Durham University Research Articles

Catching the elusive chiral nitrogen compound

The world of chirality, or the handedness of a molecule, is dominated by controlling how atoms and functional groups are arranged around a central carbon. Until now, there hasn’t been a straightforward way for chemists to make compounds with chiral nitrogen centers, which are important in drugs and biologically active molecules. Matthew Kitching and colleagues at Durham University have found that adding a carbon fragment to an amine and binding the resulting ammonium to a common chiral compound gives chiral N compounds in high specificity, in a single-pot reaction ( Nature 2021, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03735-5 ). “Most people don’t think about an amine being chiral because it rapidly interconverts,” Kitching says. The lone electron pair that gives amines their typical trigonal pyramidal shape can tunnel through the N center, flipping the molecule inside out like an umbrella in a windstorm. By treating an amine with an alkyl bromide compound, Kitching’s team

COPING WITH COVID; UNDERSTANDING AND MITIGATING DISADVANTAGES EXPERIENCED BY FIRST GENERATION SCHOLARS STUDYING ONLINE

ABSTRACT This article examines the implications of the transition to online or blended learning for first generation scholars (FGS) brought about by Covid-19. We present the findings of a mixed methods project that draws data from both in-depth qualitative interviews and a large quantitative survey of students at Durham University. We offer a comparative analysis of how FGS contrast to the general student body in relation to a range of key challenges that Covid-19 and the consequent ‘online pivot’ posed to university life including technological, social and resource based issues. Our findings demonstrate that FGS were particularly affected by this shift to online or blended learning. The final substantive section discusses a range of potential mitigation strategies adopted by the School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University, with the assumption that some, at least, of these, and our data, will be of wider relevance in the sector.

Contributors’ Notes

Contributors’ Notes

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Experiences of first-generation scholars at a highly selective UK university

Targets set by the UK Office for Students require highly academically selective UK universities to enrol a greater percentage of students identified as least likely to participate in higher education. Such students are typically at a disadvantage in terms of levels of academic preparedness and economic, cultural and social capital. Drawing on eighteen interviews with first-generation students at Durham University, we identify five sites of pressure: developing a sense of belonging within the terms of an elite university culture, engagement in student social activities, financial worries, concerns about academic progress, and self-transformation. Based on these insights, we argue that support for first-generation scholars will require that universities recognise and redress elitist cultures that discourage applications from prospective first-generation scholars and prevent those who do enrol from having the best educational and all-round experience.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Author’s Reflections on the Responses and Questions from the Book Launch

This is the author’s reflections on formal responses, and a discussion, which took place at the book launch for Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), hosted jointly, in November 2020, by the Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, and the Australian Catholic University. Topics covered include: the aesthetic properties of Kant’s philosophy, the difference between the received Kant and the textual Kant, the theological hostility to (and appropriation of) Kant, Insole’s claim that Kant believes in God, but is not a Christian.

Assessing pathological conditions in archaeological bone using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF)

This study aims to investigate the potential of portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometry (pXRF) for identifying pathological conditions in archaeological human skeletal remains. Bone element distribution in relation to known disease categories is analyzed using pXRF from the femora of 73 individuals (34 adult; 39 non-adult) from the post-Medieval Coach Lane skeletal collection (Durham University). There were no significant differences in the elemental ratios of individuals with scurvy, rickets, and cribra orbitalia. Potential alterations in elemental content were observed in relation to syphilis (Mn/S, Mn/Cl, and Ba/Cl) and neoplastic disease (Ba/Sr, S/Sr, Mn/Fe, and Zn/Cl). It is likely that post-depositional diagenetic changes, potentially exacerbated by the industrial location of the burial site, altered the elemental content of the individuals sampled and thereby effectively obscured any pathological changes detectable by pXRF.

Response to Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

This is a response given at the book launch for Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), hosted jointly, in November 2020, by the Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, and the Australian Catholic University. The response focuses on the continuity and rupture that Insole claims to find between Kant’s early and late philosophy, and draws attention to an aesthetic sensibility across Kant’s thought: a Platonic and rationalist aesthetics which focuses on the qualities of harmony, plenitude and perfection that Insole finds to be the ‘base notes’ of Kant’s thought.

