7 research outputs found

    Norming the Other: Narrative Empathy Via Focalised Heterotopia

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    This critical commentary argues that the novels submitted (emphasis on Ammonite, The Blue Place, and Hild, with three others, Slow River, Stay, and Always briefly referenced), form a coherent body of work which centres and norms the experience of the Other, particularly queer women. Close reading of the novels demonstrates how specific word-choice and metaphor locate the examination of a focalised character’s body in its physical and sensory setting. This examination of the body is referred to as embodiment. The commentary argues that embodiment of the focalised character activates neural mechanisms within the reader to create and sustain narrative empathy. It explores the creation of focalised heterotopias and the narrative consequences for characters traditionally marginalised in our society but not in their own. Keywords: writing the other, queer literature, embodied empathy, focalised heterotopia, narrative empathy, historicity literature, gender discourse literature, word choic

    Hegel's philosophical psychology of the individual

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    Author mislabeled page 130 as page 133. Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston UniversityThe problem of this diseertation is that of determining the nature ot the individual person and his social status within the scope ot Hegel's philosophical Psychology. The problem is that of ascertaining to what extent the individual, on all levels of existence, is conceived as an aspect or moment of the universal. No definitive work has as yet appeared dealing exclusively with the problem as presented herewith. The basic Hegelian material utilized in this work is contained within the Phänomenologie, the Encyclopädie, the Philosophie des Rechts and, to a lesser extent within the earlier philosophie Propädeutik. Among secondary sources the writings of Harris, Baillie, Wallace, Stirling, Royce, McTaggart, Stace, Knox and Mure may be cited. In German, the work of Lasson, Glockner, Hartmann, Kroner, Fischer deserve mention. Hegel's philosophy within its historical background is briefly sketched, noting in particular the influence ot Aristotle and Kant. Atter recognition ot the linguistic problem in Hegel, it is aeen that the emphasis on the empirical and the organic everywhere characterizes his philosophy. A review or the historical development of the dialectic trom Heraclitus to Kant discloses that Hegel gives it a distinctive place in his thought. The principle of negativity is paramount to any advance towards the speculative truth discoverable within the synthesis. His metaphysical principles are so interwoven within his logic that no sharp distinction can be made between them. The nature ot the Real is disclosed to be dialectic, empirical, organic, concrete and Absolute. The logical development of the category of individuality reveals the broad dialectical developnent by which Hegel expounds every philosophical subject according to a well-conceived theory of degrees of reality. The development of the individual is expressed on the various levels ot consciousness, self-consciousness, and reason, all requiring the existence of social institutions tor their realization. But whereas individuality unfolds dialectically as an organic whole, it appears that Hegel does not always recognize the exact relationship between the various expressions of individuality as displayed on the many levels. This procedure results in the shading of psychology and metaphysics into each other. Personality is envisioned as the logical outcome of individuality but its description is disappointingly formal. By expounding personality within a legal and economic context, Hegel fails to do justice to its empirical richness. This is most evident within the scope ot Hegel's psychology of personality which sets forth the forms of mental activity. The minimizing ot the uniqueness of the ordinary individual and the failure to provide tor a tension between him and his society is everywhere apparent in Hegel's analysis, especially in his treatment ot the will. The universal and the particular coalesce so imperceptibly that the individual is in grave danger or being absorbed within "objective mind." It is highly questionable whether the ease tor individual freedom can be sustained in his thought. Hegel identities the aims of the individual with those of the state by means of the logical Begriff. Ethical personality is not possible until the individual is thoroughly integrated within society whose ethical substance is contained within the family, civil society and the state. Personality is envisioned as an inwardly developed, genuinely organic whole. The scope of Hegel's psychology od the individual leads to an inquiry concerning the nature and need for a metaphysics of the self. That mind manifests itseltf dialectically as the processes of reason, constitutes the guiding principle in Hegel's metaphysics of the self. This concrete development or mind as a synthesis supplies the Hegelian view of speculation. His philosophy of mind discloses the presenee of mind on every level of existence, no matter how inadequate the expression may be on any given level. Matter and mind are modes of one reality, the Absolute. His clear-cut doctrine or degrees of truth and reality is a logical outcome of his understanding ot the dynamic organic nature of knowledge. In pursuing the problems or selfhood one notes the structure of the self as outlined in modern psychology. The psychology of traits is especially negative for a psychology or the individual, although its philosophical limitations are apparent. Basic to the problem of a metaphysics of the self is the question of the empirical unity of