Intimately allegorical : the poetics of self-mediation in stand-up comedy

The dissertation presents stand-up comedy as a genre of embodied verbal art and semiotic interaction. In particular, the study elaborates on how stand-up comics mediate themselves in a public arena and playfully thematize and reappropriate this self-mediation within a performance form founded on the ideals of immediacy, actuality, and self-presence. The dissertation attends to such poetics of self-mediation through the lenses of textuality, reflexivity, and relatability. The perspective of textuality orients the research toward stand-up routines as the foremost texts, or metadiscursive units of expression, through which stand-up comics mediate themselves for their audiences’ consumption. The perspective of reflexivity orients the research toward the metapragmatics of stand-up comedy, including both metacommunication in performance and the ideologies and valuations (of communication) embedded in the practice of stand-up. The perspective of relatability orients the research toward the dynamics of stand-up as an economy of attention and affect that depends on intersubjective capture between participants of interaction. The analysis is methodologically informed by the disciplinary formations of folklore studies, linguistic anthropology, and cultural studies. First, folklore studies provides an approach to analyzing stand-up comedy as a genre of textual production, performance, circulation, and reception. Second, the dissertation adopts methodological tools from linguistic anthropology in its shared fascination with mediation and reflexivity in semiotic interaction. Third, the study draws from cultural studies in its broad interdisciplinary and critical ethos. The analysis is based on a heterogeneous set of source materials. First, stand-up is approached as performance through participant observation in the Finnish comedy scene, primarily in Helsinki. Second, stand-up is approached through metadiscourse, using data primarily accumulated by means of a questionnaire given to Finnish stand-up comics (17 written answers). Third, stand-up is approached as commodity through the analysis of 46 stand-up specials released by Netflix in 2017 and other stand-up recordings available to the author. This data is supplemented by miscellaneous literary and media texts, such as public interviews, articles, literature, and television series on stand-up. The introductory synopsis of the thesis outlines the theoretical and methodological fundamentals for studying stand-up comedy as embodied verbal art and semiotic interaction. In particular, it develops an approach to understanding stand-up performance as an “affective arrangement” and an economy of relatability, and as textual production based on the principle of poetic parallelism. Moreover, the introduction provides a heuristic for analyzing stand-up as a continuum between performance of self and animation of voice. The dissertation is comprised of four original articles published in journals loosely representing the fields of folklore studies, (linguistic) anthropology, and ethnology. The specific articles address the following topics in stand-up comedy: 1) reflexivity and participation; 2) satire as a performance of moral accountability; 3) parallelism and stance; and 4) narration and co-temporal gestures.Allegorisen intiimiä: Itsevälittymisen poetiikka stand up -komiikassa Väitöstutkimus käsittelee stand up -komiikkaa suullis-kehollisen lavataiteen ja semioottisen vuorovaikutuksen lajina. Tutkimus keskittyy erityisesti kysymykseen, miten stand up -koomikot esittävät eli välittävät itseään julkisella areenalla, ja miten tätä itsen välitystä tematisoidaan ja haltuunotetaan esityslajissa, jonka kulmakiviä ovat välittömyyden ja läsnäolon ihanteet. Tutkimus lähestyy tällaista itsevälittymisen poetiikkaa tekstuaalisuuden, refleksiivisyyden ja samastuttavuuden toisiaan täydentävistä näkökulmista. Tekstuaalisuuden käsitteen kautta stand up -rutiineja analysoidaan teksteinä, tai metadiskursiivisina ilmaisullisina yksikköinä, joiden välityksellä stand up -koomikot esittävät itseään yleisöilleen. Refleksiivisyyden käsite suuntaa tutkimusta kohti stand up -komiikan metapragmatiikkaa eli esityksessä ilmenevää metakommunikaatiota ja stand up -komiikan kommunikatiivisia ideologioita. Samastuttavuuden käsitteen kautta stand up -komiikkaa tarkastellaan dynaamisena huomio- ja affektitaloutena, joka perustuu vuorovaikutuksen osapuolten toisteisesti uusinnettuun intersubjektiiviseen yhteyteen. Tutkimus ammentaa metodologisesti folkloristiikan, lingvistisen antropologian ja kulttuurintutkimuksen oppialoista. Ensiksi, stand up -komiikkaa tarkastellaan folkloristisesti tekstien tuotantona, esittämisenä, sosiaalisena kiertona ja vastaanottona. Toiseksi, tutkimus jakaa lingvistinen antropologian kiinnostuksen refleksiivisyyteen kaiken merkkivälitteisen vuorovaikutuksen keskeisenä aspektina. Kolmanneksi, tutkimus sitoutuu kulttuurintutkimuksen tieteidenväliseen ja kriittiseen eetokseen. Tutkimus pohjautuu kolmenlaisille aineistokokonaisuuksille. Ensiksi, stand up -komiikkaa lähestytään performanssina suomalaisessa ja tarkkaan ottaen helsinkiläisessä stand up -skenessä suoritetun osallistuvan havainnoinnin kautta. Toiseksi, stand up -komiikkaa lähestytään metadiskurssina hyödyntäen suomalaisilta stand up -koomikoilta koottua kyselyaineistoa (17 kirjallista vastausta). Kolmanneksi, stand up -komiikkaa tarkastellaan kulutustuotteena hyödyntäen suoratoistopalvelu Netflixin vuonna 2017 julkaisemaa 46 stand up -spesiaalia ja muita stand up -tallenteita. Tätä aineistokokonaisuutta täydennetään sekalaisella stand upia koskevalla kirjallisuudella ja mediateksteillä, kuten julkisilla haastatteluilla, artikkeleilla ja televisiosarjoilla. Väitöskirjan johdanto esittelee työn metodologiset ja teoreettiset lähtökohdat. Johdanto mallintaa stand up -esityksen affektiivisena koosteena ja samastuttavuuden taloutena, esittelee parallelismin sen keskeisenä poeettisena trooppina ja käsitteellistää koko lajin itsen esittämisen ja äänten animoimisen välillä liikkuvana jatkumona. Tutkimus koostuu neljästä vertaisarvioidusta artikkelista, jotka on julkaistu folkloristiikan, (lingvistisen) antropologian ja etnologian lehdissä. Artikkeleissa stand up -komiikkaa analysoidaan 1) refleksiivisyyden ja osallistumisen, 2) satiirin ja moraalisen vastuullistamisen, 3) parallelismin ja asennoitumisen ilmaisun, sekä 4) kerronnan ja samanaikaisten eleiden toisiaan täydentävistä näkökulmista

