904 research outputs found

    Revising the Future: Exploring Ethnofuturism

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    Title from PDF of title page, viewed January 4, 2023Dissertation advisors: Anthony S. Shiu and Norma E. CantĂșVitaIncludes bibliographical references (pages 218-236)Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Department of English Language and Literature. University of Missouri--Kansas City, 2022While the desire for a postracial, colorblind society remains an emotional investment, the present reality of race and racist attitudes ingrained in the structure of American culture suggest that any such imagined future is structured based on the standards of whiteness. Representations of this future postracial society tend most often to manifest within speculative, magical realist, science fiction, and other fantastic cultural productions. These fantastic genres, whether set in an alternate present (or past) or some imagined future, give the greatest leeway for writers to navigate concepts of a society-in-the-making. It is important to note, however, that throughout their history, science fiction and futurist narratives have largely been the creation of white writers, and as such have perpetuated dominant notions of whiteness as superior through imaginary postrace worlds that negate racial identities and subsequently rely on the assumption of white as default. Depictions of colorblind worlds suggest the possibility that we can move past racial issues, and in fact many present that possibility as close-at-hand. The majority of these representations, as the creations of white authors and filmmakers, suggest that the concept of a postracial society has been largely subsumed by white society. However, another way of conceiving alternative concepts of race and identity might be found in those works portraying a future in which racial identity is not placed under erasure but instead becomes a ground for discussion of issues at the core of United States history and culture. Though it is not possible to draw a generalized conclusion about the entirety of an ethnofuturist authorship that encompasses a broad cross-section of experiences, backgrounds, interests, and personalities, larger patterns begin to emerge. Often, writers will engage current race issues in presenting speculations on the future, addressing problems directly instead of sidestepping into a whitewashed postracial vision. This dissertation looks at how ethnofuturist narratives navigate the cultural thrust of positive representation to counteract racist stereotyping in a multifaceted dialectical space, where an aesthetic of cultural intersection and self-contained ethnic agency starts to take shape, liberated from the perspective of a Eurocentric imperative and redefining the concept of postrace.Introduction -- Genre as a dialect -- Folklore and myth -- Framing super-bodie

    Audiovisual speech perception in cochlear implant patients

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    Hearing with a cochlear implant (CI) is very different compared to a normal-hearing (NH) experience, as the CI can only provide limited auditory input. Nevertheless, the central auditory system is capable of learning how to interpret such limited auditory input such that it can extract meaningful information within a few months after implant switch-on. The capacity of the auditory cortex to adapt to new auditory stimuli is an example of intra-modal plasticity — changes within a sensory cortical region as a result of altered statistics of the respective sensory input. However, hearing deprivation before implantation and restoration of hearing capacities after implantation can also induce cross-modal plasticity — changes within a sensory cortical region as a result of altered statistics of a different sensory input. Thereby, a preserved cortical region can, for example, support a deprived cortical region, as in the case of CI users which have been shown to exhibit cross-modal visual-cortex activation for purely auditory stimuli. Before implantation, during the period of hearing deprivation, CI users typically rely on additional visual cues like lip-movements for understanding speech. Therefore, it has been suggested that CI users show a pronounced binding of the auditory and visual systems, which may allow them to integrate auditory and visual speech information more efficiently. The projects included in this thesis investigate auditory, and particularly audiovisual speech processing in CI users. Four event-related potential (ERP) studies approach the matter from different perspectives, each with a distinct focus. The first project investigates how audiovisually presented syllables are processed by CI users with bilateral hearing loss compared to NH controls. Previous ERP studies employing non-linguistic stimuli and studies using different neuroimaging techniques found distinct audiovisual interactions in CI users. However, the precise timecourse of cross-modal visual-cortex recruitment and enhanced audiovisual interaction for speech related stimuli is unknown. With our ERP study we fill this gap, and we present differences in the timecourse of audiovisual interactions as well as in cortical source configurations between CI users and NH controls. The second study focuses on auditory processing in single-sided deaf (SSD) CI users. SSD CI patients experience a maximally asymmetric hearing condition, as they have a CI on one ear and a contralateral NH ear. Despite the intact ear, several behavioural studies have demonstrated a variety of beneficial effects of restoring binaural hearing, but there are only few ERP studies which investigate auditory processing in SSD CI users. Our study investigates whether the side of implantation affects auditory processing and whether auditory processing via the NH ear of SSD CI users works similarly as in NH controls. Given the distinct hearing conditions of SSD CI users, the question arises whether there are any quantifiable differences between CI user with unilateral hearing loss and bilateral hearing loss. In general, ERP studies on SSD CI users are rather scarce, and there is no study on audiovisual processing in particular. Furthermore, there are no reports on lip-reading abilities of SSD CI users. To this end, in the third project we extend the first study by including SSD CI users as a third experimental group. The study discusses both differences and similarities between CI users with bilateral hearing loss and CI users with unilateral hearing loss as well as NH controls and provides — for the first time — insights into audiovisual interactions in SSD CI users. The fourth project investigates the influence of background noise on audiovisual interactions in CI users and whether a noise-reduction algorithm can modulate these interactions. It is known that in environments with competing background noise listeners generally rely more strongly on visual cues for understanding speech and that such situations are particularly difficult for CI users. As shown in previous auditory behavioural studies, the recently introduced noise-reduction algorithm "ForwardFocus" can be a useful aid in such cases. However, the questions whether employing the algorithm is beneficial in audiovisual conditions as well and whether using the algorithm has a measurable effect on cortical processing have not been investigated yet. In this ERP study, we address these questions with an auditory and audiovisual syllable discrimination task. Taken together, the projects included in this thesis contribute to a better understanding of auditory and especially audiovisual speech processing in CI users, revealing distinct processing strategies employed to overcome the limited input provided by a CI. The results have clinical implications, as they suggest that clinical hearing assessments, which are currently purely auditory, should be extended to audiovisual assessments. Furthermore, they imply that rehabilitation including audiovisual training methods may be beneficial for all CI user groups for quickly achieving the most effective CI implantation outcome

