The Transcendental Element in the Absent Presence.

The Transcendental Element in the Absent Presence analyzes the absent presence, the rhetorical and literary states of being there in the mind of the perceiving individual, though not there physically. It seeks to answer: What does the term absent presence mean? Is there a difference between rhetorical and literary absent presences? If so, how is each manifest through the reading process? And, what sustains these absent presences? Evidenced through selected works of Plato, Aristotle, New Testament writers, Sidney, Shakespeare, and Dickinson, the study argues for the intellectually, spiritually, or aesthetically transcendent quality of the absent presence. Any encounter between reader, text, and writer affirms a dialogic other, a rhetorically recognizable presence, albeit absent, that operates from both sides of the text, from both the writer\u27s composition and the reader\u27s reading. Literary absent presences, emanating from the rhetorical text, additionally influence both writer and reader. This is especially evident in the poetry of writers whose personae are poet-lovers lamenting their departed beloveds. Through a kind of aesthetic transcendence, these poets transform the absence of the beloved into a viable absent presence, a textual presence which is subsequently controlled by the artist to speak to the reader. Success is determined by the degree of love which dominates the exchange. Whether reacting to eros or agape, cupiditas or caritas, the poet-lover and reader reflect that which dominates their response to the significant rhetorical or literary other. The consequence is either negative or positive; the perceptor (poet-lover or reader) languishes in personal or interpretive frustration, or she soars in aesthetic or hermeneutic fulfillment as she comes to greater understanding of self, world, and other. An implicit premise is that these rhetorical and literary operations are an integral part of any textual experience--both the writer\u27s composing and the reader\u27s reading. They are subtle textual energies that significantly contribute to understanding--that instant of intellectual, spiritual, or aesthetic fusion between writer and reader

Motherboards, Microphones and Metaphors: Re-examining New Literacies and Black Feminist Thought through Technologies of Self

ABSTRACT This article examines how two African American females composed counter-selves using a computer motherboard and a stand-alone microphone as critical identity texts. Situated within sociocultural and critical traditions in new literacy studies and black feminist thought, the authors extend conceptions of language, literacy and black femininity via the agentic, powerful and knowledgeable selves of African American women, constructs that are often missing from the scholarship on young African American women and their practices of self-definition. The motherboard and microphone serve as analytical constructs for understanding critical new literacies and subject malleability, which crisscrosses in complex configurations across the experiences, histories and relationships that carry meaning for those who struggle through scenes of silence. Motherboards and microphones act metaphorically as technologies of the self, which resist and reformat cosmologies of black femininity that have long patterned gender oppression. The findings suggest that technologies exist everywhere, and technology related to literacy and language exists in many forms, including vocabularies of motherboards and microphones. The authors conclude that using such vocabularies for expressing identity can work through the power of metaphor in its richest sense to offer new conceptions of self, whereby the subject becomes a personal artifact capable of immense transformative potential. The things we call ‘technologies’ are ways of building order in our world. Many technological devices and systems important in everyday life contain possibilities for many different ways of ordering human activity. (Matlow, 2000, p. 167

A Peer-reviewed Newspaper About_ Post-digital Research

Post-digital Research addressed the messy and paradoxical condition of art and media after digital technology revolutions. Publication resulting from research workshop at Kunsthal Aarhus, in collaboration with Kunsthal Aarhus, and trans,ediale festival for art and digital culture, Berlin

Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, and the politics of dwelling

The late modern and postmodern theme of homecoming permeates the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, who grapples with the topic throughout the various phases of his lifelong meditation on Being. Heidegger continually gave thought to the relationship between Being and the place or site in which it becomes manifest, whether it is a system of references and manipulable entities (Being and Time), language (An Introduction to Metaphysics), or aesthetic works of art (“The Origin of the Work of Art”). Taking as its point of departure Heidegger’s persistent and dynamic search for home (Heimat), this study will examine the political implications of his philosophical sojourn with an eye on the nationalistic tendencies that were exhibited by Heidegger’s rectorship at the University of Freiburg. Moreover, the study will consider the German philosopher’s attempted philosophical homecoming from the perspective of Emmanuel Levinas’s pointed critique of Heidegger’s place-bound view of human existence. Taking aim at the ontological, anti-humanistic, and pagan elements of Heidegger’s thought, Levinas posits an alternative that is ethical in emphasis, humanistic in thrust, and transcendent in scope. Supplementing and correcting Heidegger’s homecoming ethos with a philosophy that stresses hospitality (l’hospitalité) towards the Other (autrui), Levinas suggests that our ethical responsibility for the stranger, widow, and orphan supercedes our attachment to place. By facilitating a rapprochement between Heideggerian dwelling and Levinasian nomadism, this study will make visible a postmodern relation to home that does not succumb to narrow national particularism nor to rootless, global cosmopolitanism

Schelling\u27s Naturalism: Motion, Space, and the Volition of Thought

This dissertation examines F.W.J. von Schelling\u27s Philosophy of Nature (or Naturphilosophie) as a form of early, and transcendentally expansive, naturalism that is, simultaneously, a naturalized transcendentalism. By focusing on space and motion, this dissertation argues that thought should be viewed as a natural activity through and through. This view is made possible by German Idealism historically, and yet, is complicated and obscured by contemporary philosophy\u27s treatment of German Idealism in both analytic and continental circles. The text engages with the foundations of Schelling\u27s theory of nature as well as geometry, field theory, inter-theory relations, epistemology, and pragmatism

The erotic imaginary of divine realization in Kabbalistic and Tantric metaphysics