Polynomial growth of concept lattices, canonical bases and generators:: extremal set theory in Formal Concept Analysis

We prove that there exist three distinct, comprehensive classes of (formal) contexts with polynomially many concepts. Namely: contexts which are nowhere dense, of bounded breadth or highly convex. Already present in G. Birkhoff's classic monograph is the notion of breadth of a lattice; it equals the number of atoms of a largest boolean suborder. Even though it is natural to define the breadth of a context as being that of its concept lattice, this idea had not been exploited before. We do this and establish many equivalences. Amongst them, it is shown that the breadth of a context equals the size of its largest minimal generator, its largest contranominal-scale subcontext, as well as the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of both its system of extents and of intents. The polynomiality of the aforementioned classes is proven via upper bounds (also known as majorants) for the number of maximal bipartite cliques in bipartite graphs. These are results obtained by various authors in the last decades. The fact that they yield statements about formal contexts is a reward for investigating how two established fields interact, specifically Formal Concept Analysis (FCA) and graph theory. We improve considerably the breadth bound. Such improvement is twofold: besides giving a much tighter expression, we prove that it limits the number of minimal generators. This is strictly more general than upper bounding the quantity of concepts. Indeed, it automatically implies a bound on these, as well as on the number of proper premises. A corollary is that this improved result is a bound for the number of implications in the canonical basis too. With respect to the quantity of concepts, this sharper majorant is shown to be best possible. Such fact is established by constructing contexts whose concept lattices exhibit exactly that many elements. These structures are termed, respectively, extremal contexts and extremal lattices. The usual procedure of taking the standard context allows one to work interchangeably with either one of these two extremal structures. Extremal lattices are equivalently defined as finite lattices which have as many elements as possible, under the condition that they obey two upper limits: one for its number of join-irreducibles, other for its breadth. Subsequently, these structures are characterized in two ways. Our first characterization is done using the lattice perspective. Initially, we construct extremal lattices by the iterated operation of finding smaller, extremal subsemilattices and duplicating their elements. Then, it is shown that every extremal lattice must be obtained through a recursive application of this construction principle. A byproduct of this contribution is that extremal lattices are always meet-distributive. Despite the fact that this approach is revealing, the vicinity of its findings contains unanswered combinatorial questions which are relevant. Most notably, the number of meet-irreducibles of extremal lattices escapes from control when this construction is conducted. Aiming to get a grip on the number of meet-irreducibles, we succeed at proving an alternative characterization of these structures. This second approach is based on implication logic, and exposes an interesting link between number of proper premises, pseudo-extents and concepts. A guiding idea in this scenario is to use implications to construct lattices. It turns out that constructing extremal structures with this method is simpler, in the sense that a recursive application of the construction principle is not needed. Moreover, we obtain with ease a general, explicit formula for the Whitney numbers of extremal lattices. This reveals that they are unimodal, too. Like the first, this second construction method is shown to be characteristic. A particular case of the construction is able to force - with precision - a high number of (in the sense of "exponentially many'') meet-irreducibles. Such occasional explosion of meet-irreducibles motivates a generalization of the notion of extremal lattices. This is done by means of considering a more refined partition of the class of all finite lattices. In this finer-grained setting, each extremal class consists of lattices with bounded breadth, number of join irreducibles and meet-irreducibles as well. The generalized problem of finding the maximum number of concepts reveals itself to be challenging. Instead of attempting to classify these structures completely, we pose questions inspired by Turán's seminal result in extremal combinatorics. Most prominently: do extremal lattices (in this more general sense) have the maximum permitted breadth? We show a general statement in this setting: for every choice of limits (breadth, number of join-irreducibles and meet-irreducibles), we produce some extremal lattice with the maximum permitted breadth. The tools which underpin all the intuitions in this scenario are hypergraphs and exact set covers. In a rather unexpected, but interesting turn of events, we obtain for free a simple and interesting theorem about the general existence of "rich'' subcontexts. Precisely: every context contains an object/attribute pair which, after removed, results in a context with at least half the original number of concepts

A study of the narrative of death in Canadian thanatography (1997-2017)

