Wear and Care Feminisms at a Long Maker Table

Although there is a deep history of feminist engagement with technology, the FemTechNet initiative (a feminist collective of which we are both a part) argues that such history is often hidden and that feminist thinkers are frequently siloed. At the same time, initiatives to promote critical making, acts of “shared construction” in which makers work to understand both the technologies and their social environments, often exclude women and girls from hacker/makerspaces that require both explicit permissions and access to implicit reserves of tacit knowledge. Even attempts to provide superficial hospitality can inflict microagressions on those who feel excluded from the sites of technology. When these bastions for tinkering under the hood promote “pinkification” with hyper-feminized projects and materials empha - sizing servility, consumerism, or beauty culture, the results are often counterproductive. Take, for example, Google’s recent “Made with Code” effort, which emphasized accessories and selfies as projects appropriate for girls. Even the otherwise admirable “Girls Who Code” site tends to rely on the default design schemes of stereotypical gender typing, including a curling cursive script for section heads, a color palette dominated by a rose-pink, and the iconography of sisterhood and empowerment in the graphics and scrolling images.https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asbookchapters/1004/thumbnail.jp

Music and lyric characteristics of popular Dutch funeral songs

This study compared the characteristics of 150 songs (Dutch lyrics, N = 47, English lyrics, N = 103), popular at Dutch funerals, to an equal number of non-funeral songs. The variables explored included those linked with the music (valence, energy, danceability, acousticness, key, and tempo); and lyrics, namely: linguistics-related (first-person singular/plural, second-person pronouns; past, present, future tense; expressed emotion (positive, negative words, and the discrete emotional categories anger, anxiety, sadness); and category words (those relating to family, friends, death, religion). Funeral music was lower in valence, energy, and danceability and higher in acousticness than non-funeral music. Furthermore, English funeral music lyrics contained more second-person pronouns and were more future-focused than comparison songs. Funeral lyrics were not particularly negative, but English texts contained more words relating to sadness. In conclusion, funeral music differs in severable notable respects from general popular songs that may reflect the special purpose of this music

