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2020

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Constructions Of Space In Fiction Of Neil Gaiman, Luis Ponte Jan 2020

Constructions Of Space In Fiction Of Neil Gaiman, Luis Ponte

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis conducts a spatial reading of a selection of novels written by Neil Gaiman to demonstrate how constructions of space in contemporary fiction can be analysed to reveal the underlying politics and cultural commentary of the work. Each of the titles selected juxtaposes an ostensibly ‘real-world’ setting with fantastical elements, such as magic, myths, or ‘other’ worlds. The study draws from a framework of critical theory that has flourished in the past half-century, following several groundbreaking works in the field of spatial theory which confirmed the validity of focused, spatial analysis to an academic landscape that had yet to …

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Prison Space, Social Control And Relationships In A Post-Soviet Women’S Prison, Arta Jalili Idrissi Jan 2020

Prison Space, Social Control And Relationships In A Post-Soviet Women’S Prison, Arta Jalili Idrissi

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis attempts to capture, at the macro, meso and micro levels, the ideological rupture, which has emerged after the breakdown of the Soviet project in Latvia, and in particular its effect on penality and women’s imprisonment. This rupture has been conceptualized as a ‘clash of the titans’, which is the ongoing struggle between a Soviet legacy that refuses to die and an increasingly dominant neoliberal regime. While the breakdown of Soviet hegemonic power signaled a victory for democracy and market economics, the spread of western liberal democracies has been a challenge for post-Soviet societies. While democratic traditions took centuries …

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Gender And Devotion In Dominican Painting In Renaissance Florence: Suor Plautilla Nelli In The Context Of The Nine Modes Of Prayer And The Frescoes Of San Marco Monastery, Shannon Lewis Jan 2020

Gender And Devotion In Dominican Painting In Renaissance Florence: Suor Plautilla Nelli In The Context Of The Nine Modes Of Prayer And The Frescoes Of San Marco Monastery, Shannon Lewis

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the gender dynamics of the Italian Renaissance in relation to the devotional imagery created by Dominican painters. It draws attention to the representations of Dominican saints used as models for male and female devotion, such as St Dominic and St Catherine of Siena. The thesis begins with a broad history of gender differences which essentially affected the cultural developments limiting female productivity in image-making, as well as an understanding of how social views and values dictated the ideal behaviours expected for women to abide by. It is pointed out that the core limitations women faces was through …

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The Photosynthesiser - A Methodology For Mapping Environmental Conditions, Pivotal To The Speed Of Photosynthesis In Plants, Through Sonification., Oliver Brand Jan 2020

The Photosynthesiser - A Methodology For Mapping Environmental Conditions, Pivotal To The Speed Of Photosynthesis In Plants, Through Sonification., Oliver Brand

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Traditionally, the close inspection of data requires visual guidance in the form of displays depicting numeric or graphical representations over time. Sonification offers a way to convey this data through auditory means, relinquishing the need for constant display monitoring. To enable horticulturists to continue to move and work around their environment a proposed sonification mapping system for the key environmental conditions, vital for optimum levels of photosynthesis, has been developed. The outcome of this research was to provide a monitoring system that was both musical and meaningful with regards to data fluctuations and most importantly, could be interpreted by a …

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Saltram House: The Evolution Of An Eighteenth-Century Country Estate, Katherine R Norley Jan 2020

Saltram House: The Evolution Of An Eighteenth-Century Country Estate, Katherine R Norley

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the evolution of Saltram House in Devon as a country estate from the years 1743 to 1819, with a focus on the impact of two eighteenth-century generations of the Parker family. These dates have been chosen because Saltram’s architecture, interior design and parkland underwent the most drastic changes during this time. It will argue that Saltram conforms to the existing models of country house scholarship on the form, function and meaning of the country estate during the eighteenth century. This thesis will bring new knowledge to this picture however, by placing Saltram firmly within this scholarship. It …

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The Representation Of The Outlaw Biker In California, 1953-1969: Film, Counterculture And Commodity, Stacey Masters Jan 2020

The Representation Of The Outlaw Biker In California, 1953-1969: Film, Counterculture And Commodity, Stacey Masters

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

My thesis is an exploration of the representation of the outlaw biker from 1953-1969. I will use three films to anchor my work: Easy Rider (1969), The Wild One (1953), The Wild Angels (1965). Each of these films will be the anchor of its own chapter, but I will also be using various imagery to explore the tensions surrounding the depictions presented, and subsequent social themes. Each film addresses different aspects of the biker, making them all important, therefore the thesis will be a visual exploration into the social and cultural history of the biker. Easy Rider is the defining …