Conversation between Jennifer Herdt and Christopher Insole

This is a conversation held at the book launch for Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), hosted jointly, in November 2020, by the Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, and the Australian Catholic University. The conversation covers the claim made by Insole that Kant believes in God, but is not a Christian, the way in which reason itself is divine for Kant, and the suggestion that reading Kant can open up new possibilities for dialogue between Christian thinkers and contemporary forms of secular religiosity.

Response to Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020)

This is a response given at the book launch for Christopher Insole’s Kant and the Divine: From Contemplation to the Moral Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), hosted jointly, in November 2020, by the Centre for Catholic Studies, Durham University, and the Australian Catholic University. The response considers the gap between the textual Kant (as set out by Insole), and the received Kant, and reflects on how theologians have been too quick either to condemn and dismiss (a poorly interpreted) Kant, or to rehabilitate Kant for theological projects, which Kant would have been opposed to, given his deepest philosophical commitments.

Book Review of Rural Cult Centres in the Hauran: Part of the Broader Network of the Near East (100 BC–AD), by Francesca Mazzilli

This book on the cultic places of villages in southern Syria and northern Jordan, based partly on a doctoral thesis completed at Durham University (“Beyond Religion: Cultural Exchange and Economy in Northern Phoenicia and the Hauran, Syria,” 2014), aims to reconsider the impressive number of rural sanctuaries—57 of them—in the region of the Hauran from the first century BCE to the third century CE. The author’s term “cult centre” turns the reader’s attention to human activities in the ancient sanctuaries, perceived as vibrant places.

Mission Impossible: Karl Neufeld’s Holy War Propaganda Trip to Medina (1915)

Abstract This article deals with Karl Neufeld’s trip to Medina, undertaken in the framework of German efforts to incite insurrections with the aim of destabilizing British rule in the Muslim world. His specific task was to spread propaganda in the Hijaz and the Sudan; he made it only to Medina, from where he was expelled by the Ottoman government after a stay of six weeks. Neufeld’s diary on which this article is mainly based is the only source about how Holy War propaganda was actually disseminated. Therefore, it goes beyond the existing literature and adds new insight into the discussion of German expeditions organized to counter British influence in the Middle East during the First World War. In contrast to most of the other enterprises, Neufeld accomplished certain goals, which does not, however, change the overall picture that the “jihād made in Germany” was a failure. Materials used include files from the archive of the German Foreign Office (Politisches Archiv, Auswärtiges Amt: pa-aa), the Sudan Archive Durham (Durham University Library: sad), and narrative sources, as well as the pertinent research literature.

Ian Guy Lloyd

Ian Guy Lloyd was born in Fatfield, County Durham, a village near Sunderland. His father, Alfred Guy Lloyd, was a GP in the area—one of a long line of family...

A Place for Volunteers in Field Sciences

A Place for Volunteers in Field Sciences

Nicola Polloni, The Twelfth-Century Renewal of Latin Metaphysics: Gundissalinus’s Ontology of Matter and Form. Durham Medieval and Renaissance Monographs and Essays, 6. Durham: Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Durham University; Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2020, 318 pp.

Abstract: The study of metaphysics in the medieval era most often evokes figures like thirteenth and fourteenth centuries luminaries such as Thomas Aquinas, William Ockham, or Duns Scotus. But even before that time, an important meeting of Western philosophy with Arabic ideology established an early attempt to systematize Latin metaphysics. Such a project was enhanced by a team of translators working principally in peaceful Toledo, Spain, in the mid-twelfth century. The focus of the work to hand regarding the renewal of Latin metaphysics is on a groundbreaking figure in this dizzying and far-reaching context, one Dominicus Gundissalinus, at once a reconciler and synthesizer of a stream of thought traceable to Plato and Boethius.

Baumgart , Winfried The Crimean War: 1853–1856 Tate , Trudi A Short History of the Crimean War (review)

