Do younger Sleeping Beauties prefer a technological prince?

In this paper we investigate recent Sleeping Beauties cited in patents (SB-SNPRs). We find that the increasing trend of the relative number of SBs stopped around 1998. Moreover, we find that the time lag between the publication year of the SB-SNPRs and their first citation in a patent is becoming shorter in recent years. Our observations also suggest that, on average, in the more recent years SBs are awakened increasingly earlier by a ‘technological prince’ rather than by a ‘scientific prince’. These observations suggest that SBs with technological importance are ‘discovered’ earlier in an application-oriented context. Then, because of this earlier recognized technological relevance, papers may be cited also earlier in a scientific context. Thus early recognized technological relevance may ‘prevent’ papers to become an SB. The scientific impact of Sleeping Beauties is generally not necessarily related to the technological importance of the SBs, as far as measured with number and impact of the citing patents. The analysis of the occurrence of inventor-author relations as well as the citation years of inventor-author patents suggest that the scientific awakening of Sleeping Beauties only rarely occurs by inventor-author self-citation. Merit, Expertise and Measuremen

A Qualitative Investigation of Women Academics' Citation Experiences Through a Marketing Lens

This qualitative research aims to provide a unique angle to examine and contribute to a controversial topic—gender gap in citation. Some research has concluded that women tend to cite themselves less than their male colleagues do, while other research has argued that the gender gap in self-citation does not exist at. This study fills the gap by taking an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach to explore how women academics experience and make decisions of whether to cite themselves or not. The nature of academia requires academic researchers to create and disseminate knowledge. From a marketing perspective, academics are like entrepreneurs because they must generate and market their own work. By investigating the motivations and tensions around self-citation using in-depth interviews, this study also explores female academics’ self-branding strategies and their current career environment in the academy. This study not only serves academics by investigating a mundane but influential aspect of academic life, but also helps non-academic stakeholders, such as policy makers and academic administrators, by providing the language and framework to understand women’s career strategies

Shock and Naturalization : An Inquiry into the Perception of Modernity

In sociology shock is often seen as emblematic of modernity. However, while Benjamin and Simmel famously portray the big city crowd - and by extension modernity itself - as an arena of shock, shock sensations are notable for their absence in depictions of the crowd as well as of modernity as a whole in much contemporary literature. This is evident in depictions involving streets, trains, technology, interpersonal relations, and so forth. Like a natural environment, this modernity is characterized by a pattern of cyclical repetition rather than by the linear pattern of evolution or progress. It is a “naturalized modernity”, in contradistinction to the “shock-modernity” of much classical theory. The overarching aim of this study is to reflect on the meaning of this observation for the theory of modernity. In particular, we are interested in its implications for Benjamin’s theory of modernity. Three tasks stand at the center of our investigation. The first is to explicate and map the “constellations” of shock-modernity and naturalized modernity through the use of a “montage” of “primal scenes” from classical theories of modernity and contemporary literature. Secondly, we will show that each mode of modernity is characterized by its own distinctive dilemmas. This is crucial to bear in mind when discussing the strategies and ideals pursued within each modernity. Thirdly, we will discuss the implications of naturalization for the perception of non-identity, and, by extension, for the critique of myth. Special emphasis is given to how the relation between shocking and naturalized modernity unfolds in Japanese literature during the half century since the end of the Second World War. I focus on the work of four Japanese writers: Kawabata Yasunari, Abe Kôbô, Murakami Haruki and Murakami Ryû. The reason for choosing these four writers is simple: Kawabata and Abe share a view of modernity as shocking but display contrasting strategies towards the experience of shock - one basically affirming it while the other basically rejects it. Similarly, Murakami Ryû and Murakami Haruki share the view of modernity as naturalized while displaying contrasting strategies towards the experience of naturalization - again one affirming it and one rejecting it

Marvellous Secondary Worlds: A comparative study of C.S. Lewis's Narnia, J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea

Bibliography: pages 156-164.In this thesis, the nature and function of Marvellous Secondary worlds are examined by means of a comparative study of three Marvellous Secondary worlds: C. S. Lewis's Narnia, J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea. We consider the way in which Marvellous Secondary worlds may be used in order to explore certain aspects of reality highly effectively through themes and images characteristic of Marvellous fantasy. In the Introduction, the wide range of Secondary worlds in modern fantasy and the specific functions that Secondary worlds may fulfil is commented on. These analyses are then linked to a discussion of some of the central characteristics of Marvellous Secondary worlds

Modern Arabic Science Fiction: Science, Society and Religion in Selected Texts

Abstract This thesis examines a selection of original SF or SF-inflected texts written in Arabic from the 1960s to the present day. It is a thematic study, considering their presentation of and attitudes to science and technology, utopias and ideal societies and religion. Although some critics attempt to figure SF as a continuation of the Thousand and One Nights fantastical tradition and the mirabile literature of the Middle Ages, Arabic science fiction, as an essentially modern genre, traces its earliest origins to the late 1950s in Egypt. It has experienced several sudden efflorescences during the following decades in the texts of a handful of authors, most of whom are Egyptian. In the past ten years, following a 2006 seminal essay by Iraqi-German engineer and SF critic Achmed Khammas on “The Almost Complete Lack of the Element of ‘Futureness’”, media and academic interest in Arabic science fiction has burgeoned, with both established (Ahmed Khalid Towfik) and new (Noura Noman) authors publishing in the genre in the past five years. In light of the relative lack of criticism of the Arabic corpus, this thesis seeks to begin the project of conducting a full critical study through a reading of selected texts from the 1960s to the present day, the majority of which have not previously been translated into English. The approach taken is broadly sociological, examining the texts in the light of three themes outlined above – science, ideal societies and the treatment of religion - that frequently frame SF criticism in English