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Poor Copy: Fan Practices And Producerly Art Making, Beth Emily Richards Jan 2020

Poor Copy: Fan Practices And Producerly Art Making, Beth Emily Richards

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis includes a body of artworks including performance, video, photography and audio installation, a zine, and textile artwork, documentation of which is presented via a YouTube channel, also titled Poor Copy. This research explores methodological similarities between fan and art practices, and analyses how fans, artists, and their methods of making engage with extant narratives. Two histories act as a narrative throughline for this investigation: a 1999 Michael Jackson concert in Barnstaple, North Devon, where the performer may or may not have been a tribute artist; and a day in 2002 when Michael Jackson visited Exeter City Football Club, …

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Trace And History: An Investigation Of Kurdish Banner-Making Through Contemporary Art Practice., Rostam Hakeem Jan 2020

Trace And History: An Investigation Of Kurdish Banner-Making Through Contemporary Art Practice., Rostam Hakeem

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Abstract Author: Rostam Abdulazeez Hakeem Title: Trace and history: an investigation of Kurdish banner-making through contemporary art practice. This practice-led research project considers the culture of banner-making in Iraqi Kurdistan. The research is trans-disciplinary in character, combining artistic, historical, and sociological research. The calligraphers’ workshops of the city of Sulaymaniyah in Kurdish Iraq are a focal point. Here the backing-boards to banner-making have absorbed traces of slogans written on banners for many different purposes over extended periods of time. The permitted appropriation of these backing-board palimpsests provides material for the development of an innovative genre of abstract painting, deploying calligraphy …

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Digital Porosity And Its Impact On The Mediation Of Networked Images, Claudia Pilsl Jan 2020

Digital Porosity And Its Impact On The Mediation Of Networked Images, Claudia Pilsl

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This doctoral research examines digital porosity and how this effect of the Internet influences the mediation of networked images. This practice research is informed by the hypothesis that digital porosity affects the communication of data with it the perception of context and chronological order of events. Digital porosity, intended as a loose analogy to the kind of porosity depicted by Benjamin and Lacis (1925) in their description of everyday life in ‘Naples’, is a neologism that I devised to describe one of the consequences of the Internet since web 2.0. As the area afflicted by digital porosity is potentially large, …

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Designing Playful Systems, Michael Straeubig Jan 2020

Designing Playful Systems, Michael Straeubig

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

Play is a common, yet elusive phenomenon. Many definitions of play and explanations for its existence have been brought forward in various disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, ethology and in the humanities. As an activity apparently serving no other purpose than itself, play can be simply considered a pleasant pastime. Yet its equation with fun has been challenged by artists and scholars alike. Being in a playful state does not warrant extrinsic motivation or being conscious of an external purpose. However, play creates meaning, and scientists are pursuing functional explanations for it. These conflicting observations are contributing to the ambiguity …

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Interrogating Self-Representation At The Intersection Of Visual Arts And Neuroscience, Nicole Ottiger Jan 2020

Interrogating Self-Representation At The Intersection Of Visual Arts And Neuroscience, Nicole Ottiger

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This practice-based PhD thesis offers a deep exploration of representing the self, through the critical examination of three examples of my experimental studies; titled Video Ergo Sum (2010-11), From Perception of Art to Art Making (2010-11) and Feeling of a Presence (2015), and artworks produced in connection; Visual Space has No Owner (2015), Shooting Stars (2015-17) and What constitutes the Self (2018). The written thesis includes an appendix, which details other experiments and artworks that were part of the process. This research is on one side informed by my experiences as an artist-in-lab in the Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience (LNCO), …

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Maker, Wearer, Viewer, Object: The Reflexive Destabilisation Of Brooches In A Contemporary Jewellery Making Practice, Allison Geremia Jan 2020

Maker, Wearer, Viewer, Object: The Reflexive Destabilisation Of Brooches In A Contemporary Jewellery Making Practice, Allison Geremia

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This project examines the social structure of brooches through the lens of my own practice considered in dialogue with writing both within and without the field of jewellery making. Sociologist Georg Simmel proposed that the structure of jewellery is composed of the Wearer and Viewer interaction. Jeweller and author Bruce Metcalf argued that the Maker plays a major role in addition to the Wearer and Viewer. However, I posit that the Object is of greater relevance than the Maker, Wearer, or Viewer and advocate that the four categories should be considered as a mutually interdependent structure. This project explores the …

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Vibrating Existence: Early Cinema And Cognitive Creativity, Guy Edmonds Jan 2020

