Epic relation : the sacred, history and late modernist aesthetics in Hart Crane, David Jones and Derek Walcott

In order to answer questions about the nature, viability and shape of what would constitute a modernist epic, this thesis explores three very different twentieth century writers, Hart Crane, David Jones and Derek Walcott. Rather than being a narrowly genre based study, however, I argue that in the twentieth century the ‘epic’ mode has become a malleable form with which to explore troubling legacies of history, empire and, to exhibit a dimension of the sacred in modernity. All three poets penned challenging epic poems (The Bridge, The Anathemata and Omeros respectively) in a condition of modernity. Haunted by the ruptures of history, in various ways, Crane, Jones and Walcott attempted to create an aesthetic which seeks cultural reintegration, recovery and reconciliation with the past. I analyse the formal experimental modernist aesthetic of each poet as they are anxiously and sometimes ambivalently influenced by the increasingly dominant institution of a particular form of metropolitan high modernism. This allows for a critique of modernity whilst contextualising a modernist inscription of imperialism. Finally, I show that the spiritual and religious concerns of these writers are essential in the recuperative or compensatory ideals of the epic. I argue that far from being an obsolete and impossible genre, for poets the epic is the very mode which best captures the transitions and conditions of an uneven and unequal modernity. I seek to show how through the trope of place (bridge, city, ruins, sacred sites and island), journey and the sea and other aesthetic devices, Crane, Jones and Walcott attempt to re-enchant emptied and destroyed cultural heritages

Can You Hear Me, Major Tom? Open Issues In Extra-Vehicular Activity Communications

High-reliability organizations (HRO) and organizations in isolated, confined environments (ICE) both operate under conditions where reliability is expected, but do not appear to have similar emphases placed on total reliability, based on a brief survey of the literature. A content analysis searched out a stronger relationship between HRO and ICE. Leadership and team size are hypothesized as differences between HRO and ICE, since the literature appears to show HRO as taking place in larger teams with more distinct hierarchies. This dissertation examined this postulation, based on two sub-hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 is that the error rate of a team\u27s actions is inversely related to the size of the team, based on the distinction between HRO and ICE. Hypothesis 2 is that transformational leaders in ICE reduce the number of human errors compared with transactional leaders, since Bass suggests transformational leaders better inspire their teams to improve. Two datasets were gathered to test these hypotheses. The first, in support of Hypothesis 1, was a meta-synthesis of team literature. The second, in support of Hypothesis 2, were new recordings of extra-vehicular activities (EVAs) from two crews at the University of North Dakota Inflatable Lunar/Martian Analog Habitat (ILMAH). The result for Hypothesis 1 is inconclusive, and the result for Hypothesis 2 was rejected

Telling Our Stories: Exploring the Path Toward Successful Mathematics Degree Attainment at an Under-Resourced Predominantly Black Institution

The under-representation of Blacks in mathematics related professions stems from an American educational system of inequity. Many Black students, including a substantial proportion of those who enroll at Predominantly Black Institutions, attend elementary and secondary schools in under-resourced districts with limited access to quality teachers and rigorous, culturally-relevant instruction that would adequately prepare them for college attainment in mathematics. The primary research question guiding this study was: What are the challenges and opportunities associated with building and sustaining a successful mathematics degree program at an under-resourced Predominantly Black Institution? Concurrently, this interpretive case study examined and documented the experiences of four graduates from one of these programs by means of in-depth phenomenological interviews. The three 60- to 90-minute interviews focused on life history, the college experience, and a reflection on the meaning of that experience. The participants\u27 counternarratives were abstracted into three overarching themes which contributed to persistence and success: (1) people who cared, (2) sense of belonging, and (3) personal agency. The findings and themes from this study suggest that the challenges and opportunities are interconnected, and a successful mathematics degree program relies on the integrity of its community to creatively use its limited resources, and to recruit students and faculty from within to help teach one another and intentionally build a cycle of excellence

Telling Our Stories: Exploring the Path Toward Successful Mathematics Degree Attainment at an Under-Resourced Predominantly Black Institution

The under-representation of Blacks in mathematics related professions stems from an American educational system of inequity. Many Black students, including a substantial proportion of those who enroll at Predominantly Black Institutions, attend elementary and secondary schools in under-resourced districts with limited access to quality teachers and rigorous, culturally-relevant instruction that would adequately prepare them for college attainment in mathematics. The primary research question guiding this study was: What are the challenges and opportunities associated with building and sustaining a successful mathematics degree program at an under-resourced Predominantly Black Institution? Concurrently, this interpretive case study examined and documented the experiences of four graduates from one of these programs by means of in-depth phenomenological interviews. The three 60- to 90-minute interviews focused on life history, the college experience, and a reflection on the meaning of that experience. The participants\u27 counternarratives were abstracted into three overarching themes which contributed to persistence and success: (1) people who cared, (2) sense of belonging, and (3) personal agency. The findings and themes from this study suggest that the challenges and opportunities are interconnected, and a successful mathematics degree program relies on the integrity of its community to creatively use its limited resources, and to recruit students and faculty from within to help teach one another and intentionally build a cycle of excellence

