Spirits, iconoclasts and the borders of the market in urban Vietnam

This study takes as its object a goddess called the Lady of the Realm, whose shrine is in a rural area in the southern part of Vietnam. This goddess provides a valuable window onto changes underway in reform-era Vietnam for in recent years she has become the focus of a major pilgrimage and the controversial object of much commentary and debate

Public goods: using pervasive computing to inspire grassroots activism

Pervasive computing technology enables social mapping and sharing of local knowledge to create relationships beyond established social and cultural boundaries; it also enables the development of new practices around place, identity, and community. For more than a decade, the authors have explored the potential costs and benefits of using pervasive computing to facilitate codiscovery with communities across London, with the aim of supporting grassroots activities that help urban communities take action toward environmental sustainability. A core ingredient of these explorations is the making of artifacts to provide both the focus for communal experiences and a way to create public goods--that is, tangible representations of the intangible things we value most about our communities. Specific projects explore alternative material representations of stories, skills, games, songs, techniques, memories, hyper-local lore, and experiential knowledge of the environment. In this article, the authors present work that investigates how public goods can provide the focus for the development of grassroots community groups focused on hyper-local concerns. They also show how creating objects constructed to communicate the activist message of these communities in a tangible manner provides more affective and illustrative ways to facilitate the codiscovery of uncommon insights. This article is part of a special issue on pervasive analytics and citizen science

From Research Prototype to Research Product

Prototypes and prototyping have had a long and important history in the HCI community and have played a highly significant role in creating technology that is easier and more fulfilling to use. Yet, as focus in HCI is expanding to investigate complex matters of human relationships with technology over time in the intimate and contested contexts of everyday life, the notion of a ‘prototype’ may not be fully sufficient to support these kinds of inquiries. We propose the research product as an extension and evolution of the research prototype to support generative inquiries in this emerging research area. We articulate four interrelated qualities of research products—inquiry-driven, finish, fit, and independent—and draw on these qualities to describe and analyze five different yet related design research cases we have collectively conducted over the past six years. We conclude with a discussion of challenges and opportunities for crafting research products and the implications they suggest for future design-oriented HCI research

An Italian view of the East: The function of the exotic in "Christmas in Ceylon" by Guido Gozzano

Sebbene l’Italia non avesse pienamente partecipato al trionfalismo letterario che aveva caratterizzato l’epoca dell’espansionismo europeo in Asia del primo Novecento, il fascino dell’oriente compare tuttavia nelle opere di alcuni scrittori, quali per esempio Giovanni Comisso o Emilio Salgari, in cui si trovano degli esempi classici del cosiddetto “impossessarsi” imperialista dell’oriente. Guido Gozzano, invece, rivela un atteggiamento assai più sfumato verso l’oriente, in quanto i suoi scritti sfidano alcune delle premesse della critica orientalista. The aim of this article is to revisit Gozzano and see him in a wider context, not confining him to his significance as a crepuscolaro, but to also examine an example of his prose – as distinct from his poetry – as a reflection of the crisis of modernity Article text in Englis

Re-Enchanting Human Ecology: Identity and Difference, Process Metaphysics, and Emergence

Drawing from historical political thought and 20th century western philosophy, this dissertation advances a theory of secular enchantment of nature, humanity, and their relationship. Its underlying social and political goal is to inspire an ethic of ecological conservation and stewardship. Its philosophical goal is to lay a new ontological foundation for thinking and talking about the unique human place within the ecological world. Modern scientific inquiry and reasoned philosophical reflection can expose the facts and uncover the truths about the human relationship with nature. Such an endeavour is important, and forms the backbone of this dissertation. But it is not enough. The natural world is in crisis and the truth alone cannot save it. If it is to be deemed worth saving, nature must be restored as a fundamental site of meaning in human life. The great modernizing project has purged the supernatural from nature, and with it the grounds for meaning and ethical direction. Still, wielded properly, science and philosophy can reestablish the enchantment of nature. Using a wide variety of thinkers, this dissertation shows that rational inquiry can inspire a sense of wonder for ecological complexity, and for the special place humans occupy in the natural whole

Spirit, story, symbol: Indigenous curating in the Queensland rainforest

Tahnee Innes explored Indigenous curatorship in the Queensland rainforest. She found that curating is a cultural practice. Rainforest artefacts are selected and preserved, then communicated to the public as a material extension of spirit, story and place. Tahnee's research addresses the physical and ontological distance between museums and descendant communities

Savages, Saviours and the Power of Story: The Figure of the Northern Dog in Canadian Culture