Cette étude explore la représentation de la mort dans une sélection de thanatographies canadiennes. Elle explore les manières dont la peur de la mort et le deuil sont présentés dans les récits. En littérature, la peur de la mort et le deuil de la mort d'êtres chers exprimés par le biais du langage permettent de mettre en lumière les mécanismes de défense face à cette angoisse et les expressions du deuil dans les textes narratifs. Le corpus est composé de douze textes autobiographiques canadiens publiés entre les années 1997 et 2017, qui sont répartis en trois catégories : récits de la maladie, récits maternels et récits du vieillissement. Cette étude commence par une introduction à l'écriture intime, à l'importance des récits sur soi à notre époque, au sous-genre de la thanatographie et à la hausse de leur popularité au cours des dernières années. Ensuite, elle étudie la tradition des études sur l'écriture autobiographique au Canada, où l'étude de l'écriture de la mort fait défaut. Cette recherche se divise en trois chapitres principaux. Le premier chapitre examine la complexité de la narration de la mort dans les textes intimes. Dans la première partie du chapitre un, l'histoire de la temporalité est exposée puisque plus tard dans le chapitre, l'importance de la temporalité narrative est étudiée en détail. Dans la deuxième partie du chapitre un, le développement de la théorie narrative est exploré. Les théories narratives de Mieke Bal, Roland Barthes et Jean Genette ainsi que la théorie de la temporalité narrative de Paul Ricoeur sont les principaux cadres théoriques à partir desquels le récit de l'auto/thanatographie est analysé. Dans la troisième partie du premier chapitre, les notions littéraires de point de vue et de temps verbal sont étudiées dans le récit de la thanatographie afin de mesurer leurs rôles dans le développement de l'intrigue. En ce qui concerne le point de vue, la façon dont les écrivains choisissent de s'impliquer dans la narration et l’importance donnée au défunt sont révélateurs et révélatrices déterminant la signification de la perte et du deuil. En outre, les tentatives inconscientes des auteurs de manipuler le contenu de leurs récits, grâce au point de vue adopté, permettent de saisir la signification du deuil, du vieillissement, de la maladie et de la mort. Une autre technique, celle du temps verbal, est employée afin de créer des intrigues linéaires et non linéaires. La théorie de la temporalité narrative de Ricœur est la lentille à travers laquelle la structure du récit de la perte et du deuil est analysée. La mort, qui marque habituellement le dénouement de l'intrigue, échappe à son organisation traditionnelle ; elle est donc toujours placée au début de la narration, suivie d'une myriade d'ellipses, de prolepses et d'analepses. Cette technique est également étudiée dans la narration afin d'analyser la volonté inconsciente des auteurs de manipuler les histoires et de décrypter la perte et la mort. Le deuxième chapitre, axé sur l'idée de pureté et de saleté en relation avec la mort, retrace la représentation de l'abject dans le récit de la thanatographie. L'abjection, qui est représentée sous diverses formes dans les récits du vieillissement, de la maladie et les récits maternels, est une autre caractéristique commune aux récits de la mort, dont les répercussions sont explorées dans la deuxième section du chapitre. Dans les textes narratifs sur la maladie, l'abject est présenté à travers un excès dans le corps. Le traitement et les soins prodigués aux malades perpétuent l'abjection inhérente à la maladie physique et mentale. Pour mener à bien cette étude, les théories de Susan Sontag sur l'abject et la maladie sont utilisées. Dans la deuxième catégorie, celle du récit maternel, l'abjection adopte une forme plus complexe, définie par la relation entre la mère et l'enfant. La théorie de l'abjection de Julia Kristeva est utilisée afin de délimiter le développement psychologique de l'enfant et sa tentative d'établir une identité indépendante en abjectant la mère, une tentative de devenir un autre moi. Les récits du vieillissement présentent l'abjection d'une manière différente. Les signes révélateurs du vieillissement, qui annoncent la mort, ne sont pas acceptés par le sujet, qui les considère comme les facteurs de définition de l'identité nouvellement acquise et socialement acceptable et d'un sens naissant de soi, qu'il faut parfois adopter ou auquel il faut résister ; par conséquent, le traitement de ce dernier groupe est également modifié dans la société. Outre l'étude de l'abject, les