Editor's Introduction: Activism And Anagnorisis,
2011
Old Dominion University
Editor's Introduction: Activism And Anagnorisis, Marc Ouellette
English Faculty Publications
As I mull the current issue – a wonderful collection of open submissions and a terrific supplement on “post-9/11” developments, about both of which I feel too intellectually impoverished to write adequately – I am filled with mixed feelings, thoughts and even theoretical positions. This last is kind of inescapable given my best efforts to put theory into practice whenever and wherever possible. The two cannot and should not be inseparable, at least for anyone who claims to be even the most remotely involved in Cultural Studies. And yet, I know that this is the area where Cultural Studies fails …
Investigating Trait Attribution Through Gendered Avatar Play: An Analysis Of The Sims 3,
2011
Eastern Michigan University
Investigating Trait Attribution Through Gendered Avatar Play: An Analysis Of The Sims 3, Erika M. Behrmann
Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations
This study investigates whether the life-simulation videogame, The Sims 3, enables the deconstruction of the gender binary. The Sims 3 permits its players the capability to attribute similar traits to male or female avatars. In doing so, players can experiment with taboo trait attributions and potentially defy a male-female binary. A group of 82 The Sims 3 players was surveyed to determine their overall male and female Sims trait selections during gameplay. Participants were questioned on how their trait selection related to their personal identities. Results indicated that players tend to select traits that maintain a gender binary. This …
Coparental Communication, Relational Satisfaction,
And Mental Health In Stepfamilies,
2011
Texas Christian University
Coparental Communication, Relational Satisfaction, And Mental Health In Stepfamilies, Paul Schrodt, Dawn O. Braithwaite
Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications
This study tested a series of actor–partner interdependence models of coparental communication, relational satisfaction, and mental health in stepfamilies. Participants included 127 couples (N = 254). Results revealed 2 actor-oriented models whereby parents’ and stepparents’ coparental communication quality positively predicted their own (but not their partners’) satisfaction and mental health. A final model revealed that parents’ relational satisfaction mediated the effect of coparental communication on their own mental health. A similar pattern emerged for stepparents, although coparental communication continued to have a direct, positive effect on stepparents’ mental health. Importantly, parents’ coparental communication produced an inverse partner effect on stepparents’ …
Ex-Spouses’ Relational Satisfaction As A Function
Of Coparental Communication In Stepfamilies,
2011
Texas Christian University
Ex-Spouses’ Relational Satisfaction As A Function Of Coparental Communication In Stepfamilies, Paul Schrodt, Aimee E. Miller, Dawn O. Braithwaite
Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications
This study tested a series of actor-partner interdependence models of coparental communication and relational satisfaction among ex-spouses living in stepfamilies. Participants included 41 ex-spousal dyads (N = 82). Results revealed two actor-oriented models whereby ex-spouses’ supportive and antagonistic coparental communication predicted their own (but not their ex-spouse’s) relational satisfaction. A second set of models revealed that nonresidential parents’ supportive and antagonistic coparental communication with the residential stepparent predicted their own satisfaction with their ex-spouses, as well as their ex-spouse’s satisfaction with them (i.e., a partner effect). Importantly, the findings demonstrate the interdependence of coparenting relationships in stepfamilies, as supportive coparental …
Cultural Competence In Urban Affairs And Planning,
2011
CUNY Hunter College
Cultural Competence In Urban Affairs And Planning, Tom Angotti, Marly Pierre-Louis, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Sigmund Shipp, Angela Tovar
Publications and Research
In the Fall of 2009, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) undertook the Centro Cultural Competence Initiative (CCI) with the support of a one-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The goal of the CCI is to address the need for culturally appropriate work in a variety of professions by training students to be culturally competent practitioners. In the Fall of 2010, the Urban Affairs and Planning Department at Hunter College joined CENTRO as a partner in this initiative. Full time Professors Sigmund Shipp, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, and Tom Angotti worked …
Labor Pains In The Academy,
2011
Rollins College
Labor Pains In The Academy, Lisa M. Tillmann Ph.D.
Faculty Publications
This piece offers autoethnographic reflections on crossroads to which many academics come: whether to seek (or postpone or avoid) parenthood and when. The author deeply explores the personal (her own trajectories from daughter and sister to potential mother and from graduate student to full professor) in order to reflect on structural constraints associated with graduate education, the academic job market, and institutional policies and politics.
