant that “the increasing enlargement of scale-each successive scene has a smaller geographic space-has a telescopic event. Although the size of the performance space remains constant, the spatial parameters of the spectacle become increasingly magnified” (O’Quinn, Governance 345). In KÀ, Robert Lepage experiments with “cinematographic stage storytelling on a very grand scale” (Fricker n.p.). A KÀ press release (2005) from Cirque du Soleil describes the show “as a cinematic journey of aerial adventure” (Cirque du Soleil). Cirque du Soleil worked with ground-breaking visual technologies in KÀ, developing an interactive projected set. This involves the performers controlling what happens to the projected environment in real time, with the projected scenery responding to their movements. The performers’ movements are tracked by an infra-red sensitive camera above the stage, and by computer software written by Interactive Production Designer Olger Förterer. “In essence, what we have is an intelligent set,” says Förterer. “And everything the audience sees is created by the computer” (Cirque du Soleil).Contemporary Technology Cutting edge technologies, many of which came directly from contemporaneous warfare, were introduced into the illegitimate circus performance space by Astley and his competitors. These included explosions using redfire, a new military explosive that combined “strontia, shellac and chlorate of potash, [which] produced […] spectacular flame effects” (Moody 28). Redfire was used for ‘blow-ups,’ the spectacular explosions often occurring at the end of the performance when the villain’s castle or hideout was destroyed. Cirque du Soleil is also drawing on contemporary military technology for performance projects. Sparked: A Live interaction between Humans and Quadcopters (2014) is a recent short film released by Cirque du Soleil, which features the theatrical use of drones. The new collaboration between Cirque du Soleil, ETH Zurich and Verity Studios uses 10 quadcopters disguised as animated lampshades which take to the air, “carrying out the kinds of complex synchronized dance manoeuvres we usually see from the circus' famed acrobats” (Huffington Post). This shows, as with early illegitimate circus, the quick theatrical uptake of contemporary technology originally developed for use in warfare.Innovative StagingArrighi writes that the performance space that Astley developed was a “completely new theatrical configuration that had not been seen in Western culture before… [and] included a circular ring (primarily for equestrian performance) and a raised theatre stage (for pantomime and burletta)” (177) joined together by ramps that were large enough and strong enough to allow horses to be ridden over them during performances. The stage at Astley’s Amphitheatre was said to be the largest in Europe measuring over 130 feet across. A proscenium arch was installed in 1818 which could be adjusted in full view of the audience with the stage opening changing anywhere in size from forty to sixty feet (Saxon 300). The staging evolved so that it had the capacity to be multi-level, involving “immense [moveable] platforms or floors, rising above each other, and extending the whole width of the stage” (Meisel 214). The ability to transform the stage by the use of draped and masked platforms which could be moved mechanically, proved central to the creation of the “new hybrid genre of swashbuckling melodramas on horseback, or ‘hippodramas’” (Kwint, Leisure 46). Foot soldiers and mounted cavalry would fight their way across the elaborate sets and the production would culminate with a big finale that usually featured a burning castle (Kwint, Legitimization 95). Cirque du Soleil’s investment in high-tech staging can be clearly seen in KÀ. Mark Swed writes that KÀ is, “the most lavish production in the history of Western theatre. It is surely the most technologically advanced” (Swed). With a production budget of $165 million (Swed), theatre designer Michael Fisher has replaced the conventional stage floor with two huge moveable performance platforms and five smaller platforms that appear to float above a gigantic pit descending 51 feet below floor level. One of the larger platforms is a tatami floor that moves backwards and forwards, the other platform is described by the New York Times as being the most thrilling performer in the show.The most consistently thrilling performer, perhaps appropriately, isn't even human: It's the giant slab of machinery that serves as one of the two stages designed by Mark Fisher. Here Mr. Lepage's ability to use a single emblem or image for a variety of dramatic purposes is magnified to epic proportions. Rising and falling with amazing speed and ease, spinning and tilting to a full vertical position, this huge, hydraulically powered game board is a sandy beach in one segment, a sheer cliff wall in another and a battleground, viewed from above, for the evening's exuberantly cinematic climax. (Isherwood)In the climax a vertical battle is fought by aerialists fighting up and down the surface of the sand stone cliff with defeated fighters portrayed as tumbling down the surface of the cliff into the depths of the pit below. Cirque du Soleil’s production entitled O, which phonetically is the French word eau meaning water, is a collaboration with director Franco Dragone that has been running at Las Vegas’ Bellagio Hotel since 1998. O has grossed over a billion dollars since it opened in 1998 (Sylt and Reid). It is an aquatic circus or an aquadrama. In 1804, Charles Dibdin, one of Astley’s rivals, taking advantage of the nearby New River, “added to the accoutrements of the Sadler’s Wells Theatre a tank three feet deep, ninety feet long and as wide as twenty-four feet which could be filled with water from the New River” (Hays and Nickolopoulou 171) Sadler’s Wells presented aquadramas depicting many reconstructions of famous naval battles. One of the first of these was The Siege of Gibraltar (1804) that used “117 ships designed by the Woolwich Dockyard shipwrights and capable of firing their guns” (Hays and Nickolopoulou 5). To represent the drowning Spanish sailors saved by the British, “Dibdin used children, ‘who were seen swimming and affecting to struggle with the waves’”(5).O (1998) is the first Cirque production to be performed in a proscenium arch theatre, with the pool installed behind the proscenium arch. “To light the water in the pool, a majority of the front lighting comes from a subterranean light tunnel (at the same level as the pool) which has eleven 4" thick Plexiglas windows that open along the downstage perimeter of the pool” (Lampert-Greaux). Accompanied by a live orchestra, performers dive into the 53 x 90 foot pool from on high, they swim underwater lit by lights installed in the subterranean light tunnel and they also perform on perforated platforms that rise up out of the water and turn the pool into a solid stage floor. In many respects, Cirque du Soleil can be seen to be the inheritors of the spectacular illegitimate circus of the 18th and 19th Century. The inheritance can be seen in Cirque du Soleil’s entrepreneurial daring, the corporeal dramaturgy privileging the affective power of the body over the use of words, in the performers presented primarily as character bodies, and in the delivering of essential text either as a prologue or as lyrics to songs. It can also be seen in Cirque du Soleil’s innovative staging design, the uptake of military based technology and the experimentation with cutting edge visual effects. Although re-invigorating the tradition and creating spectacular shows that in many respects are entirely of the moment, Cirque du Soleil’s aesthetic roots can be clearly seen to draw deeply on the inheritance of illegitimate circus.ReferencesBratton, Jacky. “Romantic Melodrama.” The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre 1730-1830. Eds. Jane Moody and Daniel O'Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007. 115-27. Bratton, Jacky. “What Is a Play? Drama and the Victorian Circus in the Performing Century.” Nineteenth-Century Theatre’s History. Eds. Tracey C. Davis and Peter Holland. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 250-62.Cavendish, Richard. “Death of Madame Tussaud.” History Today 50.4 (2000). 15 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/death-madame-tussaud›.Cirque du Soleil. 2014. 10 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/en/home/about-us/at-a-glance.aspx›.Davis, Janet M. The Circus Age: Culture and Society under the American Big Top. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Hays, Michael, and Anastasia Nikolopoulou. Melodrama: The Cultural Emergence of a Genre. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.House of Dancing Water. 2014. 17 Aug. 2014 ‹http://thehouseofdancingwater.com/en/›.Isherwood, Charles. “Fire, Acrobatics and Most of All Hydraulics.” New York Times 5 Feb. 2005. 12 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/theater/reviews/05cirq.html?_r=0›.Fink, Jerry. “Cirque du Soleil Spares No Cost with Kà.” Las Vegas Sun 2004. 17 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2004/sep/16/cirque-du-soleil-spares-no-cost-with-ka/›.Fricker, Karen. “Le Goût du Risque: Kà de Robert Lepage et du Cirque du Soleil.” (“Risky Business: Robert Lepage and the Cirque du Soleil’s Kà.”) L’Annuaire théâtral 45 (2010) 45-68. Trans. Isabelle Savoie. (Original English Version not paginated.)Hurley, Erin. "Les Corps Multiples du Cirque du Soleil." Globe: Revue Internationale d’Études Quebecoise. Les Arts de la Scene au Quebec, 11.2 (2008). (Original English n.p.)Jacob, Pascal. The Circus Artist Today: Analysis of the Key Competences. Brussels: FEDEC: European Federation of Professional Circus Schools, 2008. 5 June 2010 ‹http://sideshow-circusmagazine.com/research/downloads/circus-artist-today-analysis-key-competencies›.Jando, Dominique. “Philip Astley, Circus Owner, Equestrian.” Circopedia. 15 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.circopedia.org/Philip_Astley›.Kwint, Marius. “The Legitimization of Circus in Late Georgian England.” Past and Present 174 (2002): 72-115.---. “The Circus and Nature in Late Georgian England.” Histories of Leisure. Ed. Rudy Koshar. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 2002. 45-60. ---. “The Theatre of War.” History Today 53.6 (2003). 28 Mar. 2012 ‹http://www.historytoday.com/marius-kwint/theatre-war›.Lampert-Greaux, Ellen. “The Wizardry of O: Cirque du Soleil Takes the Plunge into an Underwater World.” livedesignonline 1999. 17 Aug. 2014 ‹http://livedesignonline.com/mag/wizardry-o-cirque-du-soleil-takes-plunge-underwater-world›.Lavers, Katie. “Sighting Circus: Perceptions of Circus Phenomena Investigated through Diverse Bodies.” Doctoral Thesis. Perth, WA: Edith Cowan University, 2014. Leroux, Patrick Louis. “The Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas: An American Striptease.” Revista Mexicana de Estudio Canadiens (Nueva Época) 16 (2008): 121-126.Mazza, Ed. “Cirque du Soleil’s Drone Video ‘Sparked’ is Pure Magic.” Huffington Post 22 Sep. 2014. 23 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/22/cirque-du-soleil-sparked-drone-video_n_5865668.html›.Meisel, Martin. Realizations: Narrative, Pictorial and Theatrical Arts in Nineteenth-Century England. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983.Moody, Jane. Illegitimate Theatre in London, 1770-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. O'Quinn, Daniel. Staging Governance: Teatrical Imperialism in London 1770-1800. Baltimore, Maryland, USA: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005. O'Quinn, Daniel. “Theatre and Empire.” The Cambridge Companion to British Theatre 1730-1830. Eds. Jane Moody and Daniel O'Quinn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 233-46. Reed, Peter P. “Interrogating Legitimacy in Britain and America.” The Oxford Handbook of Georgian Theatre. Eds. Julia Swindells and Francis David. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. 247-264.Saxon, A.H. “The Circus as Theatre: Astley’s and Its Actors in the Age of Romanticism.” Educational Theatre Journal 27.3 (1975): 299-312.Schlicke, P. Dickens and Popular Entertainment. London: Unwin Hyman, 1985.St. Leon, Mark. Circus: The Australian Story. Melbourne: Melbourne Books, 2011. Stoddart, Helen. Rings of Desire: Circus History and Representation. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Swed, Mark. “Epic, Extravagant: In Ka the Acrobatics and Dazzling Special Effects Are Stunning and Enchanting.” Los Angeles Times 5 Feb. 2005. 22 Aug. 2014 ‹http://articles.latimes.com/2005/feb/05/entertainment/et-ka5›.Sylt, Cristian, and Caroline Reid. “Cirque du Soleil Swings to $1bn Revenue as It Mulls Shows at O2.” The Independent Oct. 2011. 14 Sep. 2014 ‹http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/cirque-du-soleil-swings-to-1bn-revenue-as-it-mulls-shows-at-o2-2191850.html›.Tait, Peta. Circus Bodies: Cultural Identity in Aerial Performance. London: Routledge, 2005.Terdiman, Daniel. “Flying Lampshades: Cirque du Soleil Plays with Drones.” CNet 2014. 22 Sept 2014 ‹http://www.cnet.com/news/flying-lampshades-the-cirque-du-soleil-plays-with-drones/›.Venables, Michael. “The Technology Behind the Las Vegas Magic of Cirque du Soleil.” Forbes Magazine 30 Aug. 2013. 16 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelvenables/2013/08/30/technology-behind-the-magical-universe-of-cirque-du-soleil-part-one/›.

Høj SteneA monumental ship setting by the Gudenå river Ship settings, or stone ships, in the sense of stones arranged in a regular pointed-oval shape, are known especially from Denmark and Sweden, where some can be dated to the Late Bronze Age, others to the Late Iron Age and Viking Age. Of the latter, so-called monumental ship settings stand out by virtue of having a length in excess of 40 m (fig. 1). A further general feature is that, either singly or in groups, they occupy prominent positions in the landscape, usually by a main traffic route and often in association with barrows; some are found in conjunction with a royal residence – Jelling and Lejre. Insofar as rune stones form an integral part of a ship setting, as is said to be the case at Glavendrup and Bække and is suggested by the circumstances at Jelling, the monument can be dated to the Viking Age. In other cases, the dating of the monuments is less certain, with several possibly deriving from the end of the Late Iron Age. There is also great uncertainty about the function of these monumental ship settings. There has been a general tendency to perceive them as burial structures on a par with the other ship settings. But the preservation conditions at the archaeologically investigated monuments have been poor, and it has therefore not been possible to demonstrate a clear link between monumental ship settings and possible graves. Even so, these monuments can clearly be perceived as a power manifestation by an aristocratic environment, and they can be viewed in conjunction with the ship symbolism that is evident in Late Iron Age boat graves and the spectacular ship burials of the Viking Age. With the aim of addressing these issues, Moesgaard Museum has investigated the site of one of southern Scandinavia’s largest ship settings, located at Vejerslev, close to Gudenå river (fig. 1, no. 1). The monument was demolished more than 150 years ago. The first mention of it in written sources is in 1683 under the name “Højs Steen”, located on the western fields of the village of Vejerslev, which run down towards the Gudenå. A written source from 1768 states that the ship setting extends between two small barrows standing about 100 paces apart. A report submitted to the National Museum of Denmark around 1850 contains valuable information about the ship setting as the detailed text is accompanied by a survey of the ship setting’s ground plan. It is stated that the monument was c. 88 m long and 13 m wide in the middle. The drawing shows 16 preserved stones. These stood 2-4 m apart and were c. 1.9-2.5 m high (fig. 4). But the stone at the northern stem/stern, which was c. 4.5 m in length, lay toppled on the northern barrow. The distance from the Gudenå river is given as just less than 100 m. A written source from 1877 states that the final remaining stones were removed in 1852. In 2014 and 2016, systematic geophysical surveys were undertaken of the area between the mound that could be the northern barrow and the remains of the presumed southern barrow. Collectively, the geophysical surveys sketched a picture of an extended pointed-oval formation between the two barrows (fig. 6). The structure had been c. 82 m long and 14 m wide at its broadest point. This concurs well with the dimensions given in the report to the National Museum around 1850. The ship setting was oriented NNW-SSE and lay almost parallel with the Gudenå, c. 130 m distant from it. It was located on the edge of a level sandy plain that rises above the riverbed. An archaeological investigation was undertaken in 