Though Canadian multiculturalism is often more an aspirational ideal than practice as I’ve found in earlier research (Beattie 2025), as the above quotes shows, the Canadian government have included it as part of their legal code. It is also the case that Canada is a common location for American media productions and has been for some time (Matheson 2005).
Though perhaps most recently in the public eye due to one of its co-creators’ appalling transphobia, Father Ted (1995-1998, Channel 4) is still considered to be one of the most popular British sitcoms (Harrison 2018). And it is that aspect of the series, its perceived-British identity, that I shall discuss in this blog.
This blog was originally published on WFTHN As part of my PhD research, which explores and analyses representations of women in the Third Golden Age of Television,[i] I have been watching many female-centric series. During this research, I have noticed the recurring presence of a narratological device that was virtually non-existent before this period: the voiceover.
Writing better code without AI, AI in peer review, local LLMs, Biothreat Benchmark Generation, R updates (R Data Scientist, RWeekly, R Works), red-teaming an AI vending machine, new papers
Der Exzellenzcluster PhoenixD (Photonics, Optics, and Engineering – Innovation Across Disciplines) hat erfolgreich die Bewilligung für seine zweite Förderphase erhalten und wird ab Januar 2026 für weitere sieben Jahre mit einer Millionenförderung unterstützt.
Appalachian Folklore & Myths On paper, the North Bend Rail Trail is a neatly measured thing. The official guides describe a nearly seventy two mile corridor along the old Baltimore and Ohio line from Interstate 77 near Parkersburg to Wolf Summit, with thirteen tunnels, ten of them still passable, and thirty six bridges crossing creeks and hollows between the small towns of Wood, Ritchie, Doddridge, and Harrison counties.
Appalachian Folklore & Myths Where Chiques Creek meets the lower Susquehanna, a wall of pale quartzite rises sharply above the water. Today hikers know it as Chickies Rock County Park in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a scenic overlook with views of the broad river, rail lines, and bridges below.
Appalachian Folklore & Myths On clear evenings along the high ridges of western North Carolina, it is easy to see why people imagine something watching from the spruce and fir. The Great Balsam Mountains sit between the tourist glow of Asheville and the deep hollers that run toward Cherokee and Sylva, a high, folded country of fog, rhododendron thickets, and black bear sign.
Appalachian Folklore & Myths On a September evening in 1952, a handful of boys on a schoolyard in central West Virginia watched a bright object streak across the sky and vanish behind a hill on a neighbor’s farm.
Appalachian Folklore & Myths On a cold mountain night it does not take much to start a story. A house cat yowls in the yard. Something screams once down in the hollow. A bucket tips over on the porch. Before long somebody shakes their head and says that the wampus cat is out again. Across Appalachia that name covers a whole menagerie of fears.
Appalachian Folklore & Myths Late on a June night in 1964, a young newspaper reporter steered his car along Riverside Drive beside the Tygart Valley River at Grafton, West Virginia. On the river side of the road he saw what he later called a “huge white obstruction” that seemed alive, seven to nine feet tall, roughly four feet wide, with slick, seal like skin and no visible head.