Professional Readers Research Articles

Flowcharts, Swimlanes, and Timelines

Government-published documents often fail to communicate clearly—not only with citizens but also with professional readers such as civil servants. Visual or multimodal approaches remain rare. This is a particularly unhelpful practice in regard to legal–bureaucratic instructions (e.g., contracts, rules, policies), which exist to guide compliant behavior. This study explores the development and experimental evaluation of a diagrammatic guide of terms and conditions for public procurement that is addressed to civil servants. Results show that the diagrammatic format, compared to prose, significantly enhances comprehension accuracy and answering speed and is perceived as more appealing and functional by users.

The Man of Law’s Reading of Chaucer: The Readers and Scribes of Late Medieval Vernacular Literature

이 논문은 중세 후기 자국어 문학 작품의 생산에 깊이 관여했던 필경사라는 직업을 중심으로 인쇄술이 도입되기 이전 14세기 영국의 매체와 시장의 변화를 역사적으로 접근함으로써 제프리 초서를 비롯한 자국어 작가들의 저자성을 규명한다. 중세 시대에는 하나의 텍스트가 작가 외에도 텍스트의 생산과 유통에 관계된 사람들의 공동 작업의 산물이라는 점에서 시장과 매체의 변화는 작품을 이해하는데 있어서 중요한 요소이다. 저자의 지위는 절대적인 것이 아니며, 인쇄술 도입 이전 자국어 문학 작품의 필사를 담당했던 필경사나 중세 문학 시장의 기능을 수행했던 후원자 혹은 독자 등, 일종의 매체로서 문학 작품의 생산에 관여했던 사람들과의 관계 속에서 끊임없이 타협하고 유동한다. 따라서 중세 후기 자국어 작가의 저자성을 이해하기 위해서는 정부나 의회, 런던 상인 길드에 소속되어 있으면서 자국어 작가들의 작품을 필사했던 중세 후기 필경사들의 활동과, 그들이 속했던 법률가와 상인 등 중산계급 전문직 지식인 독서층의 성장을 탐색하는 작업이 필수적이다. 필경사 집단과 중산층 독자에 대한 이와 같은 역사적 탐구는 초서의 작품에 대한 새로운 해석의 가능성을 제시한다. 자국어 문학에 관심이 많았고, 법에 대한 지식이 풍부했으며, 속인으로서는 보기 드물게 식자층이었던 이들은 초서 작품의 일차적인 독자이자 비평가로 그의 작품의 방향을 제시했다. 이 논문에서는 초서의「법률가의 이야기 도입부」와 「총서시」에 묘사된 순례객 법률가의 모습, 그리고「필경사 애덤에게 보내는 초서의 전언」을 분석하면서 독자층의 변화에 대한 저자의 인식이 뚜렷이 드러나는 1380년대 이후 초서의 작품들과 필경사 집단과의 연관성을 탐색한다.Focusing on late medieval English lay scribes, this paper examines changes of material and social conditions before the introduction of the printing press to understand contemporary ideas about vernacular authorship. The authority of an author was never absolute and constantly under the negotiation between the scribes, readers, and patrons, whose interests and tastes dictated the direction of late medieval English literary tradition. An investigation of the scribes and their association with Westminster and the London Guildhall sheds light on the role played by the middle-class readers who promoted vernacular literary writing. Well-educated and well-equipped with legal knowledge, these professional readers and writers chose and read the works of Chaucer, Gower, and Langland, establishing them as canonical authors. This paper pays particular attention to The Introduction to The Man of Law’s Tale , and “Chaucer’s wordes unto Adam, his Owne Scrivener,” while arguing an interrelationship between Chaucer’s later works and the changes of readership.

