What must strike any reader of Doris Lessing's 1962 novel, The Golden Notebook, is the extent to which its protagonist, AnnaWulf, has been affected by the experience of loss. Anna's attempt to convince herself that her pain and that of other women like her represents ‘not much loss’ is belied by the experience of reading the entire novel and by Lessing's continuing preoccupation with the idea of loss in her later novels, Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) and The Memoirs of a Survivor (1974). This chapter explores how, in her work in the 1960s and the early 1970s, Lessing rewrites the experience of loss as potentially creative, productive and transformative. In her vision of what the chapter calls a ‘melancholy cosmopolitanism’, Lessing challenges the closed-off, paranoid legacy of the Cold War in the 1950s. In Memoirs and Briefing, she further develops the distinction between the claustrophobic, nostalgic relation to loss that is characteristic of mourning and the creative work of melancholia.

This chapter argues that women's culture in Shetland actually had only a marginal connection to the islands' dominant economic activity, fishing. There was a stand-alone female culture in which women created networks founded upon their work and sociability. Female culture in Shetland was characterised by a combination of solidarity, reciprocity and self-preservation. Solidarity and reciprocity were essential for survival in a harsh economic environment, and self-preservation was inevitable when resources were hard to come by. Reputation was the foundation for all transactions and activities which were played out around understandings of solidarity, trust and vulnerability and were cemented through female sociability and women's belief in traditional lore or superstition. Shetland women established their reputation in two ways: through their engagement in the economy and as moral actors.

1. Aim of the chapter – This third preliminary chapter turns to the question of which entities can be addressed to mitigate “potentially harmful private business activities in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories” – which we defined in the previous chapter as private business activities that entail a risk of rendering aid or assistance to the maintaining of illegal occupations (see supra Chapter 2, no 15). Overall, there are three possible competent actors, who – each at their own level – have a role to play in the process of providing an adequate regulation of potentially harmful business conduct in or pertaining to illegally occupied territories: (1) the “host state”, which, in situations of illegal occupation, refers to the ousted sovereign (“victim state”) and the occupying power; (2) the private businesses operating in or with regard to illegally occupied territories; and (3) the home state, which is the state of nationality of these private businesses. In the case of far-going attribution of economic competencies to international organisations – as is the case in the context of the EU – the home “state” may also be a competent (supranational) international organisation. When this book refers to “home state (regulation)”, it, thus, also includes (regulation by) such competent international organisations. Their “corporate nationals” are then considered business enterprises incorporated, domiciled or having their headquarters or main centre of activities in one of the member states of the said organisations.

What is a football supporter? Why do they identify with a given team? What does a review of literature have to say about partisan identification? Determinants of support are looked at from the point of view of critical approaches (including Brohm and Bourdieu, hegemony theory), functionalist approaches. Interpretative and figurational sociology, the thoughts of Roger Caillois are mobilised to understand the behaviour of football supporters. Factors of partisanship are analysed with reference to sports history (class, race, gender, space, place) in particular Richard Holt, sociology (Anthony King), geography (John Bale) or social sciences (Gary Armstrong, Richard Giulianotti). Christian Bromberger and Patrick Mignon's works serve to analyse the symbolisation of identity, the construction of communities (with reference to Benedict Anderson). The press is seen as a focal point in this process (with reference to Rowe, Boyle, Haynes)

This chapter discusses post-Nietzschean philosophers and other forms of the anachronous. One of these forms is within memory, which is seen as always productive of the traumatic event. It studies the sense of catastrophe that is outside chronology. This chapter also studies anachronoristics, the structure of language anachronistic, the use of flashbacks in the film 2046, and trauma.

England, England (1998) is a fictional study around issues such as the creation of the past, the re-fashioning of an imagined national community, and in particular the telling and selling of England. It explores the relationships between heritage and commercialism, history and exploitation, imitation and reality. It is a fantasy, but one that has many recent echoes and real-life parallels. Its central story is that of a powerful businessman who plans to turn the Isle of Wight into a colossal theme park so that tourists will not have to traipse from Dover to London to Stratford-on-Avon to Chester. It counterposes the pomp of Sir Jack Pitman's service-sector magnate with Martha Cochrane's everyday scepticism.

This chapter examines more closely governors' use of personal envoys during the 1830s, when pressure from colonial lobbyists and the Colonial Office's changing attitude to unofficial correspondence made attention to good communications particularly vital. Although many governors had such representatives, this discussion draws primarily on two: Richard Bourke, governor of New South Wales; and Benjamin D'Urban, governor of the Cape Colony. The experiences of Governors Bourke and D'Urban demonstrate the importance of personal communications and metropolitan representatives to colonial governance, especially in the era before self-government. They attempted to utilise their metropolitan connections to affect government policy; both used unofficial communications and personal agents, who not only carried despatches, but lobbied the Colonial Office and other bodies and individuals. The political climate of the later 1830s suited Bourke; while D'Urban's reliance on the Peninsular network exposed him as being on the wrong side of the political spectrum for the times.

This chapter examines the Italian language-learning habits of William Shakespeare. It investigates whether Shakespeare learned Italian by means of a professional language teacher or from his own self-study of the language-learning manuals so popular in the late Elizabethan period. It discusses his meeting with John Florio and analyses Shakespeare's borrowings from Florio's manuals to determine what they might reveal about the playwright's attempts to acquire some knowledge of Italian. It explains that it was Florio who provided Shakespeare with both a rudimentary knowledge of the language and guided access to a collection of Italian books. This chapter highlights Shakespeare use of the tragicomedic practice, an Italian model which he continued to engage and experiment with until the end of his dramatic career.

The years between 1868 and 1874 were among the most demanding when considering Elizabeth Wolstenholme Elmy's lifelong commitment to feminism. She took a leading role in securing for married women the ownership of their personal property. Her work for the Married Women's Property Committee (MWPC) remained for many years the only area of her life that could never be entirely subsumed by those who saw her as a marginal figure in women's politics, so great was her part within it. Elizabeth believed that the role of the state was to protect the innocent and wronged, not to interfere in the personal liberties of adult, reasoning individuals. She eventually had found love and was contemplating motherhood, but she had lost treasured friendships with Emily Davies and Lydia Becker.