The Watchman for Truth : Professional Licensing and the First Amendment

This Article addresses a particular aspect of many kinds of professional practice: the rendering of advice to clients. Drawing on their knowledge and experience, professionals may recommend a certain course of action to their clients in the course of their practice. The client may then assess the recommendation and decide whether or not to act on it. This aspect of professional practice involves a speech-related activity, so government regulation might raise at least a colorable First Amendment issue. This Article also focuses on a particular aspect of the regulation of professional advice, namely, licensure. When professional advice rendering activities are covered by a system of licensure, particularly acute First Amendment questions arise because the license requirement arguably acts as a prior restraint on speech. A prior restraint is a legal requirement that an individual obtain permission from the government before speaking

Technology Made Legible: A Cultural Study of Software as a Form of Writing in the Theories and Practices of Software Engineering

My dissertation proposes an analytical framework for the cultural understanding of the group of technologies commonly referred to as 'new' or 'digital'. I aim at dispelling what the philosopher Bernard Stiegler calls the 'deep opacity' that still surrounds new technologies, and that constitutes one of the main obstacles in their conceptualization today. I argue that such a critical intervention is essential if we are to take new technologies seriously, and if we are to engage with them on both the cultural and the political level. I understand new technologies as technologies based on software. I therefore suggest that a complex understanding of technologies, and of their role in contemporary culture and society, requires, as a preliminary step, an investigation of how software works. This involves going beyond studying the intertwined processes of its production, reception and consumption - processes that typically constitute the focus of media and cultural studies. Instead, I propose a way of accessing the ever present but allegedly invisible codes and languages that constitute software. I thus reformulate the problem of understanding software-based technologies as a problem of making software legible. I build my analysis on the concept of software advanced by Software Engineering, a technical discipline born in the late 1960s that defines software development as an advanced writing technique and software as a text. This conception of software enables me to analyse it through a number of reading strategies. I draw on the philosophical framework of deconstruction as formulated by Jacques Derrida in order to identify the conceptual structures underlying software and hence 'demystify' the opacity of new technologies. Ultimately, I argue that a deconstructive reading of software enables us to recognize the constitutive, if unacknowledged, role of technology in the formation of both the human and academic knowledge. This reading leads to a self-reflexive interrogation of the media and cultural studies' approach to technology and enhances our capacity to engage with new technologies without separating our cultural understanding from our political practices

Builders of the vision : technology and the imagination of design

Thesis (Ph. D. in Design and Computation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-208).This dissertation identifies and documents a "technological imagination of design" emerging around the reconfigured discourses of design and design representation by the culture of technology production in the Computer-Aided Design Project, a Cold War era research operation funded by the US Air Force at MIT, tracing it into its contemporary deployment in the technology project known as Building Information Modeling. Exploring the discursive and technological linkages between these two sites, the dissertation outlines the ongoing project of construing technological centrality and universality as the dominant trope in discourses about design production. An expanded critical perspective on design is thus developed that looks at technological systems -such as software- and the cultures that produce them, with their histories and regimes of power, as crucial participants in, rather than as neutral vessels for, the design and production of our built environment. The dissertation ranges from examining the politics of representation, participation and authorship in the systems imagined by members of the Computer-Aided Design Project -in particular that of Steven Coons and Nicholas Negroponte's "man-machine" design systems- to discussing the culture of BIM coordination through an ethnographic portrait and data-visualization of its practice at Gehry Technologies, in two large-scale projects in the United Arab Emirates. As this study demonstrates, technological discourses and artifacts act as brokers for culturally dominant conceptions of design, representation, and work.by Daniel Cardoso Llach.Ph.D.in Design and Computatio

Folk Vocal Techniques of Pontos and Epirus in Modern Greece: a Study in Reflexive Musical Ethnography