    Poetics in Transit: Indigenous, Diasporic, and Settler Women’s Contemporary Writing in Canada

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    My dissertation examines writing that responds to and reimagines the genre of travel poetry by Indigenous, diasporic, and settler women writers who reside in Canada to illuminate the differential stakes of mobility within and beyond the nation. These works variously reveal and challenge the ways that different forms of travel are foundational to the projects of settler colonialism and decolonization. My focus on “poetics in transit” opens up a new archive through which to consider travel. Poetics, I contend, can offer unique ways of perceiving the Indigenous land on which Indigenous people, people of colour, and settlers live and travel and imagining futurities that enable solidarities between different groups. I put into dialogue Double Negative (1988) by lesbian white settler poets Daphne Marlatt and Betsy Warland, Looking for Livingstone: An Odyssey of Silence (1991) and A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging (2001) by Black diasporic writers Marlene NourbeSe Philip and Dionne Brand, respectively, and Indigenous writers Louise Bernice Halfe’s/Sky Dancer’s (Cree) Blue Marrow (2004) and Lee Maracle’s (StĂł:lƍ) Talking to the Diaspora (2015), along with poems by Indigenous writers Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm (Anishinaabe), Marilyn Dumont (Cree and MĂ©tis), and Leanne Simpson (Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg). In doing so, I consider how mixed-genre poetics can challenge colonial heteropatriarchal constraints on intersectional women’s movement and be used to chart solidarities with Indigenous peoples on whose lands the poets move. I analyze the ways writers of different positionalities emphasize or undermine Indigenous relationships to their lands and exemplify the multiplicity of ways travel can damage or respect Indigenous sovereignty. By putting into conversation Indigenous and diasporic women’s poetic accounts of travel within Canada and to other settler colonial nations, I participate in scholarly debates about Indigenous–Black allyships and consider how travel poetry may resist settler colonial goals of Indigenous erasure, even while registering histories of violent displacement

    Theoretical Knowledge in the Mohist Canon

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    This open access book presents a new translation, interpretation and analysis of selected passages from the so-called Mohist Canon, a Chinese text from ca. 300 BCE, and discusses the role of the text in the world history of science, arguing that it represents an early emergence of theoretical, systematized knowledge that is independent from parallel developments in ancient Greece. It is aimed at historians of science, of knowledge and of philosophy, and generally at readers interested in these topics from an intercultural perspective and particularly with respect to China

    Rethinking Film Festivals in the Pandemic Era and After

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    ‘Rethinking Film Festivals’ explores how COVID-19 intervened in the film festival circuit by disrupting regular industry cycles and allowing new ways of reaching audiences to flourish. Films found other distribution channels, often online, while the festival format proved particularly vulnerable in a one-half-meter society. The search for a full-fledged substitute for live events and shared experiences involved all kinds of experimentation and an acceleration of digital developments that were already underway. The book documents how different festivals in different local contexts were affected differently by the pandemic and reacted differently to it as well. At the same time, the case studies confirm the interconnectedness and transnational relationships inherent in globalised media systems. Finally, the book seizes the momentum of the crisis to make the case for sustainable interventions: festivals must address their ecological footprint, decolonise their organisations, and ensure that their history and heritage is safeguarded for the future

    English translations of gender nonconformity in shƍjo manga and anime: a trans-queer materialist feminist analysis

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    Shƍjo, a category of manga and anime (Japanese comics and animation) primarily marketed to young girls, has a notable history of depicting gender nonconformity — i.e. gender/sexual identities, expressions, or embodiments marked as divergent from dominant norms. With the increasing popularity of manga and anime outside of Japan in the last three to four decades, many shƍjo series have been translated into English, where particular linguistic constraints and political imperatives have manifested in the approaches taken to translating gender nonconformity. Applying a decolonial and trans-queer materialist feminist theoretical framework to the domain of multimodality, this thesis investigates English translations of gender nonconformity in three key titles that have defined shƍjo’s growth and movement into English-speaking popular culture: The Rose of Versailles, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon, and Ouran High School Host Club. I use a comparative analysis methodology to analyse selected excerpts of official translations and fan translations and develop an understanding of how their treatments of gender nonconformity were influenced by material factors. Through these three case studies, I attempt to define an overall trajectory of translational approaches to gender nonconformity in shƍjo and shed light on shƍjo’s role in the mutual negotiation of gender/sexual frameworks between Japan and the English-speaking Western world

    Central and Eastern European Literary Theory and the West

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    The twentieth century saw intensive intellectual exchange between Eastern and Central Europe and the West. Yet political and linguistic obstacles meant that many important trends in East and Central European thought and knowledge hardly registered in Western Europe and the US. This book uncovers the hidden westward movements of Eastern European literary theory and its influence on Western scholarship
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