Ongoing Enquiry Research Articles

Decompositional Forms: Asiatic Disfigurement, Sensorial Excess, and Queer Inhumanisms in Candice Lin’s Natural History

Abstract This article analyzes Candice Lin’s 2020 solo exhibition, Natural History: A Half-Eaten Portrait, an Unrecognizable Landscape, a Still Still Life, a show that reflects the artist’s ongoing enquiry into non-Western botanical knowledge and attempts to develop nontoxic death rituals by building more-than-human intimacies. Merging the biological processes associated with decomposition and the discursive formations of race and gender, the work also interrogates the knowledge systems constructed by museums. I examine Lin’s works through the lens of queer inhumanisms to illustrate how this exhibition challenges modern curatorial practices and historical representations of the Asiatic in natural histories. I refer to this aesthetics of disfigurement as “decompositional forms.” Ultimately, I forward that this method of representation renders Asian American racial form into multisensorial registers (which literally penetrate art consumers) to recognize racial histories beyond identity and alongside the omni-presence of the more-than-human.

Play Is a Child’s Work (on Instagram)

Play Is a Child’s Work (on Instagram)

Strategizing actors and agents in the functioning of informal property Rights: The tragicomedy of the extralegal housing market in China

This paper engages with the ongoing theoretical enquiry into the actual functioning and diverse practices of informal property rights. Departing from the prevailing neoliberal perspective and the credibility thesis, this paper develops a framework of institutional analysis to understand the functioning and regional variation of informal property rights. It takes the institutions-as-equilibria perspective and situates both structural and endogenous institutional variables in actors’ strategic choices. We test our conceptual framework through a multisite empirical study of extralegal and untitled housing in China. Building on game theory, archival research, and fieldwork, we compare the key variables contributing to the divergent fortunes of extralegal and untitled housing property rights in three Chinese cities: prospering in Shenzhen, selectively interfered with in Beijing, and eliminated in Sanya. The functioning of informal property rights is found to be contingent upon diverse strategic interactions of local governments and key local stakeholders. Our paper highlights the formation of local actors’ behavioral beliefs and their adjustment through a nonlinear feedback mechanism. It suggests the necessity and significance of integrating structural and endogenous institutional variables, elaborating on the interplay of formal and informal institutions, and applying the microeconomic and dynamic perspectives to better understand the functioning and diverse practices of informal property rights in the developing world.

Workshop for potential architecture: Implications and opportunities for (re)constructing

This article presents fragments of an ongoing research enquiry into the opportunities for reconstructing practice as a workshop for potential architecture (Oulipo). The projects presented develop from a completed Ph.D. thesis and explore models for architecture when conceived as an unstable, diverse and fluctuating activity through the theoretical work of my businesses as a-project and a-plot. The work is a constant architectural enquiry that seeks to challenge the persistence of reductive models of the discipline producing singular objects and associated constructions of legitimacy. The research instead reflects on practising as an active and ongoing enquiry for collective reinterpretations, references and opportunities between disciplines and environments – operating as speculative and projective essays that acknowledge the instabilities, contradictions and uncertainties inherent in designing anything. I continue to explore the potential in shifting the emphasis of architectural practice away from a reductive and deterministic model of production (with associated crises of value) and towards a dynamic, flexible and irresolute agency for practice that is reflective and involving. Models for architecture that are continuously responsive and embedded in the fluctuating environment of potential production (a broad interpretation of site as an evolving situation for practice and an ecology of diverse branching opportunities, contradictions and potential resolutions). The research develops these ideas for practice with a constant questioning and reframing of enquiry – an involving essay for practice – that branches across and through divergent material and referential frames and recognizes the inherent transdisciplinarity of any activity. The projects in this article explore the implications of a multiple situation derived from archetypical architectural conditions, originating narratives of architecture and theoretical rules where the apparent confidence that architecture constructs is revealed as a dynamic, unstable and involving translation. Through this process the language of the discipline is exposed – not fixed or certain, but shifting, blending, branching and interacting with a fluctuating network of situations and contexts. Drawing through and within (as digital and analogue mixtures) the complex interrelationships within the discipline of an architectural ecology reveals potential projections for architecture. Projections that recognize the contingent instabilities, elisions, modulations and episodic cadences of practice as a constant unfolding essay for practising. This article therefore argues for a dynamic agency for practice as a diverse, multiple and unstable activity that is constantly reframed, reconstructed and projected within shifting environments and contingent situations. It develops models for practice that are enabling, irresolute and speculative situations rather than fixed products – inhabiting partial, incomplete, transitory and implicit strategies for practising. This might expose architecture, dismantle the artificial constructions of reductive production and project possibilities for a more integrated and multiple workshop for potential architecture?