Shock Rhetoric,
2010
University of Southern Mississippi
Shock Rhetoric, David Robert Nelson
Dissertations
Social movements create a public perception of themselves through rhetorical messages and demonstrations. In order to gain the public's attention, some radical groups use any rhetorical means necessary, including offensive remarks and conduct. Groups, such as the Westboro Baptist Church and Bash Back!, rhetorically challenge the boundaries of prudence. The purpose of this study is to identify, depict, and provide insight regarding shock rhetoric. This study will compare protest methods, visual imagery, and language choices used by Bash Back! and the Westboro Baptist Church. This dissertation helps illuminate why and how groups or individuals use shock rhetoric.
Martha Stewart's Graphic Design For Living,
2010
Bridgewater State University
Martha Stewart's Graphic Design For Living, Melanie Mcnaughton
Bridgewater Review
A living brand or a force of darkness, Martha Stewart is an indomitable figure in 20thcentury domestic life and her place in North American domestic history is tied to the success of Martha Stewart Living, the flagship publication of the Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSLO) empire. The success of Living is tied to its graphic design. Living typographically enacts the values it argues for by fusing traditional elements with modern edges to present a vision of homemaking that is soft and appealing yet also a statement of skilled precision and quality. Tacking between broad, more theoretical analysis and close …
Ambiguity And Morality In Jelinek's Bambiland,
2010
University of Sydney
Ambiguity And Morality In Jelinek's Bambiland, Andrea Bandhauer
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Ambiguity and Morality in Jelinek's Bambiland" Andrea Bandhauer begins by noting that the language of Elfriede Jelinek's play Bambiland (2004) is characterized by experimentation and a propensity for complex and ambiguous word plays. In this play, her critique of the media is directed against the international, or rather, Western press and its role in the Iraq war. The text of Bambiland, conceptualized as a "work-in-progress," in which Jelinek posed as an "embedded writer," started to appear on her website at the beginning of the war and Jelinek continued writing it through 2003. In the text of the …
Introduction To Ambiguity In Culture And Literature,
2010
National University of Ireland Galway
Introduction To Ambiguity In Culture And Literature, Paolo Bartoloni, Anthony Stephens
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
No abstract provided.
Blanchot And Ambiguity,
2010
National University of Ireland Galway
Blanchot And Ambiguity, Paolo Bartoloni
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Blanchot and Ambiguity" Paolo Bartoloni investigates the enigmatic and ambiguous turn of the famous Blanchotian statement "existence without Being." The intention of the article is to locate Blanchot's remark in the context of a discussion on history and its possible end, famously initiated by Alexandre Kojève in a lecture on 4 December 1937 at the College of Sociology in Paris; and provide insights into the difference that distinguishes Kojève's reflection on the end of history, Bataille's subsequent interpretation of it, and Blanchot's original conceptualization of a state of being suspended between nature and culture, history and the …
Ambiguity Now,
2010
University of Technology Sydney
Ambiguity Now, Martin Harrison
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Ambiguity Now" Martin Harrison focuses on the pivotal place which modernist critical theory ascribed to ambiguity in the definition of meaning and structure in poetry. In particular, Harrison considers the way in which the category of experience is deployed in the discourse of ambiguity but is limited to only certain narratives of so-called experience. Harrison argues for a contemporary practice less focused on ambiguity and more on notation and provisional structure, demonstrating key elements of such practice in the work of modern poets Leslie Scalapino and Frank Bidart and the poet-artist Alex Selenitsch.
