Digital Commons Network^™

Image Bodies, Avatar Ontologies: Rendering The Virtual In Digital Culture, Adam M. Davis

Dissertations

In 2009 five avatar-themed films were released, one of which became the highest grossing film to date, signaling that in addition to their popularity in videogames and virtual worlds, avatars are culturally salient figures which demand scholarly attention. Avatars, virtual environments, and user behavior have evolved significantly since virtual reality captured public and academic attention at the close of the twentieth century, and this dissertation is an attempt to theorize the avatar in contemporary digital culture. By interlacing new media philosophy and analyses of cinematic texts I situate the avatar at the nexus between digital images and interactive bodies, with …

(Re)Conceptualizing Death: Examining Attitudes Toward Death At The Anthropological Research Facility, Kiley Nicole Compton

Masters Theses

The Anthropological Research Facility (ARF), commonly known as the “Body Farm,” provides a unique research setting in which researchers work intimately with human remains in various stages of decomposition. While the ARF, and forensic anthropology, is well documented in popular culture, little academic research has been conducted to investigate the sociocultural phenomena associated with working with human remains.

This thesis investigates the reactions and attitudes toward death of those involved in operational and administrative duties at the ARF focusing on how these attitudes influence and are influenced by involvement at the facility. This research also provides a point of departure …

Between Floors: The Ups And Downs Of Mediated Narrative, Melinda White

Theses and Dissertations

“Between Floors: The Ups and Downs of Mediated Narrative” and the accompanying creative remediation project, “Between Floors: Love and Other Blood Related Diseases,” meld theory and practice of print with electronic literature and installation art. I argue that as the medium changes, the narrative is transformed. The narrative can be reconstructed and pieced together as the reader or viewer becomes increasingly involved, even embodied within the work. This embodiment is what Nathaniel Stern calls “Moving and thinking and feeling” (1) and can result in a more direct emotional experience. The form, structure, and medium (sjužet) rely on authorial intention, yet …

The Problem Of Perception, Radical Reflection, And The Body: Towards Understanding Merleau-Ponty's Post-Kantian Transcendental Philosophy, Arsalan Memon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Merleau-Ponty is typically known for his account of embodiment or what it means to be a body. In the dissertation, Iargue that what Merleau-Ponty means by a body has not been adequately understood because the framework in which it must be understood is either ignored or inadequately interpreted. My central interpretive thesis is that Merleau-Ponty's notion of a body must be understood within a transcendental framework. To substantiate the central interpretive thesis, in Chapter 1, I examine Merleau-Ponty's proposal for a post-Kantian transcendental philosophy with which The Structure of Behavior ends. I maintain that at the basis of this proposal …

Towards An Understanding Of The Principal-Engaged-With-Policy Using Theories Of Embodiment And The Senses, Amanda Werts

All Dissertations

Federal education policy places increased pressure on the knowledge of today's educational leader. In particular, principals are scrutinized in their ability to implement policy. To aid in successful implementation practice, researchers have provided explanations of and strategies for principals as they engage with policy.
The purpose of this study was to explore the particularities of the sensorial dimension of the principal-engaged-with-policy's subject position. When the principal-engaged-with-policy is represented in research, policy, and leadership preparation literature, it is done with reference not to the lived experiences of the subject position of the individuals who inhabit it, but instead to desired traits …

Embodying Technology: A Hermeneutic Inquiry Into Corporeality And Identity As Manifested In A Case Of Strap-On Dildo Use, Amy Taylor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation takes a deep look at a first-person narrative from a man who develops complete impotence following androgen-deprivation treatment for prostate cancer. After feeling depressed for some time about what he imagined to be the permanent loss of his sexual life, the man, pseudonymously called Michael in this dissertation, tried using a strap-on dildo. Michael was surprised and pleased to find that using the dildo for sex brings him sexual satisfaction including orgasm. The dildo transforms "from object to organ" as Michael gradually comes to experience the dildo as a part of his own body. He also experiences a …

Somatechnologies Of Body Size Modification: Posthuman Embodiment And Discourses Of Health, Meghan Griffin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project focuses on persistent gaps in philosophies of the body: the enduring mindbody divide in accounts of phenomenology, the unfulfilled promises of representing and inhabiting the body in online and virtual spaces, and the difference between health as quantified in medical discourse versus health as lived experience. These tensions are brought to light through the electronic food journal genre where the difficulty in capturing pre-noetic, outsideconsciousness aspects of experience and embodied health are thrown into relief against circulating cultural discourses surrounding health, body size, self-surveillance, and self-care. The electronic food journal genre serves as a space for users to …

The Sabatoge Of Joseph Conrad's "The Secret Agent" : Hitchcock Reads Conrad, Robert Benton Preslar

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This paper traces the ways in which Joseph Conrad's novel The Secret Agent and Alfred Hitchcock's 1936 film Sabotage each comment on their respective mediums. Taking the object which is left behind in the wake of Stevie's death as its starting point, the triangular piece of cloth, this thesis examines the ways in which the figure of the delta alerts the reader to a commentary on language and text that echoes throughout the novel. As that triangular piece of cloth becomes a film tin bearing the title "Bartholomew the Strangler," this paper then traces the resonances that film and the …

Artificial Intelligence And The Technological Sublime: How Virtual Characters Influence The Landscape Of Modern Sublimity, Kyle Craft-Jenkins

Theses and Dissertations--English

The principle objective of this thesis is to expand the term “technological sublime” to include technologies of artificial intelligence. In defining new realms of the technological sublime, we must not only consider the ecological integration of technology within natural surroundings, but also appreciate modern technological objects that instigate sublime experiences. This work examines science fictional portrayals of interactions with sentient artificial intelligence in I, Robot, 2001: A Space Odyssey and other major works of science fiction. In each of these works, characters who encounter technologies possessing artificial intelligence share sublime experiences. This thesis considers various levels of embodiment associated with …