Early Sketches Research Articles

The short fiction of Ambrose Bierce: a comprehensive edition

Ambrose Bierce (1842 1914?) has been a widely read, often controversial, author for more than a hundred years, but until now there has been no exhaustive collection of his short fiction. This new edition, both comprehensive and chronological, reveals the broad range of fiction that Bierce mastered. Readers who expect to find only a writer of grim and shocking stories of war and other horrors will discover that he excelled at other types of tales humorous, mystical, Gothic, satirical, sentimental, mystery, science fiction, and even love stories. This collection gives readers the opportunity to observe the growth of characteristic themes and techniques in Bierce s short fiction. A number of the early sketches evidence both the thoughtful moral focus and the technical brilliance of his best work, and here they also can be seen as training exercises for the young writer on his way to the better-known stories of his artistic peak. Although several previous books purport to provide accurate collections of Bierce s work, none does more than uncritically re-assemble the tales in the heretofore standard Collected Works (1909-1912). This edition will be the new standard. It is the first to include all his known and rediscovered short fiction. Of the 249 items collected in this edition, 1 story ( Alasper ) is unpublished, 58 have not been previously reprinted from the newspapers and magazines in which they originally appeared, and 74 have not been reprinted since their appearance in Bierce s early volumes. It is also the only edition to be based upon consultation of manuscripts and early printed sources. As a result, textual corrections have been made to some of Bierce s stories, including two of his best known. Volume III covers the years 1895 to 1910 and includes more than 70 pieces, with Moxon s Master, Beyond the Wall, and The Eyes of a Panther. A model of careful scholarship, this edition includes selected textual variants, a bibliography of all appearances of the story in Bierce s lifetime, introductory comments and extensive annotations that provide biographical and other background information, and citations to important works of criticism.

Designing movies: portrait of a Hollywood artist

This retrospective on the career of Academy Award-winning production designer Richard Sylbert takes readers behind the scenes of some of the most influential films of the past fifty years. The Manchurian Candidate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Dick Tracy. The common factor behind these diverse, visually ground-breaking cinematic masterpieces is the work of legendary production designer Richard Sylbert. Basing the book in part on the late designer's Hollywood memoirs, writer Sylvia Townsend, with the participation of Sylbert's widow, screenwriter Sharmagne Sylbert, has enhanced the production designer's original manuscript with candid interviews from some of his most famous collaborators, including Warren Beatty, Roman Polanski, and Francis Ford Coppola. The result is a book that takes readers behind the scenes of some of the most influential and highly acclaimed films of the past fifty years. This is a portrait of a highly driven, sometimes tempestuous visionary who wasn't afraid to fight for the artistic integrity of the worlds he created on screen. Movie lovers will find in-depth discussions of the making of such modern classics as Reds, Carnal Knowledge, Shampoo, and The Cotton Club. More than thirty illustrations capture Sylbert's creative process from early sketches to completed sets and locations.

Gender, War, and the Department Store: Zola's Au Bonheur des Dames

In an early sketch for Au Bonheur des Dames, Zola remarks that he wants his new novel to be poem of modern-day activity. Thus, he says, complete change of philosophy: no more pessimism; don't show the stupidity and melancholy of life, demonstrate on the contrary its continual labor, the power and the gaiety of its birth-giving. In a word, go with the century, express the century, which is a century of action and conquest, of effort on all fronts.1 Zola's main idea for the novel, we read further on, is that of a department store absorbing, crushing all the small businesses of a neighborhood. But, the author hastens to add, will not weep for them; on the contrary, for I want to show the triumph of modern activity; are no longer of their time, for them! are crushed by the giant (RM 3:1681). Ten years later, this self-exhortation to scientific impersonality finds a suggestive echo in the narrated reflection of one of the protagonists of La Debacle, Zola's epic portrayal of the Franco-Prussian war: was in favor of war, he believed it to be inevitable, to the very existence of nations. Isn't life a war at every moment? Isn't the very essence of nature that of continuous combat, the victory of the most worthy, force sustained and revitalized by action, life reborn always fresh from within death (RM 5:408)? As Zola makes abundantly clear, Maurice, despite the acuity of his Darwinian2 insights, represents the degenerate side of France, an empire exhausted by excessive pleasures and resting on the laurels of its glorious past. So when, at the story's end, Maurice expires along with the French army's will to fight Germany, we understand that a stagnant political regime has gone the way of small commerce in the earlier novel: too bad for the French; they are no longer of their time. But we shall not weep for them, for from their defeat a stronger nation is born. Indeed, in his article commemorating the battle of Sedan, Zola writes: A nation that has survived such a catastrophe is a nation immortal, invincible throughout the ages (RM 5:1415). Sedan represents, then, regeneration through pain, a necessary bloodbath, a virile kind of healing (RM

