European Stage Research Articles

Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen (review)

Reviewed by: Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen Jeri L. McIntosh Mary I: England’s Catholic Queen. By John Edwards. [Yale English Monarchs Series.] (New Haven: Yale University Press. 2011. Pp. xviii, 387. $35.00. ISBN 978-0-300-11810-0.) This is a thoroughly researched biography of Mary I that gives due weight to the queen’s international situation and Spanish heritage. Mary’s international connections and later marriage alliance with Philip II of Spain made her into a cosmopolitan figure. Unlike her half-sister Elizabeth, who boasted of being “mere English,” Mary took her place on the European stage as the linchpin in the restoration of England to the rest of Catholic Christendom. It is, however, hard to identify the specific audience for this work. It is a bit technical and verbose for a popular audience while too little engaged with recent Marian scholarship to be of much use to specialists. John Edwards sees many parallels between Mary’s political career and that of her maternal grandmother, Isabel of Castile. They were blood relations, female monarchs in patriarchal states, and married to men who were kings in their own right. All this is certainly true. Yet it is hard to see how these similarities provide any insight into Mary’s situation. After all, she shared these similarities with her Scottish cousin, Mary Stuart; yet there is little to be gained by noting this. Mary did not publicly identify herself with Isabel, nor did she even bother to learn enough Spanish so she could converse with her husband in his native tongue. The one lesson that Mary appeared to have picked up from her Spanish mother, Catherine of Aragon, was to cherish her Habsburg relatives but identify her interests and future with that of England, not Spain. This biography is reminiscent of H. F. M. Prescott’s inexplicably influential Mary Tudor: The Spanish Tudor (London, 1940). Prescott described Mary as a simple housewife at heart, and Edwards concludes that such an assessment “is not wide of the mark” (p. 345). This assessment runs counter to recent scholarship noting Mary’s humanist education, complex rhetoric, and astonishing near success in restoring England to the Catholic fold. That Edwards borrows a little of Prescott’s misguided confidence is understandable. Mary resists easy assessment and the biographer’s art. As princess, she advised the imperial ambassador to burn their correspondence, suggesting she may have habitually destroyed hers. Unlike Elizabeth, Mary’s decisive [End Page 810] actions rarely match her nihilistic rhetoric. When Elizabeth declared she would rather remain single but would marry if God placed a suitable candidate before her, she followed through by remaining single but also vigorously pursuing a match with a French prince. Whereas Mary assured her subjects during the Wyatt rebellion that she would only marry after consulting the privy council, she had, in fact, already privately sworn to marry Philip regardless of the council’s views. Mary deployed the rhetoric of wifely subordination and dependence in her letters to Philip when he was away to lure him back, yet she failed to seriously pursue the one course of action that would have brought him instantly to her side—arranging his coronation as king of England. Despite Edwards’s laudable practice of varying the narrative pace so that royal ceremonies in which Mary participated unfold slowly in rich detail, Mary remains elusive as a personality. Perhaps the questioning nursery rhyme hits the mark when it asks: “Mary, Mary, quite contrary/How does your garden grow?” Although Edwards includes an exhaustive bibliography and index, his biography is no closer to answering the rhyme than Prescott was in 1940. This reader was left with the following question: How does one chronicle the lives of subjects whose actions belie their words? Jeri L. McIntosh University of Tennessee at Knoxville Copyright © 2012 The Catholic University of America Press

Alfred Jarry and the epic theatre

ABSTRACTThis article argues for a reconsideration of the genealogy of twentieth-century European epic theatre, discussing the inaugural 1896 production of Alfred Jarry's Ubu the King as a dramaturgical strategy which anticipates key elements that subsequently emerged in the theatres of Bertolt Brecht and Dario Fo. It will be argued that Jarry's practice reintroduces residual cultural elements to the European stage, relating to interventionist performance traditions of the mask, towards a dramaturgy that opposes the innate conservatism of the 1890s French avant-garde and the dominant genres of the western theatrical tradition. It will be argued that the mask strategies which Jarry deploys in Ubu the King, which contest rather than respect the codifications of genre, are a foundational element in subsequent developments in epic dramaturgy.