Ambiguity, The Artist, The Masses, And The "Double Nature" Of Language,
2010
University of Sydney
Ambiguity, The Artist, The Masses, And The "Double Nature" Of Language, Elizabeth Rechniewski
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Ambiguity, the Artist, the Masses, and the 'Double Nature' of Language" Elizabeth Rechniewski discusses the function of the European intellectual elite through a close reading of two very different yet related books, John Carey's The Intellectuals and the Masses, and Pierre Bourdieu's Les Règles de l'art. Through a contrapuntal reading of the arguments of these two critics, she argues that Symbolist experiments may actually be read as reactionist; in celebrating art's supposed conquest of independence and refinement, they are replete with nostalgia for a time when the artist and the intellectual were able to ignore the pressure …
Silence, The Utmost In Ambiguity,
2010
University of Rome "Tor Vergata" and University of Kyoto
Silence, The Utmost In Ambiguity, Mario Perniola
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Silence, the Utmost in Ambiguity" Mario Perniola presents a historical perspective on the meanings and development of the term "ambiguity" from ancient Greek to the modern age. Perniola's perspective is not a review of different approaches and schools of thought; instead, he presents an alternative philosophical and aesthetic discourse he counter-poses to modern and contemporary cultural positions which he considers useful in order to explain the state of today's art and intellectual discourse. Perniola does so by stressing the significance of silence as the aesthetic attitude that combines contemplation and action. Drawing on the work of Pascal …
The Rhetoric Of Dilemma And Cavafean Ambiguity,
2010
University of Sydney
The Rhetoric Of Dilemma And Cavafean Ambiguity, Anthony Dracopoulos
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "The Rhetoric of Dilemma and Cavafean Ambiguity" Anthony Dracopoulos examines the techniques of expression developed in Cavafy's poem "Young men of Sidon." By the beginning of the twentieth century, Cavafy, like other modernist poets, had become acutely aware of the human inability to grasp essence in its entirety and developed various techniques of expression to accommodate the polyphony of perspectives and the ambiguity inherent in modern society. The article argues that Cavafy structures a number of his poems in the form of binary oppositions or dilemmas. However, contrary to expectation, this form of expression does not aim …
The Post-Nuclear Family And The Depoliticization Of Unplanned Pregnancy In Knocked Up, Juno, And Waitress,
2010
Butler University
The Post-Nuclear Family And The Depoliticization Of Unplanned Pregnancy In Knocked Up, Juno, And Waitress, Kristen Hoerl, Casey Ryan Kelly
Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications
This essay explores three films from 2007, Knocked Up, Juno, and Waitress, which foreground young women’s unplanned pregnancies. These movies depoliticize women’s reproduction and motherhood through narratives that rearticulate the meaning of choice. Bypassing the subject of abortion, the women’s decisions revolve around their choice of heterosexual partners and investment in romantic relationships. Although they question the viability of the nuclear family for single pregnant women, these films represent new iterations of post-feminism that ultimately restore conservative ideas that valorize pregnancy and motherhood as women’s imperatives. We conclude by addressing how these movies present a distorted and …
Disambiguating The Sublime And The Historicity Of The Concept,
2010
University of Sydney
Disambiguating The Sublime And The Historicity Of The Concept, Vrasidas Karalis
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "Disambiguating the Sublime and the Historicity of the Concept" Vrasidas Karalis explores the notion of sublime or sublimity as the field of colliding signifiers and of experiential frameworks in conflict. Instead of treating the traditional notion as a structural element of style of ideology, he analyses it from the point of its contextual validation and its very historicity: what makes sublimity emerge is the extra-lingual unease, the existential dysphoria of the world outside the text, as refracted through specific works of art. Such dysphoria is expressed through ungrammatical language or/and through the attempt in specific moments in …
The Chi Complex And Ambiguities Of Meeting,
2010
Deakin University
The Chi Complex And Ambiguities Of Meeting, Paul Carter
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "The Chi Complex and Ambiguities of Meeting" Paul Carter develops a discussion of interpersonal encounters by mobilizing an apparatus of references, ranging from Jean Genet to Lévinas, Derrida, Bachmann, Merleau-Ponty, and Arendt. The hypothesis is that meeting another person entails and subsumes a non-meeting; a resistance and a refusal. The article pursues the ambiguity at the heart of encountering the other through an investigation of the urban spaces that are allegedly designed to invite and facilitate meetings. The argument put forward is that these spaces are paradoxically designed to avert encounters. This is especially true in the …
Ambiguity, Children, Representation, And Sexuality,
2010
University of New South Wales
Ambiguity, Children, Representation, And Sexuality, Catharine Lumby
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In her article "Ambiguity, Children, Representation, and Sexuality" Catharine Lumby considers current and historical scholarly and popular debates about the representation of children, including concerns about their sexualisation in such representations. The article begins by examining images taken by photographers in the Victorian era, including Charles Dodgson and Julia Cameron, and asks not only how the gaze of the photographer frames the child but how the child returns the adult gaze. Lumby seeks to problematize our understanding of the ways in which images "sexualize" children. Drawing on the work of James Kincaid, it examines discourses that frame children as, on …
On Ambidextrousness, Or, What Is An Innovative Action?,
2010
University of Western Sydney
On Ambidextrousness, Or, What Is An Innovative Action?, Brett Neilson
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
In his article "On the Ambiguity of Ambidextrousness, or, What is an Innovative Action?" Brett Neilson explores the significance of the fact that the technical equality of the hands is realized above all in the act of manual labor, revisiting an influential essay by Robert Hertz, a student of Emile Durkheim and associate of Marcel Mauss, published in 1909 and entitled "The Pre-Eminence of the Right Hand." In his text, Hertz argued that the basic spatial distinction between the left and right hand acquires the polarity of a social hierarchy owing not to the physiology or psychology of motor asymmetry …