récits de conformité ou de résistance des écrivains sont décrits dans le contexte des grands récits canadiens sur le vieillissement et la maladie. De plus, et surtout, l'abjection est étudiée en relation avec le cadavre, le signe ultime de l'abjection, qui a appartenu/était un être cher, ce qui entraîne un désarroi pour les personnes en deuil. Dans le chapitre trois, nous étudions un autre mode de représentation de la mort, essentiel dans le corpus de cette étude, à savoir les photographies. Qu'il s'agisse des récits du vieillissement ou des récits de deuil, les photographies sont publiées à côté du récit dans le but de renforcer, de compléter ou de contredire la narration. La mort étant une notion abstraite qui échappe à la description, c'est par l'image qu'elle est le mieux présentée et qu'elle est rendue la plus sensible. Il existe deux types de photographies publiées dans les récits : l'une appartenant au défunt et l'autre montrant le narrateur vieillissant ou malade. La première partie de ce chapitre est consacrée aux théories de la photographie proposées par Roland Barthes, André Bazin et Susan Sontag, qui sont les principaux cadres théoriques sur lesquels repose l'étude de la signification et de l'implication des arts visuels. La deuxième partie de ce chapitre développe la métaphysique de la présence de Jacques Derrida, introduite dans son opus magnum, De la grammatologie. La troisième partie de ce chapitre, en appliquant les idées de Derrida aux photographies, étudie le rôle de ces dernières dans la présentation de la mort, c'est-à-dire de l'absence. L'idée de la photographie, qui immortalise les morts, est l'une des méthodes employées par les écrivains pour faire face au deuil. La présentation de l'absence par la présence de photographies, et parfois même de mots, fonctionne à travers un signifié présent, indépendant de son signifiant absent ; cette logique, défiant la structure binaire même du langage, aide les endeuillés - et parfois les plus perdus - à mieux comprendre la mort. Le chapitre de conclusion, en plus de rappeler les principales caractéristiques de la thanatographie, évoque également la notion de nationalité et la représentation du cadre des récits, à savoir le Canada, dans la création et la redéfinition de la signification socialement acceptable de la mort, du deuil, du vieillissement et de la maladie. Ce chapitre de conclusion propose l'étude du cadre et de la représentation de la mort tels qu'ils apparaissent dans les récits d’auteurs appartenant à diverses classes culturelles, raciales, économiques, etc. dans le cadre de recherches ultérieures.Abstract: This study explores the representation of death in selected Canadian thanatography. It explores the manners in which the fear of death and grief are presented in narrative. In literature, the fear of death and grieving the death of loved ones expressed through the medium of language sheds light on narrative defense mechanisms and grief expressions. The corpus is comprised of eleven Canadian memoirs published between the years 1997 and 2017, which are divided into three categories: memoirs of illness, narratives of motherhood, and memoirs of aging. This study begins with an introduction to personal writing, the importance of memoirs in our age, the subgenre of thanatography, and the rise in its popularity in recent years. Afterward, it examines the tradition of personal writing studies in Canada, arguing that there is a lacuna in the study of death writing, which this thesis addresses. This research is conducted in three main chapters. The first chapter examines the intricacies of the narrative of memoirs in representing death. In the first part of Chapter One, the history of temporality is laid out, since later in the chapter, the importance of temporality in the plot is studied in detail. In the second section of Chapter One, the development of narrative theory is explored. Mieke Bal, Roland Barthes, and Jean Genette’s narrative theories and Paul Ricoeur’s theory of temporality in the plot are the main theoretical frameworks upon which the narrative of auto/thanatography is analyzed. In the third part of Chapter One, the literary characteristics of point of view and verb tense are studied in the narrative of thanatography in order to delineate their roles in bestowing meaning to the plot. Regarding the point of view, the extent to which writers choose to implicate themselves in narration and the agency they bestow on the deceased is revealed, further determining the meaning of loss and mourning. Furthermore, the memoirists’ unconscious