Gone with the gin

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Paul A. Redhead

It is altogether fitting that the American Vacuum Society commemorate its 40th anniversary by paying tribute to the pioneers who laid the foundations of modern vacuum science. Through new biographies and historical reviews, and reprints of seminal papers, Vacuum Science and Technology: Pioneers of the 20th Century gives us a fresh appreciation for the groundbreaking work done in the first part of this century. This volume begins with a brief history of the AVS by former Westinghouse researcher Jack Singleton. Section 1 presents original biographies of those scientists and engineers who were at the vanguard of vacuum technology and whose contributions greatly furthered our knowledge of the production, measurement, and use of vacuum. These include such important figures as Pieter Clausing, Wolfgang Gaede, Irving Langmuir, and Martin Knudsen. Section 2 covers some of the major breakthroughs of the half-century from 1900 to 1960, including reviews of the development of diffusion pumps, molecular-drag pumps, high-vacuum turbopumps, and the quest for ultrahigh vacuum. Finally, Section 3 affords us an opportunity to revisit papers that are now regarded as milestones in vacuum science. Among them are Saul Dushman's 1915 paper, "Theory and Use of the Molecular Gauge," Pieter Clausing's 1932 classic, "The Flow of Highly Rarefied Gases through Tubes of Arbitrary Length," and L.D. Hall's 1958 piece, "Electronic Ultra-High Vacuum Pump.". In putting together this work, editor Paul A. Redhead called upon some of the most highly respected names in the field today, including Daniel Alpert, H. Adam, W. Steckelmacher, P.S. Choumoff, Gunter Reich, J.M. Lafferty, and George Wise. For researchers and technicians involved in vacuum technology and related fields, and for those interested in the rich history of the field, this anniversary volume will prove both entertaining and informative.

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Nicky Hamlyn

Alongside the commercial cinema of narrative and spectacle there has always been another practice--call it avant-garde, experimental, or artists' film. In this provocative book, Nicky Hamlyn, an acclaimed filmmaker in the alternative tradition, investigates the film art phenomenon. Taking cues from modern trends in other artforms, notably painting and sculpture, this type of filmmaking emphasizes the nature of its apparatus and medium in order to bring about a critical, inquisitive state of mind in the viewer. It deconstructs, anatomizes, and reimagines what film images are it builds new machines it recreates the setting of cinema or expands into new kinds of performance and exhibition. And it often has a political dimension--urging audiences to make a free and active response,not a passive, consumerist one. Hamlyn treats artists' film conceptually in order to explore key categories that connect different works and filmmakers: from framing to digital media, installation to interactivity, point of view, to sound. In so doing he considers the work of Stan Brakhage, Malcolm Le Grice, and Michael Snow, as well as younger artists such as Karen Mirza and Brad Butler, Jennifer Nightingale, and Colin Crockatt, among many others.

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Michael Bradshaw

"Resurrection Songs: The Poetry of Thomas Lovell Beddoes brings together the poet's abiding obsession - the search for immortality - and the most prominent formal feature of his writing - fragmentation. Michael Bradshaw examines how the idea of resurrection acts upon and is acted upon by the structural disarray of Beddoes's texts. The study centres on the phenomenon of broken form on various levels, and charts the progressive involution of the theme. Addressing contexts such as Beddoes's relationships with Romantic and Renaissance forbears and the influence of his medical training, Resurrection Songs is a timely re-assessment which establishes Beddoes's relevance to the contemporary debates of Romanticism."--Jacket.

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Kole Omotoso

This is a controversial new study on Africa's two most widely read and, arguably, her finest writers. Despite their shared levels of prestige, each represents a distinct pole of Nigerian writing. On the one hand, there's Soyinka, the playful imagist steeped in the myth and magic of his native Yoruba culture; at the other end of the spectrum, Achebe's internalized Igbo cultural traditions. Kole Omotoso - himself a prolific writer and prize-winning Nigerian novelist - explores and defines the differences in style, background, and vision between the two men. Individual chapters describe their childhood, their cultural influences, political involvement, their stand during the Nigerian civil war, their attitudes to the world at large, their contribution to the language debate in African literatures, and there is also a chapter devoted to Achebe's and Soyinka's responses to their critics. The works of Achebe and Soyinka are considered against three main agendas: the pan-African agenda, the Nigerian nation-state agenda, and the ethnic national agenda. Despite their shared nationality, their contribution towards creating 'a community of sensibilities' in Nigeria is questioned by the author in terms of the instability that has bedevilled Nigeria and, by extension, other African countries.