The Sublime as Model: Formal Complexity in Joyce, Eisenstein and Stockhausen

The Sublime as Model: Formal Complexity in Joyce, Eisenstein and Stockhausen, undertakes an investigation of three paradigmatic late-modernist works in three mediums James Joyces novel, Finnegans Wake, Sergei Eisensteins film, Ivan the Terrible I & II, and Karlheinz Stockhausens orchestral work, Gruppen for Three Orchestras with an aim to demonstrating cross-media similarities, and establishing a model for examining their most salient trait: formal complexity. This model is based on a reading of the Kantian mathematical sublime as found in his Critique of the Power of Judgment, as well as borrowing vocabulary from phenomenology, particularly that of Edmund Husserl. After establishing a critical vocabulary based around an analysis of the mathematical sublime and a survey of the phenomenology of Husserl and Heidegger, the dissertation investigates each of the three works and many of their attendant critical works with an aim to illuminate the ways in which their formal complexity can be described, how this type of complexity is particular to late-modernism in general, and these works in particular, and what conclusions can be drawn about the structure and meaning of the works and the critical analyses they accrue. Much of this analysis fits into the rubric of the meta-critical, and there is a strong focus on critical surveys, as the dissertation attempts to provide cross-media models for critical vocabulary, and drawing many examples from extant criticism. The dissertation concludes with reflections on the concept of models for criticism, their construction and their value

Sustainable Poetry: Four American Ecopoets

Focusing on the work of A.R. Ammons, Wendell Berry, W.S. Merwin, and Gary Snyder, author Leonard Scigaj shows that just as a sustainable society does not depreciate its resource base, so a sustainable poetry does not restrict interest to language. Over the past thirty years many poets have shown an increasing sensitivity to ecological thinking. But critics trained in poststructuralist language theory often fail to explore the substance of ecopoetry. Scigaj is the first to define ecopoetry as separate and distinct from nature or environmental poetry, marked by its concern with balancing the interests of human beings with the needs of nature. Just as science learned that the earth was not the center of the universe, ecopoetry insists on the recognition that humans are not at the center of the natural world. The first book to treat the US’s four foremost ecopoets as ecopoets. -- Choice Scigaj uses his examination of contemporary ecological poetry to mount a direct assault on the way literary theory has been conducted over the past twenty years. -- Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment Will join John Elder\u27s Imagining the Earth as the most important contribution to date to the study of contemporary ecopoetry. -- Lawrence Buell A rich context for our understading the work and persons of A.R. Ammons, Wendell Berry, W.S. Merwin, and Gary Snyder, four outstanding American poets. -- Psychological Reports Anyone who things that nature poetry is a leftover mode from a bygone era, or that all nature poets are alike, needs to read this book before we have no nature left. -- Virginia Quarterly Review Urges readers to distinguish between two kinds of poetry in order to set the stage for an epic intellectual and aesthetic battle. -- Western American Literaturehttps://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_english_language_and_literature_north_america/1001/thumbnail.jp

Soundscape and social relationships in urban public spaces

‘Soundscape’ is defined as the acoustic environment as perceived or experienced and/ or understood in context by a person or people. In the context of urban public spaces, activities can be varied among different social relationship groups which might influence their requirements for soundscape. Four studies were carried out in urban public squares of Suzhou, China, and Sheffield and London, UK to explore the mechanism between soundscape and social relationships. Behavioural observations (study 1) and interviews with Grounded Theory (study 2) were used to explore types of relationship in relation to their patterns of use and the public’s perceptual structure of soundscape in urban public spaces. A questionnaire (study 3) then investigated how companion factors, compared with other demographic factors, influence soundscape evaluation. Finally, study 4 used survey and observations to explore how social willingness levels of various social relationship types might be enhanced through soundscape design. Three types of social relationship were categorized and ranked by relationship intensities: Intimate Pair, Intimate Group and Social Group. People with closer relationships participate multiple activities at once and involve more social interactions. Grounded Theory generated four elements of soundscape, which form a three- level process: sound classifications- sound appraisals (sound features and psychological reactions)- and judgment (sound preferences). Companion factors were suggested to influence soundscape evaluations comparing to other demographic factors: closer groups tended to evaluate socially interactive sounds more positively. Human sounds and event sounds, as two kinds of socially interactive sounds, were both found to stimulate social willingness while event sounds negatively affect soundscape suitability. A balance between suitability and stimulation should be achieved to enhance sociability, especially for closer groups. Results from this study give guidance for future urban public soundscape research addressing sound preferences of various relationship types. This study included a limited choice of urban public spaces and cities, and social relationships were limited to relationship intensities. Future research should consider methods such as face recognition and deep learning to more-efficiently recognize relationship types and sociability of urban public spaces