This research was motivated by a recent pattern in animal welfare texts in Canada that portray northern dogs as “savage” trouble-makers, and indigenous people as backward barbarians incapable of caring for the animals that share their spaces. With this comes the troublesome idea that, yet again, the only positive force in indigenous Canada is the civilizing force of outsider intervention: northern dogs need to be rescued; non-indigenous people are their rightful saviours. It is a story that has been circulating in the dominant culture in Canada for centuries, and has urgent implications for both human and non-human animals in Canada’s North. This dissertation consists of three sections. In the first section, I explore the roots of the colonial figure of the “noble canine savage” through representations in explorers’ journals, ethnographic films and tourism marketing texts. In section two, I consider how the represented dog differs in texts created within the framework of indigenous knowledge, including origin stories, indigenous cinema and elder testimony regarding the sled dog cull in Canada’s North in the mid-20th century. In section three, I return to the current media texts, and explore how they reproduce the racist rhetoric of the past. The aim of my study was to validate the indigenous view of northern dogs in order to better incorporate local stories into animal welfare projects in northern Canada. Future interventions in this regard may include the use of cultural exchange activities between indigenous and non-indigenous partners in such projects (e.g. between local community groups and visiting veterinary teams); prioritization of narrative approaches to relationship-building; and the use of more culturally sensitive language in public relations and marketing texts

Theater as Machine, Theater of Machines in Seventeenth-Century France

According to traditional historiography, seventeenth-century French theater is characterized by a pure, unified, classical and disciplined aesthetic known as Classicism. However, several theatrical pieces resist this Classical ideal with special effects and the use of theater machines. My dissertation examines this “spectacular aesthetic” that plays a fundamental role in theater production throughout the century. I show that theater machines were used across genres, in tragedies, comedies, tragi-comédies, comédie-ballets, ballets de cour and operas. The ubiquity of machine effects in all kinds of dramatic entertainment testifies to the power or popularity of the spectacular throughout the Classical period. This project also examines how playwrights and engineers use machines to stage powerful acts or perhaps undermine the authority behind those acts. My dissertation unfolds in three chapters, each devoted to exploring the efficacy of dramatic spectacle from aesthetic, critical and cultural early modern perspectives. By focusing on the value playwrights, machinists, and actors had for the effects theater machines produced, I will expand upon our understanding of how dramatists interpreted the range of affective responses to theater, including but not limited to Aristotle’s catharsis. Moreover, by comparing seventeenth-century approaches to the spectacular with more recent thinking about the role of technology in producing wondrous effects in entertainment, the dissertation compares seventeenth-century notions with today’s understandings of the affective responses to spectacle.Doctor of Philosoph

COLONIAL CHOREOGRAPHY: STAGING SRI LANKAN DANCERS UNDER BRITISH COLONIAL RULE FROM THE 1870s – 1930s

In textbooks the terms “Kandyan dance” and its equivalent in the Sinhala language “udarata nätuma” are used to describe the dance tradition that was predominantly practiced in the Kandyan region of Sri Lanka. Nationalist histories portray Kandyan dance as a continuation of a pristine tradition that was passed down from ancient Sinhala kingdoms. As the Sinhala nationalist discourse glorified Kandyan dance vis à vis its Tamil counterpart, it obscured the British colonial encounter with Kandyan dancers by leaving out a part of the rich history of dance. As I demonstrate in this dissertation, colonialism transformed to a significant extent the Kandyan dancescape of the British colonial period, particularly between the 1870s and 1930s. Therefore, this dissertation re-examines the history of the so-called tradition of Kandyan dance with the focus on the British colonial encounter with performers of the Kandyan region. As a Sri Lankan dancer, I try to trace and interpret the histories of dancers that were ignored or shrouded in silence in colonial and Sinhala national histories. As a historian, I interpret archival materials through textual and visual analysis while as a dancer, I interpret archival materials through my embodied knowledge of Kandyan dance. I examine: How did the Sinhalese devil dance become a showpiece during the British colonial period, setting the ground for it to be elevated with the new name of “Kandyan dance”? Who defined its aesthetic parameters and repertoire? How did the performers respond to their colonial experience? I argue that, with the help of the native elites, the colonizers displaced, mobilized, manipulated, staged, and displayed performers of the Kandyan region for the benefit of colonial audiences through processions organized for British royal dignitaries, colonial exhibitions, photographs, and travel films. I call this process “colonial choreography”, which defined the aesthetic parameters and repertoire of Kandyan dance. However, the dancers were not just the victims of colonial choreography but also contributors to colonial choreography through their creativity and resistance. Therefore, I also argue that while collaborating with the colonizers, the dancers responded creatively to their experience and covertly resisted the colonial masters