Johnson, nature, and women : the early years

Critics enamoured of James Boswell's Life of Johnson have too frequently overlooked the empathy Samuel Johnson's work reveals toward women and other creatures of nature caught in the patriarchal web of eighteenth century domination. This dissertation focuses on Johnson's youthful poetry beginning with his earliest verse, "On a Daffodill," and concluding with London, his first major poem. These selections reveal his inability to resolve his role as a functioning male in a repressive society which discourages his desire for direct and nurturing relationships with women and nature that deal, not with heroic abstractions, but with personal involvement

Legendary Days – a novel, and the Aspects of Geek Culture in Fiction

This Creative and Critical Writing PhD thesis explores the dialogue between fiction and geek culture. It seeks to understand the definitions and uses of the terms ‘geek’, ‘nerd’ and ‘otaku’ over time. I look for points of commonality and how they have been used in texts since the seventeenth century. After this initial exploration, I move to a close reading of three novels that are representative of geek culture. These texts comment on geek culture though they do not belong to genres traditionally associated with it, such as fantasy or science fiction. Junot Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao makes extensive use of footnotes, intertextuality and hypertextuality. Douglas Coupland’s Microserfs explores the influence of technology, tries to define geeks and nerds, plays with form and language, and touches on the subject of posthumanity. Meanwhile, Nakano Hitori’s Train Man, which began life as a collective online message board thread, challenges common tenants of fiction, especially that of authorship and form. The novels, in the order in which they are discussed, move from the traditional to the innovative. They pose questions about the way in which geek culture interacts with fiction, how this influence plays out in terms of theme, characterisation, format, and the reading experience. Finally, these novels also interrogate ways geek culture might help us understand the future of fiction writing. Both thesis and novel were designed with the idea of ‘play’ in mind, with particular reference to games, flexibility and contestation. The creative element of this thesis, Legendary Days, is a geeky novel about saving memories. The protagonist, after loosing his father, writes down his own memories in a narrative that plays with geek culture and related themes. It follows the same character in three different times and contexts, while also allowing for several intertextual intromissions throughout the text

Morphing Myths and Shedding Skins: Interconnectivity and the Subversion of the Isolated Female Self in Angela Carter’s “The Tiger’s Bride” and Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

This project is an analysis of the utilization of mythmaking and human-animal relationships reflected in Angela Carter’s “The Tiger’s Bride” and Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing. Carter and Atwood show how societal restrictions can devalue the connections between the body, the mind, and the natural world. Through the theoretical lenses of primarily post-structuralism and ecofeminism, this project seeks to show how these two authors subvert isolated female identities through the use of the fairy tale element of the human-animal transformation. This subversion rejects dualistic tendencies of the dominant, patriarchal society, opening new ways of identifying the self through interconnections otherwise rejected or ignored out of the fear of encountering otherness. The formation of relational selves encourages both the communication with entities beyond the human realm and also the engagement in creative deconstruction that helps establish fluidity. Through their innovative uses of language, Carter and Atwood portray a movement away from normative society towards an ambiguity that promotes diversified multiplicity

A return to 'the great variety of readers’: the history and future of reading Shakespeare

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University LondonFor almost a century Shakespeare’s work has been viewed primarily under a supremacy of performance with an insistence that Shakespeare wrote his work to be staged, not read. This prevailing view has ensured that most responses in Shakespearean research fit within this line of enquiry. The recent argument that Shakespeare was a literary dramatist who wrote for readers—as well as audiences—has met with resistance. This thesis first exposes the very literate world Shakespeare lived in and his own perception of that world, which embraces a writer who wrote for readers. The material evidence of readers begins in Shakespeare’s own lifetime and grows steadily, evidenced by the editorial methods used to facilitate reading, the profusion of books specifically for readers of general interest, and the thousands of lay reading circles formed to enjoy and study the plays. Readers of the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries are shown to have spontaneously responded to the works as literature, as reading Shakespeare aloud within a family or social circle has a tenacious history. For three hundred years after Shakespeare’s death it was readers and Shakespeare reading groups who created and maintained Shakespeare’s legacy as a literary icon and national hero. The history of millions of lay readers reading aloud in community was engulfed by the transition of the texts into academia and performance criticism until by the 1940s Shakespeare reading groups were virtually non-existent. A new genre of editorial practice can support a re-emergence of community reading and point toward a greater acceptance of Shakespeare as a literary dramatist, enlarging the field of Shakespearean scholarship and criticism. A prototype of a Readers’ Edition of a Shakespearean play specifically edited and designed for reading aloud in groups is included with this thesis