Henrik Ibsen‘s A Doll’s House: A Postmodernist Study

Henrik Ibsen is deemed as one of the major Norwegian playwright of the late 19th century who introduced to the European stage a new order of moral analysis that was placed against a severely realistic middle-class background and developed with economy of action, penetrating dialogue, and rigorous thought. Most of his literary works are often dissected from a modernist perspective; however notions like women's emancipation, irony, and conflict, have paved the path for critics to survey his works from various angles and terms. This paper tends to lay stress on the postmodernist dimensions of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, a play which manifests different aspects of modernism as a common feature of Ibsen's works; nevertheless, demonstration of different notions of postmodernity cannot and will not be repudiated in the play. Those who have just read A Doll's House for the first time are suspected to have little trouble forming an initial sense of what it is about, and, if past experience is any guide, many will quickly reach a consensus that the major thrust of this play has something to do with gender relations in modern society and offers us, in the actions of the heroine, a vision of the need for a new-found freedom for women (or a woman) amid a suffocating society governed wholly by unsympathetic and insensitive men. It is frequently argued that the play's theme is not women's right or emancipation, but rather the need of every individual to find out the kind of person he or she really is and to strive to become that person. Throughout the play we can feel the dusty and shattered framework of Helmer's marriage, reflections of unbelievably egotistical behaviors of the characters and the endless pain of searching for one's self in the characters mannerism and meditation. This study begins with an introduction to postmodernism and then it will specifically accentuate some of the postmodern elements of A Doll's House.

Grand Opéra—Petit Opéra:Parisian Opera and Ballet from the Restoration to the Second Empire

Abstract The emergence of grand opeera around 1830 resulted in large-scale works in five acts setting libretti largely based on historical subjects that dominated much European stage music until the First World War. But these shifts in generic paradigm came at a price. The repertoire of the Paris Opeera was based as much on ballet-pantomime as on opera, and until 1830 both genres would share the stage in a single evening. Although the aesthetic impulses behind grand opeera made programming new opera and ballet henceforth impossible, the state required the Opeera to maintain the balance between opera and ballet in order to reserve the institution9s ““pompe et luxe,”” a situation that called forth a number of responses from its management during the period that all Parisian opera houses were controlled by license (1806/7 to 1864). In the short term, the Opeera continued using older smaller-scale works to accompany ballet as part of the same evening9s entertainment, but despite the canonic pressures this exerted it was a practice that could not be sustained indefinitely. A second alternative was to shorten up-to-date grand opeera , to bring them down to dimensions at which they could be performed with ballets; the best-known example of this procedure is the reduction of Rossini9s Guillaume Tell from four acts (1829) to three (1831). A third possibility was the process of morcellement : the extraction of individual acts or pairs of acts from grand opeera and their performance alongside ballet. A longer-term strategy, and one so far entirely ignored in modern scholarship, was the development of a new type of stage music specifically to accompany ballet: petit opeera . Emerging from two closely related works at the same time as the birth of grand opeera , Rossini9s Le Comte Ory (1828) and Auber9s Le Philtre (1831), petit opeera was the direct result of institutional pressure from the state for the Opeera to mount productions of both opera and ballet, the preference of the institution and its audiences for evenings with both opera and ballet, and the indirect aesthetic pressure engendered by the appearance of grand opeera . The tradition of composing petit opeera continued up to the end of the licensing period in 1864 and encompassed, among such foreign imports as Weber, Verdi, and Donizetti, works by Haleevy, Adam, Thomas, Auber, and Rossini; two of the best-known casualties of the complexities surrounding the genre were Berlioz9s Benvenuto Cellini (1838) and Wagner9s scenario for Le Hollandais volant . Petit opeera was characterized by libretti in two acts with a limited number of musical compositions, a clear distinction between composed number and following recitative (a decisive break with grand opeera ), a limited number of characters and a comic register; it developed a set of conventions that remained consistent from its origins ca. 1830 to its latest presentations in Alary9s La Voix humaine (1861) and Massee9s La Mule de Pedro (1863).

Forced Heirship on the European Stage: Concerns and Issues with European Forced Heirship Claims

In Heirship on the European Stage: Concerns and Issues with European Forced Heirship Claims, student author Ryan McLearen explores the differences in the common law estate disposition, as used in Texas, and civil law estate disposition, used in Europe and parts of the United States. To start, the author defines forced heirship statutes and their effect upon estate distribution. He focuses much of his analysis on international conflict of law, including instances where common law jurisdictions have upheld forced heir situations and the reasoning behind those decisions. McLearen also discusses the enforcement of forced heir statutes, as well as avoidance techniques to avoid having to distribute the estate to a forced heir.