A Library in the Grands Moulins de Paris: challenging Reality

In 2006, the University of Paris 7 and its new Main Library will move to Paris Rive Gauche, a recently developed neighbourhood on the left bank of the Seine. The library will occupy most of the city’s former industrial mills, the Grands Moulins de Paris. As part of the project, the library developed a very detailed functional program. The facilities are expected to comprise 1,800 workstations (half of which will be computerized), and upon completion will have a capacity of 300,000 freely accessible documents and 350,000 documents in store over a total surface area of some 12,000 m2. The architect Rudy Ricciotti won the international competition to design the library held in 2001. Perfectly suited to its function, the industrial building in which the library is housed dates from the 1920s. It presents both advantages (vast surfaces, sufficient load-bearing capacity, natural light, etc.) and obstacles (restrictions on free circulation, forests of columns in certain areas, interrupted spaces, etc.) to being transformed into a library that is functional and adapted to its purposes. The building’s structure and the constraints it imposed profoundly influenced the program which had to be adjusted, and also affected other aspects, including the arrangement and features of the furnishings as well as the building’s system of signs. In agreement with the university, the library worked in close collaboration with the architect from the earliest sketches onwards. As a result, his initial plan also evolved considerably. The installation of the library in the Grands Moulins offers us a chance to observe the nature and effects of the interactions between the transformation of a building and the evolution of a program.

Producing/Controlling Spectacle: Presidential Speech in Media Reportage

The article discusses the pattern of American presidential speeches and their gradual evolution from a simple printed copy to the present “completely watertight, self-referential, pictorial system” of visualization. Before 1800, the usual method of reporting a presidential speech was to issue a broadside; there were no images. In the late nineteenth century the fledging picture press issued a few portraits, and by the early twentieth century many sketches and photographs of politicians grace their pages. The White House then gradually began to provide its own pictorial coverage, ensuring a more positive image.

Community Science: Creating an Alternative Place to Stand?

This article comments on two emerging views of community psychology's approaches to the use of research for responding to social problems in contemporary community contexts--(a) the formation of a new field of community science, or (b) the updating of community psychology research traditions. If community science is to become established as a field related to community psychology, its proponents will need to agree upon conventions of epistemology, foci of interest, methods, and standards by which its work can be judged so that it can be distinguished from other human sciences. These articles provide early sketches for what community science might be. However, as noted in this commentary, we need to heed signs of concern about community psychology's continued relevance in public discourse regarding the analysis of and responses to social problems. While this special issue offers some promising responses to the concern of what the field can contribute, the field would be well served if we broaden our dialogue about a renewal of community psychology's commitment to social justice and the need for its perspectives in the practice of research that seeks to address community-based issues in the early 21st century.

An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Sketch Representations in Early Stage Digital Design

This paper presents an experimental approach that examines the response of non-architects to three virtual representations of architecture within a non- immersive Virtual Reality (VR) environment. It investigates the use of current digital technologies in their ability to facilitate early design stage sketch representation and explores the communication of early stage digital design proposals in order to determine the effect of representation type upon perception.

The Young Brahms: Biographical Data Reexamined

19th-Century Music, XXIV/3, pp. 276–89. ISSN: 0148-2076. © 2001 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223. Does a juicy story overpower the facts? The biography of Johannes Brahms is a test case in the making. As usually written, the story of his youth has been marked by rumor, half truths, and sheer, vivid invention. Although the old stories persist, recent diggings in the archives and a closer look at the early biographies are bringing to life a very different young Brahms. If the picture that emerges is less worthy of Hollywood, it is perhaps the more inspiring as a believable account of the human spirit. Brahms is portrayed in literally dozens of biographies and articles as having grown up in a Hamburg slum, his father something of a rustic, comical musical jack-of-all-trades, the family so poor they had to send him even as a boy to play in brothels and drinking establishments (Lokals or Schanken) to help put food on the table.1 These “facts” are even used by some to interpret the character of the adult Brahms and of his music. Early biographical sketches and memoirs written during Brahms’s lifetime or shortly thereafter are free of such passages,