attempts at manipulating the content of memoirs, through the adopted point of view, shed light on the meaning of mourning, aging, sickness, and death. Another technique, verb tense, is employed differently in order to create linear and nonlinear plots; the theory of plot temporality by Ricoeur is the lens through which the structure of the narrative of loss and mourning is analyzed. Death, which usually marks the denouement of the plot, escapes its traditional organization. Therefore, it is always placed at the beginning of the narration, followed by an ellipsis, prolepsis, and analepsis. This technique is also studied in narration in order to analyze the memoirists’ unconscious attempt at manipulating stories and deciphering loss and death. The second chapter, with a focus on the idea of purity and pollution in relation to death, traces the representation of the abject in the narrative of thanatography. Abjection, which is portrayed in various forms in memoirs of aging, illness, and narratives of motherhood, is another common characteristic among narratives of death, the traces of which are explored in the second section of the chapter. In memoirs of illness, the abject is presented through an excess of bodily tissue, which is sometimes excised. The treatment and care offered to sick patients further perpetuate and distinguish the abjection embedded in physical and mental illness. In order to conduct this study, Susan Sontag’s theories of the abject and illness are employed. In the second category, which is the narrative of motherhood, the abject adopts a more complicated form, defined through the relationship of the mother and the child. Julia Kristeva’s theory of the abject is employed in order to delineate the psychological development of the child and its attempt at establishing an independent identity through abjecting the mother, an attempt to become me-other. The memoirs of aging present abjection differently. The telltale signs of aging, foreboding mortality, are unwelcomed by the subject, who regards them as the defining factors of the newly acquired, socially acceptable identity and a nascent sense of self, which must be adopted or resisted at times; consequently, the treatment of the latter group is also altered in the society. Besides the study of the abject, the writers’ conforming or resisting narratives are delineated in the context of Canadian grand narratives of aging and illness. Moreover, and most importantly, the abject is studied in relation to the corpse, the ultimate sign of abjection, which once belonged to/was a loved one, resulting in bewilderment for the mourners. In Chapter Three, another prevalent method of representing death, that is photography, found irrevocably in the corpus of this study, is examined. From memoirs of aging to narratives of grief, photographs are published alongside narratives in an attempt to strengthen, complement or contradict narration. Death, being an abstract notion evading description, is best presented and mourned through pictures. There are two main types of photographs published in memoirs: images of the deceased and images displaying the aging or ill narrator, whether in their prime or when they were ill-stricken. The first part of this chapter employs theories of photography proposed by Roland Barthes, Andre Bazin, and Susan Sontag. The second part of this chapter elaborates on Jacques Derrida’s metaphysics of presence, introduced in his magnum opus, Of Grammatology (1997). The third part of this chapter, through the application of Derrida’s ideas on photographs, examines the latter’s role in representing death, that is, absence. The idea of photography in immortalizing the dead is one of the methods that the writers employ to deal with grief. The presentation of absence through the presence of photographs, and sometimes even words, works through a present signified, which is independent of its absent signifier; this logic, defying the very binary structure of language, helps the mourners grasp a better understanding of death. The concluding chapter, besides reiterating the main characteristics of thanatography, also briefly elaborate on the concept of nationality and the representation of the setting of the memoirs, that is Canada, in creating and redefining the socially acceptable meaning of death, grief, aging, and illness. This concluding chapter proposes the study of the setting and the representation of death as shown through narratives of memoirists belonging to various cultural, sexual, racialized, and social classes in further research