Reducing Hydrophilic Characteristics of Kraft Paper Insulation by Reinforcing With Surface Modified Rutile-TiO2 Nanoparticles

The hydrophilic nature of cellulose compromises the dielectric properties of kraft paper insulation when exposed to water and moisture. The effort to address this setback is an ongoing research enquiry. In the present work, surface-modified rutile-titanium dioxide nanoparticles (rutile-TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> NPs) are reinforced into cellulose pulp to fabricate a nanocomposite kraft paper insulation. Surface modification of the nano-filler particles is intended to reduce the hydrophilicity of the resultant nanocomposite kraft paper insulation. The nanoparticles (rutile-TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> NPs) improve other dielectric properties of the insulation. The chemicals used for the surface modification of the rutile-TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> NPs were the alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) and alkenyl succinic anhydride (ASA). The nanofiller retention, r dispersion and hydrophobic properties of the resultant reinforced kraft paper were experimentally analyzed. The results show that more than 50% of the nanofillers were retained within the reinforced kraft paper. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed evenly distributed nanofillers, with some traces of agglomeration. The moisture absorption property of the kraft paper specimen modified with rutile-TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> NPs containing 5 vol/vol% ASA improved by 74% compared to the control (reference) specimen. Water vapor transmission rate of the surface-modified nanoparticles reinforced kraft paper insulation decreased by 30%. Compared to the unfilled paper, the contact angle of water droplets on the surface of the reinforced kraft paper improved by 12%. Water absorption rate improved by being 4 times slower in paper specimens containing rutile-TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> NPs 5 vol/vol% ASA. Dielectric dissipation factor measurement results showed that the specimen modified with rutile-TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> NPs containing 5 vol/vol% had 40% lower dielectric losses than the reference samples. This study, therefore, has successfully improved the hydrophobic properties of kraft paper by filling it with surface-modified rutile TiO <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> using 5% ASA as the nanoparticle surfactant.

Recognition and precarious mobilities: The experiences of university students from a refugee background in Australia

This article employs the concepts of recognition and precarious mobilities to understand university education for people from a refugee background. The authors draw on their ongoing qualitative longitudinal narrative enquiry exploring the experiences of 22 students in Australia from asylum-seeking backgrounds during their three-year study for a Bachelor’s degree. Theories of recognition informed by the work of Axel Honneth and Nancy Fraser provide a conceptual framework for analysing the students’ experiences in navigating government and institutional policies and practices which often fail to recognise the unique needs of this distinct group. Few higher education institutions fully acknowledge the educational capital and transnational understandings that students from refugee backgrounds develop through navigating precarious mobilities. Instead of receiving recognition for these assets, such students often feel they do not belong in higher education in the host society. Thus, belonging, an essential component in supporting their success in higher education and settlement, is undermined. To appreciate how university practices are informing student experiences, the authors explore two competing discourses: “the education of international students is Australia’s third-largest export” on the one hand, and “higher education should be made available to all who can benefit from it” on the other.

Polar transformation of 2D X-ray diffraction patterns and the experimental validation of the hDIC technique

Deformation analysis in engineering materials and components is a subject of ongoing enquiry due to its importance for obtaining reliable prediction of strength and durability of structures and assemblies. Whilst optical methods deliver information about surface displacements, X-ray scattering methods have the capability to provide efficient assessment of crystal lattice distortion in the bulk of the component. The height digital image correlation (hDIC) technique is an alternative to conventional digital image correlation that uses the out-of-plane surface height variations for the identification of triaxial deformations. In this study, the hDIC technique was used for the determination of displacements in an aluminium specimen after 3-point bending process that creates a complex deformation state that includes both axial displacements and rotations. The surface of the specimen was prepared for the analysis by electric discharge machining (EDM) technique that has minimal effect on material properties and produces random height profile well-suited for the aim of this study. Surface height variations were measured using deep focus microscopy and used instead of pixel intensity for correlation in the DIC process. The distribution of total of elastic and plastic strains were also calculated by the evolutionary eigenstrain model using 2D X-ray diffraction patterns processed according to the polar transformation method. The agreement between hDIC and polar X-Ray diffraction analyses allowed reliable cross-validation between these two techniques.