Towards a methodology for developing visualizations

This paper presents a case study of the development of a visualization to represent and explore the relationships between multiple hierarchical structures, specifically botanical taxonomies. The case study outlines the visualization's development from initial meetings with taxonomists, through the early visual sketches of their activities, and through to the prototype as it exists now after two rounds of usability testing. Qualitative user feedback was elicited from taxonomists who used the system, using standard techniques, taken from traditional usability methodologies such as direct observation, concurrent verbal protocols, video recording and software logs. Some difficulties and differences in the testing and stages of development arising from the information visualization (IV) approach to the graphical display, as contrasted to a more standard graphical user interface (GUI), are noted and solutions proposed.

Virgin Martyrs: Legends of Sainthood in Late Medieval England by Karen A. Winstead

288book reviews an analysis of Theophylact's network of correspondents revealed in his letters will pinpoint his place and influence both in provincial and metropolitan society . It rests on another assumption: that the sample of letters that we have is representative of his epistolary activity. The results obtained are nevertheless impressive. They give a more assured and nuanced account ofTheophylact's relationships and conduct of office than has emerged from earlier sketches. However , they need testing against similar work—still to be done—on other letter collections. Disregarding the misgivings that current literary criticism has about the "author ," Mullett provides a sophisticated and satisfying pen portrait of Theophylact as "Author and Man." Despite some elegantly translated verses and snatches of letters—which catch Theophylact's real literary ability—this book confirms the chasm that separates the modern reader from the imaginative world of the Byzantine elite. Its real value lies elsewhere. Mullett has shown that with patience and skill context can be restored to Byzantine literary texts and with it their historical value. It is in this way that she achieves a partial rehabilitation of Byzantine literature. This is an achievement, for which many Byzantinists will be grateful. Michael Angold University ofEdinburgh Virgin Martyrs: Legends ofSainthood in Late Medieval England. By Karen A. Winstead. (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. 1997. Pp. xiii, 201. $35.00.) If saints are supposed to be models, why were the most popular saints' lives in late medieval England the stories of women who were tortured and brutally murdered? This question is the focus of Winstead's insightful study of the retelling of early female virgin martyrdoms in a time of Christian dominance. Analyzing various revisions of the saints' lives, Winstead discerns the medieval authors' intentions and their audiences' response. To show how the retold saints' lives and their visual representations both reflected and shaped cultural norms, Winstead carefully places them in their medieval context. Sensitive to feminist issues as well,Winstead's scholarly work should become standard reading for anyone studying late medieval English spirituality, religion, literature, or women's history. Winstead's introduction is a helpful guide for what is to follow. Posing a host of provocative questions that draw the reader into her inquiry, Winstead presents recent scholarly research related to her topic. The chapters that follow have both a thematic and a chronological focus: Winstead's greatest contribu- BOOK REVIEWS289 tion is her correlation of variations in the retelling of the virgins' lives with religious and spiritual change. In Winstead's assessment, between 1 100 and 1250 the virgin martyr saints' lives were produced primarily by and for people in religious life. The bestknown examples are the legends of the Katherine Group. In these, the saints' devotions and prayers are emphasized over the narrative events of their martyrdoms , a stress that made them suitable models for medieval religious. In the next period, from 1250 to 1400, clerical authors reshaped these paradigms of sanctity for a lay audience. In this phase, the saints were presented not as heroines to imitate but as powerful miracle-workers; to emphasize their exceptionality , the tortures they endured were described with particular relish. Because the distinction between the saints and other mortals was emphasized,Winstead believes these versions bolstered clerical authority and the power of the institutional church. In the final period Winstead considers, 1400 to 1450, the radical elements in these heroic tales were toned down to make them more suitable as purveyors of the values of "middle-class readers." The virgin martyrs were portrayed as "refined gentlewomen"—introspective, gracious, discreet, modest, and even enamored with the joys of living. Looking especially at the legends by Osbern Bokenhamjohn Lydgate, and John Capgrave,Winstead identifies an attempt to discourage excesses of piety that could lead to heresy. Particularly intriguing is Winstead's attention to the "politics of reading," the ambiguous attitudes male authors had about the increased literacy of lay women. Winstead's identification of shifting emphases in the various versions of the lives of the virgin martyrs is convincing. Her hypothesis that the changes in the saint's lives reflect different audiences and cultural settings is persuasive, although at times one can wonder whether the authors...

