The Problem of First-Year Seminars: Risking Disengagement Through Marketplace Ideals

First-year seminars (FYS) have become increasingly prevalent in North American postsecondary institutions. The popularity of such initiatives owes much to the belief that providing unprepared students general life and academic skills can bolster engagement and thereby improve retention. In this paper we argue that, despite their good intentions, many FYS actually perpetuate the kind of disengagement they were designed to alleviate due to their reliance on a narrow, instrumental view of education. To demonstrate, we briefly outline the history and curricula of the FYS movement to draw attention to its dependence on marketplace ideals, rationales, and strategies. We demonstrate some of the ways this vision of education impoverishes the university experience and suggest that, in order to be robust, FYS must focus first and foremost on cultivating rich understandings of the broader purposes of higher education and its relation to the good life, both for and beyond one’s own fulfillment.  Les séminaires de première année sont devenus de plus en plus répandus dans les énstitutions d post-secondaires en Amérique du Nord. La popularité de telles initiatives doit beaucoup à l’idée que le fait de fournir des aptitudes générales et académiques aux étudiants non préparés peut renforcer leur engagement et ainsi améliorer leur taux de rétention. Dans cet article, nous soutenons que, malgré leurs bonnes intentions, beaucoup de sention. Dans cet aère année perpétuent le même genre de désengagement qu’ils essaient d’atténuer en raison de leur dépendance envers une vision instrumentale mais étroite de l’éducation. Pour le démontrer, nous décrivons brièvement l’histoire et les programmes de ce mouvement qui vise à attirer l’attention sur sa dépendance à l’égard des idéaux de marché, des justifications et des stratégies. Nous démontrons quelques-unes des façons par lesquelles cette vision de l’éducation appauvrit l’expérience universitaire et nous suggérons que pour être robustes, les séminaires de première année doivent d’abord se concentrer à cultiver la richesse de compréhension des objectifs plus larges de l’enseignement supérieur et de sa relation au bien-vivre, pour la r ur n-viv personnelle des étudiants et au-delà

Determination of the far-infrared properties of galaxies in the Coma cluster

This thesis presents results from the deepest ever far-infrared study of the Coma cluster (Abell 1656), with the Herschel PACS and SPIRE instruments being used to observe the cluster at a wavelength range of 70-500 _m. These observations resulted in a catalogue consisting of 70 galaxies which were spectroscopically confirmed as Coma cluster members, from which far-infrared galaxy luminosity functions at 70, 100 and 160 _m were constructed. Additionally, the far-infrared properties of 68 of these galaxies were determined from spectral energy distribution fits across the full wavelength range. Finally, these galaxies were grouped by morphological type, resulting in 30 elliptical galaxies, 37 spiral galaxies and one with an unknown morphology. These results were then compared to other studies of both clusters and the field in order to ascertain the extent to which environmental processes affect galaxy evolution. A comparison of the luminosity functions at 100 and 160 _m and the equivalent functions from the Herschel Virgo cluster survey Auld et al. (2013) showed similarities in both the functional form and the function parameters describing them. A further comparison of the Coma cluster luminosity functions at all three PACS wavelengths and various field galaxy luminosity functions was made, and again the forms and function parameters were consistent to within the errors. This would imply that the environmental processes thought to occur within the clusters do not have as great an effect on the galaxy population as initially thought. The far-infrared properties derived from the spectral energy distribution fits were analysed by galaxy type. The early-types were found to have mean normalised dust masses, dust temperatures and total infrared luminosities of log10 _ Mdust Mstellar