personality in which the complimentary processess of differentiation and integration may be maintained within the solid core of self-consciousness. One promising venture in empirical unity is to be found in Gestalt psychology, with which Hegel's organic emphasis has many affinities. But the Gestaltists run into the same danger at the empirical level as does Hegel, namely, the problem of saving the uniqueness of individuality of the ordinary individual person. It appears that the problem of the philosophical unity and identity ot the person transcends all psychological descriptions of it, thus forming the watershed between modern psychology and philosophy. The organic theory of personality in which the whole is realized in and through particular parts, and particulars are upheld within the whole, is the view arrived at here. This approach requires the organic community for its completion, involving the relationship between the individual will and the policies of the group as reflected in the universal will. For Hegel the univereal is the rational and is known only through speculation. But the universal so permeates the particular that the latter stands in grave danger of being subdued. This dissertation aims not only to offer a sympathetic exposition of Hegel's leading ideas as germaine to a philosophical psychology ot the individual, but proceeds to press these ideas to as fair a conclusion as possible. This requires strict attention to the internal structure of Hegel's system and poses the problem of the relation of the rational to the empirical, the relevancy ot Hegel's logical categories for a philosophy of mind. The heart ot Hegelianism is tound in the concept of an organic whole the constituent moments of which are serial phases of a single self-constituting activity called mind or spirit. The present study has disclosed the presence of an inherent dualistic struggle in human experience, recognized by Hegel in his exposition and appearing within the dialectic as the principle of negativity. The rational development of thought and experience requires that all partial truths be transcended yet preserved within the whole. While it would appear that Hegel sacrifices the individual to the state, he has in mind a rational state, and fully recognizes the evils inherent in the empirical state. Moreover, the dialectic moves forward to a higher consummation in the realms of religion and philosophy. A synthesis, therefore, does not necessarily mean the destruction ot the particulars but their preservation in something higher. By commitment to the dialectic, Hegel provides an ongoing developmental view of human experience with new vistas to challenge hwnan thought and achievement. The conelusions reached in this dissertation are as follows: 1. The principle o£ inclusiveness, basic for an adequate philosophical psychology, is apparent everywhere throughout Hegel's writings. The assertion that "the true is the whole" implies a system featuring an orderly relation of parts within a living significant whole. Reality is thus conceived as a coherent system of unity established through a reconciliation of opposites. The logic of the concrete universal is that all phases of being must be preserved though transcended. 2. Hegel makes reason the touchstone of his philosophy. It is indispensable for his synoptic grasp of mind, experience and reality. No phase of human experience is independent or another, hence the importance of internal relations. Reason makes human experience an intelligible venture. 3. The organic view of personality implies that all the features or traits have no concrete existence apart from the conscious whole. The experience of self-consciousness makes possible the unity of personality. In so far as Hegel fails to do justice to the empirical richness of personality, particularly its emotional overtones, his view is defective. The cognitive emphasis overshadows all others in his treatment. 4. The sagacious use or historical data in Hegel's exposition of human experience atones somewhat for the lack ot psychological experimental data at his disposal. There is, however, a too facile acceptance of the view that the individual recapitulates his culture and too little recognition of the fact that he helps create and modify that culture. 5. No ethics of the individual as such appears in Hegel's treatment. Ethical theory is absorbed within political philosophy. The individual is a participator in the nature and ends or others. Hegel unwisely ignores the value of individual conscience. The social becomes the central category in his ethics. He fails to see that man is by nature individual as well as social. 6. The importance or human experience is paramount since nothing is known which does not fall within experience, broadly considered. Hegel's experiential basis for all knowledge is fundamental and profound, thus making his philosophy epistemologically significant. 7. By virtue of reason the state possesses an organic nature and is based on universal, rational laws calculated to assist in the individual's growth and development. The dialectic makes all veneration of the empirical state highly questionable, since it is superseded by religion, art and philosophy. To the degree that Hegel's state calls for the predominance ot reason and the existence of freedom, it contains the necessary principles for individual preservation. 8, Hegel's philosophical psychology grapples searchingly with man's nature and destiny. It is a brilliant dialectical account of man's true existence, encompassing questions or the nature and scope or knowledge, the universal nature of mind, the significance of self-consciousness as these are related to the Absolute. It is the contention of his present work, however, that Hegel alights unduly the uniqueness and individuality of the particular individual person