The Effects of the Enforcement Directive on Dutch Patent Law: Much Ado About Nothing?

The enforcement directive 2004/48/EC (directive), which must approximate the enforcement means, procedures and remedies in the national EU member states to strengthen the substantive law on intellectual property, complements the border control regulation. Rapid technological change and cumulative innovation in combination with patents do not only generate wealth, but inescapably lead to a proportionate amount of patent infringements, which can be in good faith. Because of its indiscriminate character the directive met a lot of criticism, because it allegedly criminalized commercial patent infringements. It also raised questions about the compatibility of its objectives, validity of its assumptions, how opportune the timing was and the added value in comparison to the Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). It even caused a unique massive intellectual property law professors’ protest1 in 2003 about scope, subsidiarity and proportionality. The directive evolved from an over ambitious draft, including criminal sanctions, the ‘holy grail of enforcement’, to a final version that was stripped bare of any spectacular innovations in comparison to TRIPs and was even called redundant. The comparison with a deus ex machina may force itself upon the imaginative intellectual property rights scholar: the directive entered the European stage at an unexpected time, with artificial content and an improbable character. This paper will hypothesises that the directive does not have a significant impact on Dutch patent law, which is positive.

The European stage for next‐generation stars and fans: the Under‐17 Championship 2009 in Germany

UEFA’s EURO is one of the biggest sport’s mega‐events in terms of media interest, numbers of spectators and economical impact. Since European championships for women’s football, futsal or youth teams are standing in the shadow of EURO, they tend to be neglected when speaking about the influence of UEFA’s competitions in shaping European identities and the future of sport’s mega‐events. Yet these tournaments can be surprisingly large and influential. Based on participant observation as a member of the Local Organizing Committee I describe how the UEFA U17 tried to instill a sense of ‘Europeaness’ in a region riddled by unemployment and a bad reputation for lingering xenophobia. UEFA’s educational measures targeted the public as well as the youth players. But the players’ hopes of starting a professional football career and the interference of clubs and scouts who want to built future human capital often lead to competing views of what education in this context could mean and achieve. Stage and backstage seem to contradict each other to a certain level. Both were in a sense reconciled by the attempts of German FA to use the tournament not only to attract new young football fans but to balance the budget. Economical logic overruled tensions between lofty ideals and down‐to‐earth efforts to create talent for the future.

Pamala Wiepking (ed): The State of Giving Research in Europe: Household Donations to Charitable Organizations in Twelve European Countries

For years, the United States has dominated philanthropic research, implementing regularly conducted thorough surveys and coordinated research efforts throughout the country. Unfortunately, this American-centric view of philanthropy ignores the rich traditions of other counties and their own important place in the philanthropic landscape. The collective work in this book presents a snapshot of philanthropic research in the European Community and the data sources available to advance the research even further in an attempt to ‘‘bring philanthropy to the front of the European stage again’’ (p. 6). In addition to providing valuable resources for researchers, the editor and authors hope the book proves to be beneficial for fundraisers and grantmakers who are investigating ways to improve their professions, as well as to policymakers in position to create partnerships with the philanthropic sector. This publication stems from endeavors of the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP). First meeting in January 2008, this group of scholars began to collectively foster philanthropic research, with the ultimate goal of creating ‘‘Giving Europe’’ which will provide ‘‘structured and comparable microand macro-economic estimations of the content of the philanthropic contributions...for the (European Community) as a whole’’ (p. 6). The scholars participating in this initial meeting determined the first step was to collect the information that is currently available, resulting in this first publication by ERNOP. Nonprofit research synopses on twelve European countries are presented in the book—Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom—written by scholars from those countries. Each of the countries is outlined with an introduction of philanthropic research in the country, information on data sources available, a

Gendered Rights on the European Stage: Do Marginalized Groups Find a ‘Voice’ in the European Court of Human Rights?

This article examines the pursuit of gender equality rights before the European Court of Human Rights from a comparative perspective. Drawing on material from case reports from a number of European countries, this article investigates the application of Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the non-discrimination provision) to instances of gender discrimination. Using a theoretical framework of ‘intersectionality’, this article suggests that many cases that arguably have a gender component to them are not viewed as such by the European Court of Human Rights. Instead, they are treated as generic claims raising other civil or political rights and are thereby stripped of their important gender dimension. Two recent cases of the Court brought against Bulgaria (MC and Bevacqua) are, however, celebrated for a more gender specific analysis of the ‘private’ harms suffered by the victims in these cases.

