The politics of journalistic creativity: expressiveness, authenticity and de-authorization

This article begins with the assertion that creativity in journalism has moved from being a matter of guile and ingenuity to being about expressiveness, and that this reflects a broader cultural shift from professional expertise to the authenticity of personal expression as dominant modes of valorization. It then seeks to unpack the normative baggage that underpins the case for creativity in the cultural industries. First, there is a prioritization of agency, which does not stand up against the phenomenological argument that we do not own our own practices. Second, creative expression is not necessarily more free, simply alternately structured. As with Judith Butler’s performativity model, contemporary discourses of creativity assume it to have a unique quality by which it eludes determination (relying on tropes of fluidity), whereas it can be countered that it is in spontaneous, intuitive practice that we are at our least agencical. Third, the article argues against the idea that by authorizing journalists (and audiences) to express themselves, creativity is democratizing, since the always-already nature of recognition means that subjects can only voice their position within an established terrain rather than engage active positioning

The Neuroethical Role of Narrative Identity in Ethical Decision Making

An increasingly blurred understanding of the moral significance of narrative identity for a robust perception of self, other, and community suggests a critical need to explore the inter-relationships shared between autobiographical memory, emotional rationality, and narrative identity, particularly as it bears on decision making. This essay argues that (i) the disintegration of autobiographical memory degenerates emotional rationality; (ii) the degeneration of emotional rationality decays narrative identity; and (iii) the decay of narrative identity disables one to seek, identify, and act on the good. After demonstrating that narrative identity is best understood as the product of autobiographical memory and emotional rationality, which in turn is indispensable to substantive ethical decision making, the essay concludes by suggesting that narrative identity may be successfully employed as a justificatory framework for ethical decision making, providing both education to, and rigor for, substantive moral judgment

Investigation of an emotional virtual human modelling method

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.In order to simulate virtual humans more realistically and enable them life-like behaviours, several exploration research on emotion calculation, synthetic perception, and decision making process have been discussed. A series of sub-modules have been designed and simulation results have been presented with discussion. A visual based synthetic perception system has been proposed in this thesis, which allows virtual humans to detect the surrounding virtual environment through a collision-based synthetic vision system. It enables autonomous virtual humans to change their emotion states according to stimuli in real time. The synthetic perception system also allows virtual humans to remember limited information within their own First-in-first-out short-term virtual memory. The new emotion generation method includes a novel hierarchical emotion structure and a group of emotion calculation equations, which enables virtual humans to perform emotionally in real-time according to their internal and external factors. Emotion calculation equations used in this research were derived from psychologic emotion measurements. Virtual humans can utilise the information in virtual memory and emotion calculation equations to generate their own numerical emotion states within the hierarchical emotion structure. Those emotion states are important internal references for virtual humans to adopt appropriate behaviours and also key cues for their decision making. The work introduces a dynamic emotional motion database structure for virtual human modelling. When developing realistic virtual human behaviours, lots of subjects were motion-captured whilst performing emotional motions with or without intent. The captured motions were endowed to virtual characters and implemented in different virtual scenarios to help evoke and verify design ideas, possible consequences of simulation (such as fire evacuation). This work also introduced simple heuristics theory into decision making process in order to make the virtual human’s decision making more like real human. Emotion values are proposed as a group of the key cues for decision making under the simple heuristic structures. A data interface which connects the emotion calculation and the decision making structure together has also been designed for the simulation system

Alienation and resignation: why don't we act against apocalyptic futures?

Humanity faces apocalyptic futures which are the product of the current socio-economic system. However, the present response is insufficient. This thesis analyzes what prevents people from effectively acting against future catastrophes. In order to do so, I use climate change as the main example and employ a Marxist critique of capitalism. I argue that the insufficiency of current responses to catastrophic futures can be explained by Marx’s notion of alienation which is inherent to the current mode of production. In first three chapters I demonstrate different consequences of estranged labor. First, it makes people alienated not only from the fruits of their labor, but also from other people, thus preventing collective actions. Secondly, it disconnects individuals from the world which they collectively produce. Thirdly, it alienates individuals from a collectively produced future, affecting their perception of temporality and making them see the future as inevitable but eternally postponed. Thus, they become discouraged to act against the catastrophes which they collectively cause. In the fourth chapter I propose two philosophical solutions to this deadlock – Stoicism, which enables individual activity, and existentialism, which motivates people to act even if their struggle is absurd.https://www.ester.ee/record=b5447856*es

