Henry James, Sr. and the American experience.

In this biography, I have endeavored to discuss Henry James, Sr.'s career, his responses to the transformations--both social and personal--which marked his age and touched his life. I have tried to analyze the ideas that comprised the system he labeled "society the redeemed form of man, " to discuss his impact on his family, and to discern the similarities and differences between his own experiences and those of other Americans. The first two chapters focus on the development of James' life and the progression of his works, the third chapter concentrates on his ideas and the final two chapters depict his familial relationships and his role as a symbolic American.Henry James, Sr.'s experiences were those of incessant transformations. During his lifetime, which spanned the major portion of the nineteenth century, he witnessed the immense changes that affected American society, underwent an evolution in his own life from a young man of scholarly and theological ambitions to a crusader for a "redeemed" society, and observed the development of his two eldest sons, William and Henry, from precocious infants and inquisitive adolescents to writers of international repute

COLONIAL EDUCATION AND CARIBBEAN LITERATURE IN C.L.R. JAMES AND GEORGE LAMMING

Caribbean Literature is credited with the purpose of writing an existence for the people of the West Indies, or the Caribbean, with an identity outside of colonialism. The seminal novels by pivotal writers of the Caribbean such as C.L.R. James and George Lamming are groundbreaking texts that engage with the histories of Caribbean colonial subjects. These writers’ (among others) colonial educations are the foundation for their exiled writing and subsequent resistance to colonial education and antiblackness it spawns and fosters. In the Anglophone Caribbean, it is British colonial education that is the catalyst for this exile. This text explores the role of British colonial education in the exile of these writers, and what exile means for resistance. In that resistance, there is considerable evidence to suggest that the role of exile is gendered. Some women who were conditioned with British colonial educations prior to their immigration the United States were interviewed and their stories were analyzed through theories of exile, gendered resistance, and antiblackness

Menorah Review (No. 44, Fall, 1998)

When Bad Things Happen to Anyone: Venturing East of Uz -- The Meandering Muse -- A New Jewry: Promise or Threat? -- Synagogue and State -- Theology, Justice and Memory After the Holocaust -- Book Listing -- Book Briefing

Biological Inheritance and the Social Order in Late-Victorian Fiction and Science

This dissertation investigates the heightened interest in heredity as a biological inheritance that arises after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and how this interest intersects with concerns about class mobility and the shifting social order. Within this framework, this project considers how heredity became a means of organizing and regulating bodies in keeping with what Michel Foucault terms bio-power. It unearths the cultural work within literary and scientific writings as they respond to narratives of self-help and self-improvement by imagining heredity as a means of stabilizing the social order, and by extension the nation, at the very moment that it was undergoing significant change. This project highlights the shared ideological concerns behind both literary and scientific narratives. This study begins by examining Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret for how this sensation novel, published so soon after Origin reflects the tension between hereditary determination and the figure of the self-made man. The second chapter on George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda explores the limits and possibilities of biological inheritance as expressed within the confines of the realist novel. The third chapter turns to Francis Galton’s work on heredity, exploring how his scientific research and program of eugenics are underscored by a desire to develop a narrative for British progress. The final chapter focuses on two eugenic romance novels—Ménie Muriel Dowie’s Gallia and Grant Allen’s A Splendid Sin—that reflect how biopolitical concerns enter the domestic space by transposing biological inheritance onto the framework of financial inheritance

The discourse of working-class self-education in Victorian narrative

The purpose of this study was to examine the ways in which working-class subjects were constituted by the cultural practices of education in Victorian England, the ways in which working-class subjects resisted and attempted to appropriate such hegemonic constructions, and the ways in which the terms of this struggle were defined in literary representations of self-educated working-class individuals by middle-class authors. In Victorian Britain, formal education of the working poor tended to consist of just those skills they might need to be effective industrial workers. By so narrowly defining the content of education, the educational system participated in a form of social control. But there is an imbalance within the concept of education itself which becomes evident when individuals acquire education for themselves outside the boundaries of authorized channels, to aspire to an educational level denied to them by the social, political, and economic status quo. This situation is represented in fiction about the working-class autodidact in Victorian England. These representations articulate the agendas of the self-educated who attempt to resist their exclusion from power as well as the agendas of the dominant discourse which struggles to defend its position. These narratives present characters who attempt to create subject positions through which they can define themselves and assign a value to their lives and experience that is not automatically granted to them by their society. In other words, they attempt to enter the discourse of power from which they are traditionally excluded. In response, authors of fiction (mostly middle-class authors) create characters who make this attempt of self-fashioning in order to critique the very possibility and advisability of discursive appropriation by the disenfranchised. Quite often, these fictional narratives reinscribe the social boundaries and limitations of the project of self-fashioning, even if they do so with a reformist agenda. This study looked at the autobiographies of working-class autodidacts, Thomas Carter, William Lovett, and Thomas Cooper, as well as the social-problem fiction of Charles Kingsley (Alton Locke) and George Eliot (Felix Holt, the Radical) to examine the ideological underpinnings of these representations of working-class autodidacts