A survey of nurse practitioner controlled drugs and substances prescribing in three Canadian provinces.

In Canada, nurse practitioners (NP) were legally authorised to prescribe controlled drugs and substances (CDS) in 2012. The objective of this study was to understand current NP-CDS prescribing in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, Canada. This study is a component of a larger three-phase survey of NP practice patterns in these same provinces. Nurse practitioners are nurses with a graduate degree who have the legal authority to perform expanded functions in health systems, including prescribing CDS. Given the novelty of CDS prescribing for NPs in Canada, little is known about this component of their role. A secondary analysis of survey data collected between March 2016 and May 2017 was used to examine NP-CDS-prescribing patternsand identify potential associated factors. Nurse practitioners in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan wereinvited to complete a professional practice pattern survey. The survey was administered through a secure electronic data collection software application (redcap). In the practice pattern survey, 42 variables from 15 distinct conceptual questions were analysed in this study as potential predictors of NP-CDS prescribing within a purposeful selection ordinal logistic regression model. This scientific submission has been assessed for accuracy and completeness using the Equator STROBE guideline criteria (see Appendix S1). Five variables were found to be associated with an increased odds of more frequent NP-CDS prescribing in addition to three confounders/clinically relevant variables. Factors commonly associated with an increased frequency of NP-CDS prescribing relate to location of practice, area of practice, previous nursing experience, team environments and common diagnoses. Little is known about NP-CDS prescribing. Understanding this important component of the NPs emerging legal scope of professional practice can contribute to the continued refinement of this role as well as support ongoing enquiry into the causes of, and potential interventions to prevent, the present opioid overdose deaths occurring while under an active prescription. Understanding factors that influence NP-CDS prescribing has relevance to the current drug-related prescription fatalities crisis in all countries.

Supporting the development of early years students’ professional identities through an action research programme

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the aims, rationale and aspects of a new Action Research (AR) module developed for level 6, Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) students. The aims of the module are three-fold: First, to support learners in developing the research and academic skills needed to investigate their own practices, generate knowledge and engage in critical reflection. Second, to assist students to be active agents in questioning and designing changes to improve their practice. Third, to support them in disseminating their work in the public sphere and thus take an active part in discussions about their field of practice. Drawing on the processes of ongoing reflection and collaborative enquiry, our vision is to emancipate our students; support them in repositioning themselves as powerful agents with significant insights and the power to make a difference to their practice. However, facilitating emancipatory AR can pose several challenges, on individual, institutional and political levels. The aim of this paper is to reaffirm the rationale for AR as an epistemological, methodological and political tool that can support the professional identities of our learners; also, to address some of the anticipated complexities and tensions of employing emancipatory AR in an academic environment.

Participatory urban redevelopment in Chinese cities amid accelerated urbanization: Symbolic urban governance in globalizing Shanghai

ABSTRACTThis research engages with ongoing theoretical enquiry into the nature and dynamics of public participation in urban redevelopment in a command economy undergoing marketization. The research investigates the actual practicing of community participation in housing requisition in Shanghai, its social and political underpinnings, and its impacts upon residents directly affected by housing requisition. This study argues that the notion of public interests is ambiguously defined and manipulated, whereas the actual rights and responsibilities among major stakeholders remain unchanged. Migrants are excluded from the decision-making process. Participatory urban redevelopment is found to be rhetorical and symbolic by nature. It is a tool for the municipal government to quicken the housing requisition process for economic development and avoid social unrests for career advancement. The findings of this research help identify a new path of theorization concerning state–society relations going beyond the state–market dynamism that has dominated the theory of neoliberal urbanism.