Less realism : more meaning : evaluating imagery for the graphic designer

Typography\u27 as a defining term has become interchangcable with \u27graphic design\u27. and while font choice and application is seen as of paramount importance. image choice, virtually half , . of the communication design equation, is neglected in the theory and in pratice is left to the instinct of the designer. In this thesis I try to find approaches for graphic designers to understand image to the degree that they understand type. These approaches are tested through assignments for graphic design students and the results recorded and analysed. I seek to address the paradox that we are able to communicate more accurately through less accurately rendered images. I will explain how the human visual system. evolved over time by looking only upon the natural world in all its reality. can look upon a stick-figure and make an emotional and intellectual connection. I examine the design implications of this strange faculty of the visual system. Gombrich. Arnheim and others have explored realism in, and applied psychology to, art in order to become better art historians. I explore the implications in the more pragmatic. economically imperative field of design of moving away from realism in the visual aspects of communication

Confronting the retranslation hypothesis: Flaubert and Sand in the British literary system

The phenomenon of retranslation (the repeated translation of a given work into a given target language) is widespread in practice, and yet its motivations remain relatively underexplored. One very prevalent justification for this repetitive act is encapsulated in the work of Antoine Berman who claims that an initial translation is necessarily 'aveugle et hésitante' (1990: 5), while retranslation alone can ensure 'la « révélation » dřune oeuvre étrangère dans son être propre à la culture réceptrice' (1995: 57). This dynamic from deficient initial translation to accomplished retranslation has been consolidated into the Retranslation Hypothesis, namely that 'later translations tend to be closer to the source text' (Chesterman, 2004: 8, my emphasis). In order to investigate the validity of the hypothesis, this thesis undertakes a case study of the British retranslations of Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Sand's La Mare au diable. A methodology is proposed which allows the key notion of closeness to be measured on both a linguistic and a cultural axis. Given Flaubert's famous insistence on 'le mot juste', Madame Bovary serves as a basis for an examination of linguistic closeness which is guided by narratology and stylistics, and underpinned by Halliday's (2004) Systemic Functional Grammar. On the other hand, Sand's ethnographical concerns facilitate a study of cultural closeness: here, narrativity (Baker, 2006) informs an analysis of how Berrichon cultural identity is mediated through retranslation. In both cases, the thesis draws on paratextual material (Genette, 1987) such as prefaces and advertisements, and on extra-textual material, namely journal articles and reviews, in order to locate specific socio-cultural influences on retranslation, as well as highlighting the type and extent of interactions between the retranslations themselves. Ultimately, this thesis argues that the Retranslation Hypothesis is untenable when confronted with the polymorphous behaviour of retranslation, both within and without the text

Exploring Academic Reading: Mediumship, Intuition and the Academy

The thesis is concerned with experiences of reading academically, and explores ways in which intuitive techniques, including ones derived from practices of mediumship, can be used as tools to experience reading. The thesis is rooted in my experiences of reading and writing in the academic context, but it is hoped that the theoretical discussion and empirical explorations will have wider resonances. The thesis has two parts. In the first, theoretical section I look at attempts to understand mediumship and, more generally, experiences of the paranormal, and aim to develop a theoretical understanding of intuition which both underpins the empirical part of the thesis and offers methods to use empirically. My theoretical understanding of intuition evolves from dissatisfaction with some attempts to explain mediumship, which appear to be based on a binary division between the objective and subjective. I use theories from Husserlian phenomenology, particularly Gendlin’s ideas, to develop a body-based phenomenological approach to intuition. Ideas from recent discussions of free association and psychoanalysis, specifically Bollas, Barrett, Lothane and (particularly) Totton also contribute, as does Lecercle’s notion, rooted in Deleuze’s philosophy of language, of délire. In the empirical part of the thesis I explore intuitive (understood in the theoretical context briefly outlined above) practices as applied to reading academic texts. Material was collected during six research groups, each themed around a different aspect of intuition and each underpinned theoretically and shaped practically by the literature I explored. In these groups participants took part in a number of exercises designed to use creative and embodied methods to connect with the unconscious and intuition, and to explore different approaches to reading, including relaxation and body awareness, free association, psychometry (‘blind’ reading of texts), focusing and the felt sense, and collaborative drawing and creative writing. These results are explained, and the implications of the results considered in terms of the theoretical material