2016, with an excavation trench measuring c. 18 x 9 m being positioned across the southern part of the ship setting, in a place where the geophysical surveys had demonstrated stone traces or possibly stones (fig. 6). Of the four anomalies evident on the geophysical surveys that fitted with an arrangement of gunwale stones, it proved possible to locate three in the archaeological investigation. A further investigation was undertaken at the site in 2017, when a trench measuring c. 18 x 13 m was placed across the middle of the ship setting (fig. 6). This demonstrated a good agreement between the excavated stone traces and those evident from the geophysical surveys (fig. 12). During the investigation in 2017, several metal objects were found by metal detector in the soil layer located over the central part of the ship setting. These were primarily melted fragments of gold and bronze objects, as well as a silver arte­fact and one of iron. The gold objects comprise a fragment of band-like gold foil with animal ornamentation (fig. 14), two small rings of beaded wire (fig. 15a-b), a small band-like ring (fig. 16), a fragment of an edge fitting of gold foil (fig. 17), two partially melted fragments of lugs (?) (fig. 18), four unidentifiable fragments of gold foil and ten melted gold lumps. The bronze finds comprise a strap buckle (fig. 21), two possible fragments of brooches (fig. 19 and 20), a fragment of a bronze arte­fact with vaulted upper surface (fig. 22), six unidentified fragments and 44 melted bronze lumps. The silver object is a small rivet, and there is a small fragment of a thin iron sheet. As is evident from the above description, most of the metal finds from the ship setting are heavily fragmented and partially melted, which makes dating difficult. The finds are interpreted as remains from a cremation grave that has been placed on the surface of the central part of the ship setting. The most remarkable find is the ornamented gold foil (fig. 14), which can be assigned to the second half of the 6th century AD; the early part of Salin’s style II. As for the two gold rings (fig. 15), similar rings are employed on brooches and swords from the Late Germanic Iron Age, where they are placed around rivets. The third gold ring (fig. 16) must, due to its tiny diameter, be perceived as decoration that has encircled an object. The strap buckle (fig. 21) is of a type that Mogens Ørsnes dates to phases 1 and 2, i.e. c. AD 550-725. The possible button bow from a button-bow brooch (fig. 19) cannot be identified more closely. Ørsnes classifies button-bow brooches into types E0-6, which collectively can be assigned to the period AD 550-880. The fragment of an equal-armed brooch (fig. 20) cannot, due to its small size, be identified more closely within Ørsnes’ types F1-4, which are all assigned to his phase 1, c. AD 550-650. The most recent research dates the beginning of the dating range for this brooch type to between AD 510 and 545. All in all, the finds can be placed within the second half of the 6th century AD, as also suggested by the ornamented gold foil. A central question is whether the ship setting and the cremation grave are contemporaneous. With regard to the ship setting, a sample was taken for OSL dating from one of the socket stones in A121. The date subsequently obtained by the Nordic Laboratory for Luminescence Dating/DTU Nutech was 1.33±0.13 ka, i.e. 688±130 in calendar years. In other words, the ship setting was constructed in the period AD 558-818. When the OSL date is compared with the archaeological dating of the artefacts, it seems very probable that ship setting and cremation grave are contemporaneous. A further indication that the now vanished grave had a direct link with the ship setting is the distribution of the metal finds: These were all found over the central part of the monument. Burial customs in the Late Germanic Iron Age are characterised by local differences, and cremation graves surrounded by stone settings are the dominant form in Jutland. The best-known example is Lindholm Høje at Nørresundby, with ­almost 700 graves marked by various kinds of stone settings, including some that are ship-like in form. At Høj Stene there was nothing to indicate that the cremation had taken place directly on-site. All the evidence suggests that the cremation grave was located so high up that it was disturbed by the cultivation activities of later times. The presumed cremation grave shows some similarities with the situation in Grydehøj at Lejre. The base of this large round barrow, which had been c. 40 m in diameter and up to 4 m in height, was covered by a burnt layer containing charcoal, fragments of burnt bone and artefacts in the form of gold wire, drops of melted gold, melted bronze and burnt iron rivets. These represent the remains of a cremation grave containing the remnants of exceptionally rich grave furnishings that were destroyed in the cremation and, judging by patches of fire-reddened earth, this took place directly on-site. Grydehøj has been 14C dated to the first half of the 7th century AD and is therefore contemporaneous with the early magnate’s settlement at Lejre, with the Høj Stene grave, with similar cremation graves and with closely related boat graves in Sweden that, in addition to magnificent grave goods, were also accompanied by remains of numerous animals. As for the many unanswered questions about monumental ship settings, the local­isation of Høj Stene and the associated investigations have taken us a significant step further towards a better understanding of the chronology and function of these structures. The enormous ship setting is dated to the Late Germanic Iron Age, c. AD 600, and is so far the first example that can be securely assigned to this period. Furthermore, it was constructed as a sepulchral monument for an unusually richly-furnished cremation grave which exhibits many common features with the coeval elite grave in Grydehøj and with Swedish burial monuments. Like other monumental ship settings, Høj Stene occupied a striking location. It was placed by the Gudenå river, which was presumably a major traffic route extending far into the central part of Jutland. The monument must have been impressive seen from the river, and it was also sited close to an ancient traffic junction. Kongensbro lies about 1 km to the southwest, and there has been an actual bridge there since the end of the 14th century, but it could very well have been the location of a crossing place prior to this. Høj Stene’s northern and southern barrows cannot be dated more closely, but they lie together with two other barrows that probably date from the Late Neolithic Single Grave culture or the Bronze Age. It seems remarkable that large ship settings, which had not been built since the Late Bronze Age, suddenly turn up again after a break of a millennium in a totally different cultural context with a very different world of ideas. It is a well-known cultural-historical phenomenon that new and striking monuments sometimes appear formed in the shape of familiar structures from another time. In the case of Høj Stene and other contemporaneous ship settings, these should probably be interpreted as an expression of a contemporary elite’s need clearly to manifest its power. With the emergence of the Frankish Empire, which by AD 600 encompassed large parts of the Continent, Europe had gained a new superpower following the dissolution of the West ­Roman Empire. The northern border of the Frankish Empire ran close to present-day Denmark, and it became important for the people who lived in the lands to the north. Both in Scandinavia and the British Isles petty kingdoms emerged in the 6th and 7th centuries, which mimicked the Frankish warrior aristocracy. Rich burials, such as Sutton Hoo in southern England and related boat burials at Vendel and Valsgärde in Sweden, bear witness to close dynastic connections. The settlement at Lejre, with its large farm complex, the burial in Grydehøj and possible coeval ship settings, are examples which demonstrate that just such an elite existed in eastern Denmark during the 6th century. It is in this perspective that we perceive Høj Stene. We have demonstrated here the largest known ship setting from the Late Iron Age, together with the remains of heavily burnt grave goods reflecting a rich burial. There is therefore much to suggest that we are on the trail of a possible Jutish elite residence equivalent to that in Lejre. Indeed, it may already have been found. In metal-detector surveys on the fields to the north and northeast of Høj Stene in recent years several localities have been recorded with finds from the Late Germanic Iron Age (fig. 24). Seen in relation to the ship setting, the northernmost of these is of greatest interest. At this locality, which lies 2 km from the ship setting, 39 artefacts that can be assigned to the Late Germanic Iron Age have been found within an area of c. 2 ha (fig. 25-27). Moreover, there is also waste from bronze casting and slag from iron smelting. As pointed out by Birgitta Hårdh, clear evidence of high-quality metalworking is found at South Scandinavian central places such as Uppåkra in Scania and Gudme on Funen. A similar situation is suggested by the finds from the site at Borre Skov, with indications of bronze casting and iron smelting as well as a patrix (punch), which bears witness to exquisite craftmanship. The finds are contemporaneous with the ship setting, and they perhaps represent a coeval elite residence.