Cultural Transmission in the Age of Modernism: Mentorship in the Novel, 1890--1960

Cultural Transmission in the Age of Modernism: Mentorship in the Novel, 1890-1960 considers how education reform impacted modernist questions about the transmissibility of culture. Beginning with the institutionalization of universal education in the late nineteenth century and ending with the nationalization of education in the immediately postwar period, this dissertation considers specifically the relationship between educational policy and the possibility of institutional cultural transmission. Focusing on the novelists Thomas Hardy, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, and Muriel Spark, I suggest that modernist-era writers were concerned as to whether or not Oxbridge could: or should) preserve and transmit the version of liberal-humane culture that had long been associated with the universities. Beginning to doubt whether the experience of education accurately reflected a transmissible culture at all, these writers articulate the difficulty in handing down culture by turning to unforgiving depictions of the figure historically tasked with cultural preservation: the mentor. Since mentors traditionally encouraged personal achievement through the affirmation of particular cultural values and traditions, they effectively represent the culture they are intended to impart; the incremental failure of mentorship in the novel thus indicates an increasing sense that culture can no longer be passed on

Careers Patterns in Greek Academia: Social Capital and Intelligent Careers, but for Whom?

International audiencePurpose: To develop a comprehensive account for careers within the Greek academic system. Historical, cultural and geographical features of the country have created a unique context that has shaped the way academic careers evolve. Design/methodology/approach: The primary methods of data collection were retrospective participant observation and discussions in interview form with individuals who have had various types of experience with the Greek Higher Education system. Findings: The major factor that shapes careers in Greek academia is social capital or Know-whom that operates within a broader cultural environment where institutional collectivism is extremely low, the in-group - out-group distinction is a major element, and political party affiliation plays a key role in everyday affairs. As a result academic careers in Greece are almost exclusively determined by membership, a priory or earned, to an "in-group" that is linked via blood, family friendship, business and political party ties. This "in-group" uses its social capital to control academic careers across all stages for the benefit of its members. Research limitations/implications: There are method limitations, but relevant concerns were largely alleviated by precautionary measures and the way data were utilized. Ethnography may be the most appropriate method to disentangle the way networks and social capital impact careers. Practical implications: Achieving substantive change, such as increasing meritocracy, within a sector may be impossible without considering the broader cultural context that encapsulates it. Originality/value: The study is amongst the very first to unveil the "dark side" of social capital, and show how social capital may benefit the interests of in-groups at the expense of the collective.Objectif : développer un compte-rendu complet des carrières au sein du système scolaire grec. Les caractéristiques historiques, culturelles et géographiques du pays ont créé un contexte unique qui a façonné la manière dont les carrières universitaires évoluent. Conception / méthodologie / approche : les principales méthodes de collecte de données sont l'observation participante rétrospective, ainsi que des discussions sous forme d'interview avec des personnes qui ont eu différents types d'expérience au sein du système d'enseignement supérieur grec. Conclusions : le principal facteur qui façonne la carrière dans le milieu universitaire grec est le capital social ou le "connaître-qui", à l'oeuvre dans un environnement culturel plus large où le collectivisme institutionnel est extrêmement faible, la distinction "en-groupe" - "hors-groupe" est un élément important, et l'appartenance à un parti politique joue un rôle-clé dans la vie quotidienne. En conséquence, les carrières universitaires en Grèce sont presque exclusivement déterminées par l'affiliation, a priori ou acquise, à un "en groupe", lié par le sang, les relations familiales et amicales, les affaires et l'appartenance à un parti politique. Cet "en groupe" utilise son capital social pour contrôler les carrières universitaires, à toutes les étapes et au bénéfice de ses membres. Limites de la recherche / implications : des limites méthodologiques existent, mais elles ont été largement atténués par des mesures de précaution et par l'usage effectif des données. L'ethnographie est peut-être la méthode la plus appropriée pour démêler la façon dont les réseaux et le capital social influent sur les carrières. Implications pratiques : parvenir à un changement substantiel dans un secteur particulier, par une méritocratie accrue, semble impossible sans tenir compte du contexte culturel plus large de ce secteur. Originalité / valeur : cette étude est parmi les premières à dévoiler le "côté sombre" du capital social, et montre comment le capital social peut servir les intérêts des "en-groupes", au détriment du collectif