XXI Fungal Genetics Conference Abstracts

XXI Fungal Genetics Conference Abstract

Current Frontiers and Perspectives in Cell Biology

A numerous internationally renowned authors in the pages of this book present the views of the fields of cell biology and their own research results or review of current knowledge. Chapters are divided into five sections that are dedicated to cell structures and functions, genetic material, regulatory mechanisms, cellular biomedicine and new methods in cell biology. Multidisciplinary and often quite versatile approach by many authors have imposed restrictions of this classification, so it is certain that many chapters could belong to the other sections of this book. The current frontiers, on the manner in which they described in the book, can be a good inspiration to many readers for further improving, and perspectives which are highlighted can be seen in many areas of fundamental biology, biomedicine, biotechnology and other applications of knowledge of cell biology. The book will be very useful for beginners to gain insight into new area, as well as experts to find new facts and expanding horizons

Environmental governance in Bhutan : ecotourism, environmentality and cosmological subjectivities

This thesis explores how environmental conservation and subjectivities are influenced as Bhutan negotiates its increasing integration into the global neoliberal capitalist economy. Until recently, Bhutan sought to isolate itself to a large degree from international integration, instead relying on a strongly state-centred monarchic governance regime to deliver economic development domestically. In so doing Bhutan has developed an international reputation for forward thinking in regards to human well-being as the country contests dominant economic models for development practice through its promotion of its signature Gross National Happiness (GNH) agenda. Now, however, Bhutan is working to negotiate increased involvement in global market forces, causing fissures to emerge in this philosophy and ideology. One of the main forms of global market integration currently pursued by Bhutan is ecotourism, which has been described as a quintessential neoliberal project seeking to harness environmental conservation as a form of income generation (Büscher and Fletcher, 2015). While this promotion seeks to frame ecotourism as an economic strategy to balance environmental and development aspirations, how the sector influences cultural values and assumptions is unaddressed. In this way, ecotourism can be seen to promote particular cultural transformations and forms of subjectivities that challenge the broader goals of the GNH agenda to date. This work explores these dynamics through a poststructuralist political ecology framework. Via this lens, an examination of discourse and power relations at multiple scales is conducted in order to gain critical insight into conservation paradigms operating in the country under the influence of newfound neoliberalization processes. Concepts of governmentality and biopower ground this examination by providing a framework for analysing emerging rationalities of governance. Chapter 5 provides insight into Bhutan’s overarching forms of governance, placing the country within the context of global capitalism and associated discourses. A ‘variegated’ governmentality perspective highlights the coexistence of multiple rationalities that contribute to an emergent ‘Buddhist’ biopower grounded in situated values represented by a Buddhist worldview and the country’s Gross National Happiness (GNH) agenda. Chapter 6 focuses on the national level, honing in on environmental governance in particular. ‘Environmentality’, an adaptation of the governmentality concept, is employed as a conceptual framework for understanding environmental discourses in the country. The cases of ‘Bhutan for Life’, a policy plan for implementing conservation funding, and the ecotourism this plan promotes, are examined to understand how neoliberal discourses interact with a Buddhist worldview, a history of state paternalism, and the Gross National Happiness agenda, all of which constitute competing rationalities contributing to Bhutan’s unique environmental governance approach. Chapter 7 takes us to the community level, examining three ecotourism cases in the country, in order to explore ecotourism