Blitz aus heiterm Himmel: Monstrous Femininity and the Illusion of Gender Equality in the GDR

The anthology Blitz aus heiterm Himmel was published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1975. It includes short stories written by both men and women in which the protagonist undergoes a miraculous gender change of sorts. While the various authors take different approaches to the concept of gender, there are themes that tie the stories together. In the stories that scholars have analyzed, their analyses generally focus on either the portrayal of men and the role of masculinity, or the discourse of women in science. I instead chose to focus on and analyze three of these short stories (“Selbstversuch: Traktat zu einem Protokoll”, “Der Gute Botschaft der Valeska in 73 Strophen” and “Das Rübenfest“) using the conventions of the horror genre. I discuss the lack of a horror genre in general in the GDR, and also conclude that the unrealized promise of gender equality in the GDR lead to the manifestation of doppelgängers and witches in the Blitz aus heiterm Himmel anthology

Mobile Media: From Legato to Staccato, Isochronal Consumptionscapes

Mobile devices in the form of smartphones are transforming the temporality of consumption experiences, from languid and legato forms to isochronal and staccato forms. New communication technologies accelerate as well as alter mobile consumptionscapes. Rather than attempting to capture the elusive here-and-now essence of such fast-changing scenes, this essay invokes three historical episodes of technology and mobility – the transistor radio, the Walkman-style cassette device, and the MP3 player – to uncover the patterns that enhanced levels of mobility bring to the media consumption experience. In particular, by illuminating matters of time, some temporal framings are offered as correctives to spatially biased theories of mobile media. Drawing lessons from these historical episodes and blending in contemporary social theories about mobile technologies, we arrive at a temporally oriented view of the emergent consumptionscapes that can contribute to understanding the present era and the proximal future in terms of connecting both places and paces

Disconnected/Connected: On the ‘Look’ and the ‘Gaze’ of Cell Phones

Informed by nonparticipant observations of public cell phone use, we offer a Lacanian theorization of common social scenes involving mobile communication technologies. Identifying paradoxes of the mobile mediascape, such as connected versus disconnected and public versus private, we turn to Lacan’s distinction between the look and the gaze to read and reconcile these tensions. Moving beyond understanding cell phones as fetish objects, we use Lacan’s theory of the gaze as a means to understand the existential dilemma, a lack of being, which underwrites the pleasures of consumption. At the heart of the matter is how cell phones mobilize users’ desires and anxieties as social subjects in a mediatized consumptionscape

North American blastomycosis

North American blastomycosis (Gilchrist's disease) in a granulomatous, infectious disease caused by the fungus, Blastomyces dermatitidis (Gilchrist and Stokes, 1898). The malady, in its cutaneous form, was first described by Gilchrist1 in 1894. A few years later, together with Stokes, he was able to isolate and culture that causative organisms which he designated as B. dermatitibis.23 The first description of the disease in its systemic form was made by Walker and Montgomery4 in 1902.The first reports by Gilchrist were followed by an era of confusion during which the disease was confounded with other entities, particularly cryptococcosis and candidiasis, all caused by morphologically similar budding organisms. Nineteen new names were suggested for the causative fungus. During the last two decades, however, a clearer picture of the disease process has emerged, particularly as a result of studies by the Duke Medical School group, headed by Smith, Martin, and Conant. Numerous clinical and laboratory reports have contributed significantly to a fuller understanding of the disease, but there are still some fundamental question to be answered. Excellent review articles on North American blastomycosis are available.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32504/1/0000592.pd

Election Edition 2016: Who will represent Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District?

In one the most closely watched races of the 2016 elections, Minnesota Senator Terri Bonoff (DFL) is challenging incumbent Rep. Erik Paulsen (R) to represent Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional district. This presentation by Sen. Terri Bonoff is the first in a series of candidate forums hosted by the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance featuring candidates for Minnesota Congressional Districts. *Congressman Erik Paulsen has been also been invited to participate in a candidate forum.Center for the Study of Politics and Governance, Humphrey School of Public Affairs, UM

All My Life

https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mmb-vp-copyright/5776/thumbnail.jp

Traditional Authority in the State: Chiefs, Elections and Taxation in Ghana

This dissertation addresses the role that tribal chiefs play in electoral politics in sub-Saharan Africa, primarily local politics in Ghana. To examine these issues, the dissertation uses a combination of cross-national public opinion survey data along with original survey data from approximately 3000 households in southern Ghana. The argument put forth in the dissertation is that strong chiefs serve as vote mobilizers for local candidates in exchange for being allowed to extract informal taxation. This collusion is hypothesized to lead to increased individual turnout in elections, decreased electoral competitiveness, and decreased quality of public service delivery. Methodologically, the dissertation estimates a measure of chiefly power using households' contributions of informal taxation, typically in the form on in-kind communal labor. In order to address the causal inference problem of studying informal political institutions, the dissertation uses a natural experiment of early 20th century railroads that are argued to have weakened the cultural power of chiefs. The findings support the idea that strong chiefs drive voter turnout in local elections, leading to less competition. However, the public service delivery and welfare consequences of strong traditional authority institutions are more muted