“Thus I restles rest in Spayne”: Engaging Empire in the Poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Garcilaso de la Vega

“Thus I restles rest in Spayne”: Engaging Empire in the Poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt and Garcilaso de la Vega Joel B. Davis I The English poet Sir Thomas Wyatt (ca. 1503–42) and his contemporary, the Castilian poet Garcilaso de la Vega (1501?–36), shared so much in common and played such important roles in the development of poetry in their respective languages that the lack of comparative studies of their poetry is surprising. In the article that follows, I compare a few poems of similar themes and dates from each writer to suggest that Wyatt’s poetry is more thoroughly Petrarchan—and more successfully so—than has been generally recognized. Placing Wyatt’s poetry in the context of Charles V’s court and alongside the poetry of Garcilaso reveals that Wyatt’s poems appropriate Petrarchan strategies in a struggle to establish a unified lyric voice and to resist what we might loosely call discursive colonization: for while the flexible, indeed almost protean qualities of Petrarchism invited poets like Wyatt and Garcilaso to experiment in their native languages, the same qualities made Petrarchism an apt vehicle for imagining the imperial ambitions of Charles V. Comparing Wyatt’s poetry to that of Garcilaso de la Vega reveals that a discursive resistance to the imperialism of Charles V’s court is inflected by the difference between the two poets’ relationships to that court—with significant consequences for the development of Petrarchan poetry in the English and Castilian vernaculars. Both Wyatt and Garcilaso flourished in the sixteenth-century revival of Petrarchism, each is credited with introducing Italian Renaissance innovations into his own vernacular literature, and we know that the [End Page 493] two shared common influences in Petrarch, Luigi Alamanni, Baldesare Castiglione, Pietro Bembo, and others. Both men were embroiled in the struggle for supremacy over the Mediterranean basin fought among Charles V, Francis I, and the Ottoman Emperor Suleiman II. Garcilaso had served Charles V against the forces of Suleiman II at the siege of Vienna in 1529; he was wounded in Charles V’s retaking of Tunis from Ottoman forces under the command of Khair ad Din, the feared Barbarossa, in 1535; and he died October 14, 1536 from a head wound suffered at Le Muy, while fighting the forces of Francis I. Wyatt had been a member of Henry VIII’s embassy to France to discuss a league against Charles V in 1526; he was part of another embassy to Pope Clement VII in 1527, just before Charles V’s soldiers sacked Rome; he was Henry VIII’s ambassador to the imperial court from June 1537 through June 1539 and again from December 1539 through May 1540; and he died of exhaustion and a consequent illness as the result of a hard ride from London to Falmouth to meet Charles V’s emissary to England on October 11, 1542. Garcilaso and Wyatt share in common more than hard service to demanding monarchs. Each man’s life and career depended on the constant negotiations, alliances, betrayals, and battles through which Charles V, Francis I, and Suleiman II struggled to control the western Mediterranean. Garcilaso found himself at various times early in his career on both sides of Charles V’s struggle to bring Spain under Hapsburg rule, especially during the revolt of the comuneros in 1521.1 The emperor’s need to control his Spanish aristocracy was intensified by his difficulties in securing shipping lanes in the western Mediterranean against the Barbary corsairs, who were supported by Suleiman II, and in holding onto his possessions in Italy. Charles’s 1535 campaign to retake Tunis, in which Garcilaso was wounded, was likewise part of the [End Page 494] attempt to control the western Mediterranean basin, but by 1535 the stakes were even greater, because the emperor was becoming increasingly dependent on wealth from the New World.2 Much of Garcilaso’s poetry responds to his own role as a soldier in events far beyond his control—beyond even the control of his monarch. Wyatt’s fortunes depended even more on the wider European stage over which he had no control, on the capricious schemes of his relatively weak sovereign, and, worse...

The Russian Empire at War

AbstractLieven's book is the first scholarly work to provide thorough analysis of the European stage of Russia's campaign against Napoleon in 1813 – 1814. e review essay discusses how Lieven's book departs from conventional Russian historiography on the Napoleonic era by emphasizing the logistical and strategic contributions of Russian cavalry and by illustrating the advantages of the "long-war" plan adopted by Alexander I and Barclay de Tolly. e review endorses Lieven's conclusion that a key reason for the Russian victory in 1814 was that Russian leadership "outthought" Napoleon.