The consoling power of music:The role of emotions and musical aspects

Music and emotions are inextricably linked to one another. Music's ability to evoke emotion in listeners, is one of the reasons why people turn to music to improve their mood or express what they are feeling. Even though music is able to console, little systematic research has considered how music can offer consolation. This dissertation investigates music's consoling properties and considers related behavior, such as crying over music. Our research shows that listening to music is one of the foremost ways for people to console themselves, even more so than looking for support from others, eating, or crying. Moreover, it is a very private and intimate activity that mostly occurs when alone after the experience of a personal loss, such as the loss of a loved one or feeling misunderstood. Songs of consolation elicit feelings of being moved, sadness, and nostalgia, but also give rise to feeling strengthened, and relaxed. According to listeners it is the music itself (e.g., the melody), the lyrics (in case of pop music), and the memories that music evokes, which brings solace. It provides listeners with a sense of connection in which music can function as an understanding friend. In follow-up research, we investigated a possible association between emotional eating and several ways of regulating one's mood through music listening, including consolation, and discharge. We found an association between emotional eating and discharge, but not between emotional eating and consolation. Discharge is the venting of one's emotions, for instance, by listening to very loud music. Discharge appears to be the opposite of consolation. Crying over music is a common behavior. It mostly occurs when alone, and crying episodes tend to be short with mostly moist eyes and some sobbing. Listeners experience feelings of being moved, sadness, nostalgia and powerless when crying over music. They attribute their tears to sad memories evoked by music, nostalgia, the music itself, and the lyrics. Women cry more often and more intense than men, but the typical gender differences that are reported in the general crying literature, appear to be smaller when crying over music. Normally, these smaller differences are reported in case of severe distress or profound joy (e.g., a wedding, birth, or loss of a loved one). Lastly, we compared the linguistic and musical characteristics of often-used Dutch and English sung funeral music to popular hit music by the same artists. Funeral music sounds sadder, is less energetic, and more acoustic than popular music. Funeral music is also more often in a major key. This suggests a mixture between positive and negative feelings that also found in consolation through music and crying over music. We also find this mixed affect in the lyrics, which has more positive than negative words, and most of these negative words express sadness. We further found interesting differences in the use of second-person pronouns, and verbs in the future tense; second-person pronouns, and future tense verbs were more common in funeral songs. These pronouns express a personal connection with somebody else, while the future-focused words give this connection some permanence. A clear example is: "I will always love you." The acoustic character of the music allows one to focus and emphasize the lyrics. The emotions listeners experience when experiencing consolation or when crying over music have recently been linked to prosocial behavior and processes underlying social connections. Our findings can prove useful in the field of mood-regulation through music, and the general understanding of consolation. _ Muziek en emoties zijn onlosmakelijk met elkaar verbonden. Het gegeven dat het luisteren naar muziek emoties oproept bij luisteraars, is een reden waarom mensen zich vaak tot muziek wenden om hun stemming te verbeteren of om uiting te geven aan wat zij voelen. Hoewel het luisteren naar muziek kan troosten, is er nog weinig systematisch onderzoek gedaan naar hoe muziek troost biedt. Deze dissertatie onderzoekt de troostende eigenschappen van muziek en gedrag dat daarmee samenhangt, waaronder huilen met muziek. Uit ons onderzoek blijkt dat muziek luisteren een van de belangrijkste manieren is om je getroost te voelen, meer nog dan bijvoorbeeld steun zoeken bij anderen, eten of in tranen uitbarsten. Het is bovendien een zeer persoonlijke, intieme aangelegenheid, die plaatsvindt wanneer men alleen is en volgt op het ervaren van persoonlijk verlies, bijvoorbeeld het overlijden van een dierbare of je onbegrepen te voelen. Troostliederen wekken gevoelens op van ontroering, verdriet en nostalgie, maar geven ook een gevoel van kracht en ontspanning. Luisteraars schrijven het troostende vermogen van muziek toe aan de muziek zelf (bijv. de melodie), de teksten (bij popmuziek) en de herinneringen die de muziek oproept. Het zorgt voor gevoelens van verbinding, waarbij muziek kan dienen als een begripvolle vriend. In vervolgonderzoek keken we naar een mogelijke samenhang tussen emotioneel eten en diverse manieren van stemmingsregulatie door middel van het luisteren naar muziek, waaronder troost en ontlading. We vonden geen samenhang tussen emotioneel eten en troost, maar wel tussen emotioneel eten en ontlading. Ontlading is het ventileren van emoties door bijvoorbeeld naar harde muziek te luisteren en lijkt tegenovergesteld te zijn aan troost. Huilen met muziek komt veel voor, gebeurt meestal wanneer men alleen is, is doorgaans kort van duur en gaat gepaard met vochtige ogen en wat snikken. Luisteraars ervaren vooral ontroering, verdriet, nostalgie en machteloosheid en schrijven hun tranen toe aan droevige herinneringen, de muziek zelf, nostalgie en de teksten. Vrouwen huilen vaker en intenser bij muziek dan mannen, maar de sekseverschillen die doorgaans gerapporteerd worden in regulier huilonderzoek zijn kleiner wanneer muziek in het spel is. Die kleinere verschillen ziet men normaliter bij zeer emotionele situaties van blijdschap of verdriet (bruiloft, geboorte, overlijden). Tot slot vergeleken we de tekstuele en muzikale eigenschappen van veelgebruikte Nederlands- en Engelstalige begrafenismuziek met populaire hits van dezelfde artiesten. Begrafenismuziek klinkt droeviger, is minder energiek en vaker akoestisch dan populaire muziek. Bovendien is begrafenismuziek vaker in majeur. Er is dus sprake van een mix van positieve en negatieve gevoelens die we eerder vonden bij muziek als troost en huilen met muziek, en ook terugzien in de teksten. De emotionele toon van de teksten is namelijk veelal positief, met minder negatieve woorden dan positieve. Het merendeel van die negatieve woorden drukt verdriet uit. Interessante verschillen zitten er in het gebruik van tweede persoons voornaamwoorden (je, jij, jouw) en toekomstgerichte werkwoorden. Die vonden we namelijk meer bij begrafenismuziek. Deze voornaamwoorden drukken een verbinding met iemand anders uit, terwijl de toekomstgerichte woorden deze relatie iets blijvends geven. Denk bijvoorbeeld aan "I will always love you." Het akoestische karakter van de muziek zorgt ervoor dat de nadruk op deze teksten kan worden gelegd. De emoties die luisteraars ervaren wanneer ze huilen met muziek of wanneer ze getroost worden, zijn recent in verband gebracht met prosociaal gedrag en sociale verbindingsprocessen. Onze bevindingen kunnen nuttig zijn op het gebied van stemmingsregulatie via muziek en het algemene begrip van troost

Turing’s Three Senses of “Emotional”

Turing used the expression “emotional” in three distinct ways: to state his philosophical theory of the concept of intelligence, to classify arguments for and against the possibility of machine intelligence, and to describe the education of a “child machine”. The remarks on emotion include several of the most important philosophical claims. This paper analyses these remarks and their significance for current research in Artificial Intelligence

Leading in a VUCA World

This open access book brings together works by specialists from different disciplines and continents to reflect on the nexus between leadership, spirituality and discernment, particularly with regard to a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). The book spells out, first of all, what our VUCA world entails, and how it affects businesses, organizations, and societies as a whole. Secondly, the book develops new perspectives on the processes of leadership, spirituality, and discernment, particularly in this VUCA context. These perspectives are interdisciplinary in nature, and are informed by e.g. management studies, leadership theory, philosophy, and theology