Vibrating Existence: Early Cinema And Cognitive Creativity, Guy Edmonds

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This thesis collects together technical, historical and neurological evidence to examine how our perceptual and cognitive experience of cinema has changed diachronically and especially as a result of the transition from analogue to digital cinema projection. The slow arrival but sudden dominance of digital projection technology has provided a historic opportunity of renewed interest in the means by which cinema is created. This research attends to a particular aspect of the experience of cinema which has failed to survive the industry-wide changeover: the seemingly advantageous deletion of the shutter and its attendant flicker from the cinematic dispositif – the ‘flicks’ …

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Being Vulnerable: Distances Of The Sublime Anthropocene, Laura Hopes Jan 2020

Being Vulnerable: Distances Of The Sublime Anthropocene, Laura Hopes

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This project by the artist and researcher Laura Hopes develops from a methodology built around the idea of the ‘vulnerable practitioner’, open to failure, seeking collaboration and acceptant of unknowns. Her practice has become, through collaboration with others and her own acceptance of vulnerability, a slower, lengthier process, where her assumptions are constantly challenged and obstacles unpicked. The project’s expanded practice encompasses writing, conversations, film, performance, installation and multi-disciplinary exchange. Using these diverse tools, she investigates, through artistic research, what has traditionally been understood by the terms Sublime and Anthropocene and seeks to understand where their meanings may have coincided …

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Thermal Efficiency Of Courtyards For Residential Buildings In Iraq, Omar Al-Hafith Jan 2020

Thermal Efficiency Of Courtyards For Residential Buildings In Iraq, Omar Al-Hafith

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This thesis investigates adopting the courtyard pattern in Iraq to provide a thermally efficient architectural solution that contributes towards solving the housing challenges in the country. As a result of more than three decades of wars and instability, the country suffers from having a large housing shortage and a major production shortfall. This shortage is estimated at around 1.0 million housing units, which is equivalent to one-quarter of the total housing stock in the country. The current housing production is around 30000 housing units per annum only, which, therefore, does not alleviate the housing needs in the country. The country …

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Collage In The Posthuman Era: Gender And Becoming, Margaret Hart Jan 2020

Collage In The Posthuman Era: Gender And Becoming, Margaret Hart

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This thesis researches collage as a tool to address gender in a posthuman framework and was designed to examine one question: How can collage contribute to a posthuman understanding of gender? This investigation strives to get beyond the pitfalls of binary gender identification prevalent within humanistic approaches to gender studies in the liberal arts through the creation of a body of artworks which visually depict posthuman tenets (variation, multiplicity, non—hierarchical relations, fluidity, interconnectedness and transformation) through interactions between human and non—human agents. Developed by a practicing artist who embraces becoming and working within a posthuman framework, this project defines a …

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Apophenoesis & The Origins Of Creativity: Virtual Pattern Recognition, Error, Paths To Consciousness & Augmenting The Evolution Of Self, Max B. Kazemzadeh Jan 2020

Apophenoesis & The Origins Of Creativity: Virtual Pattern Recognition, Error, Paths To Consciousness & Augmenting The Evolution Of Self, Max B. Kazemzadeh

School of Art, Design and Architecture Theses

This research defines apophenoesis as a convergent practical tool that can enhance one’s creative process by introducing deviations from the familiar in such a way to allow new creative pathways to form and result in new innovations. With foundations in Roy Ascott’s technoetics, which is defined as a “convergent field of practice that seeks to explore consciousness and connectivity through digital, telematic, chemical or spiritual means, embracing both interactive and psychoactive technologies, and the creative use of moistmedia” (Ascott, 2008, p. 1), apophenoesis more specifically provides a framework to demonstrate the value of disruption within technoetic art while demonstrating the …

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Role Of Mirnome In Meningioma Tumours: Identification Of Potential Molecular Biomarkers And Therapeutic Targets For High-Grade Meningioma, Caterina Negroni Jan 2020

Role Of Mirnome In Meningioma Tumours: Identification Of Potential Molecular Biomarkers And Therapeutic Targets For High-Grade Meningioma, Caterina Negroni

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Meningioma is the most common intracranial tumour, accounting for one third of all primary brain and central nervous system (CNS) tumours. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), meningiomas are classified as grade I, II, and III based on the histological features of tumours, with higher grades associated with greater morbidity and mortality. In most cases, meningioma can be managed by surgery alone; however, adjuvant treatment may be required in case of recurrent or higher-grade tumours. To date, chemotherapy has proven ineffective in treating meningioma patients, highlighting the need to identify novel molecular biomarkers and therapeutic targets, establishing effective non- …

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Investigation Of Drp1 Inhibition As Potential Therapy In Pesticide-Based Models Of Parkinson's Disease, Jennifer Rhea Pinnell Jan 2020