Beyond the Characters and the Reader? Digital Discussions on Intersectionality in The Murderer\u2019s Ape

This article presents an analysis of a recent, award-winning Swedish novel for children and young adults, The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius, and digitally published reviews of the novel. In the first part of the paper, we provide an intersectional analysis of the novel, focusing on gender, profession, species and class. The protagonist and narrator of The Murderer’s Ape is not easily categorized, as she is a mute but literate, highly intelligent and technically proficient gorilla in a man’s world; an ape among human beings, a working engineer and not a pet or an attraction at a zoo. Neither class nor social standing constrain her as they do the human fictional characters. In the second part of the paper, we contrast commentaries by professional readers with comments from young readers, paying particular attention to how they have responded to the protagonist. The overarching aim is to examine how features admired by critics and professional readers are, in practice, understood by engaged, active readers, including children. Some intersectional categories represent acquired qualities, whereas others represent socially set boundaries. Posthumanist and intersectional perspectives provide tools to understand Sally Jones’ position beyond both the other fictional characters and the readers. The analyses reveal differences between the readings of gender, profession and class by professional and young readers, but for both categories, the readers’ reactions to questions pertaining to species are pivotal in their readings of the novel.

Reading Together, Reading Apart: Identity, Belonging, and South Asian American Community

Reading Together, Reading Apart: Identity, Belonging, and South Asian American Community

“Softened” Voice Quality in Poetry Reading: An Acoustic Study

This study explores the acoustic properties of a certain “softened” voice quality adopted by some professional poetry readers for emotive expression. We show that several acoustic features may serve as cues for softened voice, including: breathy voice, low intensity, and, possibly, reduced tempo and restrained dynamics of intensity and pitch contours. In addition, we show that different speakers may achieve the effect of voice softening in different ways. Our results demonstrate the contribution of the vocal dimension to the experience of poetry. Although this is essentially a case study of the subjective perceptions of one individual, the results are consistent, and we show their potential to be generalized across listeners.

Ways of knowing: Howard Stein's border-crossing use of poetry to interrogate clinical medicine, medical education, and health care organizations.

This article explores how medical anthropologist Howard Stein's poetry and his unique practice of sharing this poetry with the patients, physicians, and administrators who inspired it create ways of knowing that are at once revelatory and emancipatory. Stein's writing shows readers that poetry can be considered as a form of data and as a method of investigation into the processes of the human soul. Furthermore, it represents a kind of intervention that invites health professional readers toward connection, bridge building, and solidarity with their patients and with one another. (PsycINFO Database Record

Henry Lives! Learning from Lawson Fandom

In an age when many fan activities are undertaken via online networks, devotees of long-dead Australian author Henry Lawson are predominantly bound by face-to-face participation in shared commemorative events. Traditionally seen by fans and readers as 'the Mate of Australia', Lawson is a figure who has inspired a constellation of transformative fan practices ranging from impersonation to extreme outback pilgrimages. Based on interviews with fans and participant observation, this article will show Henry Lawson Society events are intrinsically interactive, encouraging all members to participate in a variety of modes, through visual art, music, poetry and theatre. I argue that Henry Lawson fans are productive rather than critical, circulating their homages within a well-defined community of interest. I argue that Henry Lawson fans re-deploy texts in creative ways in order to make sense of their own social experience. Through a study the fan activities of passionate amateurs - such as Henry Lawson Literary and Memorial Society members - 'nonauthorised' ways of interpreting texts may be discerned, providing alternatives to the 'suspicious reading' of critics.

Update on adult safeguarding

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an update for readers on recent issues relating to adult safeguarding, together with signposting of papers in this issue of the journal. Design/methodology/approach – A review of recent media, news and policy related items was undertaken and key findings are reported. Findings – A range of findings and information pertinent to adult safeguarding is presented in the paper for readers to consider. Practical implications – Some of the issues and perspectives presented in the paper may be of relevance for professional practice and readers may wish to disseminate such aspects to colleagues in order to inform practice initiatives. Originality/value – The paper provides an update and overview of recent topics that are linked to adult safeguarding and protection and draws these together in an accessible format.