Early Sketch of Storyteller and Collector

Early Sketch of Storyteller and Collector

Cyriel Buysse, An Early Anti-Colonialist

ABSTRACTThe Conference of Berlin in 1884–85 allocated the Congo to the Belgian King Leopold II, as his private property. In 1980 the Congo Free State way to become the Belgian Congo. The article looks at two early sketches and the 1898 novella De zyvarte kost (Black Grub) by Cyriel Buysse (1859–1932). Whereas a novel like Bieter Danco's Ook een ideaal (Also an Ideal; 1896) is paints a positive picture of the colonization effort, Buysse is sharply critical of Leopold's African adventure. However, other texts show Buysse wavering between opposition and appreciation as regards colonization. The article suggests that Buysse should be seen as an anti-colonialsit without ideological roots, thoroughly sceptical and too much of a realist to cling to an ideological view.

The Father of Modern Hermeneutics in a Postmodern Age

A REINTERPRETATION OF SCHLEIERMACHER'S HERMENEUTICS Friedrich Schleirermacher is generally recognized father of modern hermeneutics. This means that hermeneutics a science or, rather, an art, of understanding such originates from Schleiermacher. Before him, there were only specialized hermeneutics: philological, biblical, and legal. However, this also implies that, in this postmodern age, Schleiermacher's hermeneutics has become something passe, something safe to aufheben if not prudent to ignore. For it is widely believed to be a psychological one, which is doubly mistaken from a postmodern point of view: appealing to myth of given and being ahistorical. This essay aims to challenge this position. Its central theme is that Schleiermacher's unique contribution to hermeneutics is neither his psychological nor his grammatical interpretation but his conception of hermeneutics an artful movement between two. Since grammatical side is little contested, I shall focus on psychological side, which, I shall argue, is neither pre-linguistic nor ahistorical has so often been charged. My conclusion is that predominately Gadamerian postmodern hermeneutics goes to extreme in criticizing psychologism, evil twin of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, while Schleiermacher's hermeneutics itself, properly understood, is a perfect antidote to both evils. Is Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics Psychological? Schleiermacher's hermeneutics consists of grammatical and psychological interpretations. The former understands the discourse and how it has been composed in terms of its language, and latter understands it as a presentation of thought.I Given this well-known fact, we may wonder how people have come to believe that Schleiermacher's hermeneutics is mainly psychological. Heinz Kimmerle tries to provide an answer by presenting Schleiermacher's early manuscripts on hermeneutics. His conclusion is that, while Wilhelm Dilthey and Rudolf Bultmann are largely responsible for propagation of misconception of Schleiermacher's hermeneutics, misconception itself is to be attributed to Schleiermacher's student Friedrich Lucke. Lucke's edition of Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics, upon which Dilthey and Bultmann based their interpretations, includes only Schleiermacher's later manuscripts.2 According to Kimmerle, however, those manuscripts reflect later Schleiermacher's sorry surrender of his early insightful conception of hermeneutics closely oriented to structure of language.3 Thus, Kimmerle sees his mission in including early manuscripts into Schleiermacher's Hermeneutics mainly restorative. It aims to render the substantially convincing and positive thoughts in Schleiermacher's earlier sketches . . . accessible and, if possible, fruitful for current philosophical reflection on phenomenon of understanding.4 He believes that Schleiermacher's early linguistically oriented hermeneutics is compatible with Gadamer's hermeneutics. In his view, had Gadamer regarded this part of Schleiermacher of positive value for Gadamer's own problematic, it could have been of direct benefit, especially in conclusion of his [Gadamer's] book where language is considered [the universal] medium of hermeneutical experience.'5 Such a distinction between early and later Schleiermacher, however, is an exaggeration to say best. For fact is that, from start to finish, Schleiermacher insists on double character of understanding: psychological and grammatical. In his very first draft of 1809-1810, he claims that hermeneutics proceeds from two entirely different points: understanding by reference to language and understanding by reference to one who speaks (68). This view he maintains later in his Second Academy Address of 1829, where he argues that full understanding requires both of these operations, and no interpreter can fully understand if he leans so much to one side that he is completely unable to make use of what other side offers (204). …