In this thesis I examine the vocal techniques employed by performers of contemporary Greek Pontic and Epirotic traditional music. Combining fieldwork analysis with personal experience, I have been able to demonstrate the underlying cognitive and physiological processes that inform these techniques. While anatomical considerations constitute a central focus of this analysis, I offer at the same time an appraisal of vocal bimusicality. The latter issue arises from my own particular perspectives, understandings and personal experience in diverse musical worlds. The objectives of this research are: a) to identify current vocal techniques in Pontic and Epirotic styles, paying special attention to the exceptional use of the larynx and the articulation/projection of vocalized sounds; b) to bridge the gap between theory and practice in studies of voice and vocal production; and c) to demonstrate how personal experience is relevant to ethnographic research in vocal music. In introducing the research field, chapter I of this study reflects on my role as a native researcher-performer and outlines my choice of case studies. The following chapter reviews the Cantometrics project and considers its relevance to Greek folk song. In addition, other scholarly literature pertinent to the present analysis is surveyed, while there is also consideration of fundamental anatomical and physiological issues. Chapters III and IV focus on the central points of analysis in the thesis with special emphasis on the vocal production of the Pontic and Epirotic styles. Employing verbatim quotations from: a) five co-workers in the Pontic style and b) five co-workers and one polyphonic group in the Epirotic style, I analyze the vocal production of these two Greek musical genres as currently performed. The main conclusions of the research refer to techniques such as: a) the movable larynx, b) the extensive use of the soft palate and upper chest area, c) the widening of the mouth, and d) the dropping of the jaw, which are equally discussed in detail. In the same vein, an analogy is drawn between the vocal production and the size of the musical intervals used in both traditions. Chapter V deals with my own learning processes in Greek folk culture and also in the two aspects of my musicality: the Pontic and Western operatic. Here I endeavour to locate myself among my co-workers and also to provide an 'insider's' view on the subject of bimusicality. I also comment upon the effect that ensues when moving from the Pontic to the operatic vocal style, that is to say, the consequences of changing musical systems and musical environments. The final chapter summarizes the findings of this monograph whose practice-based research is also accompanied by a DVD containing performances by co-workers and by audio examples. In these ways, I attempt to bridge the 'gap' between theory and practice in those aspects of vocal production that stem from an aural/oral musical tradition

Communicating the Unspeakable: Linguistic Phenomena in the Psychedelic Sphere

Psychedelics can enable a broad and paradoxical spectrum of linguistic phenomena from the unspeakability of mystical experience to the eloquence of the songs of the shaman or curandera. Interior dialogues with the Other, whether framed as the voice of the Logos, an alien download, or communion with ancestors and spirits, are relatively common. Sentient visual languages are encountered, their forms unrelated to the representation of speech in natural language writing systems. This thesis constructs a theoretical model of linguistic phenomena encountered in the psychedelic sphere for the field of altered states of consciousness research (ASCR). The model is developed from a neurophenomenological perspective, especially the work of Francisco Varela, and Michael Winkelman’s work in shamanistic ASC, which in turn builds on the biogenetic structuralism of Charles Laughlin, John McManus, and Eugene d’Aquili. Neurophenomenology relates the physical and functional organization of the brain to the subjective reports of lived experience in altered states as mutually informative, without reducing consciousness to one or the other. Consciousness is seen as a dynamic multistate process of the recursive interaction of biology and culture, thereby navigating the traditional dichotomies of objective/subjective, body/mind, and inner/outer realities that problematically characterize much of the discourse in consciousness studies. The theoretical work of Renaissance scholar Stephen Farmer on the evolution of syncretic and correlative systems and their relation to neurobiological structures provides a further framework for the exegesis of the descriptions of linguistic phenomena in first-person texts of long-term psychedelic selfexploration. Since the classification of most psychedelics as Schedule I drugs, legal research came to a halt; self-experimentation as research did not. Scientists such as Timothy Leary and John Lilly became outlaw scientists, a social aspect of the “unspeakability” of these experiences. Academic ASCR has largely side-stepped examination of the extensive literature of psychedelic selfexploration. This thesis examines aspects of both form and content from these works, focusing on those that treat linguistic phenomena, and asking what these linguistic experiences can tell us about how the psychedelic landscape is constructed, how it can be navigated, interpreted, and communicated within its own experiential field, and communicated about to make the data accessible to inter-subjective comparison and validation. The methodological core of this practice-based research is a technoetic practice as defined by artist and theoretician Roy Ascott: the exploration of consciousness through interactive, artistic, and psychoactive technologies. The iterative process of psychedelic self-exploration and creation of interactive software defines my own technoetic practice and is the means by which I examine my states of consciousness employing the multidimensional visual language Glide

USING INTERACTIVE SOFTWARE AS A CONCEPTUAL TOOL: AN EXAMINATION OF COGNITION IN IMPROVISED MUSICAL PERFORMANCE

Viewing musical improvisation in the light of psychology and cognitive science, this thesis will explicate the rationale behind the development of a software based audiovisual interface for use in improvised solo instrumental performance. The evolution of the performance environment is presented along with the theories and concepts that have shaped its progress. The opening chapter will review the terms of reference used throughout the work and will set a boundary around the area of examination. Chapter two will place musical improvisation within the context of human behaviour and in so doing will draw upon theoretical discourse from the fields of evolutionary psychology and cognitive science. This chapter will explore the nature of volition and its relationship with subconscious processing, drawing upon anecdotal evidence from improvising musicians as linkage between theory and practice. Chapter 3 augments the study of the inner world of the improvising musician by encompassing the communicative functions of this activity. The boundary of this study does not embrace musical interactions between musicians in a dialogic sense, my remit here is to explore behavioural response to sensory information and the mechanism by which this may or may not manifest itself in conscious thought. Chapter 4 sees the development of a theoretical model with which to contextualise the practice of musical improvisation and to provide the foundation from which to evolve the architecture for an experimental performance environment. This leads in Chapter 5 to a discussion around the function and nature of tools as problem solving devices looking at conceptual and physical tools and the mapping of functionality. The discourse in this chapter is aimed at providing a rationale for the development of a software based tool to address some of the issues raised previously in the study. The concluding chapter will document the evolution of a software based audio-visual performance environment, mapping its various incarnations and its relationship to the theoretical model developed over the course of the pervious chapters. This chapter will refer to documentation and audio visual material on CD Rom and DVD found in Appendix l

