The Struggle Is Real: Understanding Impacts of Racial Microaggressions on Black Teachers

Despite the progress that has been made regarding racism in education, Black teachers continue to be an underrepresented community among the teaching population. Addressing this underrepresentation can begin with better understanding the experiences of these Black teachers who have served in K-12 institutions. Although these experiences are multifaceted, educational leaders can make strides toward racial equity by fully understanding and acknowledging the impacts that racist interactions have on an individual’s work experience. By using racial microaggressions as a means of analysis researchers and practitioners can better understand the breadth and scope of these covertly racist attacks. Recognizing the influence of racial microaggressions on Black teachers’ experiences at work can be an important step in creating educational policies and practices that can begin expunging racism from the social practices within an institution

John Donne\u27s Verse Letters to Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford: Rhetorical Means to a Friendship.

John Donne\u27s verse letters to Lucy Russell, Countess of Bedford, are more than static hyperbolic praise to a patroness interchangeable with any other patroness. Rather, they are viable and personal means by which Donne creates and sustains a friendship. Through the five verse letters examined in this dissertation, Reason is the soules left hand, You have refin\u27d mee, T\u27Have written then, To the Countesse of Bedford At New-yeares Tide, and Honour is so sublime perfection, Donne rhetorically demonstrates his understanding of and ability to function within the various contexts of Bedford\u27s life. Using the accepted view of the epistolary form as a true representation and even extension of an essential self, Donne rhetorically inserts himself into Bedford\u27s world through the verse letter. Then, empowered as author and creator of their relationship within the microcosm of the verse letter, Donne manipulates their relative positions within the letter, drawing Bedford closer to himself within this microcosm, and ideally, in the larger world of court. He demonstrates his ability to function within the Countess\u27s courtly world by framing his verse letters to the concerns of his patroness\u27s personal life and court career, utilizing methods expounded by Castiglione in his advice to the courtier. One such concern is the maintenance of the fiction of an idealized court society while dealing with the often sordid realities of court life. Donne explores these contradictory aspects of being and seeming in the Jacobean court in general and in that court. Because the subject of the letters is the growing relationship between Donne and his patroness, as well as the interdependence and relative worth of client and patron(ess) within the complex Jacobean patronage system, the letters serve as metacommunicative links between Donne and Bedford. Their intermediary form mirrors their subject, the necessity of intermediaries for court success. Even after Donne\u27s relationship with the Countess cooled somewhat as Donne took Holy Orders and gave up his pursuit for courtly success, his search for patronage did not cease, but he continued to seek both secular and spiritual rewards

Thrillology: Affective Intensities and the Everyday-Spectacular in American Literature and Culture

“Thrillology: Affective Intensities and the Everyday-Spectacular in American Literature and Culture” presents thrill as a powerful thematic component centered on immediate affective gratification informing character development and narrative. This perspective rethinks theme as always having an affective dimension that accompanies its conceptual articulations, with the former, in many cases, being the more important element. Thrilled psycho-emotional states emerge, in their own right, as legitimizations of individuality and cultural autonomy from the perspective of the passional subject. Engaging with a broad spectrum of literary and cultural sources spanning the last hundred years, this project investigates various ways in which the self-fulfilling affective intensity of thrill imparts a compelling spectacularization to everyday experience. Case studies featuring Naturalist novels by Norris, Sinclair, and Dreiser expose the pursuit of material success as an intoxicating affect that drives central figures, regardless of the attainment, and inevitable loss, of wealth. In contrast, Ishmael Reed’s MumboJumbo presents a very different frisson of social rebellion that is determined to find fulfillment within its defiance and re-appropriation of cultural identity, no matter the stacked-odds confronting protagonists. And, book-ending nearly a century of fictional engagements with the pervasiveness of fame, fortune, and celebrity in mainstream consciousness, Nathanael West’s Day of the Locust and Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama portray the pursuit of thrill as an end itself, regardless of any realization of stardom. Finally, these thrillological considerations extend into contemporary American social texts, here embodied by the recurring spectacle of the Super Bowl broadcast and the extravaganza of Apple.com’s 2010 web-based introduction of the iPad. Through its examination of thrill as a positive affective power and the capacity of such excitation to translate into modes of expression and identification, Thrillology adds new perspectives to the body of contemporary affect theoretical literary analysis that has been prominently concerned with the examination of negative affective dimensions. This project brings a variety of theoretical fields into conversation in order to achieve a versatile conception of thrill’s affect, combining literary and cultural modes of analysis that co-involve affect theory, performance studies, theorization of spectacle and The Everyday, and effects of mass-media and consumerism

