SoD-TEAM: Teleological reasoning in adaptive software design

Issued as final reportNational Science Foundation (U.S.

Wounded whiteness: masculinity, sincerity, and settlement in contemporary U.S. fiction

This dissertation examines representations of wounded white masculinity in contemporary American fiction from the late 1960s to the mid-2000s through a critical perspective developed within Native-authored creative and critical work. It departs from currents within studies of contemporary U.S. fiction in approaching representations of the experience of whiteness within settlement in nonnative writing. The project’s critical focus is grounded in the work of Sherman Alexie (Spokane/Coeur d’Alene) and Anna Lee Walters (Otoe/Pawnee). Alexie and Walters theorize white masculinity as the experience of prosthetic belonging within settlement. The project develops their theories of whiteness into a unique approach to novels typically read as exemplars of postmodern narrative. Reading works from Don DeLillo, David Foster Wallace, Kurt Vonnegut, and Jonathan Safran Foer, Wounded Whiteness examines the ways these writers imagine sincerity as an emotional prosthetic for white masculinity. This examination yields a new perspective on contemporary fiction’s engagement with questions of personal, spatial, and national belonging in highlighting the embodied, sensory dimensions of racial and gender identity for a category—white masculinity—typically associated with disembodied rationality. The dissertation thus demonstrates the extent to which contemporary U.S. fiction imagines performances of white masculinity’s distanced disembodiment as actively dependent on the sensory inhabitance of others’ identities; and how, out of those relationships, white masculinity instantiates an expansive experience of belonging within contested spaces

A treatise on language methods and language-games in autism

Although it is generally understood that autism is a developmental disability affecting social learning, my social constructionist perspective suggested to me that, strangely, current theories aimed at explaining the nature of autism appeared not to fully reflect the essential social aspects of autism. Given that typically developing human beings become fully socialised through learning a first language, it appeared to me that autism research has, especially of late, failed to give sufficient attention to language despite Kanner’s advice. In researching this thesis I have sought to make a contribution to knowledge of my subject by: (1) developing a synthesis of current knowledge of autistic language methods as a practical framework to guide future research focused on language in autism; (2) critiquing ‘established’ autism theory; (3) drawing attention to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s neglected contributions to the philosophy of mind; and (4) reviewing the contribution of ‘alternative’ theory, including Wittgenstein’s criteriological theory, to an understanding of autism. My research has involved reviewing: (a) the literature on autistic language methods; (b)Conversation Analysis of autistic conversation; (c) narrative writing by authors diagnosed or retrospectively diagnosed with autism; and (d) existing autism theory. I conclude that there are specific features of talk and writing that reflect autism with some features of autistic writing being a ‘mirror image’ of features of autistic talk. A further, important, conclusion is that there are strengths as well as weaknesses associated with autistic talk and writing i.e., from a linguistic stance, it is wrong to regard autism as a disability; rather, it involves a different way of communicating – both verbally and in writing – than is seen in typically developing people. I also conclude that alternative theory has much to contribute to an understanding of autism, and that the atypical nature of autistic social development results in autistic people failing to fully come to terms with language-games

The evolution of case grammar

There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini (4th Century BC), case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do so today. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to reveal its most important secrets. This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding of case through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. The experiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they have a selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effort that listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so

The evolution of case grammar

There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini (4th Century BC), case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do so today. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to reveal its most important secrets. This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding of case through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. The experiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they have a selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effort that listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so

The evolution of case grammar

There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini (4th Century BC), case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do so today. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to reveal its most important secrets. This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding of case through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. The experiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they have a selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effort that listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so

The evolution of case grammar

There are few linguistic phenomena that have seduced linguists so skillfully as grammatical case has done. Ever since Panini (4th Century BC), case has claimed a central role in linguistic theory and continues to do so today. However, despite centuries worth of research, case has yet to reveal its most important secrets. This book offers breakthrough explanations for the understanding of case through agent-based experiments in cultural language evolution. The experiments demonstrate that case systems may emerge because they have a selective advantage for communication: they reduce the cognitive effort that listeners need for semantic interpretation, while at the same time limiting the cognitive resources required for doing so