Alien Registration- Fraser, Rebecca (Dayton, York County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/4231/thumbnail.jp

‘I must speak, I must think, I must act.’ [Laura Simmes, 1864] the Christian Recorder, literary activism, and the black female intellectual

During the American Civil War, black women increasingly published opinion pieces in the form of letters, short essays, and, in one case, serialised fiction in the African Methodist Episcopal newspaper, The Christian Recorder. This article argues that, collectively, these women’s voices contributed to a developing black intellectualism of the early nineteenth century, setting the precedent for black feminist thinking of the Reconstruction period and beyond. Through their public literary activism, these women challenged the boundaries of the gendered and racialised spaces of the public and private spheres. Through a series of case studies published in the Christian Recorder from 1861 to 1866, this article reflects on the ways in which these women developed a conscious writing self which should be understood as literary activism. These women wrote under the most difficult of circumstances in a period of conflict, yet they persisted in having their voices heard. Collectively, they wrote about the importance of action, the influence of women on the African American nation, and the vital influence of women’s role in education for racial uplift. This article thus places the literary activism of these women front and centre and highlights the power of their words for subsequent generations

Redistribution and Recognition for Migrants and Refugees in Aotearoa New Zealand: Neo-Liberal and Multicultural Discourses in NGO Claims-Talk

Located in demographically diverse Aotearoa New Zealand, this thesis provides evidence that claims made by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) on behalf of refugees and migrants are defined by discourses that interact to provide improved outcomes, but also reproduce marginalisation. My core argument contends that while the parameters of social justice in society are framed by the key concerns of redistribution and recognition, as Nancy Fraser (1997) has asserted, these concerns are also discursively constructed. In order to develop a fuller understanding of redistribution and recognition, the thesis maps them to the key discourses within the settlement sector, described as those of neo-liberalism and multiculturalism. The former (even while it is currently influenced by a turn towards social cohesion) draws on economic ideologies and remains the dominant state discourse of Aotearoa New Zealand. The latter has been identified internationally as a discourse relating to the settlement of migrant and refugee minority cultures within a state. Neo-liberalism and multiculturalism offer distinct and comprehensive responses to social justice. As this thesis demonstrates, redistribution is positioned discursively as either a modest safety net or as a right to rectify structural and/or historical injustice. The discourses also provide alternative conceptions of how to recognise the migrant or refugee individual: as either a culture-free market oriented individual, or a culture-bearing community member. It is in the tension of these two discourses that NGOs frame their claims for redistribution and recognition. This thesis comprises a critical discourse analysis which investigates the claims-talk of NGOs in this environment, identifying what NGOs involved in the resettlement of migrants and refugees say when making claims to the state. Drawing on interviews with ten different actors working within nine NGOs, a small survey of thirteen NGOs, and information displayed on websites of seven NGOs – some of the largest working in the settlement sector – I establish the ways in which questions of social justice are discursively constructed in Aotearoa New Zealand. I further determine how these NGOs negotiate conflict and alignment between the discourses, to consider the points at which their negotiations fail or succeed in building better social justice. I find that NGOs use the discourses of neo-liberalism and multiculturalism strategically, frequently deploying them together, or using one to counter potential or perceived negative effects from the other. Lastly, I identify points of unresolved tension in the discourses, particularly regarding the positioning of ‘need’ as a claim upon the state. This thesis thus extends existing scholarship on multiculturalism, neo-liberalism, and recognition and redistribution, and draws together these diverse bodies of theory to elucidate the complex nature of claims-making in the settlement sector in Aotearoa New Zealand

History in the hands of the Contemporary Playwright 2000-2015: a feminist critique of normative historiography in British theatre.