In-corporeal diagrams: Drawing from dance to architecture

Abstract This article is one of the offsprings of an ongoing enquiry that set out to revisit drawing’s role in architecture, by weaving a field of relations between pedagogical and epistemological theories of dance, drawing and architecture. The theories situate the affective/haptic kinaesthetic body at the centre of all in-corporeal experience, perception and conception. This article examines drawing’s potential to revive the body in architectural practices, by unveiling forces and processes that compose bodies and intertwine with the corporeality of architecture. It establishes drawing as a form of dance capable of inscribing the kinaesthetic vitality of the body into architecture. It examines architect Frank Gehry’s sketches as dynamic tracings of embodied gestures and bodily logos that mediate body and environment, interior and exterior.

Through the Looking Glass: Windows to ‘Cities in the Luso-Hispanic World’

Abstract This editorial opens the special issue of the Journal of Urban Cultural Studies titled ‘Cities in the Luso-Hispanic World’ by suggesting that these introductory pages are transparent panes of glass on a vehicle of transportation passing through and linking the research articles that make up this special volume. The editorial’s narrative movement is not unlike that of a car driving through the urban spaces of a city, and the eight authors’ analyses are not unlike the moving images of cityscapes flashing before the car’s windows. The above metaphor of the narration as a ride through urban space serves to situate a variety of topics (movement, visibility, images, representations, rhythms, noise, heritage, reified capital in the form of buildings, and circulation of people and cultural products) as part and parcel of specific urban contexts, including Lisbon (Portugal), Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo (Brazil), Mexico City (Mexico), and Madrid and Córdoba (Spain) through poetry, novels, film, sound and architecture. Running through each contribution is the ongoing enquiry on how urban processes manifest culturally in Luso-Hispanic regions, and at a variety of scales, with special attention to bodies moving in, through, and around specific urban centres.

Just in Time

What is at stake in the relatively recent urge to document, annotate or archive decision-making processes in creative practices? Others have posed this sort of question (not least Derrida's Archive Fever, 1995), but, ironically enough, they tend to have done so through the written text—just as we are, in part, constrained to do here. Who or what has driven the historically specific urge to document—and who has benefited from it? Writer-researchers tend to be blissfully expert in the sorts of fields that collocate around performance decision-making—not least where university researcher holds sway. Yet surely what some of us may want—almost desperately—to capture, still evades that attempt at wording? What is it that holds centre-field, while researchers run around? Besides, what does the artist or maker really want?What do researchers want from ‘the artist’ when we use the words ’document’, ‘record’, ‘annotate’ and ‘archive’? When do we want it? Plainly Butcher has made the work, but ‘the work’, here, tends to signal the history of the made, rather less than the story of the making. In historical terms, most of Butcher's making processes pre-date this urge to document—except in her own mind, which bears their marks. What does Butcher remember? Perhaps her memories are the work's archive—hence, for whom do we archive, document and annotate, and how? In Derrida, concern was with time (in the beginning, in the end), and the command (do this! do that!), whereas what Butcher seems to recall is a series of questions, for which she continues to have few answers: the apparently simple ‘What was I doing then?’ signals an ongoing enquiry that image, writing and record fail to satisfy.

Producing and consuming China’s new urban space: State, market and society

The extant literature on urban China is preoccupied by concerns over the production and usage/consumption of urban space in relation to the dualistic state–market or state–society relation. This special issue presents a collection of carefully selected papers to counter-balance the skewed tendency observed in current urban China studies. We argue that the growth and spatiality of China’s new urbanism can be better understood by a critical analysis of how the state, market, and society interact in the processes of producing and consuming urban spaces in a rapidly changing global and local context. We propose that contemporary Chinese urban processes and experiences can be demonstrated holistically and realistically by placing due attention on both the production and consumption of China’s new urban spaces and the resulting contestations and contradictions. Our collective effort to examine how China’s state–market–society triad plays out in the production and consumption of urban spaces has yielded significant insights to advance ongoing enquiry in urbanising China in response to the advocacy for a decentring theorisation of the urban revolutions taking a perspective inclusive of the voices from the global south.