In 1988, historian Nadia Wheatley and indigenous artist Donna Rawlins published their award-winning picture book, My Place, a reinterpretation of Australian national identity and sovereignty prompted by the bicentennial of white settlement. Twenty years later, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) commissioned Penny Chapman’s multi-platform project based on this book. The 13 episodes of the television series begin in 2008, each telling the story of a child at a different point in history, and are accompanied by substantial interactive online content. Issues as diverse as religious difference and immigration, wartime conscription and trauma, and the experiences of Aboriginal Australians are canvassed. The program itself, which has a second series currently in production, introduces child audiences to—and implicates them in—a rich ideological fabric of deeply politicised issues that directly engage with vexed questions of Australian nationhood. The series offers a subversive view of Australian history and society, and it is the child—whether protagonist on the screen or the viewer/user of the content—who is left to discover, negotiate and move beyond often problematic societal norms. As one of the public broadcaster’s keystone projects, My Place signifies important developments in ABC’s construction of multicultural child citizenship. The digitisation of Australian television has facilitated a wave of multi-channel and new media innovation. Though the development of a multi-channel ecology has occurred significantly later in Australia than in the US or Europe, in part due to genre restrictions on broadcasters, all major Australian networks now have at least one additional free-to-air channel, make some of their content available online, and utilise various forms of social media to engage their audiences. The ABC has been in the vanguard of new media innovation, leveraging the industry dominance of ABC Online and its cross-platform radio networks for the repurposing of news, together with the additional funding for digital renewal, new Australian content, and a digital children’s channel in the 2006 and 2009 federal budgets. In line with “market failure” models of broadcasting (Born, Debrett), the ABC was once the most important producer-broadcaster for child viewers. With the recent allocation for the establishment of ABC3, it is now the catalyst for a significant revitalisation of the Australian children’s television industry. The ABC Charter requires it to broadcast programs that “contribute to a sense of national identity” and that “reflect the cultural diversity of the Australian community” (ABC Documents). Through its digital children’s channel (ABC3) and its multi-platform content, child viewers are not only exposed to a much more diverse range of local content, but also politicised by an intricate network of online texts connected to the TV programs. The representation of diasporic communities through and within multi-platformed spaces forms a crucial part of the way(s) in which collective identities are now being negotiated in children’s texts. An analysis of one of the ABC’s My Place “projects” and its associated multi-platformed content reveals an intricate relationship between postcolonial concerns and the construction of child citizenship. Multicultural Places, Multi-Platformed Spaces: New Media Innovation at the ABC The 2007 restructure at the ABC has transformed commissioning practices along the lines noted by James Bennett and Niki Strange of the BBC—a shift of focus from “programs” to multi-platform “projects,” with the latter consisting of a complex network of textual production. These “second shift media practices” (Caldwell) involve the tactical management of “user flows structured into and across the textual terrain that serve to promote a multifaceted and prolonged experience of the project” (Bennett and Strange 115). ABC Managing Director Mark Scott’s polemic deployment of the “digital commons” trope (Murdock, From) differs from that of his opposite number at the BBC, Mark Thompson, in its emphasis on the glocalised openness of the Australian “town square”—at once distinct from, and an integral part of, larger conversations. As announced at the beginning of the ABC’s 2009 annual report, the ABC is redefining the town square as a world of greater opportunities: a world where Australians can engage with one another and explore the ideas and events that are shaping our communities, our nation and beyond … where people can come to speak and be heard, to listen and learn from each other. (ABC ii)The broad emphasis on engagement characterises ABC3’s positioning of children in multi-platformed projects. As the Executive Producer of the ABC’s Children’s Television Multi-platform division comments, “participation is very much the mantra of the new channel” (Glen). The concept of “participation” is integral to what has been described elsewhere as “rehearsals in citizenship” (Northam). Writing of contemporary youth, David Buckingham notes that “‘political thinking’ is not merely an intellectual or developmental achievement, but an interpersonal process which is part of the construction of a collective, social identity” (179). Recent domestically produced children’s programs and their associated multimedia applications have significant potential to contribute to this interpersonal, “participatory” process. Through multi-platform experiences, children are (apparently) invited to construct narratives of their own. Dan Harries coined the term “viewser” to highlight the tension between watching and interacting, and the increased sense of agency on the part of audiences (171–82). Various online texts hosted by the ABC offer engagement with extra content relating to programs, with themed websites serving as “branches” of the overarching ABC3 metasite. The main site—strongly branded as the place for its targeted demographic—combines conventional television guide/program details with “Watch Now!,” a customised iView application within ABC3’s own themed interface; youth-oriented news; online gaming; and avenues for viewsers to create digital art and video, or interact with the community of “Club3” and associated message boards. The profiles created by members of Club3 are moderated and proscribe any personal information, resulting in an (understandably) restricted form of “networked publics” (boyd 124–5). Viewser profiles comprise only a username (which, the website stresses, should not be one’s real name) and an “avatar” (a customisable animated face). As in other social media sites, comments posted are accompanied by the viewser’s “name” and “face,” reinforcing the notion of individuality within the common group. The tool allows users to choose from various skin colours, emphasising the multicultural nature of the ABC3 community. Other customisable elements, including the ability to choose between dozens of pre-designed ABC3 assets and feeds, stress the audience’s “ownership” of the site. The Help instructions for the Club3 site stress the notion of “participation” directly: “Here at ABC3, we don’t want to tell you what your site should look like! We think that you should be able to choose for yourself.” Multi-platformed texts also provide viewsers with opportunities to interact with many of the characters (human actors and animated) from the television texts and share further aspects of their lives and fictional worlds. One example, linked to the representation of diasporic communities, is the Abatti Pizza Game, in