Making Sense of Shakespeare: a Cultural Icon for Contemporary Audiences

The works of William Shakespeare are more popular in the 21st century than ever before. Why are theatre and audiences around the globe still drawn to his work? How do they make sense of these texts in ways that resonate with their cosmopolitan, contemporary audiences? This article uses the findings of a study interviewing 35 theatre professionals in Canada, Finland and the United Kingdom to explore these issues. Theoretically and methodologically, it is a bricolage, drawing on a range of approaches including Foucaults discourse analysis, and Hobsbawms invented traditions to understand participants sense-making as a social practice. It argues that attempting to understand the significance of a major cultural icon such as Shakespeare in contemporary cosmopolitan civil society needs to recognise the many meanings, roles and significances that surround him and that this complexity makes it unlikely that any one theoretical lens will prove adequate on its own

Author-constructs & Trojan horse-ing: Academic citation as a strategic discursive practice

This paper draws on the findings of a study of 15 international information researchers' relationship with an author work prominent in the literature of their field (Brenda Dervin) to examine academic citation practices in a new light. Drawing on social constructivist theories, derived in part from Foucault's approach to discourse analysis, and a methodology drawing on aspects of Dervin's (1999) Sense-Making and Glaser & Strauss' (1967) inductive analytic techniques, it seeks to examine citation as a strategic discursive practice

All the world's a stage - The information practices and sense-making of theatre professionals

This paper reports on the findings of a study examining how theatre professionals (actors, directors and others) make sense of the works of a culturally iconic author (William Shakespeare). The study aims to address critique of prevailing approaches' excessive focus on active information seeking and searching (Julien, Where to from here? Results of an empirical study and user-centred implications for information design, Taylor Graham, 1999; Wilson, Informing Science 3: 4955, 2000) by developing a more holistic approach, one which acknowledges the complexity of sense-making as more than the problem-solving behaviour of individuals - as an embodied, social process, involving emotion as well as rationality. In doing so it draws on theoretical approaches from a range of different disciplines and traditions, including Dervin's Sense-Making, Foucault's discourse analysis and Derrida's deconstructionism. The findings of the study are based on interviews with 35 theatre professionals in Canada, Finland and the UK. © 2010 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/New York

All the world's a stage: Making sense of Shakespeare

This paper reports on the findings of a study examining how theatre professionals (actors, directors and others) make sense of the works of a culturally iconic author (William Shakespeare). The findings of the study are based on interviews with 35 theatre professionals in Canada, Finland and the UK. The study aims a more holistic approach to the study of information behaviour, one which acknowledges the complexity of sense-making as more than the problem-solving behaviour of individuals - as an embodied, social process, involving emotion as well as rationality. In doing so it draws on theoretical approaches from a range of different disciplines and traditions, including Dervin's Sense-Making, Foucault's discourse analysis and Derrida's deconstructionism. Rather than active searching, the focus of most information research, the events that participants described as having the greatest influence on their understanding of Shakespeare were informal 'social' interactions. Participants in the study frequently explicitly linked their engagements with texts to their interactions with other people. Participants frequently described the significant influences on their constructions in terms of long-term relationships - with other people and with the written work of authors. For theatre professionals, understanding Shakespeare involved much more than a cerebral process: their professional lives are based on the ability to embody their knowledge: they need to manifest their understanding in the physical world as physical actions in physical space. The study demonstrates the need for information behaviour research to expand its focus beyond active information seeking and searching and to devote greater attention (both theoretical and empirical) to such factors as: informal knowledge-sharing; sense-making as an affective as well as a rational process; and embodiment as a central aspect of information use

The play's the thing: Theater professionals make sense of Shakespeare

This study examines how theater professionals (actors, directors and others) make sense of the works of a culturally iconic author (William Shakespeare). The research aims to address critique of the information studies/science field's excessive focus on active information seeking and searching by developing an alternative approach, and to understand sense-making as more than the problem-solving behavior of individuals: to see it as an embodied, social process, involving emotion as well as rationality. In doing so it draws on theoretical approaches from a range of different disciplines and traditions, including Dervin's sense-making, Foucault's discourse analysis and Derrida's deconstructionism. © 2010 Elsevier Inc

Power matters: The importance of foucault’s power/knowledge as a conceptual lens in km research and practice

© Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to engage knowledge management (KM) researchers and practitioners with Foucault’s power/knowledge lens as a way of thinking about and recognising the central role of power in organisational knowledge cultures. Design/methodology/approach - The empirical illustrations in this paper are drawn from two qualitative studies in different professional and institutional contexts (insurance and theatre work). Both studies used in-depth interviews and discourse analysis as their principal methods of data collection and analysis. Findings - The empirical examples illustrate how practitioners operate within complex power/knowledge relations that shape their practices of knowledge sharing, generation and use. The findings show how an application of the power/knowledge lens renders visible both the constraining and productive force of power in KM. Research limitations/implications - Researchers may apply the conceptual tools presented here in a wider variety of institutional and professional contexts to examine the complex and multifaceted role of power in a more in-depth way. Practical implications - KM professionals will benefit from an understanding of organisational power/knowledge relations when seeking to promote transformational changes in their organisations and build acceptance for KM initiatives. Originality/value - This paper addresses a gap in the literature around theoretical and empirical discussions of power as well as offering an alternative to prevailing resource-based views of power in KM