Believing Mary Karr

Believing Mary Karr examines how belief, represented in the memoirs of Mary Karr, works in our contemporary moment. This examination is supported by the argument that our identities and the stories we tell about them are always constructions of belief, and that these beliefs are ultimately relational, enacted in the intersubjective relationship between writers and readers of autobiography. This dissertation provides the fields of both rhetoric and life writing studies not only an awareness of how ideas about belief—how beliefs about belief—have already shaped our scholarly imagination but also the possibilities a rhetoric of belief can offer to future conversations about what it means to read and write autobiography in America today. Engaging theorists such as Graham Ward, Paul Ricoeur, Jessica Benjamin, Michel Foucault, and Judith Butler, this dissertation examines various beliefs, both sacred and secular, represented in Karr’s The Liars’ Club, Cherry, Lit, and The Art of Memoir. Believing Mary Karr suggests that stories of belief, epitomized by Mary Karr’s memoirs, offer readers an embodied experience that operates through the expectant affects of desire and hope and that also forms, re-forms, and transforms their own structures of believing. Thus, such narratives reveal their power on at least two levels. Individually, they invite us to reconsider the role of belief in our own lives. Collectively, they hold the potential to reinscribe pervading cultural myths by acknowledging how beliefs help create shared worlds

An Exploration Of The Potentials And Limitations Of Adapting Traditional Text-based Narrative To Interactive Technology

Narrative is expressed in many forms, yet the reading of narrative through books may be unique in its transformative qualities. The medium of books has existed for thousands of years as a primary means of passing down and internalizing narrative from generation to generation. Are books now a dying medium in the face of ever-advancing technology in an increasingly fast-paced and technologically-dependent society? Technology now incorporates narrative into interactive environments in various ways often immersing the user in ever more realistic experiential scenarios. Yet, is something potentially lost with these advancements that can only be afforded through the time-tested method of old-fashioned reading? What makes reading so compelling a medium/activity for personal development? Does experience in these interactive environments offer the same transformative intrinsic experience afforded through the tranquil receptive processing, reflective elaboration and insight offered through the reading of books? This thesis seeks to explore these questions by looking at three major factors that must be considered in furthering our understanding of the potentials and limitations of interactive narrative technologies as they compare to narrative delivered via the established medium of books: 1) theories of self, identity/character, cognitive development and behavior (specifically as these relate to traditional text-based narrative), 2) theory and research associated with narrative transportation and transformation, and 3) current and future efforts to adapt narrative to the medium of interactive technology

Urban fantasy: Theorising an emergent literary subgenre

Fantasy literature in the 1980s underwent a revisionist change, which resulted in the emergence of a number of subgenres that challenged the dominant Tolkien model of fantasy writing. One such subgenre, which continues in popularity today, is urban fantasy (UF). UF is distinguished by real-world urban settings unsettled by the presence of the supernatural and the non-rational. The exemplary writers in this genre are Emma Bull (War for the Oaks, 1987), China Mieville (King Rat, 1998) as well as Laurell K. Hamilton (in her prolific series: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter), Patricia Briggs (Mercy Thompson Series) and Suzanne McLeod (Spellcrackers.com Series), among others. The classification of UF has predominantly been commercial or industry-based, with little critical or theoretical evaluation undertaken to define or establish its parameters. Within a limited frame of reference this thesis aims to fulfil a twofold purpose: first, to explore the evolution of UF from its roots in fantasy, urban realism and other antecedent genres so as to better establish its inherited characteristics; and, second, to offer a classificatory framework that identifies the distinctive elements of UF’s thematic concerns and protagonists. An exploration of UF highlights that it is a unique subgenre that comments on our inherent fears and anxieties of contemporary urban life. Furthermore, UF draws attention to culture’s disturbing fascination with the brutal, monstrous, facets of human life and, as a femalecentric subgenre, challenges us to rethink our received perceptions of the female hero