Communicating Uncertainty in Financial Statement Narratives: Goodwill Impairment Testing

The goal of this paper is to determine how disclosures of goodwill impairment tests under IAS 36 are prepared in conditions of high uncertainty. The data come from Polish companies listed at the Warsaw Stock Exchange, where economic and legal developments have been dynamic as compared to the main global equity markets. We use qualitative methods, interviews and content analysis, and we draw on genre theory to understand how the narratives in disclosures are created. We find that the disclosures follow clear rules of a genre, which prohibit the discussion of uncertainty. In cases where significant doubts concerning the reliability of goodwill valuation exist, preparers place clues that professional readers can notice and follow to determine the degree of uncertainty. Preparers may only be encouraged to provide this information directly if specific disclosure requirements are introduced.

Book review: The Epigenetics Revolution

Epigenetics is a rapidly evolving science that is often only described in scientific literature or textbooks. In “The Epigenetics Revolution”, Nessa Carey eloquently bridges the spheres of academia and scientific journalism (Carey, 2012). The phrasing “revolution” is a dramatic use of English that effectively portrays a momentous shift in biological thinking. For the novice, it is a good introduction to epigenetics whilst it provides professional readers with a concise summary of historically significant experiments and translational context. The text is divided into an introduction and 16 chapters which handle various concepts pertaining to epigenetic theory, key experimental studies and the potential for future therapeutic application. Carey starts with some historical context; she illustrates the successes and limitations of the human genome project and quotes some of the arguably overdramatic claims made by various organizations of the time. The first two chapters approach the issue of cellular differentiation by explaining the work of John Gurdon and the concept of a genetic “switch” rather than a loss of unneeded material. The analogy that DNA is a script to be interpreted is a particularly articulate explanation for novice readers. From this, Carey explains the epigenetic underpinnings of pluripotency and explores the potential application of stem cell therapies in regenerative medicine. Chapters 3 and 4 give an overview of genetic and epigenetic molecular biology, including the genetic code, DNA replication, transcription, translation, chromatin, DNA methylation, and histone modifications. These biological concepts are supplemented with an explanation of twin studies to illustrate the profound effect of environmental experience on genetically identical individuals. She makes reference to specific biological signals that induce epigenetic modification e.g. the hormone receptor. In the absence of somatic mutation, Carey also explores how epigenetic modifications can induce cellular abnormalities. Overall, this section provides an excellent narrative that uses famous scientific work to illustrate basic epigenetic concepts which is perfectly suited to novice readers or undergraduate students. Chapter 6 focuses on the heritability of epigenetic modifications. Environmental events such as the Dutch famine have clear effects on the health outcomes of offspring. Carey explains that this only occurs in susceptible regions of the genome and that epigenetic reprogramming during early embryogenesis circumvents the passage of many undesirable or dangerous modifications. Generation X is a very interesting chapter that explains the history of sex determination; an epigenetic process that depends upon tight regulation of X chromosome genes, termed “X chromosome dosage compensation.” The last quarter of the book focuses on epigenetic pathology. Carey illustrates this section with two very different disease states; psychiatric illness and cancer. This is purposefully designed to portray the universal influence of epigenetics. Carey makes an intelligent case for the role of childhood experience in shaping the epigenetic landscape; specifically, the association between abuse and the development of mental illness. Another interesting section explores the current contention surrounding neuro-epigenetics. This implies that epigenetic theory isn't sacrosanct and provokes a good debate for the reader. Disappointingly, neurodegeneration is only briefly mentioned. On the contrary, the concept of “epigenetic” aging is thorough and chapter 13 eloquently explains the global decrease in methylation and changes to the telomere system that are associated with the development of cancer. The final chapter elegantly draws together the biological principles, historical events, and translational examples that were given throughout the book. Carey concludes by exploring the potential for future drug discovery and the limitations and dangers that such agents may present. There is a description of recent research that is beginning to answer many elusive questions, such as the mechanisms underpinning the circadian rhythm. This section builds upon basic concepts with more advanced theory which might become challenging for some inexperienced readers. With that said, it is brilliantly written and provides a comprehensive review of many historically significant feats of epigenetic biology. “The Epigenetics Revolution” is a concise text that is accessible to a wide audience. However, such a compromise presents drawbacks; for the absolute beginner, gene nomenclature and complex scientific concepts may be confusing at times. If one is familiar with the field, many of the examples are unoriginal e.g. the agouti mouse experiments, the classic Dutch famine and its correlation with obesity, the royal jelly etc. Surprisingly, there is no mention of the early work by nobel laureates Barbara McClintock or Paul Berg. Despite these relatively minor criticisms, “The Epigenetics Revolution” is an excellent scientific biography that charts the past, present, and optimistic future of the field. It is especially suitable for informed non-specialists and students of biological sciences. Carey enthusiastically portrays a revolutionary system that could unlock the answers to many of nature's best kept secrets.