Embodied Information Practices

The concept of embodied information practices and its implications for information research and professional practice are examined. The presentation draws on the researchers’ empirical research in a range of different contexts (firefighting, nursing, chronic illness, theatre production and archaeology) to provide insights into the experiential, affective and embodied elements of information practices. , Research into the relationship between people and information has been dominated by an ‘information behaviour’ discourse (Savolainen, 2007), which constructs user behaviour as an essentially problem-focussed, individual, purposive and cognitive process. More recently “a more sociologically and contextually oriented line of research” (Talja, 2005) has emerged which “shifts the focus away from the behavior, action, motives and skills of monological individuals…” (Savolainen 2007, 120) As an alternative perspective this ‘information practices’ discourse acknowledges how people engage with existing discourses and social practices. However, whilst studies drawing on this have played a valuable role in highlighting the importance of language for information practices, studies considering non-linguistic embodied practices remain relatively rare in our field. ( Lloyd 2010). In this presentation, we extend the information practices viewpoint by connecting it to understandings drawn from a range of different approaches, including practice theory and SenseMaking. Drawing on the findings of our empirical studies into firefighters, renal nurses, patients with chronic illness, theatre professionals and archaeologists , we explore the dynamic, embodied and physical sense making processes involved in information practices. In so doing, we create necessary connections between three key elements of embodied information practices: the social mediation involved in information practices; the iterative feedback loops involved in enactive sense making, and practice theoretic perspectives on the body and enactment

Cryptic female choice favours sperm from major histocompatibility complex-dissimilar males

Cryptic female choice may enable polyandrous females to avoid inbreeding or bias offspring variability at key loci after mating. However, the role of these genetic benefits in cryptic female choice remains poorly understood. Female red junglefowl, Gallus gallus, bias sperm use in favour of unrelated males. Here, we experimentally investigate whether this bias is driven by relatedness per se, or by similarity at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), genes central to vertebrate acquired immunity, where polymorphism is critical to an individual's ability to combat pathogens. Through experimentally controlled natural matings, we confirm that selection against related males' sperm occurs within the female reproductive tract but demonstrate that this is more accurately predicted by MHC similarity: controlling for relatedness per se, more sperm reached the eggs when partners were MHC-dissimilar. Importantly, this effect appeared largely owing to similarity at a single MHC locus (class I minor). Further, the effect of MHC similarity was lost following artificial insemination, suggesting that male phenotypic cues might be required for females to select sperm differentially. These results indicate that postmating mechanisms that reduce inbreeding may do so as a consequence of more specific strategies of cryptic female choice promoting MHC diversity in offspring

On the S-wave piD-scattering length in the relativistic field theory model of the deuteron

The S-wave scattering length of the strong pion-deuteron (pi D) scattering is calculated in the relativistic field theory model of the deuteron suggested in [1,2].The theoretical result agrees well with the experimental data. The important role of the Delta-resonance contribution to the elastic pi D-scattering is confirmed.Comment: 7 pages, no figures, accepted for publication in Z. Phys.

Antibodies to the Mr 64,000 (64K) protein in islet cell antibody positive non-diabetic individuals indicate high risk for impaired Beta-cell function

A prospective study of a normal childhood population identified 44 islet cell antibody positive individuals. These subjects were typed for HLA DR and DQ alleles and investigated for the presence of antibodies to the Mr 64,000 (64K) islet cell antigen, complement-fixing islet cell antibodies and radiobinding insulin autoantibodies to determine their potency in detecting subjects with impaired Beta-cell function. At initial testing 64K antibodies were found in six of 44 islet cell antibody positive subjects (13.6%). The same sera were also positive for complement-fixing islet cell antibodies and five of them had insulin autoantibodies. During the follow-up at 18 months, islet cell antibodies remained detectable in 50% of the subjects studied. In all six cases who were originally positive, 64K antibodies were persistently detectable, whereas complement-fixing islet cell antibodies became negative in two of six and insulin autoantibodies in one of five individuals. HLA DR4 (p < 0.005) and absence of asparic acid (Asp) at position 57 of the HLA DQ chain (p < 0.05) were significantly increased in subjects with 64K antibodies compared with control subjects. Of 40 individuals tested in the intravenous glucose tolerance test, three had a first phase insulin response below the first percentile of normal control subjects. Two children developed Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetes mellitus after 18 and 26 months, respectively. Each of these subjects was non-Asp homozygous and had persistent islet cell and 64K antibodies. We conclude that 64K antibodies, complement-fixing islet cell antibodies and insulin autoantibodies represent sensitive serological markers in assessing high risk for a progression to Type 1 diabetes in islet cell antibody positive non-diabetic individuals