Dancing and Flying the Body Mechanical: Five Visions for the New Civilisation

This article explores Futurist technophilia and some more or less latent technophobia, in the period after 1918. Fuelled by the economic and industrial advancements of the so-called “Giolittian age,” as well as an extensive employment of war technology in the First World War, the Futurist technological imagination remains both robust and wide-ranging in the postwar period. Resonant of nineteenth-century French and Italian literary traditions, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti's official position clusters round the powerful, if hackneyed, images of the steam train and the motorcar. A number of fellow Futurists, however, explore technology in more original and, in some cases, more persuasive fashions. From the technology of flying employed first-hand by Fedele Azari to Enrico Prampolini's mechanical applications on the European stage, from Anton Giulio Bragaglia's experimental cinema to Ivo Pannaggi's and Vinicio Paladini's technological rebirth in marxian key, the Futurists’ approach to technology is characterised throughout by a problematic counterpoint of modernity and tradition. If the Futurist officialdom ultimately relies on the latter, numerous alternative experiences testify to their vibrant strife towards the former.

Perspectivas internacionais: Os ventos favoráveis que sopram de Espanha e a experiência dos seminários de inovação em cuidados de saúde primários (SICSP)

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES; THE FAVOURABLE WINDS BLOWING FROM SPAIN AND THE EXPERIENCE OF THE PRIMARY HEALTH CARE INNOVATION SEMINARS The primary care innovation seminars are a unique initiative in the european stage of primary health care. It is organized jointly by three spanish organizations and coordinated by a general practitioner. The seminars foster the analysis of the latest trends and innovations in terms of the organization of health care services, clinical research, as well as the main issues that will embody family medicine in the 21st century. This initiative is of interest to portuguese primary care physicians and trainees, since the contact with this initiative caters for a considerable personal gain in terms of inherent discussion, production of knowledge and interaction with a dynamic spanish multidisciplinary network of primary health care professionals.

‘Designer’ Europeanization: Lessons from Jean Monnet

The European Council called for a period of reflection in each of the member states of the European Union (EU) after the people of France and the Netherlands rejected the Constitutional Treaty in referendums in 2005. The present article offers a contribution to this process by reflecting on the prospects for institutional design and redesign in the EU, a topic that became even more relevant after the Irish “no” to the Lisbon Treaty in June 2008. The discussions are based on a historical perspective, and the article discusses what lessons can be drawn from Jean Monnet, viewed as an institutional designer on the European stage. The article argues that the successful establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a product of a robust deontological design in a constitutional moment for Europe, and that prospective designers in the EU can learn important lessons from how Monnet identified and exploited available spaces for institutional design.

Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius (review)

