No Time for Tears : A Look at Death in the Salinas Valley Novels of John Steinbeck

Robert F. Weir, in Death in Literature, begins his study by writing about a Buddhist parable which nicely illustrates the inevitability of death and the perennial problem of accepting death as a fact of human existence . A Buddhist woman, distraught over the death of her child, seeks help from Buddha, who instructs her to collect mustard seeds from any house where death has not occurred. Full of hope because she thinks she will find such a house, she embarks on her task only to learn that death strikes every family; finally she accepts the death of her son. Weir then suggests that by using literature-as a reflective device, Novelists often succeed in focusing our attention on that part of nature we most want to ignore: the inevitability of death . Death - sometimes through natural and accidental causes, but primarily through the violent causes of suicide and murder – permeates the novels that John Steinbeck wrote during the decade of the depression. Steinbeck\u27s contemporaries, Hemingway and Faulkner, also focused on violent themes. In fact, Frohock, in The Novel of Violence in America, writes that most novelists of that period wrote books that run to violence . In one book like The Sun Also Rises action takes place over a period of time, characters tend to be passive victims who change and evolve according to the will of time, and who act less than they undergo . On the other hand, in For Whom the Bell Tolls, the hero, Robert Jordan has four days to work out his destiny . All the action in the novel takes place in those four days. Frohock states that when time appears as a limitation . . . it provides a sense of urgency and he calls this kind of novel the novel of destiny . The hero finds himself in a predicament such that the only possible exit is through inflicting harm on some other human being…He accepts the way of violence because life, as he sees life, is like that: violence is man\u27s fate. With the exception of To A God Unknown, the action in Steinbeck\u27s novels under study takes place in a relatively short time and his characters are actors and not victims. Gorer, writing in 1955, observed a phenomenon which he called the pornography of death . He writes in the twentieth century … death, has become more and more unmentionable as a natural process . Although death scenes were a common Victorian theme, Gorer writes that he does not recall a major character in books written after 1935, whose death occurred by natural causes. Yet he notes, in agreement with the observation of Frohock, that violent deaths abound in those same books. Although Steinbeck primarily concentrated on violent deaths , the natural death of Gramma and Grampa in the Grapes of Wrath shows his ability to write tenderly and sensitively about death as well

Emerging technologies for learning (volume 1)

Collection of 5 articles on emerging technologies and trend

Demand Management: Beyond Revenue Management

[Excerpt] Think of yield or revenue management (RM) as the base of a funnel where the demand for services pours into the top is managed using price, terms and conditions, layovers, and length of stay controls to optimise revenue. That process can be carried out with a sophisticated RM system or in a more limited way with an intelligently developed and applied set of pricing and organisational practices. Demand management can be envisioned as both RM and keeping the funnel continuously and cost-effectively full of potential business. Formally, demand management has been defined by Larry Hall, President and CEO of Hotel Booking Solutions as, ‘the art and science of dynamically managing demand to optimise distribution and maximise customer relationships’. More generally, think of demand management as extending the tactical tools of RM to a more strategic level of not just managing demand but creating and directing demand. Used effectively, demand management has the opportunity to create value and avoid the increasing commoditisation of services

FIXOR: A New Approach to Neutralizing Landmines and UXO

Canada’s MREL Specialty Explosive Products Limited introduces a new approach to neutralizing landmines and UXO

Old-fashioned or enlightened? Small retailers' practices in e-procurement.

The paper considers how and why SME retailers use the internet in their procurement processes. Examining retailers' views and reasons, we relate these to existing technology acceptance models, employing a qualitative approach. Although our respondents accepted the pervasion of internet marketing, they believed that a more personalised approach to purchasing was necessary to maintain their competitive advantage. For them, effectiveness in purchasing took priority over efficiency. We argue that this view and the consequent actions were a result of the size of the firm and the nature of the products they sold. Our sample size prevents us from generalising. However, we argue that large scale surveys may miss the nuances of decision-making and that the unique character of SMEs may imply that conventional models of technology acceptance need to be modified to take account of these characteristics. Our findings challenge the assumption that one size theoretically fits all in technology driven procurement

Evaluating the Consortia Purchase: Journal Usage in a Multi-Institution Setting

When two or more institutions share a license, how do they measure use and value? For over a decade, the Levy Library at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Sid and Ruth Lapidus Library at the New York University School of Medicine, and New York University Libraries at New York University have shared several publisher packages and journal title subscriptions. In this paper, we present our analysis of usage data to assess the value of some of these consortial arrangements in their totality and to each library. Based on this analysis, we were able to adjust how each institution contributes to consortial arrangements. The paper will discuss challenges in analyzing consortial arrangements based on usage data and offer suggestions for how consortia-based acquisitions can be an effective allocation of library funds and strengthen support for the library in its institution

The Nerf ball: A useful technique for management education and practice: Working paper series--05-06

This paper describes a technique the first author imported from management practice to (a) develop students' meeting management skills, (b) improve students' listening skills and conflict management abilities and (c) encourage student participation and create a supportive learning environment. The technique uses a tangible prop (i.e., a Nerf ball) and is appropriate for use by individuals, classroom instructors, trainers and management professionals