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Framing Intelligibility, Identity And Selfhood: A Reconsideration Of Spatio-Temporal Models, Sally Munt

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The relationship between intelligibility and identity over the past thirty years has largely been approached through the linguistic construct of the subject. Proposing that our subjectivities be theoretically comprehended (made intelligible) as discursive effects is now common sense. Poststructuralism, following particularly Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, has ensured that the subject is a cardinal category of contemporary thought; in any number of disciplines, it is one of the first concepts we teach to our undergraduates. But are we best served by continuing to insist on the intellectual primacy of the subject, formulated as it has been …

On Public Culture 12.3: Special Issue On Cosmopolitanism (2000), Dorothy Barenscott

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

For those engaged in any dimension of the vastly complex and highly contentious network of ideas, theories, and interdisciplinary projects under the rubric Cultural Studies, <> is a valuable, if not essential, journal. Since its inception some fourteen years ago, <> has maintained its mandate of intervention, creating a valuable and much needed space to publish politically charged and critically engaged work, often by unknown and marginalized scholars. Today these names read like a virtual who's who of the cultural studies world -- Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Jurgen Habermas, Michael Taussig, Dipesh Chakrabarty to name but a few. This of …

"Woman Arise!": Political Work In The Writings Of Lu Dalton, Sheree Maxwell Bench

Theses and Dissertations

In 1872, Mormon plural wife, educator, and suffragist Lucinda Lee Dalton began writing fiery political essays and insightful poetry for the Woman's Exponent from her small community in southern Utah. Through her writings Dalton endeavors to shape the opinions of Exponent readers by working within public discourse toward the goal of equality for women. At times both optimistic and troubled, she uses the rhetorical strategies of humor, irony, reason, identification, and persuasion to educate men and women on disparities and to encourage women to participate actively in their own emancipation. She often engages in a dialogical process with other writers …

Activist Desire, Cultural Criticism, And The Situationist International, David Banash

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In the world of Anglo-American criticism, Situationism was once the province of hip theorists, progressive art historians, and a few scattered Marxists. No more, for the nineties saw Situationism come from obscure movement to the defiant avant of our cultural-critical-garde. Not only has the past decade seen the publication of a dozen books, countless articles, dissertations, and both academic and activist web-sites, the Situationists have moved right into the main line of pop-culture. Situationist graffiti turns up as the epigraph for gen-xer Elizabeth Wurtzel's Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women (1988), and, with Rolling Stone darling Greil Marcus's …

The Children Overboard Event: Constructing The Family And Nation Through Representations Of The Other, Kate Slattery

Theses : Honours

This thesis presents a selection of representations of the Children Overboard event of October 7, 2001, sourced from the Australian government and print news media. Employing an interpretative and critical discourse approach, I explore how the event could be seen to define the physical and cultural boundaries of the Australian nation. In particular I explore how a threat to nation is articulated. From my analysis of the representations, I identify a rhetoric of the 'Other' set within the discursive spaces of family and nation. These discourses circulated within the Children Overboard event are pursued in this thesis in terms of …

“Married Widowhood”: Maintaining Couplehood When One Spouse Is Living In A Nursing Home, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

When a marital partner moves to a nursing home, how do community-dwelling spouses, labeled “married widows,” adapt and cope with changes in the relationship and their own marital roles? The first goal of this study was to explore the role additions and deletions for community-based wives whose husbands moved to a nursing home. The second goal was to examine how these women discursively represent their own self-identity and the relationship they have with their husband who is living in a nursing home. Data were drawn from in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 21 wives whose husbands resided in a nursing home. A …

Ezra Pound's Comparative Poetics, Naikan Tao

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Ezra Pound's Comparative Poetics," Naikan Tao concentrates on Pound's theories regarding comparison and examines the significance of his comparative studies to the formulation of his poetics, an aspect that has not been sufficiently investigated. On the basis of Pound's work, Tao observes that the conception of comparison Pound shaped through his comparative studies is the internal principle that governs the presentation of details and particulars, the method Pound advocated as a reader-oriented approach to truth and as an efficient, self-reliant means to avoid others' generalization and discursive presentation. Pound's view of comparison as an epistemological norm -- …

Western Culture And The Ambiguous Legacies Of The Pig, Benton Jay Komins

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Western Culture and the Ambiguous Legacies of the Pig," Benton Jay Komins provides a cultural lineage of the pig by the example and reading of Piggies by the Beatles. Komins observes that Piggies enacts the possibilities of the ubiquitous pig in Western culture by juxtaposing swinish antics with interpretations of limitation and heartbreak thereby forcing listeners to blur the distinctions between struggle, unrequited love, and boorishness. Komins continues his discussion by locating this juxtaposition within the Western pantheon of real, metaphorical, and imaginary animals, where the pig is noted to have obsessively endured. Komins argues that through …

