Towards consequence and collaboration in composition studies: theorizing collaboration after the social turn

This dissertation argues that theories of collaboration in rhetoric and composition studies have for too long relied on social constructionist epistemology to explain what collaboration is and how it works, resulting in a widespread, if not tacit reluctance on the part of instructors to encourage collaboration in the teaching of writing that goes beyond various forms of group work and peer-review. In an attempt to recover and renew the values of collaboration, I suggest that it can be re-conceptualized ethically as a discursive relationship collaborators foster with one another to invent discourse that transgresses and transforms the limits of what individuals are able to articulate alone. Moreover I use the rhetorical canon of invention to explain why social constructionist epistemology is incapable of theorizing collaboration other than as a "style" of doing work. I draw upon the tradition of classical American pragmatism, along with the more contemporary work of language philosopher Donald Davidson and other externalist theorists to theorize the techné of collaboration, which I argue manifests in the habits of dialogue collaborators foster to engage its inventive work. Finally, I explain how such a re-conceptualization of collaboration informs the pedagogical possibilities of post-process composition theory, which has waned in recent years for its lack of pedagogical articulation

Body, pleasure, language and world : a framework for the critical analysis of dance education

This dissertation is a philosophical analysis of the language of dance education. In particular the writer analyses the relation between language and body understanding. The Introduction presents an initial metaphor of consciousness as "world". The dance classroom is characterized as a space for the negotiation of the worlds of the students and teachers. The negotiation is political with unequal distribution of influence over the formation of the classroom world, such negotiation ordinarily favoring the teacher's world. Berger and Luckmann and Rorty are major sources for the analysis. Chapter One relates language to the formation of consciousness. Language functions to prevent us from knowing the world and enables us to come to know the world. Language is characterized as metaphorical, as a set of conflicting languages vying for social ascension and as incorporating a set of dialectical relationships. The individual consciousness is understood to be, at base, socially constructed. Nietzsche, Gadamer, Bakhtin and Jacoby are cited

The Performance of Dialysis Care: Routinization and Adaptation on the Floor

Previous studies of communication in dialysis centers primarily focused on communication between nurses and patients. In this study, ethnographic methods were used to explore the dominant communication performances enacted by dialysis staff members, including registered nurses, patient care technicians, technical aides, a social worker, and a dietitian. Findings suggest a dialectic between extreme routinization of care and continual adaptation. The dominant routine involved repeating the same preparation, treatment, and discharge process 3 shifts per day, thrice weekly for each patient. At the same time, near-constant adjustments to scheduling, coordination of tasks, and problem solving were needed to maintain the performance of repetition. The balancing of this dialectic has significant implications for new staff training and socialization, understanding the role of technology and routine in dialysis and in health care systems more generally, and in further theorizing the role of unbounded communication interactions in health care

Family photos : an exploration of significant exposures

xvii, 199 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm.This hermeneutic inquiry into the significance of family photographs in our personal and public lives explores the relationship between the subject, the photographer and the viewer. The discussion uses the photgraphic oeuvres of the author's paternal grandfather and maternal grandmother as the basis of the exploration. Themes which appear include the following: the represented and projected images of a family within family photos; the significance of gender in the making of snapshots; and, the influence of history and religion upon families. The discussion also includes the relationship between art and photography, art photography and the snapshot genre, the role of women within photography and snapshot photography as a method of visual narrative. The author delves into hermeneutics as an interpretative framework when viewing family photos. Semiotics, and Roland Barthes' Camera Lucida (1981) inform the discussion in addition to Jung's matriarchal consciousness as two alternative frameworks for interpreting family photographs. The study indicates that family photographs are visual artifacts which document and authenticate the lived experiences of the photographer and that they serve as a visual form of life writing. Data from the photographic industry indicates the heavy involvment of women in family photographs which the study links to the marginalised role of the genre. To interpret the significance of the ubiquitous family snapshot involves the hermeneutic circle as the "text" of the photograph involves the inter-textuality of other previously encountered texts

Emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation: exploring e-business entrepreneurship after the dotcom crash

This thesis explores emergent knowledge dynamics in innovation in the context of ebusiness entrepreneurship. Based on a critique of the dialectic interpretation of knowledge dynamics, it forwards a perspective that stresses the creative force of emergence that disrupts existent meanings and produces new potentialities for innovation. It suggests ways of using such a perspective in policy-targeted research. The first part elaborates on the traditional uses of concepts of knowledge in explanations of entrepreneurial innovation and on the need to account for a dynamic perspective on emergent knowledge. The thesis employs work by Deleuze and Guattari as meta-theoretical vehicle to expand the conceptual potential of social representations theory beyond its traditional focus on a dialectic ontology of becoming. It highlights a dynamic which does not exclusively assume conceptual difference as the source of the novel and which allows for patterns of becoming other than the triadic continuity of dialectics. Together, this provides new possibilities for an understanding of knowledge dynamics taking into account both adaptive and creative dynamics of emergence. The empirical part combines thematic analysis of interviews and a focus group with Deleuzian analysis of participant observation to facilitate an exploration of emergent conditions for innovation in a particular milieu of e-business entrepreneurship. The exploration shows how changes in shared evaluative dimensions guided – and constrained – the creation of new concepts. Simultaneously, distinct assemblages arising from novel connections of affect and technology in networks created the conditions of fluidity and ambiguity required for new knowledge: in the aftermath of the dotcom crash, new concepts of network leadership and trust in business interaction were emerging. This study forwards new insights on the study of emergent knowledge dynamics as oscillating between rhizomic opening and dialectic closure. It is in the disruptive encounters between the two that new conditions for innovation can assemble