Bodies and Pleasures in The Wind in the Willows

Bodies and Pleasures in The Wind in the Willows Cynthia Marshall (bio) Although Kenneth Grahame originally objected to The Wind in the Willows being illustrated (Green 285), the text has since proved a site of much visual activity. From the coy early sketches of Ernest H. Shepard to Arthur Rackham's fantastic watercolors, illustrators have gloried in the imaginative possibilities of Grahame's text. Yet as Elaine Showalter notes of the numerous illustrations of Ophelia from Shakespeare's Hamlet, a visual tradition growing alongside a literary text can signal an absence in the text itself. Ophelia, lacking agency and development within the play, inspires attempts to complete her character, to fill in Shakespeare's bare sketch (Showalter 78). So, too, with The Wind in the Willows. I think illustrators are inspired not simply by the local charm of small animals in the English countryside but by a particular lacuna—an absence of consistent, direct reference to their physical characteristics. For those who are not visual artists, other forms of accommodation may be necessary. Grahame's purpose was to trace a world of innocent delights and thereby to encourage children's identification with animals whose small bodies and large egos match their own. Yet today we have to wonder how innocent this prepubescent vision of the physical self is, particularly given Grahame's note to his publisher that the work was "clear of the clash of sex" (Ellmann xvii; Kuznets 175).1 How effective can such a clearing be, and what are its costs? Here I will explore the relation between Grahame's evasion of mimetic fixity and the ideological marking in the text with regard to gender. I am concerned with both the poetics and the morality of representation—the access that it affords to readerly pleasure and the violence that it does to the represented object. After considering some purposes and effects of the absence of bodies from The Wind in the Willows, I will turn to the way in which the repressed—the clash of sex—returns, specifically in Grahame's portrayal of Toad in the guise of the washerwoman. Finally I will suggest how, [End Page 58] by treating gender as a role rather than a stable reality, The Wind in the Willows unsettles some of its own misogynistic violence. Although this essay focuses closely on Grahame's text, the argument that I pursue has implications for the study of children's fantasy literature in general. I will suggest limitations in the model of feminist interpretation—empiricist, liberal feminism—that has recently dominated in the field. Such a model, while useful in identifying overt forms of sexism, assumes a rigorous gender opposition that does not regularly appear in imaginative literature for children. In the final section of this essay I will suggest how a poststructural form of feminism, one that resists the notion of (two) fixed genders, is more appropriate and helpful in analyzing works like The Wind in the Willows. A delight of classic children's fantasy is the creation of a realm where possibilities are multiple rather than exclusive. Kenneth Grahame strives for such freedom in his images of gendered behavior, hence his work imagines a world of multigendered possibility, even though it remains historically connected to a misogynistic society. Pleasures Without Bodies The world represented in The Wind in the Willows is one of multitudinous pleasures. From the early moments of Mole's glad animal pleasure in spring sunlight and a first glimpse of the river, Kenneth Grahame's text continually evokes the delights of the flesh—the simple, creaturely satisfactions of good food, welcome rest, comfortable shelter. Bodily as these experiences are, however, they are curiously detached from any sustained representation of the physical bodies of the central characters. Originally written for the author's young son, who was nearly blind from birth, The Wind in the Willows offers an unusual and compelling example of a children's text that does not privilege the visual senses.2 Grahame relies on other sensory media, more fluid and less prone to iconolatry, to establish the experiences of his characters. The occasional reference to a forepaw or to Rat's swimming abilities or to Mole's...

The logic of plaza space: representing design knowledge on shape and function

This paper concludes a series of three, in which the formalization of “soft” architectural design knowledge is studied in the context of making it accessible to knowledge-based design systems for support of early sketch design. A wide range of design ideas with the common theme of schematic “plaza design” is studied, including design from scratch and the reconstruction of existing plazas. Formal conceptual models in Horn clause logic are suggested. The additional evidence thus provided, that “soft” design knowledge may be accessible to design support systems, is the main contribution of the paper, which is rounded off by a brief discussion of the feasibility and future development of such systems.

An Early Sketch of Chesterton

An Early Sketch of Chesterton

The First Movement of Beethoven's Opus 109: Compositional Genesis and Structural Dialectic

The First Movement of Beethoven's Opus 109: Compositional Genesis and Structural Dialectic. Un article de la revue Canadian University Music Review / Revue de musique des universités canadiennes (Volume 12, numéro 1, 1992, p. 1-159) diffusée par la plateforme Érudit.