Investigation Of Drp1 Inhibition As Potential Therapy In Pesticide-Based Models Of Parkinson's Disease, Jennifer Rhea Pinnell

Other Faculty of Health Theses

In this study I explored the impact of Drp1 inhibition on pathology in two different pesticide-based models of Parkinson’s disease, and found that paraquat induced autophagy blockade in vitro, which was abrogated by inhibition of Drp1 function through siRNA knockdown or expression of the Drp1K38A dominant negative. Rotenone and paraquat are two pesticides implicated in the pathophysiology and progression of Parkinson’s disease, a hypokinetic neurodegenerative disorder which results in motor and cognitive changes in patients. Previous studies confirmed pesticide-induced loss of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra pars compacta in animal models, however further research was necessary to explore the …

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Theory Protection In Human Associative Learning And Formally Representing Uncertainty About Novel Stimuli, Stuart Spicer Jan 2020

Theory Protection In Human Associative Learning And Formally Representing Uncertainty About Novel Stimuli, Stuart Spicer

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Three collections of data are presented in this thesis, with the broad aim of investigating a potential role for theory protection in human associative learning. According to theory protection, people should resist updating their existing knowledge (i.e. resist new learning), even when faced with evidence that contradicts what they already know. In other words, people should maintain established associations between environmental cues and outcomes wherever possible. Theory protection differs from typical prediction error accounts of learning (e.g. Bush & Mosteller, 1951; Rescorla & Wagner, 1972; Rescorla, 2001). According to prediction error accounts, people should update existing associations (i.e. learn) most …

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An Exploration Of Religious Practice As A Valued Occupation, Patricia Eyres Jan 2020

An Exploration Of Religious Practice As A Valued Occupation, Patricia Eyres

Other Faculty of Health Theses

Background: Religion touches our everyday lives. Some have a deeply held faith while others engage infrequently in rites of passage such as marriage or funerals, but religion is a common worldwide phenomenon. Globally, millions of people engage in religious practice or religious ‘doing’ daily, but occupational science has not explored this common occupation widely, and occupational therapists continue to struggle to consider religious practice within the occupational needs of their clients. Within increasingly multi-cultural and multi-faith communities, it is imperative that the occupation of religious practice is better understood and considered within practice. Method: An auto/biographical overarching research orientation is …

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Application Of Business Process Management For Corporate Sustainability, Felicitas Johanna Breitenbach Jan 2020

Application Of Business Process Management For Corporate Sustainability, Felicitas Johanna Breitenbach

Plymouth Business School Theses

In the light of the current debate on climate change and its ever-growing impact on the corporate world this thesis deals with the integration of sustainability into corporations. Its focus lies on the integration of sustainability through business process management (BPM). A comprehensive literature review on both corporate sustainability and BPM has been carried out. Research still fails to establish a link between sustainability and the strategic and operational management. Even though the integration of sustainability into business process management is explicitly recommended, no framework has yet realized this goal. In the light of the identified research gap one main …

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Beyond Equilibrium Temperature: How The Atmosphere/Interior Connection Affects The Onset Of Methane, Ammonia, And Clouds In Warm Transiting Giant Planets, Jonathan J. Fortney, Channon Visscher, Mark S. Marley, Callie E. Hood, Michael R. Line, Daniel P. Thorngren, Richard S. Freedman, Roxana Lupu Jan 2020

Beyond Equilibrium Temperature: How The Atmosphere/Interior Connection Affects The Onset Of Methane, Ammonia, And Clouds In Warm Transiting Giant Planets, Jonathan J. Fortney, Channon Visscher, Mark S. Marley, Callie E. Hood, Michael R. Line, Daniel P. Thorngren, Richard S. Freedman, Roxana Lupu

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

The atmospheric pressure–temperature profiles for transiting giant planets cross a range of chemical transitions. Here we show that the particular shapes of these irradiated profiles for warm giant planets below ∼1300 K lead to striking differences in the behavior of nonequilibrium chemistry compared to brown dwarfs of similar temperatures. Our particular focus is H2O, CO, CH4, CO2, and NH3 in Jupiter- and Neptune-class planets. We show that the cooling history of a planet, which depends most significantly on planetary mass and age, can have a dominant effect on abundances in the visible atmosphere, often swamping trends one might expect based …

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Black Male Representations In Non-Urban Settings In The Uk, Nathaniel Turner Jan 2020