The Phenomena of Prayer: The Reception of the Imitatio Christi in England (1438-c.1600)

PhDThe Imitatio Christi by Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471) was among the most successful texts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Over eight hundred manuscripts survive from that period alongside hundreds of printed editions. Its popularity transcended language, nation, religious vocation and ultimately confession. Hitherto, most monographs on the Imitatio have debated the question of its authorship. This thesis joins the growing body of work that examines the features that made this text so attractive. Continuously reshaped by readers and editors, the Imitatio tradition encompasses a corpus of texts with often vastly divergent meanings. This variety emerged, in part, as a result of the text itself, which encouraged its own fragmentation, and in part from the mimetic reading habits that prevailed throughout the period of this study. This thesis takes a longue-durée perspective, situating different versions of the Imitatio within the broader tradition and considering their relationships with one another. It is argued that the Imitatio’s success was owed not to the establishment of a characteristic meaning but to a characteristic tradition of use. The text became a source for mimetic, compunctious prayer. The popularity of the Imitatio among sixteenth-century reformers shows the continuing popularity of the rhetorical characteristics of compunctious devotions. This thesis contends that, through the Imitatio, traditional religious practices continued to be important for English reformers. The text provided a focus for developing Protestant identities. For early evangelicals, its traditional formulations helped them conceal their heterodoxy, while its themes of intense devotion to the Holy Spirit allowed them to tacitly engage with reformist doctrine. For Elizabethan Calvinists, Kempis’s text was emblematic of the continuity of the true, Apostolic Church, during the era of Papal supremacy.QMUL’s Vice Principal’s Scholarship School of History’s Stretton Fund

Puritan affective culture: emotional identities and the publications of Samuel Clarke (1599-1682)

On Black Bartholomew's Day 1662, the Presbyterian Samuel Clarke was one of over two thousand ministers and teachers ejected from their positions by the Restoration government. From the outside, puritans in general, and Presbyterians in particular, were regarded as divisive and censorious. Their dissent was characterised as emanating from zealotry and unreasonable passion that placed them beyond the bounds of a moderate middle way. But for those who counted themselves as godly, intense emotional experience was the essence of rationality and an essential part of their piety. Historians have debated the emotional impact of Calvinist theology and how feeling was central to religious experience. They have exhaustively scrutinised the place of puritanism more generally. However, the role of affect as articulated in public discourse, and the dynamics of emotion in shaping the interface between individual and collective identity has been neglected. Yet, feeling was a fundamental component of politico-religious identities that reflected cultural habituations and determined the nature of the interaction between those of different persuasions. This thesis proposes that a concept of affective culture helps to locate Clarke's Presbyterianism within these multifarious identities as they developed in the mid-seventeenth century. It draws upon concepts and methodologies from the field of emotions history to explore the relationship between cultures, published text and affect. In his published anthologies Samuel Clarke presented patterns of affect, mobilising a construction of unruly passions and rational affections to underpin his purpose of representing his confessional community as an orthodoxy at the centre of the English Church. This account begins with a macro view that establishes the place of Clarke's work in the affective context of mid-seventeenth-century politico-religious conflict. It goes on to develop an analysis of how Clarke fashioned a template of pious emotion, before considering how affective culture shaped personal and collective identities

Ethics, Religion, and Spiritual Health

What does human enhancement technology (HET) and artificial intelligence (AI) have to do with religion? This book explores, specifically, the intersection of HET and AI with spiritual health, Christianity, and ethics. The exploration strengthens an emergent, robust body of publications about human enhancement ethics. What does it mean to make us “better” must also address the potential spiritual implications. Concern for spiritual health promises to make the study of religion and human enhancement ethics increasingly pressing in the public sphere. Some of the most significant possible and probable spiritual impacts of HET and AI are probed. Topics include warfare, robots, chatbots, moral bioenhancement, spiritual psychotherapy, superintelligence, ecology, fasting, and psychedelics. Two sections comprise this book: one addresses spirituality in relation to HETs and AI, and one addresses Christianity in relation to HETs and AI

Leading in a VUCA World

This open access book brings together works by specialists from different disciplines and continents to reflect on the nexus between leadership, spirituality and discernment, particularly with regard to a world that is increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA). The book spells out, first of all, what our VUCA world entails, and how it affects businesses, organizations, and societies as a whole. Secondly, the book develops new perspectives on the processes of leadership, spirituality, and discernment, particularly in this VUCA context. These perspectives are interdisciplinary in nature, and are informed by e.g. management studies, leadership theory, philosophy, and theology