In this paper I consider the way in which divinity is realized through an imaginary locus in the mystical thought of Jewish kabbalah and Hindu tantra. It demonstrates a reflective consciousness by the adept or master in understanding the place of God’s being, as a supernal and mundane reality. For the comparative assessment of these two distinctive approaches I shall use as a point of departure the interpretative strategies employed by Elliot Wolfson in his detailed work on Jewish mysticism. He argues that there is an androcentric bias embedded in the speculative outlook of medieval kabbalah, as he reads the texts through a psychoanalytic lens. In a similar way, I will argue that there is an androcentric bias to the speculations presented in medieval Shaiva tantra, in particular that division known as the Trika. Overall, my aim is to suggest some functional and perhaps structural similarities to the characterization of divinity in these two traditions, through brief analyses of the erotic understanding of the nature of the Godhead

“Envisioning Digital Sanctuaries”: An Exploration of Virtual Collectives for Nurturing Professional Development of Women in Technical Domains

Work and learning are essential facets of our existence, yet sociocultural barriers have historically limited access and opportunity for women in multiple contexts, including their professional pursuits. Such sociocultural barriers are particularly pronounced in technical domains and have relegated minoritized voices to the margins. As a result of these barriers, those affected have suffered strife, turmoil, and subjugation. Hence, it is important to investigate how women can subvert such structural limitations and find channels through which they can seek support and guidance to navigate their careers. With the proliferation of modern communication infrastructure, virtual forums of conversation such as Reddit have emerged as key spaces that allow knowledge-sharing, provide opportunities for mobilizing collective action, and constitute sanctuaries of support and companionship. Yet, recent scholarship points to the negative ramifications of such channels in perpetuating social prejudice, directed particularly at members from historically underrepresented communities. Using a novel comparative muti-method, multi-level empirical approach comprising content analysis, social network analysis, and psycholinguistic analysis, I explore the way in which virtual forums engender community and foster avenues for everyday resilience and collective care through the analysis of 400,267 conversational traces collected from three subreddits (r/cscareerquestions, r/girlsgonewired & r/careerwoman). Blending the empirical analysis with a novel theoretical apparatus that integrates insights from social constructivist frameworks, feminist data studies, computer-supported collaborative work, and computer-mediated communication, I highlight how gender, care, and community building intertwine and collectively impact the emergent conversational habits of these online enclaves. Key results indicate six content themes ranging from discussions on knowledge advancement to scintillating ethical probes regarding disparities manifesting in the technical workplace. Further, psycholinguistic and network insights reveal four pivotal roles that support and enrich the communities in different ways. Taken together, these insights help to postulate an emergent spectrum of relationality ranging from a more agentic to a more communal pattern of affinity building. Network insights also yield valuable inferences regarding the role of automated agents in community dynamics across the forums. A discussion is presented regarding the emergent routines of care, collective empowerment, empathy-building tactics, community sustenance initiatives, and ethical perspectives in relation to the involvement of automated agents. This dissertation contributes to the theory and practice of how virtual collectives can be designed and sustained to offer spaces for enrichment, empowerment, and advocacy, focusing on the professional development of historically underrepresented voices such as women

Religion and Art: Rethinking Aesthetic and Auratic Experiences in 'Post-Secular' Times

How can we think of the “aura” of (sacred) contexts and (sacred) works? How to think of individual and collective (esthetic/religious) experiences? What to make of the manipulative dimension of (religious and esthetic) “auratic” experiences? Is the work of art still capable of mediating the experience of the “sacred,” and under what conditions? What is the significance of the “eschatological” dimension of both art and religion (the sense of “ending”)? Can theology offer a way to reaffirm the creative capacities of the human being as something that characterizes the very condition of being human? This Special Issue aspires to contribute to the growing literature on contemporary art and religion, and to explore the new ways of thinking of art and the sacred (in their esthetic, ideological, and institutional dimensions) in the context of contemporary culture

Essays on the Design of Inclusive Learning in Massive Open Online Courses, and Implications for Educational Futures

This thesis examines the tensions and contradictions of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as a force for more inclusive tertiary education, particularly for adults without a college degree in the United States. Through a multimethodological research approach yielding three discrete papers, presented as chapters, this work seeks to augment and clarify the existing MOOCs literature across conceptual, quantitative, and qualitative domains. The first paper develops a conceptual framework, ‘hegemonic design bias,’ that describes the socio-technical development ecosystem in which MOOCs are embedded. This framework helps account for why MOOCs have yet to serve as a democratising force in education by highlighting the processes and constraints that bias MOOC production toward the already well-educated. The potential economic implications of these developments are also considered. The second paper provides insight into how underrepresented learners are engaging with entry-level MOOCs. The exploration of learning analytic data from an initial sample of more than 260,000 enrolees through cluster analysis and multinomial logistic regression indicates that students without a college degree are more likely to be high-performing learners compared to college-educated students in these courses. Additionally, students from approximated lower socioeconomic backgrounds are no less likely to be successful than students from approximated middle and higher socioeconomic backgrounds in these courses. The third paper provides insight into the opportunities and challenges producers face in building inclusive MOOCs through a qualitative analysis of six semi-structured interviews. The interviews unearthed diverse conceptions of inclusion among producers that reflect a sincere normative commitment to make inclusive MOOCs, though the conceptions were quite distinct and fragmented. Producers were intentional about utilising best-practice pedagogy, as well as innovative program design, to include diverse learners. Innovative technology partners helped create interactive, unique experiences, but this also led to challenges in harmonising the design process and required the considerable influence of intermediary actors. To conclude, I briefly consider the implications of these findings for research, practice, and policy, with particular attention to how the public and social sectors can incentivise improved design of MOOCs with the specific intent of helping adults without college degrees develop human capital in order to remain economically resilient amidst the disruptions of skills-biased technological change.Gates Cambridge Trus