‘The totalitarian destruction of the public sphere?’ Newspapers and structures of public communication in socialist countries: the example of the German Democratic Republic

Using the example of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR), this study deals with the public sphere in Eastern European countries before 1989. It supports the thesis that even the ‘guided’ and controlled daily press enabled the readers (even in a limited way) to observe the process of communication and to make up their own minds. The article is based on two main sources: files from the Federal archives in Berlin and a series of 100 biographical interviews, held between 2000 and 2002, in which former GDR residents have been asked about their everyday media usage during the 1980s. This article discusses the concept of public communication and propaganda and shows how the politically staged public sphere operated from the point of view of the rulers and professional readers as well as regular subscribers.

Prospects for the Study of Robert Frost

Robert Frost's (1874-1963) life and work continue provide a rich area of study, even as the academic culture vigorously redefines the field of literature within which Frost has been canonically lodged for years and even as he gets resifted various levels in debates about his modernism. Developments during the past generation have made more documents accessible and have deepened and broadened our understanding of Frost's art and life. There is still much work be done in simply cataloging, assembling, and making more available the letters, interviews, talks, and readings, and in giving the biographical approaches and literary interpretations a more definitive cultural inflection than they have taken, but the field has a well-established collection of texts and companion works guide and inspire scholars just approaching Frost, as well as those who have been working on him for years.Often regarded by scholars as regrettable, Frost's popularity across the ranks of readers, sometimes for the wrong reasons, has actually enriched the scholarship his life and works inspire. He did, after all, seek to be a poet for all sorts and rather than be caviar the crowd . . . the way . . . Pound was (Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays [CPPP] 668). In a yearlong survey of Americans that was conducted by Robert Pinsky in 1999, Robert Frost won hands down as the country's favorite poet (Barron and Wilcox 2). And in a poll of American college students conducted by Dana Gioia about ten years ago, Frost's Fire and Ice turned out be their favorite poem (172). features of his poetry that attract both highbrow and middlebrow audiences, or perhaps make the highbrow weary of him because of the middlebrow interest, actually add dimension his poems and essays, as well as his public presentations, and thereby challenge the complacent scholar hedged in by easy academic assumptions about the value of poetry. During the last two generations, new historicist, gender, cultural, and reception theory approaches have professionalized Frost studies and, in certain ways, moved the professional readers closer understanding the expectations of amateur readers. Admiring appreciators of Frost's poetry, as well as collectors and preservers of his records, have allowed the kinds of remarkable work now being done on Frost's career and art. In other words, the broad range of readers fascinated by Frost's poetry, rather than just the professionalized few, keeps him from disappearing below the radar of publishers and preserves his claim a position in the canon, whatever shape the canon takes.There is much in just the nuts and bolts of the Frost scholarly and educational industry prepare and jump-start the scholar seeking new areas of study. publication in 1995 of the Library of America Robert Frost: Collected Poems, Prose, and Plays, edited by Richard Poirier and Mark Richardson, advanced Frost studies by including plays and masques, various letters, the most generous selection of prose writings up that time readily available, and nearly all (ninety-four) of the one hundred largely inaccessible, uncollected poems in the Frost corpus, seventeen of which are printed from holograph manuscript for the first time. For a volume of its kind, the edition is extraordinarily well documented and edited; in that way and, as is broadly known, in its restoration of Frost's intended punctuation, the 1995 Library of America volume far surpasses Poetry of Robert Frost (1969), edited by Edward Connery Lathem. mere availability of this new material is important: previously uncollected poems, such as The Seven Arts (Kosc, Monstrous Liberalism) and The Mill City (Sheehy, 'Stay Unassuming'), have yielded valuable new studies of Frost's life and politics, areas that will continue require further examination and revision. Though published eighteen years ago, CPPP continues provide opportunities for close study of how previously uncollected poems and a play such as A Way Out (1917), for instance, advance our understanding of Frost's poetry and his place in our culture. …