An Analysis of Design Science Research Adoption in Doctoral Projects in Australia

Contribution in Information Systems (IS) research is a significant concern for authors, reviewers and editors. We argue that the criteria of novelty and utility are insufficient to evaluate the contribution of a research paper. We expand upon Kuhn’s disciplinary matrix of shared commitments to symbolic generalization, exemplars and model/theory as the background to which every contribution is oriented. Cogency or persuasiveness of research is the result of logic, dialectic, rhetoric, and social-institutional argumentation in relation to the disciplinary matrix. We use three examples of published research to illustrate how these elements can be combined to frame research as a contribution in relation to the wider IS field. Lastly we discuss the implications for IS when contribution is understood in relation to a disciplinary matrix

Digital architecture and difference: a theory of ethical transpositions towards nomadic embodiments in digital architecture

This thesis contributes to histories and theories of digital architecture of the past two decades, as it questions the narratives of its novelty. The main argument this thesis puts forward is that a plethora of methodologies, displacing the centrality of the architect from the architectural design process, has folded into the discipline in the process of its rewriting along digital protocols. These steer architecture onto a post-human path. However, while the redefinition of the practice unfolds, it does so epistemically only without redefining the new subject of architecture emerging from these processes, which therefore remains anchored to humanist-modern definitions. This unaccounted-for position, I argue, prevents novelty from emerging. Simultaneously, the thesis unfolds a creative approach – while drawing on nomadic, critical theory concepts, there surfaces an alternative genealogy already underpinning digital methodologies that enable a reconceptualization of novelty framed with difference to be articulated through nomadic digital embodiment. Regarding the first claim, I turn to the narratives as well as to the mechanisms of digital discourse emerging in two modes of production – mathematical and biological – in exploration of the ways perceptions of novelty are articulated: a) through close readings of its narratives as they consolidate into digital architectural theory (Carpo 2011; Lynn 2003, 2012; Terzidis 2006; Migayrou 2004, 2009); b) through an analysis of the two digital methodologies that support these narratives – parametric architecture and biodigital architecture. In parallel, this thesis draws on twentieth-century critical theory and twenty-firstcentury nomadic feminist theory to rethink two thematic topics: difference and subjectivity. Specifically, these are Gilles Deleuze’s non-essentialist, nonrepresentational philosophy of difference (1968, 1980, 1988) and Rosi Braidotti’s nomadic feminist reconceptualization of post-human, nonunitary subjectivity (2006, 2011, 2015). Nomadic feminist theory also informs my methodology. I draw on Rosi Braidotti’s cartographing and transposing (2006, 2011) because they engender a non-dualist approach to research itself that is dynamic and affirmative, insisting on grounding techniques – grounding in subject positions that are nevertheless post-human and nonunitary. This leads to a redefinition of novel digital practices with ethical ones

The development of creative thinking and its educational implications

This dissertation proposes a theory of the development of creative thinking in the context of major psychological, philosophical, and religious perspectives on thinking and human development. This study then suggests some implications of the proposed theory for educational theory and practice. Two aspects of thought are proposed and referred to as qualitative thought and quantitative thought. It is argued that qualitative thought is our most direct experience of reality. Qualitative thought has emotional and intuitive aspects, and it precedes and provides the shaping power or meaningful context for quantitative thought. Quantitative thought is seen as a secondary thought process that defines and delineates experience by dividing it into distinct objects, properties, names, and relationships. This dissertation suggests that qualitative and quantitative thought together comprise creative thought. Creative thought is the most natural form of human thought. Human beings are born with the ability to think qualitatively, and quantitative thinking ability expands rapidly from birth

Carrot or Stick? How Do School Performance Reports Work?

State and federal government espouse school performance reports as a way to promote education reform. Some practicing educators question whether performance reports are effective. While the question of effectiveness deserves study, it accepts the espoused purposes of performance reports at face value, and fails to address the more basic, tacit political and symbolic roles of performance reports. Theories of organization, modern government, and regulation provide a context that helps to clarify these political and symbolic roles. Several performance report and assessment programs in California provide illustrations

Signs of reality - reality of signs. Explorations of a pending revolution in political economy.

This paper explores the interaction between the world of information processes in human society and the non-information dynamics, which the latter set out to understand. This broad topic is approached with a focus on evolutionary political economy: It turns out that progress in this scientific discipline seems to depend crucially on a methodological revolution reframing this above mentioned interplay. The paper consists of three parts. After a brief introduction, which sketches the position of the argument in the current epistemological discourse, part 1 sets out to describe the basic methodological ingredients used by evolutionary political economy to describe the ‘reality’ of socioeconomic dynamics. Part 2 jumps to the world of languages used and proposes a rather radical break with the received apparatus of analytical mathematics used so successfully in sciences studying non-living phenomena. The development of procedural simulation languages should substitute inadequate mathematical formalizations, some examples are provided. Part 3 then returns to ‘reality’ dynamics, but now incorporates the interaction with the information sphere in a small algorithmic model. This model – like the introduction - again makes visible the relationships to earlier research in the field. Instead of a conclusion – several, hopefully innovative ideas are provided in passing, throughout the paper - an epilogue is provided, which tries to indicate the implications of this methodological paper for political practice in face of the current global crisis.Scientific methods, evolutionary political economy, formal languages, ideology