Central Washington University Jazz Recording Archive The Analog Years in Digital: 1946-2000

The Central Washington University Jazz Recording Archive, The Analog Years in Digital: 1946-2000, is every known CWU analog jazz recording converted to digital audio. • This annotation of analog recordings contains extensive history. It is not a full history of jazz. Consult Music at Central Washington University for complete history. • More than 425 analog magnetic tape recordings of concerts and recording sessions were digitized exactly as performed, and stored as electronic files in industry-standard Full Lossless Audio Codex (FLAC) format. • Each selection from every concert or recording session was converted to a separate m4a or mp3 compressed audio file for easy access and distribution to standard digital audio players or streaming audio. • Nearly 500 pages of annotation describe the details of each file and track. Many performances include written remembrances from the performers themselves. • The CWU Department of Music maintains a sheet music database including PDF files of the printed music in the McIntyre Hall stacks. Links to the tracks as streaming audio files within the database are pending.

Landscapes of ephemeral embrace : a painter's exploration of immersive virtual space as a medium for transforming perception

The following text has been written to illuminate the research embodied In Ephemere, a fullyimmersive virtual environment which integrates stereoscopic 3D computer-generated images and spatialized 3D sound, with a user interface based on breathing, balance, and gaze. This artwork was begun when I entered the doctoral program at CAiNA (Centre of Advanced Inquiry Into the Interactive Arts) in 1997, and was completed in 1998. The work Ephemere is grounded in a very personal vision, developed over more than 25 years of artistic practice, including, most significantly, painting. Ephemere follows on its predecessor Osmose, and as such, Is a continuation of my efforts to: (I) explore and communicate my sensibility of what it means to be embodied, here now, in the living Rowing world; and (ii) use the medium of immersive virtual space to do so, necessarily subverting its culturally-biased conventions to achieve this goal. The contents of this text are most clearly indicated by its title: Landscapes of Ephemeral Embrace: A Painter's Exploration of the Medium of Immersive Virtual Space for Transforming Perception. And further, by its chapter headings: (I) Context: Rethinking Technology in the "Reign of King Logos ; (II) Defining Terms: Key Concepts and Concerns in the Work; (III) Origins of the Work in Prior Artistic Practice: Emergence of Key Concerns and Strategies; (IV) First Explorations in Immersive Virtual Space: Osmose; (V) Continuing Explorations In Immersive Virtual Space: Ephemere; and (VI) Strategies and Their Implications In the Immersive Experience. In this text, I have focused my discussion on artistic Intent, rather than on whether I have been successful, for this can only be evaluated with the passing of time

Sharp Cut: Harold Pinter\u27s Screenplays and the Artistic Process

Best known as one of the most important playwrights of the twentieth century, Harold Pinter has also written many highly regarded screenplays, including Academy Award-nominated screenplays for The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Betrayal , collaborations with English director Joseph Losey, and an unproduced script for the remake of Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 adaptation of Lolita . In this definitive study of Pinter’s screenplays, Steven H. Gale compares the scripts with their sources and the resulting films, analyzes their stages of development, and shows how Pinter creates unique works of art by extracting the essence from his source and rendering it in cinematic terms. Gale introduces each film, traces the events that led to the script’s writing, examines critical reaction to the film, and provides an extensive bibliography, appendices, and an index. A highly significant book both for Pinter studies and for the neglected analysis of the genre of film scripts. . . . This pioneering work will be a model for subsequent studies of film scripts. -- Choice To say that [Steven Gale] is a master of the scholarship on Harold Pinter is an understatement….I have seldom agreed so much with an author’s interpretations of a film artist as I do with [Gale’s]….This is a landmark in scholarship about the adaptation of fiction and drama to film by an author who know his subject (in both senses of the word) inside out. In particular he documents the collaboration of Harold Printer with film director Joseph Losey, which is one of the most celebrated creative associations of a writer and director in cinema history. -- Gene D. Phillips Such a volume was refreshing to read and gave me faith in scholarship—again. -- Peter C. Rollins Named a Choice 2003 Academic Title.https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_british_isles/1006/thumbnail.jp