Transformations: Anthropology, Art and the Quilt

Drawing on both anthropological and quilt literature, this thesis shows the many different ways that made objects are thought about by different groups of people. Awareness of these differences permits a new perspective of 'Western' art and object making. This awareness allows a space in which to consider the importance of the process of making. Quiltmaking provides an interesting case study. This thesis therefore describes the field of quiltmaking activity that exists in New Zealand at the present time. This genre, as it is practised today, had its beginnings in the revival that began in this country during the 1970's. This study will show that the main impetus of this revival did not draw on known traditions in New Zealand, but rather on a largely imported tradition that had developed in the United States of America. Ideas about the status of quilts as art objects, comes from a mixture of influences. The tradition of quiltmaking in the United States was already a strong one and had been through a number of revivals. Aspects of this traditional culture influenced quiltmakers in New Zealand. Simultaneously, there was an equally strong sense of the quilt as an art object in New Zealand. However, art entrepreneurs in the United States certainly were part of the transformation of the quilt into an art object in that country. Their strategies of discourse and display drew on contemporary artworld ideologies and ultimately this valuation affected which quilts could be seen as 'art' in New Zealand. Through the use of participant observation, interviews and a questionnaire, the content of this study will show the many different ways that New Zealand quiltmakers work, their aims and goals for the quilts they make, and the ways these quilts are perceived by other quilters and the wider public. Some areas that have resulted in conflict and misunderstandings are discussed. As in any such group, conflicts and misunderstandings arise from the existence of different ways of valuing aspects of cultural activities. NB Unlike the hard copy of this thesis the colour plates in this electronic version are placed together between the chapters and the appendices

WEHST: Wearable Engine for Human-Mediated Telepresence

This dissertation reports on the industrial design of a wearable computational device created to enable better emergency medical intervention for situations where electronic remote assistance is necessary. The design created for this doctoral project, which assists practices by paramedics with mandates for search-and-rescue (SAR) in hazardous environments, contributes to the field of human-mediated teleparamedicine (HMTPM). Ethnographic and industrial design aspects of this research considered the intricate relationships at play in search-and-rescue operations, which lead to the design of the system created for this project known as WEHST: Wearable Engine for Human-Mediated Telepresence. Three case studies of different teams were carried out, each focusing on making improvements to the practices of teams of paramedics and search-and-rescue technicians who use combinations of ambulance, airplane, and helicopter transport in specific chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear and explosive (CBRNE) scenarios. The three paramedicine groups included are the Canadian Air Force 442 Rescue Squadron, Nelson Search and Rescue, and the British Columbia Ambulance Service Infant Transport Team. Data was gathered over a seven-year period through a variety of methods including observation, interviews, examination of documents, and industrial design. The data collected included physiological, social, technical, and ecological information about the rescuers. Actor-network theory guided the research design, data analysis, and design synthesis. All of this leads to the creation of the WEHST system. As identified, the WEHST design created in this dissertation project addresses the difficulty case-study participants found in using their radios in hazardous settings. As the research identified, a means of controlling these radios without depending on hands, voice, or speech would greatly improve communication, as would wearing sensors and other computing resources better linking operators, radios, and environments. WEHST responds to this need. WEHST is an instance of industrial design for a wearable “engine” for human-situated telepresence that includes eight interoperable families of wearable electronic modules and accompanying textiles. These make up a platform technology for modular, scalable and adaptable toolsets for field practice, pedagogy, or research. This document details the considerations that went into the creation of the WEHST design

Sacred Space: Spatial Communications Patterns in an Irish American and Slovak American Roman Catholic Parish

This ethnographic study provides contextual definitions of religious-centered frames for communication in an Irish-American and a Slovak-American parish. Spatial behavior patterns which appear incident to ethnic traditions and patterns associated with Roman Catholicism which do not appear to vary significantly across ethnic parishes are both described. The context control methodology employed is adapted from the microanalytic study of multimodal communication behavior. A detailed explication of the evolving methodological process reveals relevant cultural contrasts in interview negotiations and hospitality patterns. Data analyses include informant interviews and observations made in analogously controlled conditions in a variety of comparable locations in each church and in the dwelling space of both clergy and laity. Historical depth to empirical observations is provided by a through-time description of the two cultural groups and their migration and settlement patterns. Church doctrine and architectural history provides technical insights regarding the liturgical significance of ritual behaviors patterns

Polarities of difference : how Wapichannao negotiate identities within a creole state

This thesis is an ethnographic account of how the Wapichannao, who are situated in the Rupununi of Guyana perceive themselves within the nation-state. This is also an account of how non-Amerindian Guyanese envisage Amerindians as ‘past’ peoples. Hence, distinctions are made between Amerindian and non-Amerindian—us vs. them—where both identities become placed as opposite poles within a continuum. Emphasis is placed on the shifting relationships between these poles, but more specifically, the cultural paradigm through which these relationships are made possible. This paradigm, I suggest, may be understood in terms of polarities of difference, with regard to which Amerindians are constantly ambiguating/negotiating, disjoining, and resignifying notions of ‘who they are’. This thesis evidences this paradigm through an ethnography of some of those aspects of Wapichannao culture—village work, the shop, joking activity, culture shows—that are considered to be traditional on the one hand, and modern on the other. In doing so, an incongruous trend emerges, on which makes the classic imagery of Amerindian ontological homogeneity much more complex. Therefore, this thesis moves from the more traditional aspects of Wapichannao culture towards the nation-state, in order to take into account aspects of Amerindian experience absent from classic ethnographic accounts

Tartu Ülikooli toimetised. Tööd semiootika alalt. 1964-1992. 0259-4668

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