which the player must “save the day” by battling obstacles to fulfil a pizza order. The game’s prefacing directions makes clear the ethnicity of the Abatti family, who are also visually distinctive. The dialogue also registers cultural markers: “Poor Nona, whatsa she gonna do? Now it’s up to you to help Johnny and his friends make four pizzas.” The game was acquired from the Canadian-animated franchise, Angela Anaconda; nonetheless, the Abatti family, the pizza store they operate and the dilemma they face translates easily to the Australian context. Dramatisations of diasporic contributions to national youth identities in postcolonial or settler societies—the UK (My Life as a Popat, CITV) and Canada (How to Be Indie)—also contribute to the diversity of ABC3’s television offerings and the positioning of its multi-platform community. The negotiation of diasporic and postcolonial politics is even clearer in the public broadcaster’s commitment to My Place. The project’s multifaceted construction of “places,” the ethical positioning of the child both as an individual and a member of (multicultural) communities, and the significant acknowledgement of ongoing conflict and discrimination, articulate a cultural commons that is more open-ended and challenging than the Eurocentric metaphor, the “town square,” suggests. Diversity, Discrimination and Diasporas: Positioning the Viewser of My Place Throughout the first series of My Place, the experiences of children within different diasporic communities are the focal point of five of the initial six episodes, the plots of which revolve around children with Lebanese, Vietnamese, Greek, and Irish backgrounds. This article focuses on an early episode of the series, “1988,” which explicitly confronts the cultural frictions between dominant Anglocentric Australian and diasporic communities. “1988” centres on the reaction of young Lily to the arrival of her cousin, Phuong, from Vietnam. Lily is a member of a diasporic community, but one who strongly identifies as “an Australian,” allowing a nuanced exploration of the ideological conflicts surrounding the issue of so-called “boat people.” The protagonist’s voice-over narration at the beginning of the episode foregrounds her desire to win Australia’s first Olympic gold medal in gymnastics, thus mobilising nationally identified hierarchies of value. Tensions between diasporic and settler cultures are frequently depicted. One potentially reactionary sequence portrays the recurring character of Michaelis complaining about having to use chopsticks in the Vietnamese restaurant; however, this comment is contextualised several episodes later, when a much younger Michaelis, as protagonist of the episode “1958,” is himself discriminated against, due to his Greek background. The political irony of “1988” pivots on Lily’s assumption that her cousin “won’t know Australian.” There is a patronising tone in her warning to Phuong not to speak Vietnamese for fear of schoolyard bullying: “The kids at school give you heaps if you talk funny. But it’s okay, I can talk for you!” This encourages child viewers to distance themselves from this fictional parallel to the frequent absence of representation of asylum seekers in contemporary debates. Lily’s assumptions and attitudes are treated with a degree of scepticism, particularly when she assures her friends that the silent Phuong will “get normal soon,” before objectifying her cousin for classroom “show and tell.” A close-up camera shot settles on Phuong’s unease while the children around her gossip about her status as a “boat person,” further encouraging the audience to empathise with the bullied character. However, Phuong turns the tables on those around her when she reveals she can competently speak English, is able to perform gymnastics and other feats beyond Lily’s ability, and even invents a story of being attacked by “pirates” in order to silence her gossiping peers. By the end of the narrative, Lily has redeemed herself and shares a close friendship with Phuong. My Place’s structured child “participation” plays a key role in developing the postcolonial perspective required by this episode and the project more broadly. Indeed, despite the record project budget, a second series was commissioned, at least partly on the basis of the overwhelmingly positive reception of viewsers on the ABC website forums (Buckland). The intricate My Place website, accessible through the ABC3 metasite, generates transmedia intertextuality interlocking with, and extending the diegesis of, the televised texts. A hyperlinked timeline leads to collections of personal artefacts “owned” by each protagonist, such as journals, toys, and clothing. Clicking on a gold medal marked “History” in Lily’s collection activates scrolling text describing the political acceptance of the phrase “multiculturalism” and the “Family Reunion” policy, which assisted the arrival of 100,000 Vietnamese immigrants. The viewser is reminded that some people were “not very welcoming” of diasporic groups via an explicit reference to Mrs Benson’s discriminatory attitudes in the series. Viewsers can “visit” virtual representations of the program’s sets. In the bedroom, kitchen, living room and/or backyard of each protagonist can be discovered familiar and additional details of the characters’ lives. The artefacts that can be “played” with in the multimedia applications often imply the enthusiastic (and apparently desirable) adoption of “Australianness” by immigrant children. Lily’s toys (her doll, hair accessories, roller skates, and glass marbles) invoke various aspects of western children’s culture, while her “journal entry” about Phuong states that she is “new to Australia but with her sense of humour she has fitted in really well.” At the same time, the interactive elements within Lily’s kitchen, including a bowl of rice and other Asian food ingredients, emphasise cultural continuity. The description of incense in another room of Lily’s house as a “common link” that is “used in many different cultures and religions for similar purposes” clearly normalises a glocalised world-view. Artefacts inside the restaurant operated by Lily’s mother link to information ranging from the ingredients and (flexible) instructions for how to make rice paper rolls (“Lily and Phuong used these fillings but you can use whatever you like!”) to a brief interactive puzzle game requiring the arrangement of several peppers in order from least hot to most hot. A selectable picture frame downloads a text box labelled “Images of Home.” Combined with a slideshow of static, hand-drawn images of traditional Vietnamese life, the text can be read as symbolic of the multiplicity of My Place’s target audience(s): “These images would have reminded the family of their homeland and also given restaurant customers a sense of Vietnamese culture.” The social-developmental, postcolonial agenda of My Place is registered in both “conventional” ancillary texts, such as the series’ “making of” publication (Wheatley), and the elaborate pedagogical website for teachers developed by the ACTF and Educational Services Australia (http://www.myplace.edu.au/). The politicising function of the latter is encoded in the various summaries of each decade’s historical, political, social, cultural, and technological highlights, often associated with the plot of the relevant episode. The page titled “Multiculturalism” reports on the positive amendments to the Commonwealth’s Migration Act 1958 and provides links to photographs of Vietnamese migrants in 1982, exemplifying the values of equality and cultural diversity through Lily and Phuong’s story. The detailed “Teaching Activities” documents available for each episode serve a similar purpose, providing, for example, the suggestion that teachers “ask students to discuss the importance to a new immigrant of retaining links to family, culture and tradition.” The empathetic positioning of Phuong’s situation is further mirrored in the interactive map available for teacher use that enables children to navigate a boat from Vietnam to the Australian coast, encouraging a perspective that is rarely put forward in Australia’s mass media. This is not to suggest that the My Place project is entirely unproblematic. In her postcolonial analysis of Aboriginal children’s literature, Clare Bradford argues that “it’s all too possible for ‘similarities’ to erase difference and the political significances of [a] text” (188). Lily’s schoolteacher’s lesson in the episode “reminds us that