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This special issue considers the ways in which contemporary American fiction seeks to imagine a mode of ‘planetary memory’ able to address the scalar and systemic complexities of the Anthropocene – the epoch in which the combined activity of the human species has become a geological force in its own right. As Naomi Klein has recently argued, confronting the problem of anthropogenic climate change alters everything we know about the world: demanding wholesale recalibration of economic and political priorities; destabilising the epistemic frameworks through which quotidian life is interpreted and enacted; and decentring the dominant cultural imaginaries that seek to give form to historical experience

The relationship between Wayne Booth and Wolfgang Iser, two important critical voices with regard to the novel, has often been hinted at, but never studied in detail. In this article, I suggest that both critics share an interest in the text's implied author and reader. Additionally, they agree that the act of reading allows us to enact a form of 'hypocritical' roleplaying that is an essential part of human life and learning. Despite these similarities, both critics offer radically different evaluations of the communicative indeterminacy and moral otherness encountered in modernist and existentialist novels. These differing aesthetic choices can ultimately be traced back to the institutional contexts of both critics; whereas Booth's Neo-Aristotelian background leads to an emphasis on classical craft, Iser's Poetik und Hermeneutik-activities lead to an emphasis on modernist 'realisrr. Ultimately, this comparison suggests that we should reconsider the ethical and anthropological functions of reading as well as the traditional and functional dimensions of modernism.

An in silico comparative genomics approach was used to identify putative orthologs to genetically mapped genes from the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, in the Drosophila melanogaster and Anopheles gambiae genome databases. Comparative chromosome positions of 73 D. melanogaster orthologs indicated significant deviations from a random distribution across each of the five A. aegypti chromosomal regions, suggesting that some ancestral chromosome elements have been conserved. However, the two genomes also reflect extensive reshuffling within and between chromosomal regions. Comparative chromosome positions of A. gambiae orthologs indicate unequivocally that A. aegypti chromosome regions share extensive homology to the five A. gambiae chromosome arms. Whole-arm or near-whole-arm homology was contradicted with only two genes among the 75 A. aegypti genes for which orthologs to A. gambiae were identified. The two genomes contain large conserved chromosome segments that generally correspond to break/fusion events and a reciprocal translocation with extensive paracentric inversions evident within. Only very tightly linked genes are likely to retain conserved linear orders within chromosome segments. The D. melanogaster and A. gambiae genome databases therefore offer limited potential for comparative positional gene determinations among even closely related dipterans, indicating the necessity for additional genome sequencing projects with other dipteran species.

The subjective spatial effect of continuous noise signals with interaural time difference fluctuations was investigated. These fluctuations were created by sinusoidal interchannel time difference fluctuations between signals that were presented over loudspeakers. Both verbal and non-verbal elicitation techniques were applied to examine the subjective effect. It was found that the predominant effect of increasing the fluctuation magnitude was an increase in the apparent width of the perceived sound source.

The subjective spatial effect of noise signals with sinusoidal ITD fluctuations was investigated. Both verbal and non-verbal elicitation experiments were carried out to examine the subjective effect of the ITD fluctuations with a number of fluctuation frequencies and fluctuation magnitudes. It was found that the predominant effect of increasing the fluctuation magnitude was an increase in the perceived width of the sound.

The subjective spatial effect of decaying noise signals with interaural time difference fluctuations was investigated. These fluctuations were created by sinusoidal interchannel time difference fluctuations between signals which were presented over loudspeakers. Both verbal and non-verbal elicitation techniques were applied to examine the subjective effect. It was found that the predominant effect of increasing the fluctuation magnitude was an increase in the apparent width of the acoustical environment whilst the apparent size of the perceived sound source did not change.

The effect of the audio frequency of narrow-band noise signals with a sinusoidal ITD fluctuation was investigated. To examine this, a subjective experiment was carried out using a match to sample method and stimuli delivered over headphones. It was found that the magnitude of the subjective effect is dependent on audio frequency and that the relationship between the audio frequency and a constant subjective effect appears to be based on equal maximum phase difference fluctuations.