Composition portfolio

PhD ThesisThis portfolio of compositions, prose and critical contextualisation is a practice-led PhD that incorporates site-specific field recording practice and electroacoustics into post-techno music production. Combining psychogeographical strategies and phonographic practices to investigate the production of a poetry of place within a rapidly gentrifying city, it also includes poetry and fiction written within the urban and architectural context of Newcastle upon Tyne from 2008 to 2012. An interactive city-wide art installation called Surrogate City brought these elements together during 2012 and is documented here. Straddling the cleft between rhythm, literature and place, this thesis draws on the writings of 20th century Irish writer James Joyce and contemporary African-American poet Nathaniel Mackey among others to quarry and sound out a particular relationship between music and writing centered around ideas of rhythm, meter and beats, specifically with regards to concepts of slippage and swing. An album of electronic music called Glyphic Bloom constructed from field recordings and experiments in beat programming is the fulcrum on which this practice-led research rests

Living in the navel of Waag: ritual traditions among the Daasanech of South West Ethiopia

“Living in the navel of Waag” offers a ideal typical description of the different ritual traditions among the Daasanech of South-West Ethiopia with special focus on the ways the body is modified. Ritual is seen as a means to induce wellbeing and to tackle misfortune. The dissertation starts with a brief situating of the Daasanech in their environmental and historical context. Chapter two an outline of the different social categories a Daasanech is born into or requires during his life. Special attention is given to the explanation of the generation system and the system of alternating generations called dolo. Chapter 3 deals with the notion of Waag, the source of rain and wellbeing, the role of the ancestors and the concept of sidha or pulse. The next chapter explains the different rites of passage a Daasanech passes through from birth to death. The two main rituals, male circumcision (bilte) and the blessing of the girls (‘dimi) are described, as well as the different steps a marriage takes and several other smaller rituals.. The last chapter deals with the ways the traditional Daasanech explain affliction and misfortune and how they deal with it. In this chapter, different notions such as curse, moral pollution and healing are introduced and explained

Motility-induced phases: out-of-equilibrium droplets, surfaces, and survival

Active matter represents a unique kind of out-of-equilibrium matter that is endowed with motility, the ability of each individual unit to move according to its own self-propulsion force. Objects of study in active matter include entities like birds and cells, which become particularly interesting at scales larger than the individuals, where we find emergent collective behavior like flocking and morphogenetic self-organization, respectively. One can study both microscopic and macroscopic behaviors of these particles using theory, simulation, and experiment, but largescale simulations are critically important to understanding some of the underlying statistical mechanical properties of active matter. Motility-induced phase separation (MIPS) is a unique example of out-of-equilibrium emergent behavior, in which a fluid of active particles with repulsive-only interactions use their motility to spontaneously separate into coexisting dense and dilute phases. In this emergent collective behavior, particles nucleate stable clusters that eventually coarsen and coalesce into system-spanning bulk phases that stabilize in a steady state, much like nucle- ation and spinodal decomposition in liquid-gas phase coexistence. This dissertation covers the work I have done studying the fundamental physics of MIPS. The spontaneous aggregation of MIPS results from the random and uncoordinated ef- forts of many particles that are driven by non-Markovian, randomized forces at the level of individual units. Building off of ideas of classical Brownian motion, in this thesis I first review some basics of Langevin dynamics and the Fluctuation-Dissipation Theorem (FDT) in order to describe how run-and-tumble particles (RTPs) and active Brownian particles (ABPs) break from equilibrium by utilizing their short-time ballistic motion, which becomes diffusive on long timescales. I review some continuum descriptions that provide an effective equilibrium picture of MIPS as well as experimentally engineered synthetic systems that exhibit life-like self-assembly and mesoscopic clustering. My work studying MIPS has relied on simulations of large ensembles of Active Brownian Particles (ABPs). Using these, I can directly measuring quantities like pressure, surface tension, density, currents, and cluster growth exponents of systems of ABPs. All of these quantities can be compared to continuum models and experiments. As described by the main chapters of this thesis, my work has focused on studying the pressure and kinetics of MIPS, and more recently, its uniquely out-of-equilibrium surface “tension”. Additionally, I have worked in collaboration with biologists to study the self-assembly of a solid-dwelling bacteria, Myxococcus xanthus, whose cells utilize collective behavior to form aggregates known as fruiting bodies. Fruiting bodies are nascent structures that are critical to the survival of M. xanthus colonies, and while bacteria are inherently more complex than ABPs, we have shown that the onset of fruiting body formation is remarkably similar to MIPS at large scales. Overall, this work is part of a larger discussion about the unique out-of-equilibrium nature of MIPS, seeking to answer big questions about universality in living matter