Takashi Miike and the Dynamics of Cult Authorship

Since the release of 'Audition' in 1999, Takashi Miike has become one of the most visible Japanese directors in Western film culture. This thesis offers an extensive critical history of the reception of Miike and his cinema that has thus far been absent from English-language scholarship on the director. Miike’s work has been defined by his prolific rate of production, his protean approach to genre, and the often “extreme” content of some of his titles, yet the enduring framework through which the filmmaker has been negotiated is as a distinctly singular "cult auteur." Viewed through the specific lens of Miike’s reputation as a cult auteur, this study explores notions of cinematic authorship and of cult film in its examination of the many ways in which the director’s work has been promoted, presented, and understood. Each chapter traces a distinct phase in the development of Miike’s career, centred around the distribution and reception of a number of key releases. In a largely chronological fashion, the chapters map a distinct narrative of the "emergence," the "discovery," the "reverence," and the "internationalisation" of Miike and his cinema, since the very beginning of his filmmaking career. The studies carried out across this thesis demonstrate how Miike’s reception in the West has been significantly shaped by his distinct cult authorship, whilst working towards a definition of the concept of a “cult auteur” that considers its function as an important structuring principle in film culture.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

A surprising consistency between the far-infrared galaxy luminosity functions of the field and Coma

We present new deep images of the Coma Cluster from the ESA Herschel Space Observatory at wavelengths of 70, 100 and 160 μm, covering an area of 1.75 × 1.0 square degrees encompassing the core and south-west infall region. Our data display an excess of sources at flux densities above 100 mJy compared to blank-field surveys, as expected. We use extensive optical spectroscopy of this region to identify cluster members and hence produce cluster luminosity functions in all three photometric bands. We compare our results to the local field galaxy luminosity function, and the luminosity functions from the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. We find consistency between the shapes of the Coma and field galaxy luminosity functions at all three wavelengths; however, we do not find the same level of agreement with that of the Virgo Cluster

A surprising consistency between the far-infrared galaxy luminosity functions of the field and Coma

We present new deep images of the Coma Cluster from the ESA Herschel Space Observatory at wavelengths of 70, 100 and 160 mu m, covering an area of 1.75 x 1.0 square degrees encompassing the core and south-west infall region. Our data display an excess of sources at flux densities above 100 mJy compared to blank-field surveys, as expected. We use extensive optical spectroscopy of this region to identify cluster members and hence produce cluster luminosity functions in all three photometric bands. We compare our results to the local field galaxy luminosity function, and the luminosity functions from the Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. We find consistency between the shapes of the Coma and field galaxy luminosity functions at all three wavelengths; however, we do not find the same level of agreement with that of the Virgo Cluster.</p

Postfeminist stylistics, work femininities and coaching: a multimodal study of a website

The aim of this paper is to examine representations of work femininities on a British website offering coaching specifically aimed at women. It builds on and contributes to studies of postfeminist representations but with a specific focus on work femininities and coaching webpages. Although studies on postfeminist representation have analysed the way young women’s, embodied and sexualised femininities are depicted across a wide variety of mainstream media, there has not been a study that focuses on the representation of work femininities on coaching websites. My approach matter because feminist authors critique popular psychology and link it to postfeminism and neoliberalism but as yet studies have focused on self-help books and magazines and not new media. Furthermore, coaching websites are an important medium for circulating postfeminist work femininities and psychological advice, produced through the digital labour of women entrepreneurs. Through my analysis of one website, influenced by feminist social semiotic multimodality literature, the paper contributes to postfeminist theory and organisation studies by explaining how ‘postfeminist stylistics’ reproduce postfeminist tropes and depictions of relational and individualised entrepreneurial femininities visually and textually (Lewis, 2014)

Social Psychology, Consumer Culture and Neoliberal Political Economy

© 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Consumer culture and neoliberal political economy are often viewed by social psychologists as topics reserved for anthropologists, economists, political scientists and sociologists. This paper takes an alternative view arguing that social psychology needs to better understand these two intertwined institutions as they can both challenge and provide a number of important insights into social psychological theories of self-identity and their related concepts. These include personality traits, self-esteem, social comparisons, self-enhancement, impression management, self-regulation and social identity. To illustrate, we examine how elements of consumer culture and neoliberal political economy intersect with social psychological concepts of self-identity through three main topics: 'the commodification of self-identity', 'social categories, culture and power relations' and the 'governing of self-regulating consumers'. In conclusion, we recommend a decommodified approach to research with the aim of producing social psychological knowledge that avoids becoming enmeshed with consumer culture and neoliberalism