Aimé Césaire And Gestures Toward The Universal, Gary Leising

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Aimé Césaire and Gestures toward the Universal," Gary Leising argues that Césaire's Notebook of a Return to the Native Land presents a speaker struggling with his own identity, torn between a double consciousness of his black African heritage and his French-European education. This dichotomy appears in the poem in terms of his perceptions of his ancestry as well as in symbols of the masculine and feminine in the surrounding landscape. For the speaker, the African appears as the "real" around him, while the European is an "absent presence," and he confronts the two at the poem's climax, …

(Post)Feminism, Transnationalism, The Maternal Body, And Michèle Roberts, Ayako Mizuo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper "(Post)Feminism, Transnationalism, the Maternal Body, and Michèle Roberts," Ayako Mizuo argues that the question and problematics of feminism have diversified over the last few decades. Diverse and competing voices have been, nonetheless, incorporated into the paradigm of an equality and difference sexual dichotomy. Further, recent discussions about feminism suggest the problematization of gender differences. Consequently, exponents of postfeminism are compelled to ask what comes next? Mizuo urges that the issue of the tangibility of the body acquires a particular relevance within this context and that thus the ultimate question is how the site of the maternal body …

Language, Vagueness, And Social Communication, Colin B. Grant

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Language, Vagueness, and Social Communication," Colin B. Grant adopts an interdisciplinary approach to an interrelated complex of language, communication, and society. Grant operates with a modified concept of vagueness as a pragmatic property and attempts to establish a link between pragmatic vagueness and contingency in communication. This communicative contingency takes the form of improbabilities (entropy). Grant observes that the challenge lies in modelling communication as porous networks which nonetheless enable society to function. In this sense, contingency in communication must not be confused with arbitrariness just as cognitive closure cannot be confused with solipsism. This line of …

Entropy In Pynchon's "Entropy" And Lefebvre's The Production Of Space, Jason Snart

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Entropy in Pynchon's 'Entropy' and Lefebvre's The Production of Space," Jason Snart examines Thomas Pynchon's short story "Entropy" for the ways in which it deals with the kinds of disorder(s) associated with entropy as a thermodynamic and informational concept. Those concepts are installed as a framework within which to consider cultural studies work like Henri Lefebfre's thought in his The Production of Space and Ludwig von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and themodynamics: disorder is rendered not as confusion, but rather as a state of potential energy and productivity and Lefebvre's and Bertalanffy's concepts serve to show how …

Comparatist Postcolonial Studies: A Review Article Of Books By Coundouriotis, Matthews Green, Yeager, And Gould, Vautier, And Canadian Literature, Angeline O’Neill

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Inside Unlv, Betty Blodgett, Tom Flagg, Diane Russell

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Bending The Rules Of “Professional” Display: Emotional Improvisation In Caregiver Performances, Jayne M. Morgan, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Organizational norms of emotional expression are open to negotiation through improvised performances, as employees may bend or break emotion rules to gain more leeway in expressiveness and participate in the development of their own role identities in the workplace. In this ethnographic study, a dramaturgical perspective is used to analyze the processes and outcomes of emotional improvisation as observed among nurses, technicians, and physicians in a cardiac care center. It was found that the emphasis on maintaining a “professional” appearance in caregiving largely constrains actors to perform along their scripted roles. Results are discussed in terms of practical implications for …

Geek Culture: An Annotated Interdisciplinary Bibliography, William L. Svitavsky

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In recent years, there have been numerous studies on science fiction fans, role-playing games, comic book fans, and the culture of those strongly interested in computers. When a study profiles a group engaged in one of these activities, it is not unusual for the group's participation in the other activities to be mentioned as well. In popular culture (as opposed to studies of popular culture), this overlap has been recognized all along. Each of these groups has been ridiculed as geeks or nerds, and each has subverted those terms into proud self-identification. In his work on media fandom, …

2001 Presidential Address: Do More With More, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

As I have listened to, and recently reread the addresses of our WSCA Presidents, I have been moved and challenged by their words and their wisdom. And their speeches are challenging. They have exhorted us to embrace quality discourse, to welcome change, to maintain the centrality of communication in the university of the 21st century, and to avoid becoming out-of-touch whiners. I wondered, what can I add to their words in my own address?

Over this past year, I have thought about my life as a communication professor. How are my times similar and different from those who have come …

Exploring The Emergent Identities Of Future Physicians: Toward An Understanding Of The Ideological Socialization Of Osteopathic Medical Students, Lynn M. Harter, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This project brings contextual factors to the forefront of socialization research by investigating how medical ideology relates to the formation of the identities of students of osteopathic medicine. In particular, we investigate their attitudes toward, the role of communication in, and the expression of emotion in health care delivery. Through in-depth interviews with students about their vocational development experiences, we began exploring their emergent identities as future practitioners of osteopathic medicine. Three themes emerged from a constant comparative analysis of data, including (a) selecting osteopathic medicine, (b) encountering osteopathy, and (c) students’ emergent identities. These themes, and their respective subthemes, …

Central Florida Future, Vol. 34 No. 4, September 12, 2001

Central Florida Future

Horror closes UCF; Egg donation helps infertile women.