The spirit of cleavage : pedagogy, gender, and reform in early nineteenth-century British women's fiction

By the end of the eighteenth century, women's education had become a topic of serious cultural debate. In my dissertation I examine the ways in which six early nineteenth-century noncanonical British women novelists--Eliza Fenwick, Mary Hays, Amelia Opie, Hannah More, Sydney Owenson, and Mary Brunton--attempt to reconstruct culturally dominant gender representations through their discourse on education. More pointedly, I measure the possible efficacy of these reformist efforts in light of the political and cultural forces and conditions which demand their suppression or co-option. My analysis suggests that these writers were accomplished readers of the polemics and politics of their period, creatively appropriating turn-of-the-century intellectual and philosophical debates and constructing an alternative history through their fictions. Far from homogeneous in their responses to the cultural text of their era, these women and their fictions are marked by differences in politics, nationality, class, and religion, yet they all attempt to transform female pedagogical practices and dominant gender constructions through an appeal to balance and reconciliation. For disparate reasons, these novels defy customary, binary constructions of complementary sex-based schooling by revalorizing or rewriting culturally prevalent notions of a properly feminine education in the decorative accomplishments and arguing for women's access to masculine, rational pedagogy in both form and content. Because education plays a pivotal role in the ideological construction of gender, in envisioning a comprehensive alternative mode of female instruction which reconciles the masculine and feminine, these novelists also construct an alternative gender representation for the early nineteenth-century woman, a vision of gender parity which translates into expanded opportunity, cultural agency, and socio-political significance for British women. In challenging dominant notions of rationality, furthermore, these novelists also rewrite conventional terms of cultural cohesion in an attempt to augment communal benefits and individual happiness. Such efforts, however, are qualified by the author's limited concern with reconstructing gender through education for the turn-of-the-century male, as well as by the shift in the underlying logic for these educational and gender reforms from a matter of rights to one of religion, a transition which gradually lends to an appropriation of these disruptive efforts by the dominant order. Nevertheless, through their discourse on education these women breach any illusions of social consensus and stability, thereby creating the fissure, the opening, the "spirit of cleavage" in the cultural fabric that remains to disrupt dominant prescriptions throughout the nineteenth century. By choosing education as their point of intervention, these six writers adopt the position of the intellectual, a primary site of opposition that helps clear a space from which to gain the perspective, resistance, and mobility necessary to begin to envision and effect lasting, far-reaching cultural change

Exploring the benefits and challenges of embedded innovation : multiple cases from Jordanian mobile telecoms

This research offers a framework of embedded innovation systems (EIS) that helps understand the mechanisms, drivers, and challenges that encounter multinational mobile telecoms while developing and deploying their services based on this system. Using a case evidence, a purposive sample of Innovation, Marketing, Finance, and Operation executives has been selected. Based on evidence from the three multinational telecoms in Jordan, a case study with multiple units of analysis is presented. Focus groups is the second source of data collection to understand the discourse between the telecoms’ customers and the operators on how service innovation is designed and implemented. The embedded Innovation literature pointed out key models of innovation systems such as Open, Inclusive, Quadrable Helix, Organisational Ambidexterity, and Regional Innovation Support. A proposed conceptual model has been mixed with the firm-level innovation to grasp the advantages of all these models and draw a systemic view of embedded innovation system at the firm-level. Normative Theories of Innovation and the Theory of Innovation Diffusion have been also considered in the proposed model to advance it to a theoretical framework. Using thematic analysis, three categories of findings have been interpreted and classified. The first, conveys the mechanisms of embedded innovation systems. This theme refers to innovation support system, production environment, R&D infrastructure and policies, and internal factors. The second theme conveys the drivers for Jordanian telecoms to develop EIS, including diversified markets (e.g. fintech industry) for a higher level of competitive advantage, simulating intellectual capital, and creating social innovation initiatives. The third theme conveys the challenges of developing EIS, including lack of customer’s trust, managing innovation change, and lack of customer co-creation policy.The present study offers a contribution to knowledge by theorizing EIS as a systemic firm-level innovation that Simanis & Hart (2008) claimed missing. It also offers an advancement for the regional innovation firm-level innovation developed by Hassink (2001) where telecoms service innovation is the context not a standard line of production. The theory building process followed in this study uncovered new relationships between the intellectual capital, and innovation change management. It also emphasised on the role of customer trust during the design, implementation, and deployment of EIS. At the practical level, this study offers a systemic guide for telecoms professionals to understand the key success factors of EIS systems and know how to face the obstacles they encounter when involving the wider stakeholders of the Jordanian telecoms in this system