Reviewed by: Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius David Krasner Bernth Lindfors, ed. Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius. Rochester, NY: Rochester UP, 2007. 288 pp., 19 illustrations. $55.00. Ira Aldridge (1807-1867) was one of the greatest actors of the nineteenth century. In today's parlance, his superstar status would be unimpeachable. Yet he has received less recognition for his achievements than his contemporary white luminaries. The objective of Bernth Lindfors's collection of primary sources and critical essays is to set the record straight by giving Aldridge his overdue credit. Acknowledging the book Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian (1958) by Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock as groundbreaking, Lindfors, the editor of this collection, sets out nonetheless "to fill some of the lacunae" left out of previous studies of Aldridge "by bringing together a number of essays that shed light on aspects of his existence that were not treated in sufficient depth" (2). In doing so, the book succeeds at portraying Aldridge admirably. The text is divided into two sections. The first reproduces nineteenth-century documents regarding Aldridge, most significantly "Memoir and Theatrical Career of Ira Aldridge, the African Roscius" (ca. 1848), an exaggerated but still informative account of the actor's life. The section offers newly translated news reports and letters that verify or reveal important data about Aldridge's professional and personal life. After a brief stay in New York, Aldridge realized that racism in the United States provided limited opportunities. He ventured to Europe, achieving recognition as one of the great leading actors of his generation. Aldridge's early career succeeded primarily in the provinces outside London rather than in the theatrical capital. In his middle-to-late career he gained success throughout Europe, including London. Known as the "African Roscius" (after the Roman actor Quintus Roscius Gallus), Aldridge played Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Shylock, and Aaron in Titus Andronicus, Mungo in The Padlock, and other roles with humanity, pathos, and eloquence heretofore unseen on the European stage. The second section consists of critical essays. Researchers Ruth Cowhig, Nichola Betŭsić, Joost Groenebour, Ann Marie Koller, and Krzysztof Sawala examine Aldridge's performances in England, the Netherlands, Germany, Russia, and Poland. Hazel Waters attempts to show how Aldridge fought racism by pushing "the boundaries of the roles available to him" (101). Joyce Green MacDonald argues that Aldridge challenged "the relevance of previous centuries' efforts by white actors to 'act black'" (137) by undermining the perceptions of blackness in new and innovative ways. Unsettling the fixed identity of Africans, Aldridge disrupted a theatrical trend by inserting interpretations that cut against the grain of stereotypes. Nicholas M. Evans asserts that Aldridge went to England and performed in roles antithetical to traditional popular minstrelsy, applying instead a "Du Boisian double consciousness" to his characterizations (163). Along similar lines, editor Lindfors adds that Aldridge established himself as a serious tragic actor by experimenting with "white roles," which resulted in challenging racist assumptions through a demonstration of his range and capacity. Aldridge's performances as Macbeth and Lear, writes Herbert Marshall, were intensely human, dispelling stereotypical caricatures. Keith Byerman observes that the actor's performance in comic roles, such as in The Black Doctor, also undermined prevailing perceptions. Aldridge was a superb actor, both comic and tragic, as this book evinces. In Shakespeare in Sable, the late theatre scholar Errol Hill noted that Aldridge was instrumental in bringing a naturalistic acting style to the European stage. His renditions of Othello and Shylock jettisoned the bombastic villainy that had been the bailiwick of other actors. Instead, he brought multi-dimension and nuance to his characterizations, fleshing out a three-dimensional portrayal. One of the most interesting essays in this collection is by Ann Marie Koller, who (following Hill's argument) [End Page 202] suggests that the great stage director the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen attended Aldridge's performance and was so impressed by the actor's authenticity that he was inspired to initiate his famed quest for stage naturalism. That Aldridge helped shape the future of the Western stage practice of realism and naturalism is a highly original and profoundly important idea. A further testament to Aldridge's acting skills is the fact that...

Christian Heritage and Democracy in Europe

The Judeo-Christian tradition has put its imprint on a fascinating and complex creation: Europe. Looking at the European stage today, one cannot help notice its struggles, challenges, and changes. The core of European unity cannot be stable and durable if the spiritual dimension is left aside, considered unimportant compared to the political and economic dimensions. In an era said to experience "pathologies of reason" and "pathologies of religion," the interdependence of reason and religion in a democratic, liberal state becomes highlty relevant. Understanding the complementarity between Christian values and the democratic ideal is the key to a genuine democracy that remains true to its goals. Maritain insisted that democracy needs virtue, and hence must not be separated from its moral dimension.

Cleaning the Air We Breathe – Controlling Diesel Particulate Emissions from Passenger Cars

The mechanism of formation of particulate matter (PM) in the diesel engine combustion process is outlined, and the increasingly stringent PM emissions limits in current and projected environmental legislation are noted in the context of the increasing use of fuel-efficient high-performance diesel engines in passenger cars. The types of filter systems for abating diesel particulates are described, as are the principles of filter regeneration – the controlled oxidation of PM retained in the filter, to prevent an accumulation which would ultimately block the filter and degrade engine performance. PM is characterised in terms of both particle size (coarse, accumulation mode, and nucleation mode nanoparticles) and chemical composition, and the filtration issues specific to the various PM types are outlined. Likely future trends in filter design are projected, including multifunctional systems combining PM filtration with NOx control catalysts to meet yet more stringent legislative requirements, including European Stage 5 and 6, and the so called ‘Bin 5’ levels in the U.S.A.

Jesuit Writings of the Early Modern Period, 1540–1640 (review)