boat people have been coming to Australia for a very long time.” However, the implied connection between convicts and asylum seekers triggered by Phuong’s (mis)understanding awkwardly appropriates a mythologised Australian history. Similarly in the “1998” episode, the Muslim character Mohammad’s use of Ramadan for personal strength in order to emulate the iconic Australian cricketer Shane Warne threatens to subsume the “difference” of the diasporic community. Nonetheless, alongside the similarities between individuals and the various ethnic groups that make up the My Place community, important distinctions remain. Each episode begins and/or ends with the child protagonist(s) playing on or around the central motif of the series—a large fig tree—with the characters declaring that the tree is “my place.” While emphasising the importance of individuality in the project’s construction of child citizens, the cumulative effect of these “my place” sentiments, felt over time by characters from different socio-economic, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, builds a multifaceted conception of Australian identity that consists of numerous (and complementary) “branches.” The project’s multi-platformed content further emphasises this, with the website containing an image of the prominent (literal and figurative) “Community Tree,” through which the viewser can interact with the generations of characters and families from the series (http://www.abc.net.au/abc3/myplace/). The significant role of the ABC’s My Place project showcases the ABC’s remit as a public broadcaster in the digital era. As Tim Brooke-Hunt, the Executive Head of Children’s Content, explains, if the ABC didn’t do it, no other broadcaster was going to come near it. ... I don’t expect My Place to be a humungous commercial or ratings success, but I firmly believe ... that it will be something that will exist for many years and will have a very special place. Conclusion The reversion to iconic aspects of mainstream Anglo-Australian culture is perhaps unsurprising—and certainly telling—when reflecting on the network of local, national, and global forces impacting on the development of a cultural commons. However, this does not detract from the value of the public broadcaster’s construction of child citizens within a clearly self-conscious discourse of “multiculturalism.” The transmedia intertextuality at work across ABC3 projects and platforms serves an important politicising function, offering positive representations of diasporic communities to counter the negative depictions children are exposed to elsewhere, and positioning child viewsers to “participate” in “working through” fraught issues of Australia’s past that still remain starkly relevant today.References ABC. Redefining the Town Square. ABC Annual Report. Sydney: ABC, 2009. Bennett, James, and Niki Strange. “The BBC’s Second-Shift Aesthetics: Interactive Television, Multi-Platform Projects and Public Service Content for a Digital Era.” Media International Australia: Incorporating Culture and Policy 126 (2008): 106-19. Born, Georgina. Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC. London: Vintage, 2004. boyd, danah. “Why Youth ♥ Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life.” Youth, Identity, and Digital Media. Ed. David Buckingham. Cambridge: MIT, 2008. 119-42. Bradford, Clare. Reading Race: Aboriginality in Australian Children’s Literature. Carlton: Melbourne UP, 2001. Brooke-Hunt, Tim. Executive Head of Children’s Content, ABC TV. Interviewed by Dr Leonie Rutherford, ABC Ultimo Center, 16 Mar. 2010. Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing Up in the Age of Electronic Media. Cambridge: Polity, 2000. Buckland, Jenny. Chief Executive Officer, Australian Children’s Television Foundation. Interviewed by Dr Leonie Rutherford and Dr Nina Weerakkody, ACTF, 2 June 2010. Caldwell, John T. “Second Shift Media Aesthetics: Programming, Interactivity and User Flows.” New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality. Eds. John T. Caldwell and Anna Everett. London: Routledge, 2003. 127-44. Debrett, Mary. “Riding the Wave: Public Service Television in the Multiplatform Era.” Media, Culture & Society 31.5 (2009): 807-27. From, Unni. “Domestically Produced TV-Drama and Cultural Commons.” Cultural Dilemmas in Public Service Broadcasting. Eds. Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Per Jauert. Göteborg: Nordicom, 2005. 163-77. Glen, David. Executive Producer, ABC Multiplatform. Interviewed by Dr Leonie Rutherford, ABC Elsternwick, 6 July 2010. Harries, Dan. “Watching the Internet.” The New Media Book. Ed. Dan Harries. London: BFI, 2002. 171-82. Murdock, Graham. “Building the Digital Commons: Public Broadcasting in the Age of the Internet.” Cultural Dilemmas in Public Service Broadcasting. Ed. Gregory Ferrell Lowe and Per Jauert. Göteborg: Nordicom, 2005. 213–30. My Place, Volumes 1 & 2: 2008–1888. DVD. ABC, 2009. Northam, Jean A. “Rehearsals in Citizenship: BBC Stop-Motion Animation Programmes for Young Children.” Journal for Cultural Research 9.3 (2005): 245-63. Wheatley, Nadia. Making My Place. Sydney and Auckland: HarperCollins, 2010. ———, and Donna Rawlins. My Place, South Melbourne: Longman, 1988.

In January of 1908 H. Addington Bruce, a writer for the North American Review, observed that "On every street, at every corner, we meet the neurasthenics" (qtd. in Lears, 50). "Discovered" by the neurologist George M. Beard in 1880, neurasthenia was a nervous disorder characterized by a "lack of nerve force" and comprised of a host of neuroses clustered around an overall paralysis of the will. Historian Barbara Will notes that there were "thousands of men and women at the turn of the century who claimed to be ‘neurasthenics,’" among them Theodore Roosevelt, Edith Wharton, William and Henry James, and Beard himself. These neurasthenics had free roam over the American psychiatric landscape from the date of Beard’s diagnosis until the 1920s, when more accurate diagnostic tools began to subdivide the nearly uninterpretably wide variety of symptoms falling under the rubric of "neurasthenic." By then, however, nearly every educated American had suffered from (or known someone who had) the debilitating "disease"--including Willa Cather, who in The Professor’s House would challenge her readers to acknowledge and engage with the cultural phenomenon of neurasthenia. Cultural historian T.J. Jackson Lears, long a student of neurasthenia, defines it as an "immobilizing, self-punishing depression" stemming from "endless self-analysis" and "morbid introspection" (47, 49). What is especially interesting about the disease, for Lears and other scholars, is that it is a culture-bound syndrome, predicated not upon individual experience, but upon the cultural and economic forces at play during the late nineteenth century. Barbara Will writes that neurasthenia was "double-edged": "a debilitating disease and [...] the very condition of the modern American subject" (88). Interestingly, George Beard attributed neurasthenia to the changes wracking his culture: Neurasthenia is the direct result of the five great changes of modernity: steam power, the periodical press, the telegraph, the sciences, and the mental activity of women. (qtd. in Will, 94) For Beard, neurasthenia was a peculiarly modern disease, the result of industrialization and of the ever-quickening pace of commercial and intellectual life. Jackson Lears takes Beard’s attribution a step further, explaining that "as larger frameworks of meaning weakened, introspection focused on the self alone and became ‘morbid’" (49). These frameworks of meaning--religious, political, psychosexual--were under steady assault in Beard’s time from commodifying and secularizing movements in America. Self-scrutiny, formerly yoked to Protestant salvation (and guilt), became more insular and isolating, resulting in the ultimate modern malady, neurasthenia. While Willa Cather may have inherited Beard’s and her culture’s assumptions of illness, it ultimately appears that Cather’s depiction of neurasthenia is a highly vexed one, both sympathetic and troubled, reflecting a deep knowledge of the condition and an ongoing struggle with the rationalization of scientific psychology. As an intellectual, she was uniquely positioned to both suffer from the forces shaping the new disease and to study them with a critical eye. Godfrey St. Peter, the anxious protagonist of The Professor’s House, becomes then a character that readers of Cather’s day