A Study Of The Effect Of Reception Of Works Of Art Through An Interactive Cd-Rom, László Halász, Károly Hantos, Balázs Faa

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article, "A Study of the Effect of Reception of Works of Art through an Interactive CD-ROM," Halász, Hantos, and Faa collected data on the aesthetic impact of art objects through multimedia. They constructed a CD-ROM out of various images, sounds and text. Items were offered to 135 secondary school subjects in the framework of directed interactive polychrome variations. The effect was studied partly by measuring viewing (reading) times for each item, and partly by semantic differential and attitude scales. The data for viewing time and phases, and of items of the semantic differential and attitude scales were analyzed …

Bibliography Of Contextual (Systemic And Empirical) Approaches In The Study Of Literature And Culture, Steven Tötösy De Zepetnek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

About Art, Baruch Blich

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "About Art," Baruch Blich investigates why is art -- and especially modern art -- so difficult to understand? Why do art objects raise questions as to their status? Why scrutinizing art involves semiotics, philosophy of language, linguistics, epistemology, ontology, and even metaphysics? Why art is interpreted by psychoanalysis as well as by behaviorism and psychology of perception? What anthropology and sociology have to do with art and why do we witness art debated in the courtroom concerning copyright issues? In short -- what makes art a crossroad for many and sometimes conflicting disciplines? Is there something in …

Introduction To Art, Literature, And The Empirical Paradigm, Aldo Nemesio

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Literary Careers: Breaks And Stalls, W. Ray Crozier

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, "Literary Careers: Breaks and Stalls," W. Ray Crozier argues that biographical evidence points to considerable individual variation in writers' output over the life span even when allowance is made for longevity and length of writing career. This issue has been neglected by psychological accounts of creativity. Crozier outlines a theoretical framework for understanding variation in terms of an "artistic career." This is conceptualised as a sequence of projects, the success of which are influenced by intra-project factors such as the rewardingness and difficulties of literary projects and extra-project factors such as work pressures, poverty, and competing demands …

A Psychological Outline Of "Yerma's Dream", Antonio Fusco, Rosella Tomassoni

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "A Psychological Outline of 'Yerma's Dream'" Fusco and Tomassoni examine the world of Lorca in his play. Fusco and Tomassoni present an examination of the psychological characteristics of this world, and focus their attention upon a dream of one its female protagonists. Yerma is observed to be a heroine of "sterility" -- or rather, the heroine of an impossibility to love. The heroics of this impossibility is interpreted according to the social constraints made upon women within a male dominated society. These constraints are said to surface symptomatically within her own dream world -- as a heroine …

The Perception Of The Song And Its Video Clip, Mariselda Tessarolo

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, "The Perception of the Song and Its Video Clip," Mariselda Tessarolo examines the relationship between image and music within promotional video clips. Tessarolo observes that images underline the music, where the song marks the rhythm to be given over (and into) the images. As a consequence, emotion prevails over narration within video clips: Affect is their desired effect. The Schwichtenberg typology is used to determine the nature of the relation between emotional and perceptual response. Video clips were classified according to the way they enact this relation, and 100 university students provided the responses to be evaluated. …

Central Florida Future, Vol. 34 No. 2, August 29, 2001

Central Florida Future

DUI causes economic emotional anxieties; Population boom at UCF; Locos becomes Wackadoo's.

Central Florida Future, Vol. 34 No. 1, August 22, 2001

Central Florida Future

36,000 enroll for fall; Internet infiltrates UCF classrooms; New buildings open on campus.

The Boundary-Spanning Role Of A Cooperative Support Organization: Managing The Paradox Of Stability And Change In Non-Traditional Organizations, Lynn M. Harter, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This project provides an interpretation of how one cooperative support organization, the Nebraska Cooperative Council, discursively functions to help its constituent cooperatives consolidate resources in order to better intersect with organizations in a larger bureaucratic system. In analyzing qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews, surveys, and organizational documents, we found the paradox of stability and change a revealing prism through which to make sense of participants’ experiences. We work toward locating and describing how the Council, through its boundary-spanning activities, helps cooperatives manage the paradox of stability and change while protecting their core participatory ideologies. By providing networks of learning, …

“Becoming A Family”: Developmental Processes Represented In Blended Family Discourse, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Loreen N. Olson, Tamara D. Golish, Charles Soukup, Paul Turman

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

We adopted a process-focus in order to gain a deeper understanding of how (step) blended family members experiencing different developmental pathways discursively represented their processes of becoming a family. Using a qualitative/interpretive method, we analyzed 980 pages of interview transcripts with stepparents and stepchildren. We studied the first four years of family development, using the five developmental pathways developed by Baxter, Braithwaite, and Nicholson (1999). Three salient issues identified in the family experiences were boundary management, solidarity, and adaptation. While the negotiation of these issues varied across the five trajectories, there were commonalities across family experiences that helped determine whether …