Placing Empire: Travel and the Social Imagination in Imperial Japan

Placing Empire examines the spatial politics of Japanese imperialism through a study of Japanese travel and tourism to Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan between the late nineteenth century and the early 1950s. In a departure from standard histories of Japan, this book shows how debates over the place of colonized lands reshaped the social and spatial imaginary of the modern Japanese nation. In turn, this sociospatial imaginary affected the ways in which colonial difference was conceptualized and enacted. The book thus illuminates how ideas of place became central to the production of new forms of colonial hierarchy as empires around the globe transitioned from an era of territorial acquisition to one of territorial maintenance

Boundary -work in United States psychology: A study of three interdisciplinary programs

Between 1970 and 2000 scientists from three interdisciplinary programs---evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, and chaos theory---contributed to changing U.S. psychology\u27s disciplinary boundaries. These interdisciplinary scientists brought about this change through their conceptual, material, and social practices. Psychologists used boundary-work as a means to control the influx of these various practices. Boundary-work connotes activities that promote scientists\u27 epistemic authority in society. Boundary-work also serves to demarcate a science\u27s particular collection of knowledge from other collections. Through their boundary-work activities, various psychologists resisted some of the practices of these interdisciplinary scientists while making accommodations for other types of practices. These resistances and accommodations illustrate the ways in which psychologists conveyed their epistemic authority and demarcated their discipline\u27s boundaries between these three decades. The purpose of my dissertation is to describe psychologists\u27 boundary-work in reaction to the introduction of these interdisciplinary programs\u27 practices between 1970 and 2000. First, I present an overview of psychology\u27s complex disciplinary boundaries. I then use the history of psychology and sociology of scientific knowledge literature to describe the nature of boundary-work activities. Next, I present the foundational components and a brief history of each interdisciplinary program. Fourth, I outline each program\u27s conceptual, material, and social practices. Lastly, I discuss psychologists\u27 resistances and accommodations to each interdisciplinary program\u27s practices with reference to how they affected psychology\u27s disciplinary boundaries. My results indicate that certain psychologists most often resisted evolutionary psychologists\u27, cognitive scientists\u27, and chaos theorists\u27 conceptual practices. Psychologists\u27 resistances seemed ineffective in preventing these conceptual practices from entering the discipline and did not stop other psychologists from using them. Accommodations occurred for all types of practices for all three programs, indicating that psychology\u27s disciplinary boundaries are relatively permeable. I argue that psychologists made accommodations for these practices to increase their epistemic authority within the scientific community and throughout society. Finally, I discuss the advantages of writing psychology\u27s history through an examination of psychologists\u27 boundary-work

Infometrics : history ans trends

Numa releitura da história das metrias da informação em todas suas variantes, o presente Capítulo resgata a contribuição de numerosos pesquisadores da Ïndia, bem como da Europa Oriental e da antiga União Soviética, estes últimos notadamente no domínio da cientometria. O Interesse pelos estudos infométricos no Brasil, e mais particularmente pela bibliometria, nos anos 70-80 do passado século, experimentou posteriormente um declínio significativo, para renascer com nova pujança nos últimos anos, emnumerosas aplicações. A intenção deste longo Capítulo é mostrar, com o auxílio de exemplos concretos, a variedade de aplicações das metrias da informação e, o que é mais importante, ―como fazer‖. Sob uma variedade de nomes – bibliometria, infometria, cientometria, webmetria, etc. – as técnicas infométricas abrem à ciência da informação um brilhante leque de aplicações nos procesos informacionais de representação, organização, gestão, recuperação, planejamento, inferência, tomada de decisão, competitividade, inovação, e todos os desdobramentos políticos, sociais, econômicos, educativos e culturais.In a new reading of the history of infometrics in its whole variety, this Capter uncovers the contribution of a number of Indian, as well as East-European and Russian researchers, the last ones mainly in the domain of scientometrics. The interest, in Brazil, on infometrics, and more precisely in bibliometrics, in the decades of the s seventies and eighties of the last century suffered later on a significant decrease by a recent and strong revival in numerous issues. Special attention is paid in this lon Chapter to show, with the support of numerous examples, to the diversity of infometrics uses and, more important, to ―how to do it‖.Under a variety of names – bibliometrics, infometrics, scientometrics, webmetrics, and so one – infometrics opens a wide and briklliant diversity of actual applications in information recording, organizining, managing, processing, retrieving, forecasting, innovating, decision-making, as well as founding social, economic, cuktural and educationa policies