Jesus as shepherd in the gospel of Matthew

The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that Matthew and those who first received and transmitted Matthew's Gospel during the late first century believed that Jesus was the righteous and royal Shepherd-Messiah of Israel, the Son of David. Matthew also believed that Jesus was the true teacher and interpreter of the law who could give definitive leadership and guidance to Israel in the aftermath of the Jewish war. Matthew's Gospel was written sometime during the last quarter of the first century, during the formative period of early Judaism. In this context, Matthew presented Jesus as the defining figure for the future of Israel. Jesus, as the righteous royal shepherd, will provide the authoritative understanding of Judaism and her traditions. Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of David, and fulfils the promises of the Hebrew Scriptures. Therefore, as God's choice, he is the one to be turned to during this time of transition and change. As the Son of God and Messiah, he has been given God’s authority and is personally present with the community to give this guidance. One of the ways the evangelist demonstrates this is in his use of the shepherd metaphor in regard to Jesus. The ancient metaphor of shepherd was an image for leadership in the history of the tradition. The shepherd metaphor was often associated with the spiritual and national leaders in Israel, for example, Moses and David. According to Matthew qualities of this kind of shepherd leadership are now revealed in their fullness in Jesus, the Son of God. Jesus as Shepherd-Messiah is revealed both explicitly and implicitly in Matthew. He is revealed explicitly in the shepherd texts of Matthew and implicitly in the Gospel through the literary and typological correspondences in the history of Israel. The shepherd metaphor has a long history both inside and outside Israel’s tradition. Kings and rulers of many types were referred to as shepherds. In the thesis, the metaphor IS explored in the Ancient Near East generally, the biblical tradition, second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls and Philo. The shepherd metaphor was also used to describe evil, false or abusive rulers and leaders. In Israel's tradition this false shepherd metaphor became especially prominent in the exilic and post-exilic prophets. After the time of the exile, messianic hopes grew. The shepherd metaphor became associated with these messianic expectations. Other relevant texts from Rabbinic Judaism and Greco-Roman sources are also considered. In light of this social and historical background, the intertextual and narrative implications of Matthew's use of the shepherd motif will be investigated in relation to his christological concerns. Finally, the shepherd metaphor as it is applied to 'Jesus as shepherd' is thoroughly examined in regard to the Gospel of Matthew. It is the intention of this thesis therefore to make a contribution concerning Matthew's use of the shepherd metaphor in the wider context of Matthean Christology

Farm Animal Welfare and Sustainability

This thesis is concerned with acknowledging farm animals and their co-presence in the more-than-human space of the livestock farm, and with accounting for them responsibly in sustainability debates. The enrolment of farm animals as actors in political agendas for environmental sustainability, and farm animal welfare suggests that there are new ways of seeing and being with farm animals that permit their relational presence and recognise their subjectivity. Indeed geographers have in recent years acknowledged animals and their relations with humans, and they have begun to recognise the nature of animal subjectivies. However, within the fundamental rethinking of animals that has been provoked by these discussions, I suggest that farm animals have remained relatively invisible. Occupying ethically confusing terrain, farm animals have nonetheless been visible in a set of philosophical positions regarding their moral status, yet these debates present a rather confusing picture in which the farm animal as an individual is conspicuous by its absence. In seeking to redress the invisibility of farm animals within these debates, and recast them in relation to humans and the broader farm ecology, this thesis attempts to set out an epistemological and methodological framework through which farm animals might become visible as individual fleshy beings. Drawing on the concept of agricultural stewardship and new agendas in farm animal welfare science, it makes use of new methodological tools that have emerged in the social sciences to conduct a relational study of the livestock farm; a study in which farm animals themselves participate. It also considers how the divisions that have been constructed between humans, farm animals and the environment can be reconfigured as a more unified political science of the livestock farm.ESR