discourses present in each. Haa Valley homestay, the Phobjikha Homestay network, and the Phajoding Eco-Camp serve as select sites for this analysis. Drawing on Dwelling theory, the chapter shows that ecotourism conflicts with pre-existing local perceptions and values related to the environment. Divergences related to social and human-environment relations thus develop from enrolment in ecotourism programs, with contestations between the explicit goals of GNH and embedded communitarian values. Finally, Chapter 8 probes environmental subjectivities via a case study of Shokuna herders in the highlands of Haa Dzongkhag (district). Through a landscape ethnoecological approach, an animated cosmological landscape is revealed through the process of storying, highlighting particular perceptions and subjectivities related to a truth environmentality. Foucault’s ‘art of distributions’ (1977) are used as a scaffold for analysing this environmentality showing how subjectivities manifest through belief in a cosmological hierarchy, perceptions of an animated landscape, and a reversal of western technocratic and managerial perspectives. As such, herders within the landscape have developed specific beliefs, behaviours, and resource acquisition patterns attuned with a particular ‘environmental’ subject. These four chapters are interconnected, acting in a nested manner to develop a multiscalar analysis of Bhutan’s engagement with and contestations around environmental discourses. As such, these chapters aim to provide a nuanced analysis of the problematic situation facing the country in which ecotourism, and its associated neoliberal rationale, challenge existing societal norms and values. With the ecotourism sector being appraised as an ideal strategy for the country it is critical to explore contestations that emerge with its adoption in order to provide a realistic assessment that addresses broader cultural impacts. In terms of theoretical contributions, this work: Illustrates the variegated nature of a novel governance constellation in Bhutan and how this manifests in a situated form of biopower embodying non-western (Buddhist) spiritualities; Underscores local specificities that account for discrepancies in the vision and execution of neoliberal conservation but goes beyond this to express other rationalities that also exists within a variegated environmentality framework. I show that indigenous efforts prove critical when re-interpreting conservation strategies and warding off external dynamics, such as foreign agencies and global capitalist actors, that promote possibly dangerous trends putting at risk the goals of the GNH agenda; Addresses the discursive nature of the ecotourism sector through a rarely employed dwelling lens, which is used to interpret indigenous perceptions of the landscape and their relation to it in order to reveal local contestations to neoliberal logic. While neoliberalism and ecotourism promote dualist perspectives in terms of humans and/vs nature, dwelling theory resonates with Buddhist and Bhutanese worldviews in which these divides are less concrete; Contributes to GNH studies by juxtaposing the ideal of GNH with the neoliberal conservation paradigm, revealing opportunities for adapting the country’s ecotourism strategy; Provides an analysis of underexplored truth environmentalities based on cosmological subjectivities. The political ecology of conservation in the country reveals a complex constellation of external and internal forces/actors that promote discourses of sustainability and wellbeing, with a concerted effort to respond to demands of the international community while maintaining a cultural identity grounded in spirituality and the concept of GNH. Driven by a need to facilitate development for a largely impoverished population, and the desire to uphold a reputation for strong environmental protection, Bhutan adopts particular strategies (payment for environmental services (PES), ecotourism, and green tax structures) that align with a neoliberal conservation model. However, this adoption is conducted without a critical eye to underlying rationalities that drive such strategies. As a result, discursive processes promote particular environmental subjectivities and novel perceptions that cultivate new social and human-environment relations putting at risk the broader goals of the GNH agenda