SEER, 99, 1, JANUARY 2021 180 relations between the Polish nobility and imperial government, brings the volume to its conclusion. This last section would have benefited enormously from a map. Among several surprising omissions in the lists of references to published sources, the most regrettable is that of T. V. Andreeva’s compendious Tainye obshchestva v Rossii v pervoi treti XIX v.: pravitel´stvennaia politika i obshchestvennoe mnenie (St Petersburg, 2009). This is such an enormously important contribution to the historiography of Alexander I’s reign that it is disappointing not one of this volume’s contributors deemed it worth consulting or citing. Equally regrettable is the plethora of typos, and errors in translation and transliteration scattered throughout the volume which somehow evaded timely correction. The main difficulty with the editors’ thesis that Alexander I’s reign was ‘a time of exploration and revision of empire and state-building’ (p. 11) is its implication that there was some kind of strategic development plan in place which, despite M. M. Speranskii’s best efforts, there clearly was not. There is, in any case, little in this collection of disparate articles which emerges in support of it. Moreover, it takes insufficient account of the manifest lack of political will and executive resolve crucially on the part of the only possible agent of change in the Russian empire at this time: the ‘Enigmatic Tsar’ himself. Durham University Patrick O’Meara Baumgart, Winfried. The Crimean War: 1853–1856. Second edition. Modern Wars. Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York, 2020. xiv + 297 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $40.95 (paperback). Tate, Trudi. A Short History of the Crimean War. I. B. Tauris Short Histories. I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2019. xx + 203 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Further reading. Notes. Index. £10.99 (paperback). The number of modern conflicts caused by failures of diplomacy and statecraft is not very large. The Crimean War is one of them, argues Winfried Baumgart, professor emeritus at the University of Mainz and the leading authority on that conflict. Its causes were rooted in the so-called Eastern Question, the manifold problems thrown up by the slow and incipient decline and retreat of the Ottoman Empire since the late seventeenth century. But its more immediate origins are to be found in the folly and muddle, miscommunications and blunders of monarchs, foreign ministers and their diplomatists. It was a most curious historical event, curious in its slow gestation, curious in its vast REVIEWS 181 geographical spread (it was by no means confined to the Crimea), and curious in that it ultimately did not escalate into the mid-nineteenth-century world war into which it could so easily have turned. This second and enlarged edition of Baumgart’s The Crimean War offers a magisterial survey of the build-up to the war, the role of the belligerent and neutral powers, the conduct of the war on the Danube front, in the Black and Baltic Sea theatres of war, the Caucasus, the traditional secondary theatre of Russo-Turkish conflicts, and in the peripheral campaigns in the White Sea and the Pacific Ocean. It is augmented now by an entirely new chapter on the medical services in both belligerent camps and by an updated bibliography. As the editor of the Austrian, British, French and Prussian documents on the Crimean War (some twelve volumes altogether) Baumgart is well placed to weave together the often involved story of diplomatic exchanges prior to and during the conflict and at the peace talks at Paris that followed it in 1856. Professor Baumgart’s mastery of the sources allows him to offer an analysis of the course of events that is nuanced and aware of the appropriate contexts. His judgment is always acute. Above all, his history of the Crimean War is free from national distortions, so frequently the result of sublimated national prejudices or, more frequently still, of over-reliance on one set of archival materials only. As with other wars, the aims of the belligerents grew with the fighting. This was more especially so in the case of Britain. Lord Palmerston, who became prime minister during the war, summed up his country’s ‘main and...

I Suffer, Therefore I Am: Engaging with Empathy in Contemporary French Women's Writing by Kathryn Robson