Darwin: The theory years

The period from January of 1837 to December of 1846 -the period covered by these two volumes of the Darwin correspondence -encompasses by all measures the most creative era of Darwin's scientific life. Freshly returned from five years aboard the HMS Beagle, in December of 1836 Darwin moved to Cambridge to sort the materials collected during the five years away from England. From all available evidence -and this is now considerable -he was at that time still some months away from the conceptual developments which would move him in the direction of a novel version of transformism. 1 A decade later, Darwin was comfortably ensconced as the master of Down House, married, with a growing family, with his mature natural selection theory polished off in a preliminary form, an accomplished geologist, and just on the edge of turning a minor paper on an aberrant parasitic barnacle into an eight-year inquiry which would establish him as a foremost invertebrate zoologist. The main outlines of Darwin's development in this period have been so often told that they almost cease to provoke interest. These two volumes of the correspondence, presenting 532 (76% of total) previously unpublished letters, fill in many details, and flesh out Darwin-as-person with intimate details of his personal and family life in this creative decade. Along with the issuing of the re-edited early notebook covering essentially the same period, the Darwin industry has produced as rich a documentary history as exists on any major scientific figure during their primary theoretical years. The scholarship that has gone into these volumes leaves little to be desired -indeed it is standard-setting. Useful appendices translate the foreign language letters, details are found on every individual mentioned, the relevant portions of the pocket Journal for the years covered are presented, the early autobiographical sketch of 1838, the "Old and

Belasco and Puccini: “Old Dog Tray” and the Zuni Indians

La Fanciulla del West occupies a special place in Puccini's output. It stands at the beginning of what some have called the composer's second period, as with Fanciulla Puccini broke with the tragddie larmoyante and its steady stream of lyrical showstoppers that he had cultivated so successfully from Manon Lescaut through Madama Butterfly.' It is the Puccini opera for which there is apparently the greatest amount of extant early sketches and continuity drafts that he himself realized, and the only opera by the composer for which there are corrected proof sheets.2 It is probably the least appreciated-by both critics and public-of Puccini's mature masterpieces.3 And it is Puccini's only all-American opera: in terms of subject matter (the rough and tumble days of the California Gold Rush), dramatic source (David Belasco's The Girl of the Golden West), and place of first performance (New York's Metropolitan Opera, on 10 December 1910). This article identifies one of the American sources for Fanciulla: the model for the melody of Che faranno i vecchi miei, the song that the minstrel Jake Wallace sings near the beginning of act 1. The recent Puccini literature about this matter is, at best, ambiguous and confusing, at worst, simply wrong. But the correct source can be identified beyond a shadow of a doubt, and ironically, the answer was available--admittedly in an obscure corner-all the time. As a counterpoint to this, I will also discuss the melody that Belasco used for his own Jake Wallace in the parallel scene of The Girl of the Golden West, which Puccini saw in New York in January or February 1907 (see note 6). Finally, I shall discuss the changed functional-dramatic context to which Puccini subjected the model and show how he wrestled with it in his earliest sketches for the opera. These last two aspects afford us a glimpse into certain of Puccini's cultural attitudes and into his compositional process at its most elemental stage.

Morphology of magnetic merging at the magnetopause

To illustrate the basic features of magnetospheric topology, the development of a global model is traced from the superposition of dipole and uniform fields to the effects of adding, in turn, diffusion regions, surface currents and a magnetic field component normal to the magnetopause. The subsolar, antiparallel, tearing and patchy merging geometries proposed in the past all emerge under various conditions, but models that deduce merging geometry from global boundary conditions are lacking. An exception is a model in which the external field merges wherever it falls tangent to the magnetopause. The result is a subsolar merging line that has all the characteristics of early sketches based on local arguments. Magnetosheath plasma beta affects magnetospheric topology and, consequently, merging geometry. Low, high and variable beta favor subsolar, tearing and patchy merging, respectively. Proposed flux transfer event models of bursty reconnection from a single merging line, flux ropes from multiple merging lines and flux tube elbows from patches can also be categorized by plasma beta in the same respective order. The topological modeling reviewed here may prove to be most useful for interpreting merging results from MHD simulations.