Jane Austen: tra brand e desiderio

“It is a truth universally acknowledged” that Jane Austen, after her canonization in the pantheon of Western literature, has recently gained unprecedented visibility in the global pop and media culture. The essay analyses the ways, the forms, the supports and channels through which Jane Austen herself as well as her novels (with particular attention to Pride and Prejudice) have crossed the threshold of academia, university curricula, and professional readers, to enter another cultural space – YouTube, fan communities and websites, pop music, blogs, romance, horror, and chick-lit – so becoming both one of the popular mythologies of Twentieth-first century and a powerful brand, that is, the centre of gravity of multiple economic interests, ranging from film and TV production, to publishing and tourism industry. Nowadays Austen is a means for catalysing (and exploiting) the desires, projections, and expectations of new typologies of readers. The essay especially focuses on Jane Austen fan fiction, which is the problematic ground where different media (litterature, cinema, TV, web and digital media in general), where producers and consumers, where reading and writing, where top down strategies and bottom up pressures, converge.The Jane Austen case study highlights a host of ground-breaking transformations in the field of cultural production and consumption: on the one hand, a new textuality, multiple, rhizomatic, euphoric, emerges, which scorns any metaphysic of the original and perversely realizes some famous critical utopias. On the other hand, such a phenomenon points to some crucial contradictions that are inherent to any process of cultural democratization.

Why males and females look different

Why do males and females look different? In “Odd Couples: Extraordinary Differences Between the Sexes in the Animal Kingdom,” (2013, Princeton University Press, p. 312), Daphne J. Fairbairn provides a scrupulous catalog of possible answers, perhaps the most detailed collection of animal sex differences since Darwin’s 1874 “The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex.” Sexual dimorphism is the condition in which males and females exhibit distinct phenotypes, beyond physiological traits involved with reproduction. Fairbairn’s volume is supplied with some of the best examples of such differences now known, and the disparate sources of data are pressed into compelling shape by a talented scholar and careful experimentalist. Fairbairn’s manifesto is, “an overtly Darwinian approach to understanding sexual differences” (p. 3). She notes that when selection operates in sex-specific ways, “we expect trait distributions typical for each sex to be adaptive for that sex” (p. 4), and she launches the reader into this view of dimorphism with sweeping taxonomic and gender-modified scope. We learn of lumbering male elephant seals, who in the throes of their ardor may annihilate the offspring of their future mates; of great bustards, giant Eurasian cranes whose males shove rivals and take blows to the face like bear-pit pugilists while females watch nearby; of shellcarrying cichlid fish, whose territorial and satellite males dart and parry for opportunities to ejaculate into snail shells containing females’ unfertilized ova. As vertebrates, we humans are most familiar with mating systems in which males are larger or somehow more elaborate than females. Fairbairn answers this preexisting bias with fascinating contrasts, weaving tales of yellow garden spiders and blanket octopus, whose gigantic females either squat in the center of conspicuous webs, or float huge and enigmatic over tropical reefs, each attended by males of their species as much as 40,000 times smaller in size. We learn of giant seadevil anglerfish, whose enormous, fang-jawed females host tiny males, who cling to female undersides by their own peculiar mouths, absorbing nutrients from a shared bloodstream and dangling close enough to their mate’s genitalia to ensure successful spawning. Fairbairn details the divergent life histories of bizarre, deep-sea bone worms whose females embed their bulbous bodies within decaying skeletons of whales, and maintain hundreds of minute suitors within their translucent skins. Lastly, she describes shell-burrowing barnacles, in which embedded females may (or may not—45% of females fail to mate) host posses of minuscule males with colossal, inflatable penises that may exceed each little fellow’s corporal dimensions by as much as eight times. The density of information and much delightful prose make this a fascinating read for lay and professional readers alike. Footnotes and appendices comprise nearly one-third of the book. One diagram describes the distribution of sexual dimorphism among 73 animal classes, a synthesis across 1.4 million species that is the first I have seen of its kind. Fairbairn glides among the animals with remarkable skill, and does Darwin one better with abundant recent data. In each chapter, she recounts male and female life spans, the fractions of individuals who do and do not mate, and the numbers of offspring that individuals in each sex produce. The raw materials are here to make concise, quantitative statements about how a sex difference in the variance in relative fitness (also known as the opportunity for sexual selection; Wade 1979) can explain the magnitude and direction of sexual dimorphism. But each chapter ends without an attempt. Offspring numbers are what Fairbairn considers “the currency of Darwinian fitness,” yet the trove of such information presented is used mainly for implication. Fairbairn concludes, “the enduring message is that there is no one way of being a male or a female animal . . . there is no “normal” or “typical” pattern of sexual differentiation across the animal kingdom,” and furthermore that the lack of sex differences in externally fertilizing species “remains a mystery” (p. 165). I found such capitulation