Reviewed by: I Suffer, Therefore I Am: Engaging with Empathy in Contemporary French Women's Writing by Kathryn Robson Dominique Carlini Versini Robson, Kathryn. I Suffer, Therefore I Am: Engaging with Empathy in Contemporary French Women's Writing. Legenda, 2019. ISBN 978-1-78188-675-5. Pp. ix + 140. As Robson observes, empathy is central in contemporary debates and particularly in liberal discourse (4), whether it is through regular calls for empathy in political leaders, or through emerging social movements demanding a more compassionate relationship to our planet and all its inhabitants. Robson investigates the concept in the work of contemporary French writers such as Marie Darrieussecq, Chloé Delaume, Camille Laurens, Véronique Olmi, and Delphine de Vigan. Reflecting on narratives of eating disorder, the loss of a child, the killing of one's child, and autofictional accounts of trauma, Robson asks: "[W]hat is at stake in reading narratives of other people's pain?" (1). Laurens's accusation of plagiarism against Darrieussecq provides the title of the book—through an allusion to Darrieussecq's certificat doloriste—as well as the basis for the interrogation of the ethical position of the reader engaging with these texts (1–4). Laurens's argument, according to which one cannot write about what one has not experienced, is extended here to the reader: How can we read suffering that is alien to us? How can we understand what makes us uncomfortable, and even distressed? To answer these questions, Robson reflects on the difference between empathy, compassion, and sympathy, drawing on a wide range of theories from Dominick LaCapra's "empathic unsettlement" (16) to Judith Butler's notion of framing. She reveals the limits of empathy, which might come at the risk of preventing a politicized response to or of consuming the narrative subject's suffering (13). The discussion on the unimaginable in the following chapters is particularly fascinating. [End Page 288] In the second chapter, which focuses on autobiographical accounts of the loss of a child by Laure Adler, Sophie Daull and Laurens, Robson shows that the reader's empathy is "rejected from the start" (49) by the writers-narrators, as the texts underline the impossibility for the reader to know what a bereaved mother experiences. At the other end, the third chapter reflects on maternal filicides, looking at real-life cases that have taken place in France in the last decades, and their exploration in the literary works of Sophie Marinopoulos, Mazarine Pingeot, Olmi, and Laurence Tardieu. Robson shows the problematization of empathy in such narratives, where readers' empathic response can work to reinforce "dominant cultural ideas of maternity" (87). Robson suggests to redefine empathy—not as a way to "stand into someone else's shoes," which implies a stable definition of the self and of the other—but to rethink it "in and through the impossibility of reconciliation between self and other" (123). In interrogating our response to challenging texts that take us out of our comfort zone, Robson invites us to reflect on our reading practice and engage in more ethical empathetic reading. This book is essential for readers interested in contemporary French fiction and specifically the work of women writers, trauma studies, and readers' response, but also for any reader who would like to reflect on more ethical reading practices. Dominique Carlini Versini Durham University (UK) Copyright © 2021 American Association of Teachers of French

The two heads of a simulated patient – maximizing their use in communication training

ABSTRACT Background Simulated patients (SPs) are an established resource in medical communication training where they portray patients with medical problems to allow medical students to practice communication skills. The range of skills offered by SPs appears to be underappreciated and there is no formal published research exploring their views on how their skills can best be utilized in experiential teaching sessions. This study aims to fill that research gap. Methods Eighteen SPs from two medical schools, Hull York Medical School and Durham University, were interviewed using an in-depth, one-to-one, semi-structured approach. Data was transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed. Results Three global themes were identified from the data: (i) the benefits of using simulated patients, (ii) prerequisites and (iii) feedback. Benefits of using SPs include their ability to target specific communication skills in role-play. They can facilitate sessions and give feedback to students; and they enable early communication training in a non-clinical setting. Their key asset is the ability to role-play a realistic patient whilst simultaneously appraising the student’s performance and adapting their role to create learning opportunities. We have named this dual approach the two heads of an SP. There are certain essential prerequisites. SPs and tutors need appropriate training. Students should be encouraged to be themselves and engage in consultations. A close SP-tutor relationship is beneficial. For SPs giving feedback to students, a priority is to build student confidence. Views on the use of in-role feedback were polarized. Conclusion This study explores SPs’ views on the skills they offer in medical communication training and how these can be best utilized, providing valuable learning points for medical educators.

The Mediating Role of Perceived Control and Desire for Control in the Relationship between Personality and Depressive Symptomology

Introduction: Depression constitutes a fundamental problem for society and understanding its aetiology is of unequivocal importance. Seminal theories implicated low perceived control, low desire for control and variations in personality factors in the manifestation of depression. This study, however, is the first to examine the mediating roles of both desire for control and perceived control in the relationship between personality and depressive symptomology. Methods: A sample of 350 participants, ranging from 18 to 67 years of age (M = 22.8, SD = 9.0), were recruited through Durham University’s social media pages. Participants completed the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, the Spheres of Control Scale, the Desire for Control Scale and Beck’s Depression Inventory. Results: Path analysis using Maximum-Likelihood Method indicated that desire for control and perceived control serially mediated the effect of extraversion, conscientiousness and agreeableness on depressive symptomology, with only neuroticism maintaining a direct effect. Extraversion and conscientiousness increased desire for control, whereas agreeableness diminished desire for control. Greater desire for control subsequently elevated perceived control, manifesting reductions in depressive symptomology. Discussion: This study provides novel evidence that desire for control and perceived control mediate the relationship between personality and depressive symptoms. The clinical implications are discussed, evaluating the potential efficacy of therapies that bolster desire for control.