29,838 research outputs found

    Emergent Story Generation: Lessons from Improvisational Theater

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    An emergent approach to story generation by computer is characterized by a lack of predetermined plot and a focus on character interaction forming the material for stories. A potential problem is that no interesting story emerges. However, improvisational theater shows that – at least for human actors – a predetermined plot is not necessary for creating a compelling story. There are some principles that make a successful piece of improvisational theater more than a random interaction, and these principles may inform the type of computational processes that an emergent narrative architecture draws from. We therefore discuss some of these principles, and show how these are explicitly or implicitly used in story generation and interactive storytelling research. Finally we draw lessons from these principles and ask attention for two techniques that have been little investigated: believably incorporating directives, and late commitment

    Hokey Religions: Star Wars and Star Trek in the Age of Reboots

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    Disney’s recent “decanonization” of the decades-old Star Wars “Expanded Universe” in preparation for the release of The Force Awakens once again raises the question of the triangular relationship between the corporate ownership of intellectual property, the mainstream audience to whom the blockbuster films are addressed, and the much smaller hardcore fanbase whose loyalty sustains a franchise during its lean years. Considering fandom investment in the processes of world-building and continuity construction across the landscape of SF media forms, this article will focus specifically on two key franchises in mainstream SF, each in its own way paradigmatic of the “merely” science fictional, and each of which has recently undertaken a radical revision of its “expanded universe”: Star Wars and Star Trek. A concluding discussion extends these observations to other two franchises: Superman comics and the long-running British television series Doctor Who

    Depictions of Elderly Blacks in American Literature

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    Portraits of elderly Afroamerican men and women abound in American literature and vary from stories which present a mythic primordial character who symbolizes emotional stability, experiential wisdom and a community\u27s cultural and historical heritage, to works in slice-of-life realistic style which dramatize the social and psychological conditions of aged blacks. Included in this second category are works which show the confrontation between old and new social standards. Coupled with this range of portraits is a variety of attitudes toward elderly blacks

    The Algebra of Grand Unified Theories

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    The Standard Model of particle physics may seem complicated and arbitrary, but it has hidden patterns that are revealed by the relationship between three "grand unified theories": theories that unify forces and particles by extending the Standard Model symmetry group U(1) x SU(2) x SU(3) to a larger group. These three theories are Georgi and Glashow's SU(5) theory, Georgi's theory based on the group Spin(10), and the Pati-Salam model based on the group SU(2) x SU(2) x SU(4). In this expository account for mathematicians, we explain only the portion of these theories that involves finite-dimensional group representations. This allows us to reduce the prerequisites to a bare minimum while still giving a taste of the profound puzzles that physicists are struggling to solve.Comment: 73 pages, 20 ps figure

    The ballads of <i>Tam Lin</i> and <i>Thomas the Rhymer</i>: transformations and transcriptions

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    Fantasy, in the shape of folk and fairy tale is the oldest and the first literary genre in Scotland, as in almost any society. (Manlove, 2003) Such stories would originally have been told orally. Two of these fairy tales appear in the fifteenth century border ballads of “Tam Lin” and “Thomas the Rhymer”, and seem unique to Scotland, not least because of their debt to native fairy lore. Novelistic retelling of such traditional material became more common in the twentieth century and this, arguably, could be considered the twentieth century’s unique contribution to the telling of traditional tales. This paper explores the question of why these particular ballads should exert such a strong appeal for modern children’s writers, and how such transformations and translations might be considered modern–day variations, upholding the ballad tradition. The exemplar texts include Liz Lochhead’s Tam Lin’s Lady as well as a selection of novels for young adults which use one or both of these ballads as their source material. The paper considers how the material in both its original and transformed aspects serves important cultural functions by initiating children into facets of a social heritage and by transmitting many of a culture’s central values and assumptions as well as a body of shared allusions and experiences, ensuring that ballads can still have a significant impact on today’s young readers

    The story of Noah: violent exclusionary apocaplytic is (not) good to think

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    Genesis 6-9; Festschrift in honour of Erwin Buck. Rev fr paper presented at the Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, 19 S 2007, Hope Lutheran Church in Calgary, and All Saints Anglican Church in Regina

    American Myths, Legends, and Tall Tales: An Encyclopedia of American Folklore

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    Folklore has been a part of American culture for as long as humans have inhabited North America, and increasingly formed an intrinsic part of American culture as diverse peoples from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania arrived. In modern times, folklore and tall tales experienced a rejuvenation with the emergence of urban legends and the growing popularity of science fiction and conspiracy theories, with mass media such as comic books, television, and films contributing to the retelling of old myths. This multi-volume encyclopedia will teach readers the central myths and legends that have formed American culture since its earliest years of settlement. Its entries provide a fascinating glimpse into the collective American imagination over the past 400 years through the stories that have shaped it. [From the Publisher]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/books/1095/thumbnail.jp
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