The translation pact

In this article I argue that translated texts and translational paratexts invite readers to read translated texts as if they were the originals, a hitherto widely ignored premise of translations. Although translations are produced by many agents in collaboration (authors, publishers, copy-editors and translators), they are generally presented as texts produced predominantly by one agent, the author. I therefore claim that there is a ‘translation pact’ at work in translated literature, a rhetorical construction through which readers are invited to read translated texts as if they were the originals. A narratological implication of the pact is that individual readers who accept the pact will reconstruct only an ‘implied author’ and not an ‘implied translator’. This view differs from earlier works on the implied translator (e.g. Munday, 2008: 11; O’Sullivan, 2003; Schiavi, 1996). The translation pact is most often constructed implicitly, but sometimes translators draw attention to themselves and manifest their agency, for example by discussing translational decisions in prefaces and notes. Against what one would assume from previous claims on the translator’s ‘visibility’ (Venuti, 1995), I demonstrate that the translator’s presence does not necessarily work against the pact but can rather strengthen it. The translation pact explains why readers, including critics, literary scholars and other professional readers, often talk and write about translations as if they were originals composed solely by the author.

Higher Education in the Digital Age [Book Review

"Higher Education in the Digital Age" (edited by William G. Bowen) is divided into two sections. The first section includes adaptations of Bowen's presentations at The Tanner Lectures at Stanford University in 2012. The second section includes discussion responses from respected colleagues, and Bowen's response to the same. This unique structure enables the reader to be involved as an insider to this debate - a witness not only to the author's assertions but also to the lively discourse that ensues in response. The reviewer feels this book is provocative in addressing pressing issues that can no longer be ignored. Bowen's assertion that the time at hand to begin a transformation is supported by research, and the data support the dire need for a resolution to the student debt crisis and productivity problem in higher education. The gaps in the research he presents, particularly involving MOOCs, invite technical researchers to take advantage of this timely opportunity, not only to continue the conversation but to seek solutions to the viability he proposes. Bowen,s concern that public opinion of higher education matters and his insistence that institutions and educators must come together to lead the change while they can is an important call to action for IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication readers in particular.

Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon: the Modern Library Series, 1917-1955 by Lise Jaillant

Reviewed by: Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon: the Modern Library Series, 1917-1955 by Lise Jaillant Hannah McGregor (bio) MODERNISM, MIDDLEBROW AND THE LITERARY CANON: THE MODERN LIBRARY SERIES, 1917-1955, by Lise Jaillant. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2014. xii + 211 pp. $99.00. Lise Jaillant’s Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon is an engagingly written and rigorously researched study of the Modern Library, focusing on the role of the quality reprint series in the circulation and popularization of modernist authors throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Jaillant offers convincing evidence, accrued through careful historical and archival research, that the interwar period in the United States was characterized by a blurring of the lines between modernism and the middlebrow, between prestigious classics and popular bestsellers, and between canonical authors and modern celebrities. In this way, Jaillant’s book constitutes a meaningful contribution to the field of middlebrow studies, particularly recent scholarship that has explored the middlebrow as an “amorphous … sphere” that could bring together the high and low in unexpected combinations that appealed to a wider range of cultural consumers.1 Jaillant’s book takes the form of six case studies bracketed by a brief introduction and conclusion, with each study teasing out the role of one more-or-less canonical author in the Modern Library series: H. G. Wells, Sherwood Anderson, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Willa Cather, and William Faulkner. This approach allows her to be particularly precise in her discussion, aided throughout by graphs and maps that emphasize the studies’ fine attention to detail, of paratext, circulation, advertising, and reception. These case studies are brought together through what Jaillant calls “a forgotten moment in the history of modernism—the moment when ‘high’ modernist texts were sufficiently attractive to be reprinted in a cheap series, but had not yet been dissociated from ‘lesser’ works” (4). Tracing the shift from the early 1920s, when canonical modernists like Joyce and Woolf had become household names in the United States but were not yet widely accessible to common readers, to the post-World War II period, when suspicion of the masses and the emergence of professional literary criticism (especially New Criticism) led to rejection of the Modern Library’s democratizing drive, Modernism, Middlebrow and the Literary Canon concludes that there was a moment when Joyce and Woolf could be read not only as modern classics but as “exciting and pleasurable” bestsellers (102). The case study of Woolf’s introduction to Mrs Dalloway is the most effective demonstration of how attention to context shifts our understanding of the relation between modernism and the middlebrow.2 Between 1928 and 1948, the Modern Library printed an edition of Mrs Dalloway accompanied by an introduction written by Woolf— [End Page 227] an introduction distinctly at odds with the perception of Woolf as a highbrow writer with well-documented disdain for the middlebrow.3 As Jaillant explains, the “Battle of the Brows” Woolf fought in England was a culturally specific debate shaped by the gender and class dynamics of the emerging literary profession in the United Kingdom (97). A similar debate certainly played out in the United States, but across different timelines;4 Jaillant argues that, in the 1920s, “American intellectuals did not share the same kind of anxieties over the ‘brows’” and “were content with the development of a vast middlebrow sphere, with less distinct ‘high’ and ‘low’” (97). The Modern Library’s focus on blurring distinctions between high and low modernist texts gave Woolf access to a wider and more diverse readership, which allowed her to explore her interest in amateur literary criticism. While Mrs Dalloway never stopped selling well for the Modern Library, the reception of modernism had shifted by the 1940s. The study of authors like Woolf became “institutionalized in English departments,” and modernism itself “came to be seen as a difficult movement for an elite” (102). It is only with the recent advent of the New Modernist Studies, Jaillant asserts, that the understanding of modernist literature as elite, aesthetically difficult, and reserved for professional readers has been challenged. Joyce was similarly popularized for an American audience via his inclusion in the Modern Library series. When A Portrait of the Artist as a...

Genetic Research on Addiction: Ethics, the Law, and Public Healthedited by ChapmanAudrey R. Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 262 pp., $88.00.

Genetic Research on Addiction: Ethics, the Law, and Public Healthedited by ChapmanAudrey R. Cambridge, United Kingdom, Cambridge University Press, 2012, 262 pp., $88.00.

O'Neill, Cognition, and the Common Core Standards

O'Neill, Cognition, and the Common Core Standards

How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time and Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts: Literary and Visual Approaches

How Soon Is Now? Medieval Texts, Amateur Readers, and the Queerness of Time and Opening Up Middle English Manuscripts: Literary and Visual Approaches