Because I am Not Here, Selected Second Life-Based Art Case Studies. Subjectivity, Autoempathy and Virtual World Aesthetics

Second Life is a virtual world accessible through the Internet in which users create objects and spaces, and interact socially through 3D avatars. Certain artists use the platform as a medium for art creation, using the aesthetic, spatial, temporal and technological features of SL as raw material. Code and scripts applied to animate and manipulate objects, avatars and spaces are important in this sense. These artists, their avatars and artwork in SL are at the centre of my research questions: what does virtual existence mean and what is its purpose when stemming from aesthetic exchange in SL? Through a qualitative research method mixing distribute aesthetics, digital art and media theories, the goal is to examine aesthetic exchange in the virtual: subjectivity and identity and their possible shifting patterns as reflected in avatar-artists. A theoretical and methodological emphasis from a media studies perspective is applied to digital media and networks, contributing to the reshaping of our epistemologies of these media, in contrast to the traditional emphasis on communicational aspects. Four case studies, discourse and text analysis, as well as interviews in-world and via email, plus observation while immersed in SL, are used in the collection of data, experiences, objects and narratives from avatars Eva and Franco Mattes, Gazira Babeli, Bryn Oh and China Tracy. The findings confirm the role that aesthetic exchange in virtual worlds has in the rearrangement of ideas and epistemologies on the virtual and networked self. This is reflected by the fact that the artists examined—whether in SL or AL—create and embody avatars from a liminal (ambiguous) modality of identity, subjectivity and interaction. Mythopoeia (narrative creation) and experiencing oneself as ‘another’ through multiplied identity and subjectivity are the outcomes of code performance and machinima (films created in-world). They constitute a modus operandi (syntax) in which episteme, techne and embodiment work in symbiosis with those of the machine, affected by the synthetic nature of code and liminality in SL. The combined perspective from media studies and distribute aesthetics proves to be an effective method for studying these subjects, contributing to the discussion of contemporary virtual worlds and art theories

The role of image in the promotion of a region as a visitor destination.

This research examines the role of image in the promotion of a geographical region as a visitor destination. The inter-relationship between tourism and image was focused upon from both the potential visitor's perspective and the viewpoint of the promoter. Using the Grampian region in the North East of Scotland as a case study, visitors and non-visitors to the area were surveyed to ascertain their image of Grampian, how that image was formed and the perceived role of image in destination selection. Although the importance of non-visitors to a destination has previously been recognised, an appropriate methodology has not been developed by other researchers. The significance of image to the promoters of a destination was examined through interviews with members of the industry, analysis of brochures and of policy documents. This revealed a significant lack of co-ordination throughout the industry which hindered effective image promotion. The empirical research was considered against a number of theoretical perspectives, which have been developed to assess tourist motivations and destination selection, but which have previously provided little or no weighting to the role of image. A conceptual framework for the decision-making process of destination selection was developed through the case study. The research suggests that the possession of a clear image is the most significant factor in destination selection due to its inseparable link with other factors, such as past experience of a potential destination and experiences of other destinations. By identifying the significance of experience on image formation, the importance of image promotion is also highlighted. However, there is a lack of significance attached to image in the promotion of a destination, mainly due to problems associated with effectiveness measurement. The research also highlights the problems of developing a promotional image for geographically and economically diverse regions and raises questions regarding the unit areas presently used in the promotion of Scotland