would recognize as a neurasthenic: a "brain-worker," hard-charging and introspective, and lacking in what Beard would call "nerve force," the psychological stoutness needed to withstand modernity’s assault on the self. Moreover, St. Peter is not a lone sufferer, but is instead emblematic of a culture-wide affliction--part of a larger polity constantly driven to newer heights of production, consumption, and subsequent affliction. Jackson Lears theorizes that "neurasthenia was a product of overcivilization" (51), of consumer culture and endemic commodification. Beard himself characterized neurasthenia as an "American disease," a malady integral to the rationalizing, industrializing American economy (31). Cather reinforces the neurasthenic’s exhaustion and inadequacy as St. Peter comes across his wife flirting with Louis Marsellus, prompting the professor to wonder, "Beaux-fils, apparently, were meant by Providence to take the husband’s place when husbands had ceased to be lovers" (160). Not only does this point to the sexual inadequacy and listlessness characteristic of neurasthenia, but the diction here reinforces the modus operandi of the commodity culture--when an old model is used up, it is simply replaced by a newer, better model. Interestingly, Cather’s language itself often mirrors Beard’s. St. Peter at one point exclaims to Lillian, in a beatific reverie: "I was thinking [...] about Euripides; how, when he was an old man, he went and lived in a cave by the sea, and it was thought queer, at the time. It seems that houses had become insupportable to him" (156). The Professor’s "symptom of hopelessness," Beard might explain, "appears to be similar to that of morbid fear--an instinctive consciousness of inadequacy for the task before us. We are hopeless because our nerve force is so reduced that the mere holding on to life seems to be a burden too heavy for us" (49). Both Beard and Cather, then, zero in on the crushing weight of modern life for the neurasthenic. The Professor here aches for rest and isolation--he, in Beard’s language, "fears society," prompting Lillian to fear that he is "’becoming lonely and inhuman’" (162). This neurasthenic craving for isolation becomes much more profound in Book III of the novel, when St. Peter is almost completely estranged from his family. Although he feels he loves them, he "could not live with his family again" upon their return from Europe (274). "Falling out, for him, seemed to mean falling out of all domestic and social relations, out of his place in the human family, indeed" (275). St. Peter’s estrangement is not only with his family (an estrangement perhaps rationalized by the grasping or otherwise distasteful St. Peter clan), but with the human family. It is a solipsistic retreat from contact and effort, the neurasthenic’s revulsion for work of any kind. Neurasthenia, if left untreated, can become deadly. Beard explains: "A certain amount of nerve strength is necessary to supply the courage requisite for simple existence. Abstaining from dying demands a degree of force" (49). Compare this to the scene near the end of the narrative in which St. Peter, sleeping on the couch, nearly dies: When St. Peter at last awoke, the room was pitch-black and full of gas. He was cold and numb, felt sick and rather dazed. The long-anticipated coincidence had happened, he realized. The storm had blown the stove out and the window shut. The thing to do was to get up and open the window. But suppose he did not get up--? How far was a man required to exert himself against accident? [...] He hadn’t lifted his hand against himself--was he required to lift it for himself? (276) This classic scene, variously read as a suicide attempt or as an accident, can be understood as the neurasthenic’s complete collapse. The Professor’s decision is made solely in terms of effort; this is not a moral or philosophical decision, but one of physiological capacity. He is unwilling to "exert" the energy necessary to save himself, unwilling to "lift his hand" either for or against himself. Here is the prototypical neurasthenic fatigue--almost suicidal, but ultimately too passive and weak to even take that course of action. Accidental gassing is a supremely logical death for the neurasthenic. This appropriateness is reinforced by the Professor at the end of the narrative, when he remembers his near death: Yet when he was confronted by accidental extinction, he had felt no will to resist, but had let chance take its way, as it had done with him so often. He did not remember springing up from the couch, though he did remember a crisis, a moment of acute, agonized strangulation. (282) Again, the Professor is a passive figure, couch-ridden, subject to the whims of chance and his own lack of nerve. He is saved by Augusta, though, and does somehow manage to carry on with his life, if in a diminished way. We cannot accredit his survival to clinical treatment of neurasthenia, but perhaps his vicarious experience on the mesa with Tom Outland can account for his fortitude. Treatment of neurasthenia, according to Tom Lutz, "aimed at a reconstitution of the subject in terms of gender roles" (32). S. Weir Mitchell, a leading psychiatrist of the day, treated many notable neurasthenics. Female patients, in line with turn-of-the-century models of female decorum, were prescribed bed rest for up to several months, and were prohibited from all activity and visitors. (Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s "The Yellow Wallpaper" has long been considered a critique of Mitchell’s "rest cure" for women. Interestingly, St. Peter’s old study has yellow wall paper.) Treatments for men, again consistent with contemporary gender roles, emphasized vigorous exercise, often in natural settings: Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Eakins, Frederic Remington, and Owen Wister were all sent to the Dakotas for rough-riding exercise cures [...] Henry James was sent to hike in the Alps, and William James continued to prescribe vigorous mountain hikes for himself[.] (32) Depleted of "nerve force," male neurasthenics were admonished to replenish their reserves in rugged, survivalist outdoor settings. Beard documents the treatment of one "Mr. O," whom, worn out by "labor necessitated by scholarly pursuits," is afflicted by a settled melancholia, associated with a morbid and utterly baseless fear of financial ruin...he was as easily exhausted physically as mentally. He possessed no reserve force, and gave out utterly whenever he attempted to overstep the bounds of the most ordinary effort. [As part of his treatment] He journeyed to the West, visited the Yellowstone region, and at San Francisco took steamer for China [...] and returned a well man, nor has he since relapsed into his former condition. (139-41) Beard’s characterization of "Mr. O" is fascinating in several ways. First, he is the prototypical neurasthenic--worn out, depressed, full of "baseless" fears. More interestingly, for the purposes of this study, part of the patient’s cure is effected in the "Yellowstone region," which would ultimately be made a national park by neurasthenic outdoors man Theodore Roosevelt. This natural space, hewn from the wilds of the American frontier, is a prototypical refuge for nervous "brain-workers" in need of rejuvenation. This approach to treatment is especially intriguing given the setting of Book II of The Professor's House: an isolated Mesa in the Southwest. While St. Peter himself doesn’t undertake an exercise cure, "Tom Outland’s Story" does mimic the form and rhetoric of treatment for male neurasthenics, possibly accounting for the odd narrative structure of the novel. Cather, then, not only acknowledges the cultural phenomenon of neurasthenia, but incorporates it in the structure of the text. Outland’s experience on the mesa (mediated, we must remember, by the neurasthenic St. Peter, who relates the tale) is consistent with what Jackson Lears has termed the "cult of strenuousity" prevalent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. According to Lears neurasthenics often sought refuge in "a vitalistic cult of energy and process; and a parallel recovery of the primal, irrational sources in the human psyche, forces which had been obscured by the evasive banality of modern culture" (57). Outland, discovering the mesa valley for the first time, explains that the air there "made my mouth and nostrils smart like charged water, seemed to go to my head a little and produce a kind of exaltation" (200). Like Roosevelt