A literature review. Introduction to the special issue

UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020 PTDC/FER-FIL/28278/2017 CHIST-ERA/0002/2019Argumentation schemes [35, 80, 91] are a relatively recent notion that continues an extremely ancient debate on one of the foundations of human reasoning, human comprehension, and obviously human argumentation, i.e., the topics. To understand the revolutionary nature of Walton’s work on this subject matter, it is necessary to place it in the debate that it continues and contributes to, namely a view of logic that is much broader than the formalistic perspective that has been adopted from the 20th century until nowadays. With his book Argumentation schemes for presumptive reasoning, Walton attempted to start a dialogue between three different fields or views on human reasoning – one (argumentation theory) very recent, one (dialectics) very ancient and with a very long tradition, and one (formal logic) relatively recent, but dominating in philosophy. Argumentation schemes were proposed as dialectical instruments, in the sense that they represented arguments not only as formal relations, but also as pragmatic inferences, as they at the same time depend on what the interlocutors share and accept in a given dialogical circumstance, and affect their dialogical relation. In this introduction, the notion of argumentation scheme will be analyzed in detail, showing its different dimensions and its defining features which make them an extremely useful instrument in Artificial Intelligence. This theoretical background will be followed by a literature review on the uses of the schemes in computing, aimed at identifying the most important areas and trends, the most promising proposals, and the directions of future research.publishersversionpublishe

Argumentation and Identity in Maasai and Mongolian Land Disputes

This dissertation explores the deliberative arguments stemming from protests by modern herding communities in Tanzania, Kenya, Mongolia, and China. In each case, I analyze four central argument frames – bounded land, movement-as-wandering, movement-as-otor, and disappearance – that have emerged as governments seek to settle and develop herding communities, and herders protest in support of their traditional lifestyles. The first case study, concerning the Maasai of Tanzania, investigates the ways Maasai communities confront and resist tourism at the borders of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro national parks. The second case study, addressing the Maasai of Kenya, examines the ways that Maasai communities are resisting land privatization near the Maasai Mara and how the associated controversy relates to the emergence of hate speech in modern Kenya. The third case study turns to Eurasia, concentrating on Mongolian herders and their interactions with the government’s conservation and mining programs. The fourth case study considers how Inner Mongolian herders have negotiated their relationship with the People’s Republic of China’s cultural and environmental policies to produce a diverse body of protest tactics. The argumentative dynamics in each case are elucidated through analysis of primary source material and published artifacts, supported by explanatory tools drawn from rhetorical theory. A concluding chapter connects common threads from the case studies to isolate implications for modern herding communities and generate fresh perspective on Deleuze and Guattari’s nomadology project

Self-reflexivity and metafiction in Achilles Tatius' Leukippe and Kleitophon

This thesis examines the self-reflexive and metafictional aspects of Achilles Tatius’ Leukippe and Kleitophon. The aim is to map this self-reflexivity by examining the intricacy of its narrative structure, revealing the self-consciousness of the text, and thereby comment on the visibility of the author. Achilles Tatius is a notably difficult text. It presents a narrative of complexity, while appearing superficial. Scholars have recognised this complexity, but have yet to produce a clear analysis of how the text functions as a complete work. Through the discourse provided by the theory of ‘metafiction’, this complexity is able to be diagnosed and explored to its completion. It is only through the totality of the text that a complete understanding of Achilles’ novel becomes possible. In examining the text by book-pairs, a comprehensive and intelligent structure emerges, revealing a highly conscious text through its awareness of its own fictive structure. The consequence of providing a comprehensive analysis is that many of these insights cannot be explored to the extent they deserve, as more research remains to be done. The conclusion of the thesis will provide a larger understanding of how thes

Time in Ancient Greek Literature

This is the second volume of a new narratological history of Ancient Greek lietrature, which deals with aspects of time: the order in which events are narrated, the amount of time devoted to the naration, and the number of times they are presented.; Readership: All those interested in ancient Greek literature, narrative theory, literary history, comparative literature

