Absent meaning: Fascination, narrative, and trauma in the Holocaust imaginary

Examining post-1970 representations of the Holocaust and Nazism along with critical responses to these representations, the dissertation demonstrates how a use of the term fascination has shaped contemporary understandings of how the Holocaust should and should not be represented and remembered. My argument is that despite its pervasive and influential usage in the discourse of Holocaust representation, no critical attention has been given to what the term means. In as much as the term\u27s usage draws the historical and ethical boundaries across which representations of the Holocaust cannot pass, this dearth of critical attention given to the term means that these boundaries are not clearly defined. This dissertation gives definition and context to the use of the term fascination in three representative thinkers from the post-Holocaust epoch: Susan Sontag in the 1970s; Saul Friedlander in the 1980s; and Dominick LaCapra in the 1990s and 2000s. By focusing on their use of fascination, I trace the historical and aesthetic development of representations of the Holocaust and the critical discourses that develop around them. I contend that, contra the understanding of fascination demonstrated by Sontag, Friedlander, and LaCapra, the term may in fact designate ethically responsible modes of engagement with the art and literature of the Holocaust. My assessment of fascination in the Holocaust Imaginary thus provides definitional contours to an oft-used but little understood term and also points toward possible new understandings of how the catastrophic past is to be given narrative representation

The dynamics of reactivated landslides: Utiku and Taihape, North Island, New Zealand

The primary aim of this research was to study the relationship between landslide motion and its causes, with reference to large, slow moving, reactivated translational rock slides. The movement of such slides has often been assumed to be uniform over time because poor temporal and spatial monitoring resolutions have not allowed the processes and mechanisms governing the velocity to be identified. The increased spatial and temporal resolution of the monitoring carried out for this research allows these processes to be better understood. Two deep-seated, reactivated translational slides were selected to represent over 7,000 mapped landslides of this type in Tertiary-age sedimentary rocks of New Zealand. Each was closely monitored with an automated network of instruments to detect and measure the effects of rainfall, pore pressure, earthquakes and river stage on changing surface and subsurface movement patterns, with sufficient resolution to link periods of movement to their triggering factors. The dynamics and controls upon these landslides have been investigated by combining multiple interdisciplinary approaches including geology, geomorphology, geotechnics and geomatics. Without such an approach the mechanisms governing their motion could not have been adequately resolved. The deformation behaviour at the two slides during the period of observation would best be described as episodic post-failure creep. The creep patterns observed typically comprised periods of accelerated-, slow- and vertical-creep, punctuated by intervals of rest, which recurred both seasonally and independent of season. Three systems were identified within the recorded unsteady, non-uniform motion: 1) basal sliding; 2) internal plastic deformation and basal sliding; and 3) seasonal surficial shrinkage and swelling unrelated to landsliding. Basal sliding by frictional slip along thin clay seams led to the largest horizontal displacements recorded at both landslides. However, once triggered by pore-pressure increase, accelerated-creep motion by basal sliding did not tend to arrest when basal pore pressure decreased. At both landslides slow horizontal- and vertical-creep occurred together over much of the monitoring period and was related to plastic deformation of the slide mass and basal sliding. This motion occurred at a constant velocity and did not vary with fluctuating pore pressure. Accelerated- and slow-creep motion was regulated by the geometrical complexity of the landslide mass rather than basal pore-pressure-induced increases in shear resistance, or rate-induced increases in material shear resistance

THE EFFECTS OF QUORUM SENSING AND TEMPERATURE ON THE SOLUBLE PROTEOME OF VIBRIO SALMONICIDA

Vibrio salmonicida causes cold-water vibriosis in salmon populations around the world and causes financial damage to fisheries designed to farm these salmon. Very little is known about the physiology of how V. salmonicida causes disease and measures to contain vibriosis are restricted to either vaccinating individual fish against disease or administering antibiotics when an outbreak is detected. These procedures are costly and increase the risk for selection of antibiotic-resistant V. salmonicida strains. A recent reoccurrence of outbreaks in Norwegian fisheries provided incentive to better understand the virulence mechanisms of V. salmonicida. In this thesis, a proteomic approach was used to identify proteins that were differentially expressed when cells were grown in vitro under simulated virulence conditions (i.e. 5˚C and in the presence of exogenously supplied autoinducer 3-oxo-hexanoyl-homoserine lactone). Some examples of proteins with significantly altered expression that stood out at as homologs of potential virulence factors were: an exported serine protease DegQ, a multi-drug transporter HlyD, and an outer membrane protein OmpU. The proteomic approach allowed us to identify large numbers of proteins that are expressed by V. salmonicida, facilitating hypothesis-driven research in order to support possible roles for some of these proteins in virulenc

Classifying closed 2-orbifolds with Euler characteristics

We determine the extent to which the collection of $\Gamma$-Euler-Satake characteristics classify closed 2-orbifolds. In particular, we show that the closed, connected, effective, orientable 2-orbifolds are classified by the collection of $\Gamma$-Euler-Satake characteristics corresponding to free or free abelian $\Gamma$ and are not classified by those corresponding to any finite collection of finitely generated discrete groups. Similarly, we show that such a classification is not possible for non-orientable 2-orbifolds and any collection of $\Gamma$, nor for noneffective 2-orbifolds. As a corollary, we generate families of orbifolds with the same $\Gamma$-Euler-Satake characteristics in arbitrary dimensions for any finite collection of $\Gamma$; this is used to demonstrate that the $\Gamma$-Euler-Satake characteristics each constitute new invariants of orbifolds.Comment: 17 page

Assessment Literacy in College Teaching: Empirical Evidence on the Role and Effectiveness of a Faculty Training Course

This research explores how faculty members’ conceptions of assessment and confidence in assessment change as a result of an instructor training course. Based on a sample of 27 faculty members enrolled in a semester-long instructional development course, this survey-based study provides initial evidence that faculty members can develop confidence in assessment while adopting increasingly complex conceptions of assessment. Based on this study’s findings, we argue that instructional development programs for college faculty have a critical role to play in stimulating faculty learning about assessment of student learning and are an important component in promoting a positive assessment culture

Prolonged anxiety on habituation of the cold shock response

Variation in the cold shock response (CSR) can be explained by physiological factors, habituation; and possibly "psychological" influences. Acute anxiety on cold-water immersion (CWI) increases the magnitude of the CSR in unhabituated volunteers and eliminates the reduction in the response seen after habituation. Recently it was demonstrated that habituation of the CSR includes a significant perceptual component. When the threat of CWI scenario was reduced, anxiety associated with being immersed was also reduced. In contrast, prolonged anxiety during repeat CWIs may prevent habituation. Therefore, it was hypothesized that prolonged anxiety reduces the extent of CSR habituation