Reducing maternal mortality on a countrywide scale: The role of emergency obstetric training

Training programmes to improve health worker skills in managing obstetric emergencies have been introduced in various countries with the aim of reducing maternal mortality through these interventions. In South Africa, based on an ongoing confidential enquiry system started in 1997, detailed information about maternal deaths is published in the form of regular 'Saving Mothers' reports. This article tracks the recommendations made in successive Saving Mothers reports with regard to emergency obstetric training, and it assesses the impact of these recommendations on reducing maternal mortality. Since 2009, South Africa has had its own training package, Essential Steps in the Management of Obstetric Emergencies (ESMOE), which the last three Saving Mothers reports have specifically recommended for all doctors and midwives working in maternity units. A special emphasis has been placed on the need for the simulation training component of ESMOE, also called obstetric 'fire drills', to be integrated into the clinical routines of all maternity units. The latest Saving Mothers report (2011-2013) suggests there has been little progress so far in improving emergency obstetric skills, indicating a need for further scale-up of ESMOE training in the country. The example of the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa is used to illustrate the process of scale-up and factors likely to facilitate that scale-up, including the introduction of ESMOE into the undergraduate medical training curriculum. Additional factors in the health system that are required to convert improved skills levels into improved quality of care and a reduction in maternal mortality are discussed. These include intelligent government health policies, formulated with input from clinical experts; strong clinical leadership to ensure that doctors and nurses apply the skills they have learnt appropriately, and work professionally and ethically; and a culture of clinical governance.

Between Necessity and Delight - Negotiating Involved Fatherhood among Career Couples in Denmark.

Fathering practices are changing. Many fathers are no longer simply providers but are also active caregivers. While women’s entry into the labour market spurred a need for men to engage with the ‘second shift’, research has showed that men’s engagement with childcare does not necessarily imply an equal division of labour. By examining the construction of father’s identity in a context where traditional scripts for ‘doing family’ cannot (easily) be applied, this article discusses how necessity affects practices of involved fathering and the sharing of responsibilities. Based on qualitative interviews with 22 Danish men who are in relationships with so-called career women, the article argues that among this group of men, who in many ways appear as frontrunners of egalitarian family practices, fathers’ involvement is not only negotiated as a an emotional investment but also from a need to ‘make it work’. These fathers’ close relationships with their children and their parental independency is as much the result of the career orientation of the mothers as an expression of their having embraced the (Nordic) ideal of gender-neutral, symmetrical parenthood. Finally, in showing how intensive involvement and care-giving change men’s experience of fatherhood, the article contributes to the ongoing academic enquiry into what it means to be an involved father.

Clinical Experiences with Desflurane Inhalational Anaesthesia in Horses

Reasons for performing studyEquine general anaesthesia carries a higher risk of perioperative fatality compared with humans and companion animals. Multiple studies have examined the risk factors associated with general anaesthesia, most notably the ongoing confidential enquiry into perioperative equine fatalities (CEPEF) studies initially published by Johnston et al. [1]. Desflurane is a modern inhalational anaesthetic with low solubility and potentially beneficial reduced cardiorespiratory effects, but its use in a large number of horses has not been investigated.ObjectivesTo evaluate the perioperative mortality rates of horses undergoing general anaesthesia maintained using desflurane.Study designRetrospective analysis.MethodsAnaesthetic records of all horses undergoing general anaesthesia over a 4‐year period at a single hospital were retrospectively examined. Horses were excluded if general anaesthesia was not maintained using inhaled desflurane. Outcome variables of dead (anaesthetic related), alive or euthanased (for other reasons) were recorded consistent with previous CEPEF studies.Results427 horses met the inclusion criteria, of which 406 (95.1%) were alive at 7 days post operatively, 16 (3.7%) were euthanased and 5 (1.2%) died. Four of the perioperative fatalities suffered cardiac arrest, one suffered a catastrophic fracture. Mean age was 7.6 years (range 1 month–26 years), mean weight was 503.3 kg (range 60–828 kg). Mean duration of anaesthesia was 63.0 min (range 15–200 min). Mean recovery time to standing was 28.3 min (range 5–70 min) with mean recovery score 1.4/5 (range 1–4).ConclusionsUse of desflurane led to comparable mortality rates to other inhalational anaesthetics in this small number of horses at a single hospital. Further multicentre studies with larger numbers are warranted to examine any potential benefits.Ethical animal research: Ethical committee approval not currently required by this congress: retrospective study of clinical records. Explicit owner informed consent for participation in this study was not stated. Sources of funding: None. Competing interests: None.