Milton Babbitt’s Glosses on American Jewish Identity

Despite the fact that Babbitt claimed to “regard himself as Jewish and did not wish to be in any way evasive about being Jewish,” little scholarship has documented how Babbitt’s Jewish identity influenced his discourse or music. Yet, during the postwar era—a time when many American Jews felt an obligation to reaffirm their Jewish identity—Babbitt frequently employed Jewish themes in his discourse. Mapping the Jewish Exile narrative onto the plight of academic composers, he often draws correspondences between Schoenberg and Moses, America and the Promised Land, and the university and Masada. In this article, I contextualize this aspect of Babbitt’s rhetoric by outlining how his relationship to his Jewish identity evolved over the course of his career: from concessions he made to Princeton’s anti-Semitic policies early in his career to his active participation in conferences devoted to Jewish issues later in his career. I argue that the analogies Babbitt draws between Jewish tradition and his music demonstrate that he, like many American Jews during the period, fashioned his Jewish identity around Jewish individuals and religious beliefs that complemented his secular worldview. Then, I examine the repercussions Babbitt’s constructed Jewish identity had for his music. To this end, I offer an interpretation of three climactic, unsung moments in Glosses (1988). These three un-pitched vocalizations, I argue, not only realize the Jewish tradition wherein God, who in defying definition also resists signification, but also gloss Schoenberg’s musical symbol for YHVH

Time in Ancient Greek Literature

This is the second volume of a new narratological history of Ancient Greek lietrature, which deals with aspects of time: the order in which events are narrated, the amount of time devoted to the naration, and the number of times they are presented.; Readership: All those interested in ancient Greek literature, narrative theory, literary history, comparative literature

The Production, Practice and Potential of ‘Community’ in Edinburgh’s Transition Town Network

‘Community’ is increasingly seen as a solution to the environmental challenge faced in the UK. This original work critically evaluates schemes utilising ‘community’, focusing on those adopting the Transition Town Network (TTN) name, and those funded through the Climate Challenge Fund (CCF). It is based on qualitative, participative, empirical research with three of Edinburgh’s Transition Town Network groups and eighteen of their initiatives. This thesis charts the production of ‘community’ within these groups, set against the background of ‘community’ rhetoric both within TTN in general, and increasingly UK environmental policy more widely, specifically in the CCF. It then assesses what ‘community’ means – and has come to mean – in this context. ‘Community’ as a term for government capture of innovative political collectives, or as a progressive mobilising force, uniting diverse actors through small-scale belonging, are critically assessed in turn. The thesis argues that the concept of zuhanden – ‘ready-to-hand’, drawn from phenomenology – offers a fruitful way to understand ‘community’. Doing so emphasises and captures the hitherto neglected way in which ‘community’ is acquired, rather than sought. Building on this analysis the thesis then interrogates how ‘community’ as acquired rather than sought is envisioned and enacted in three of Edinburgh’s TTN groups. The thesis argues that this is closely intertwined with the way in which time is understood by such groups; the notion of ‘possible futures’ which are posited by ‘transition’. This is inherently connected to the groups’ view of space, and has implications for how they view and achieve success, and the tensions this creates with surrounding actors. It concludes with an assessment of the barriers or opportunities remaining for such ‘community’ initiatives. Through these issues, the thesis addresses the potentially irreconcilable tensions that exist between the CCF and TTN, and offers valuable lessons for ‘community’ groups in future

The Time of the Thriller: Suspense and Continuity after World War II

Through the analysis of a selection of thrillers written and produced in the years immediately following World War II, this dissertation defines the threshold conditions of narrative suspense in the twentieth century—the pending disappearance of continuity, not just in techniques of storytelling but in longstanding assumptions about time, about how it is and how it ought to be organized. These works, for instance, seem in various ways to prefigure a more general attenuation of narrative retrospection—narrative retrospection as a grammatical convention of realist fiction but also as a form of belief, as fidelity to the qualitative density of human experience as it is transmitted through time. This period of aesthetic transition, marked by the iconoclasm of the avant-garde, is often seen as a terminal point in the history of storytelling after modernism, a time (though certainly not the only time) when the novel dies along with the systems of value that upheld it. Alternately, as more recent scholarship has shown, it can be seen as the moment when the present tense starts to gain traction as the dominant mode of fictionalizing time. But the works examined in the following pages—including the fiction of Elizabeth Bowen, Graham Greene and Raymond Chandler, as well as the postwar films of Carol Reed, among others—modify the constraints of genre and reshape the forms of suspense simply by extending the transmission, by perpetuating the same old message about time even when it becomes grotesque in its apparent asynchrony. The death of narrative is perpetually delayed; or, one might say, narrative is undead, and it remains so as it drags itself onward into the cold war era