and other devotees of the exercise cure, Outland (and St. Peter, via the mediation) is re-"charged" by the primal essence of the mesa. The Professor later laments, "his great drawback was [...] the fact that he had not spent his youth in the great dazzling South-west country which was the scene of his explorers’ adventures" (258). Interestingly, Outland’s rejuvenation on the mesa is cast by Cather in hyperbolically masculine terms. The notoriously phallic central tower of the cliff city, for instance, may serve as a metaphor for recovered sexual potency: It was beautifully proportioned, that tower, swelling out to a larger girth a little above the base, then growing slender again. There was something symmetrical and powerful about the swell of the masonry. The tower was the fine thing that held all the jumble of houses together and made them mean something. It was red in color, even on that grey day. (201) Neurasthenics embraced "premodern symbols as alternatives to the vagueness of liberal Protestantism or the sterility of nineteenth-century positivism" (Lears xiii). The tower stands in striking contrast to St. Peter’s sexless marriage with Lillian, potentially reviving the Professor’s sagging neurasthenic libido. The tower also serves, in Outland’s mind, to forge meaning out of the seemingly random cluster of houses: "The notion struck me like a rifle ball that this mesa had once been like a bee-hive; it was full of little cluff-hung villages, it had been the home of a powerful tribe" (202). Outland’s discovery, cast in martial terms ("rifle ball"), reinscribes the imperialistic tendencies of the exercise cure and of Tom’s archeological endeavor itself. Tom Lutz notes that the exercise cure, steeped in Rooseveltian rhetoric, exemplified "a polemic for cultural change, a retraining, presented as a ‘return’ to heroic, natural, and manly values...The paternalism of Roosevelt’s appeal made sense against the same understanding of role which informed the cures for neurasthenia" (36). Outland seems to unconsciously concur, reflecting that "Wherever humanity has made that hardest of all starts and lifted itself out of mere brutality, is a sacred spot" (220-1). While Outland does have genuine admiration for the tribe, his language is almost always couched in terms of martial struggle, of striving against implacable odds. On a related note, George Kennan, writing in a 1908 McClure’s Magazine edited by Cather, proposed that rising suicide rates among the educated by cured by a "cultivation of what may be called the heroic spirit" (228). Cather was surely aware of this masculinizing, imperializing response to neurasthenic ennui--her poem, "Prairie Dawn," appears at the end of Kennan’s article! Outland’s excavation of Cliff City and its remains subsequently becomes an imperializing gesture, in spite of his respect for the culture. What does this mean, though, for a neurasthenic reading of The Professor’s House? In part, it acknowledges Cather’s response to and incorporation of a cultural phenomenon into the text in question. Additionally, it serves to clarify Cather’s critique of masculinist American culture and of the gendered treatment of neurasthenia. This critique is exemplified by Cather’s depiction of "Mother Eve": "Her mouth was open as if she were screaming, and her face, through all those years, had kept a look of terrible agony" (214-15). Not only does this harrowing image undermine Outland’s romantic depiction of the tribe, but it points to the moral bankruptcy of the cult of strenuousity. It is easy, Cather seems to argue, for Roosevelt and his ilk to "rough it" in the wilderness to regain their vigor, but the "real-life" wilderness experience is a far harsher and more dangerous prospect. Cather ultimately does not romanticize the mesa--she problematizes it as a site for neurasthenic recovery. More importantly, this vexed reading of the treatment suggests a vexed reading of neurasthenia and of "American Nervousness" itself. Ultimately, in spite of his best efforts to recover the intense experience of his past and of Tom Outland’s, St. Peter fails. As Mathias Schubnell explains, Cather’s "central character is trapped between a modern urban civilization to which he belongs against his will, and a pastoral, earth-bound world he yearns for but cannot regain" (97). This paradox is exemplified by the Professor’s early lament to Lillian, "’it’s been a mistake, our having a family and writing histories and getting middle-aged. We should have been picturesquely shipwrecked together when we were young’" (94). The reader, of course, recognizes the absurdity of this image--an absurdity strongly reinforced by the image of the deceased "Mother Eve" figure. These overcivilized men, Cather suggests, have no conception of what intense experience might be. That experience has been replaced, the Professor explains, by rationalizing, industrializing forces in American culture: Science hasn’t given us any new amazements, except of the superficial kind we get from witnessing dexterity and sleight-of-hand. It hasn’t given us any richer pleasures...nor any new sins--not one! Indeed, it has taken our old ones away. It’s the laboratory, not the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world. You’ll agree there is not much thrill about a physiological sin...I don’t think you help people by making their conduct of no importance--you impoverish them. (68) St. Peter, the neurasthenic humanist, gets here at the heart of his (and America’s) sickness--it has replaced the numinous and the sacred with the banal and the profane. The disorder he suffers from, once termed a sin, has become "physiological," as has his soul. It is worthwhile to contrast the Professor’s lament with Beard’s supremely rational boast: "It would seem, indeed, that diseases which are here described represent a certain amount of force in the body which, if our knowledge of physiological chemistry were more precise, might be measured in units" (115). The banal, utterly practical measuring of depression, of melancholia, of humanity’s every whim and caprice, Cather suggests, has dulled the luster of human existence. The Professor’s tub, then, becomes an emblem of the relentless stripping away of all that is meaningful and real in Cather’s culture: "Many a night, after blowing out his study lamp, he had leaped into that tub, clad in his pyjamas, to give it another coat of some one of the many paints that were advertised to behave like porcelain, but didn’t" (12). Porcelain here becomes the religion or art which once sustained the race, replaced by the false claims of science. The Professor, though, seems too world-weary, too embittered to actually turn to religious faith. Perhaps God is dead in his world, eliminated by the Faustian quest for scientific knowledge. "His career, his wife, his family, were not his life at all, but a chain of events which had happened to him" (264). Godfrey St. Peter, like the rest of the neurasthenics, is doomed to an incurable sickness, victim of a spiritual epidemic which, Cather suggests, will not soon run its course. References Beard, George M. A Practical Treatise on Nervous Exhaustion (Neurasthenia). A. D. Rockwell, ed. New York: E.B. Treat & Company, 1905. Cather, Willa. The Professor’s House. London: Virago, 1981. Fisher-Wirth, Ann. "Dispossession and Redemption in the Novels of Willa Cather." Cather Studies 1 (1990): 36-54. Harvey, Sally Peltier. Predefining the American Dream: The Novels of Willa Cather. Toronto: Associated UP, 1995. Hilgart, John. "Death Comes for the Aesthete: Commodity Culture and the Artifact in Cather’s The Professor’s House." Studies in the Novel 30:3 (Fall 1998): 377-404. Kennan, George. McClure’s Magazine 30:2 (June 1908): 218-228. Lears, T.J. Jackson. No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation American Culture. New York: Pantheon Books, 1981. Lutz, Tom. American Nervousness, 1903: An Anecdotal History. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1991. Schubnell, Matthias. "The Decline of America: Willa Cather’s Spenglerian Vision in The Professor’s House." Cather Studies 2 (1993): 92-117. Stouck, David. "Willa Cather and The Professor’s House: ‘Letting Go with the Heart." Western American Literature 7 (1972): 13-24. Will, Barbara. "Nervous Systems, 1880-1915." American Bodies: Cultural Histories of the Physique. Tim Armstrong, ed. New York: NYUP, 1996. 86-100. Links The Willa Cather Electronic Archive The Mower's Tree (Cather Colloquium Newsletter) George Beard information