Sacred Space: Spatial Communications Patterns in an Irish American and Slovak American Roman Catholic Parish

This ethnographic study provides contextual definitions of religious-centered frames for communication in an Irish-American and a Slovak-American parish. Spatial behavior patterns which appear incident to ethnic traditions and patterns associated with Roman Catholicism which do not appear to vary significantly across ethnic parishes are both described. The context control methodology employed is adapted from the microanalytic study of multimodal communication behavior. A detailed explication of the evolving methodological process reveals relevant cultural contrasts in interview negotiations and hospitality patterns. Data analyses include informant interviews and observations made in analogously controlled conditions in a variety of comparable locations in each church and in the dwelling space of both clergy and laity. Historical depth to empirical observations is provided by a through-time description of the two cultural groups and their migration and settlement patterns. Church doctrine and architectural history provides technical insights regarding the liturgical significance of ritual behaviors patterns

26th Fungal Genetics Conference at Asilomar

Program and abstracts from the 26th Fungal Genetics Conference, March 15-20, 2011

Aesthetics, Innovation, and the Politics of Film-Production at Lenfil'm, 1961-1991

This thesis examines the relationship between Lenfil´m film-studio and the Soviet Party-state apparatus in the context of successive reformist projects and shifting repertory strategies pursued by filmmakers and executives. Drawing upon archival records, cinema-historical scholarship, professional testimonies, and feature-films, it demonstrates a studio-specific approach to the institutional relations that shaped late-Soviet cinema as an artistic process, an industry, and a political sphere. In 1961, significant reorganizations of production at Lenfil´m assured an unprecedented devolution of executive responsibilities – commissioning, development, shoot-supervision – to new, cineaste-led production-units. These artistic cohorts were afforded sufficient license to shape their professional profiles around distinctive repertory policies, which reflected the artistic interests of their filmmakers, but were also compelled to adapt these proposals to the thematic categories fixed by late-Soviet cinema’s central administrative structures. This thesis asks how Lenfil´m cineastes negotiated ideological screening and pursued aesthetical innovation in filmmaking, towards which the administrative system was consistently suspicious or outright hostile. It then considers how the studio’s repertory profile changed in response to resurgent official orthodoxies in the 1970s, only to incorporate renewed privileging of art-cinema into this response by the end of that decade. In the 1980s, with perestroika, attempts at democratization and market-focused reform found these production-units to be the irreducible professional nuclei of late-Soviet cinema. Their structures, artistic identities, and decision-making prerogatives persisted beyond all practicality of adherence to an inflexible administrative system and a collapsing film-distribution network. Through production-histories, analysis of Communist Party policies, and detailed examinations of the reforms that modified studio-structures, this thesis argues that the final three decades of the USSR saw filmmakers and studio-level administrators develop heterogenous repertory innovations, despite the crudeness of official ideological oversight. Lenfil´m became the bastion of late-Soviet auteurism within an industrial system that ought, by its own measure, to have precluded this possibility