Black Male Representations In Non-Urban Settings In The Uk, Nathaniel Turner

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Inspired by Frantz Fanon’s assertion ‘the Black man has no ontological resistance in the eyes of the White man’ (Fanon,1982:110) this research project analyses the ways in which representation has affected the performativity of Black masculinity in non-urban settings in the UK. Framed by a Practice as Research methodology, this project utilises auto-biographic as well as auto-ethnographic methods aiming to construct alternative Black masculinity narratives which can counter hegemonic approaches in both academic and digital platforms. This work examines my own lived experience in a city with a low ethnic diversity in order to explore the ways in which Black …

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To The Wall: London's Murals And 'The Left', 1975-1986, Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann Jan 2020

To The Wall: London's Murals And 'The Left', 1975-1986, Ben Wiedel-Kaufmann

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This thesis examines the relationship between Left-wing politics and a body of exterior murals made in London between 1975 and 1986. Across this period approximately three hundred murals were made on the walls of London’s streets. Funded by a complex amalgam of predominantly state patronage, many of these murals gave form to the politics of the radical and oppositional Left. While murals featured briefly in art critical debates of the late 1970s and have since been included within broader histories of community and public art, this is the first extended study centred upon this remarkable moment of cultural production. Applying …

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Bone Painting, A Novel, With Critical Dissertation On The Ekphrastic Practices Of Natsume Sōseki And Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Jamie Edgecombe Jan 2020

Bone Painting, A Novel, With Critical Dissertation On The Ekphrastic Practices Of Natsume Sōseki And Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Jamie Edgecombe

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This novel and critical dissertation explore one of the central characteristics of Japanese aesthetics, that of suggestion and how suggestion can interconnect with ekphrasis. Although Bone Painting is a complex work, one with two distinct view point characters – the doctor, Seichiro, and the artist, Kasumi – my writing of it was very much influenced by my understanding of the Japanese aesthetic category of yūgen. Yūgen, the kanji of which can be directly translated as dark and dim, is often considered one of the most recondite and ineffable categories of Japanese aesthetics. Often translated as ‘subtlety and depth,’ or ‘mystery …

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The Festival In The Meta-System Of Culture, Nadezhda Krasteva Jan 2020

The Festival In The Meta-System Of Culture, Nadezhda Krasteva

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

Crossing the borders of various disciplines – anthropology, cultural studies, cultural theory, sociology of culture, sociology of art, art history, art criticism, events management and tourism – festival studies are slowly attracting academic attention in their search for independent status among the social sciences. Culture, defined by Juri Lotman as a self-descriptive mechanism, is the structure from which perspective I approach the contemporary artistic festival in an attempt to determine its position as an element in the meta-system of culture. The semantic notion of culture proposed by the scholar refers to a dynamic system of signs organising and preserving information …

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Imagining And Remembering The Soldier At The Imperial War Museum (1980-1995), Jayne Buchanan Jan 2020

Imagining And Remembering The Soldier At The Imperial War Museum (1980-1995), Jayne Buchanan

Other Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business Theses

This research addresses the contemporary representation of the soldier in art by focusing on the work commissioned by the Imperial War Museum (IWM) over the period 1980-1995, which includes Linda Kitson (b. 1945), for the Falklands War in 1982, John Keane (b.1954) in the Gulf War in 1991, and Peter Howson's (b. 1958) work in Bosnia between 1992–1994. From a foundation of existing academic research on the representation of the soldier in art, which has informed a framework of investigation into imagery of the soldier as hero, as masculine ideal and as a symbol of nationalism, I examine how the …

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Recording Project: Original Compositions Based On Historic Analysis And Authentic Jazz Performance Reproductions Fused With Modern Electronica, Johan Eriksson Jan 2020

Recording Project: Original Compositions Based On Historic Analysis And Authentic Jazz Performance Reproductions Fused With Modern Electronica, Johan Eriksson

University Grant Program Reports

This project ... culminated in the album “Emulation”. The project was successful in creating a jazz/electronica album based on analysis and performance of historically important jazz artists from the 1930s to present time.

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Social Work Students Managing Emotions: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Utilising Poetry And Prose As An Autoethnographic Turn, Beth Moran Jan 2020

Social Work Students Managing Emotions: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Utilising Poetry And Prose As An Autoethnographic Turn, Beth Moran

Plymouth Institute of Education Theses

This thesis reports on research exploring how student social workers experience, express and manage the emotional content of practice learning in a relational context. It considers how social/supervisory support promotes emotional management for student social workers. Student respondents reflect on a variety of placement experiences ranging from a third-sector advice centre; a service supporting people who are homeless; local authority child protection services; a hospital discharge team and statutory adult mental health teams. Their responses reveal organisational interventions with a wide range of people from children and families to adults engaging with health and social care services. New knowledge is …

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