Fit for purpose? Pattern cutting and seams in wearables development

This paper describes how a group of practitioners and researchers are working across disciplines at Nottingham Trent University in the area of Technical Textiles. It introduces strands of ongoing enquiry centred around the development and application of stretch sensors on the body, focusing on how textile and fashion knowledge are being reflexively revealed in the collaborative development of seamful wearable concepts, and on the tensions between design philosophies as revealed by definitions of purpose. We discuss the current research direction of the Aeolia project, which seeks to exploit the literal gaps found in pattern cutting for fitted stretch garments towards experiential forms and potential interactions. Normative goals of fitness for purpose and seamlessness are interrogated and the potential for more integrated design processes, which may at first appear ‘upside down’, is discussed.

Rethinking the Lollardy of the Lucidarie

In the course of the ongoing enquiry into the nature of Lollardy and the relationship between orthodox and heterodox thought in late medieval England, the accuracy of the designation ‘Lollard’ as a descriptor of various texts, many of them revisions of existing works, has been called into serious doubt. This is partly, and increasingly, a result of unease with use of the term ‘Lollard’ as a synonym for ‘Wycliffite'. As Andrew Cole has recently observed, contemporary usagesuggests that ‘Lollard’ was a multilayered and contested term describing “complex, contradictory” but not necessarily Wycliffite “identities.” Even if a connection between Wycliffite thought and Lollard identity is assumed (as it is in the work of scholars like Anne Hudson, Fiona Somerset, and Andrew Larsen ) and a Lollard is defined as one who holds “a significant number of beliefs associated with John Wyclif and his identifiable followers,” the assumed Lollardidentity of certain texts needs to be reassessed when core Wycliffite beliefs turn out to be absent or when the text contains teachings that contradict these beliefs. As Hudson points out in her 1985 article on the so-called Lollard revision of the Lay Folks’ Catechism, the Lollard appellation can be nothing more than a critical commonplace" which does not stand up to careful scrutiny of the evidence. The editors of the Lollard Lay Folks' Catechism ascribed the text to Wyclif himself because of the presence of Wycliffite ideas and the text’s connections with other works assumed to be by the reformer; the connection to Wyclif was later rejected, but the Lollard association remained, despite the fact that aspects of the text are clearly incongruent with Lollard beliefs. As Hudson shows, the text is theologically far too inconsistent (indeed, confused) to be categorized as Lollard, and the designation is therefore a “simplification.” This tendency to gloss over variations in late medieval belief by labelling all religious texts either orthodox or Lollard is, Larsen argues, a consequence of the myth, pervading “English historiography” for much of the last two centuries, that Lollardy was the only heresy in late medieval England. Larsen’s brief survey of examples of non-Lollard heresy in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton’s careful documentation of many more in her Books under Suspicion indicate a variety of “radicalisms” in Ricardian and Lancastrian England, rendering any neat distinction between Lollard and orthodox inadequate. Trial testimonies, written texts, and anecdotal reports reveal a broad spectrum of religious opinion, some of it idiosyncratic and much of it potentially shaped by several different ideologies. The mixture of orthodox and heterodox material found in many texts and manuscript collections can be “regarded as a barometer of the cultural context that [they] existed to serve.” The doctrinal flexibility of these works suggests that the boundaries between heterodoxy and orthodoxy had yet to be tightly drawn and points to the complexity of religious belief in the later Middle Ages. An increasing awareness of this complexity is changing the way in which scholars of late medieval literature are responding to heterodox material in religious texts and is prompting a reassessment of the texts’ connections with Lollardy. Removing the Lollard label from works where it is not only inadequate but actually incorrect allows for both a more accurate understanding of religious writing and a clearer understanding of the Lollard movement.

Metaphysical (Im)mortality and Philosophical Transcendence

There is a lapidary saying owing to Etienne Gilson, that is often misquoted or adapted – with ‘metaphysics’ taking the place of ‘philosophy’ – and which is invariably reproduced in isolation. It is that ‘Philosophy always buries its undertakers’. Understanding this remark as Gilson intended it is relevant to the issues of the nature of philosophy, and of what conception of it may be most appropriate or fruitful for us to pursue. The question of the mortality or otherwise of philosophy in general, and of metaphysics in particular, is a significant one for ongoing intellectual enquiry, and it is also relevant to the current position of academic philosophy in Great Britain and in the English-speaking world.