Reviewed by: Jesuit Writings of the Early Modern Period, 1540–1640 Jonathan Wright Jesuit Writings of the Early Modern Period, 1540–1640. Edited and translated by John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.2006. Pp. xx, 263. $37.95 clothbound; $12.95 paperback.) This well-balanced compendium of texts reflects the diversity and dynamism of the Jesuits' first century. In each of the eight sections, a potted introduction is followed by illustrative material, mainly drawn from familiar sources (the Jesuit Constitutions, letters of Jesuit luminaries, the Chronicon of Juan Polanco, etc.) but with other, less well-known documents also included. Throughout the book, Donnelly's selections are astute and informative. Useful bibliographical suggestions are made for further study, and footnotes are provided to explain major events and introduce any significant figures who are mentioned. After an introductory chapter detailing the formative influence of Loyola's writings, most of the main spheres of Jesuit activity are tackled. Jesuit educational initiatives are approached through extracts from the Constitutions, documents concerning the establishment of the first Jesuit schools, and an example of the many dramatic productions written and performed in Jesuit colleges. The letters of celebrated missionaries (Matteo Ricci, Roberto de Nobili, Francis Xavier, and others) form the centerpiece of the chapter on evangelism in Asia and the Americas, while extracts from Edmund Campion and Robert Bellarmine represent the Society's efforts to oppose the rise and spread of Protestantism. While combating Luther and Calvin was an insignificant factor in the motivation behind the Jesuits' creation, it quickly became one of their chief duties and obsessions. The inclusion of an especially bullish letter from Loyola to Peter Canisius, advising how Protestantism should be confronted in Austria, makes this point very nicely. Subsequent sections cover Jesuit spirituality (a difficult subject to capture in a handful of extracts), the more specialized ministries the Society pursued (including the reform of prostitutes, internal rural missions, and engagement with witchcraft), and the fraught debate over how far Jesuits ought to become involved in European political life. Accounts of internal wrangling about the duties and responsibilities of highly placed Jesuit confessors are supplemented by extracts from the works of Robert Bellarmine and the controversial, tyrannicide-discussing passages from Juan de Mariana's On a King and the Education of a King. A final section surveys the opposition the Society faced from both Protestants and rivals within the Catholic fold. The antics of Spanish Dominicans, the opposition of the Paris Parlement (represented by extracts from Etienne Pasquier's influential Le Cathéchisme des Jésuites), and the resentments provoked among English secular priests are all discussed. In his pithy introduction (a brief summary of Loyola's spiritual odyssey and the arrival of the Jesuits on the European stage), Donnelly apologizes for having neglected various issues. As he admits, it would have been advantageous to hear more about the lay sodalities established by the Society or the [End Page 578] first stirrings of Jesuit art and science. Given the constraints of space, however, some omissions are inevitable, and Donnelly has done his wide subject justice. Admittedly, there might have been more stress on the internal divisions that afflicted the early Jesuits: the fierce rivalries between the various national branches of the Society; quarrels about the nature of Ignatian spirituality or about missionary methods, for instance. That aside, this is a thoughtfully edited and well-arranged book that would be eminently suitable for a course dealing with Jesuit history or a broader survey of early modern Catholicism. Jonathan Wright Hartlepool, United Kingdom Copyright © 2008 The Catholic University of America Press

The URBAN programme and the European urban policy discourse: successful instruments to Europeanize the urban level?

The European Community Initiative URBAN, explored in this article for seven countries in general and for two individual cities in the Netherlands in more detail, is a micro example of the ongoing struggle between European and national policy actors who contest each others’ authority. The programme, aimed at solving social-economic problems in deprived neighbourhoods in European cities, has acted as a catalyst for new forms of cooperation.Whether it has directly contributed to Europeanization at the local level seems questionable, but it has certainly helped some city administrations to enter the European stage. Whereas European urban policy discourse could not be found at the Dutch urban level in the mid 1990s, the discourse has become dispersed and is now increasingly used.

The Evolution of Public Accounting in Romania in the Post-Communist Period

Since we can safely say about Romania that it had to go through a long process of transformation until the European Union member state stage, we can also state that the Romanian public accounting system has suffered multiple changes in order to match the level of the European accounting system, based, especially, on the accruals basis of accounting, supported by the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS). This transition hasn't been easy because we identify at least three periods of time in the evolution of the public accounting system after 1989, the year of the Romanian Revolution identified with the end of communism and the beginning of the capitalist era: as a starting point we have the public accounting system specific to the communist period, at least in what concerns the theoretical and legislative substantiation, which we cannot say that it ended in 1989 but which has continued until 2001; the interval 2002-2005 which marked the beginning of the public accounting transition from the cash basis system towards the accrual basis system; the interval 2006-present which acknowledges the accruals basis of accounting system as an accounting organizational system. The purpose of this paper is to analyze this evolution, segmented on the three defining intervals in order to get acquainted with what the public accounting system has been, how it has transformed itself, what modifications it has undergone, and what level it attained today.