    CREATING A COHERENT SCORE: THE MUSIC OF SINGLE-PLAYER FANTASY COMPUTER ROLE-PLAYING GAMES

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    This thesis provides a comprehensive exploration into the music of the ludic genre (Hourigan, 2005) known as a Computer Role-Playing Game (CRPG) and its two main sub-divisions: Japanese and Western Role-Playing Games (JRPGs & WRPGs). It focuses on the narrative category known as genre fiction, concentrating on fantasy fiction (Turco, 1999) and seeks to address one overall question: How do fantasy CRPG composers incorporate the variety of musical material needed to create a coherent score across the JRPG and WRPG divide? Seven main chapters form the thesis text. Chapter One provides an introduction to the thesis, detailing the research contributions in addition to outlining a variety of key terms that must be understood to continue with the rest of the text. A database accompanying this thesis showcases the vast range of CRPGs available; a literature review tackles relevant existing materials. Chapters Two and Three seek to provide the first canonical history of soundtracks used in CRPGs by dissecting typical narrative structures for games so as to provide context to their musical scores. Through analysis of existing game composer interviews, cultural influences are revealed. Chapters Four and Five mirror one another with detailed discussion respectively regarding JRPG and WRPG music including the influence that anime and Hollywood cinema have had upon them. In Chapter Six, the use of CRPG music outside of video games is explored, particularly the popularity of JRPG soundtracks in the concert hall. Chapter Seven concludes the thesis, summarising research contributions achieved and areas for future work. Throughout these chapters, the core task is to explain how the two primary sub-genres of CRPGs parted ways and why the music used to accompany these games differs so drastically

    Library wars: Discourse, power and Dystopian Young Adult Literature from the East and West

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    In the last twenty years, much of the excitement over the rapid development of technology has faded away as it has not provided all the answers to social problems. On the contrary, some problems have become more acute through the use of new technologies, such as the subjugation and monitoring of citizens, a phenomenon this thesis examines in a sample of the many dystopian works written for young adults which have emerged in both the West and the East in the last two decades. These works reveal authors’ thoughts about the power structure of human society; their concerns and ideas about the past and present and their expectations about the future of the world. This thesis is based on a comparative analysis of the contemporary Western and Eastern Dystopian Young Adult Literature (DYAL) from a sociological perspective. The focus will be on issues of information control and censorship in DYAL, because knowledge is one of the main bones of power contention in a dystopian prospect. Based on the theories of sociology of literature and Michel Foucault’s theory about discourse and power and a historical review of the development of YAL in the East and West, this research attempts to structure the spatiotemporal attributes of DYAL, and expound the circulated, exchanged and interactive relationship between (D)YAL and society. From this structure, more importantly, a discourse-power mapping framework for analysing dystopian literature has been developed. Although there have been numerous studies on the Western DYAL, comparative research on the Western and Eastern DYAL has been scarce. Hence, three representative dystopian YA works from USA (The Great Library series, Rachel Caine, 2015), Japan (Library Wars series, Hiro Arikawa, 2006) and China (Infernal Affairs, Sizhe Zangyi, 2014) were selected to be analysed with the framework in order to discuss the discourse-power relationship; the political ideas and social concerns shown in works from different cultural backgrounds. Furthermore, the results of the qualitative research on the Western and Eastern reader groups’ discussions have been included in the comparative analysis of the works. This sheds light on both authors’ and readers’ thoughts about discourse-power structure and the future prospect of human society inside and outside DYAL. This thesis aims to demonstrate the sociological issues around DYAL from a different theoretical scope. The study may provide an effective framework for the researchers in this field and could be applicable to further educational conversations. Hence, this research has realistic and practical importance not only for scholars and educators in YA literature, but also for the sociologists who are interested in youth culture in the digital era

    El modelo cortical HTM y su aplicación al conocimiento lingüístico

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    El problema que aborda este trabajo de investigación es encontrar un modelo neurocomputacional de representación y comprensión del conocimiento léxico, utilizando para ello el algoritmo cortical HTM, que modela el mecanismo según el cual se procesa la información en el neocórtex humano. La comprensión automática del lenguaje natural implica que las máquinas tengan un conocimiento profundo del lenguaje natural, lo que, actualmente, está muy lejos de conseguirse. En general, los modelos computacionales para el Procesamiento del Lenguaje Natural (PLN), tanto en su vertiente de análisis y comprensión como en la de generación, utilizan algoritmos fundamentados en modelos matemáticos y lingüísticos que intentan emular la forma en la que tradicionalmente se ha procesado el lenguaje, por ejemplo, obteniendo la estructura jerárquica implícita de las frases o las desinencias de las palabras. Estos modelos son útiles porque sirven para construir aplicaciones concretas como la extracción de datos, la clasificación de textos o el análisis de opinión. Sin embargo, a pesar de su utilidad, las máquinas realmente no entienden lo que hacen con ninguno de estos modelos. Por tanto, la pregunta que se aborda en este trabajo es si, realmente, es posible modelar computacionalmente los procesos neocorticales humanos que regulan el tratamiento de la información de tipo semántico del léxico. Esta cuestión de investigación constituye el primer nivel para comprender el procesamiento del lenguaje natural a niveles lingüísticos superiores..
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