Between 2000 and 2015 twelve of the UK’s leading producing theatres premiered twenty three plays by British playwrights where the action was set between 1882-1928. This historical period is significant; in 1882 the Married Women’s Property Act was passed and in 1928 equal enfranchisement for men and women was granted in the United Kingdom, hence, the historical period traces a shift in women’s rights from property ownership to the vote. This thesis investigates narratives within these plays and explores the development of a normative historiography that is drawn on, but predominantly left unquestioned, by playwrights as Britain’s past is reimagined. It is this normative historiography, operating in a theatrical context, which the thesis problematises and interrogates through the lens of contemporary British playwriting. This lens facilitates an exploration of the manner in which the representation of the past mirrors and/or challenges current feminist discourse and considers the cultural implications of the structures and techniques employed to retell women their history through this medium. Scholarship from the fields of academic and popular feminism, theatre studies, history and historiography shape the analytical framework of the thesis. Drawing on literature from these fields, this study conducts historically informed performance analysis that seeks to discover the sociocultural work done by contemporary plays that engage with the past. Archives of thirty British theatres have been surveyed to produce a database of plays that fall within the project boundaries; working with this data, trends and recurring themes have been identified, and subsequently chapters have been shaped to investigate dramaturgical questions in response to the field research. The dramaturgical questions explore: recurring modes of representation in plays that reimagine World War One; the representation of opposition in depictions of historical conflict; the retelling of specific historical narratives in relation to the challenge of staging ideas; and the recurrence of the heteronormative romantic plot. This thesis argues that when the playwright interrogates the normative dramaturgies and tropes they have inherited for historical representation, they assumes the role of historiographer and from this self-reflexive position recurring theatrical conventions for retelling the past are challenged. This perspective shifts attention beyond central patriarchal narratives of the past and facilitates engagement with the multiple avenues of enquiry regarding a historical moment. Engagement with the work of playwrights who foreground a historiographic awareness in their process, further illuminates the dialogue between representations of women in a historical context and contemporary feminist debate.Arts and Humanities Research Counci

Insights from Industry Leaders: A Maturity Model for Strengthening Communication Measurement and Evaluation

Much scholarship has been devoted to identifying barriers that prevent the advancement of communication measurement and evaluation. This research focuses on the characteristics, objectives, and practices of chief communication officers (CCOs) with successful measurement and evaluation programs. Three key dimensions of practice emerged from in-depth interviews: communication executives’ measurement practices and evaluation programs were used to adjust communication strategies; were aligned with other business units; and were integrated with business priority plans. Interviewees also focused on the ability of communication measurement practices and evaluation programs to provide insights for executives, to align communication with the work of other business units, and to connect the organization with the outside environment and stakeholders. This study extends strategic communication scholarship by discussing how overcoming barriers and advancing measurement and evaluation work relates to roles adopted by organizational leaders. This article also offers a preliminary, scalable maturity model that aids in the development, formalization, and optimization of strategic communication measurement and evaluation. This study demonstrates the capacity for communication evaluation to overcome perceived barriers, realize appropriate stature with organizations, and grow communication functions accordingly

Maturity as A Way Forward for Improving Organizations’ Communication Evaluation and Measurement Practices: A Definition and Concept Explication

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to propose an explication of the concept of “maturity,” as it applies to communication evaluation and measurement (E&M) practice, along with contextualization of recent maturity model adoption within academic and professional communities. Design/methodology/approach Drawing from previous work on maturity models within other fields, recent communication scholarship and industry practice, this paper fills a gap in the literature by offering a theoretical conceptualization of communication E&M maturity, including the construct’s core dimensions and sub-dimensions. Findings Communication E&M maturity is conceptualized into four essential elements: holistic approach, investment, alignment and culture. The contribution of E&M efforts is represented as the direct support of corporate strategy, and ultimately increased value, from the communications function. Operational elements of maturity include levels of analysis, time, budget, tools, skills, process, integration, motivations, relationships and standards. Originality/value In exploring the factors necessary for “mature” E&M programs, and specifically emphasizing the need for a holistic approach, along with sufficient investment and alignment, and conducive cultural factors, the research builds upon existing work examining how communication can serve to inform corporate strategy and create value for an organization. Greater understanding and application of the maturity concept has the potential to advance the field by increasing both accountability and credibility for the work done by the communications function

Web invariants for flamingo Specht modules

Webs yield an especially important realization of certain Specht modules, irreducible representations of symmetric groups, as they provide a pictorial basis with a convenient diagrammatic calculus. In recent work, the last three authors associated polynomials to noncrossing partitions without singleton blocks, so that the corresponding polynomials form a web basis of the pennant Specht module $S^{(d,d,1^{n-2d})}$. These polynomials were interpreted as global sections of a line bundle on a 2-step partial flag variety. Here, we both simplify and extend this construction. On the one hand, we show that these polynomials can alternatively be situated in the homogeneous coordinate ring of a Grassmannian, instead of a 2-step partial flag variety, and can be realized as tensor invariants of classical (but highly nonplanar) tensor diagrams. On the other hand, we extend these ideas from the pennant Specht module $S^{(d,d,1^{n-2d})}$ to more general flamingo Specht modules $S^{(d^r,1^{n-rd})}$. In the hook case $r=1$, we obtain a spanning set that can be restricted to a basis in various ways. In the case $r>2$, we obtain a basis of a well-behaved subspace of $S^{(d^r,1^{n-rd})}$, but not of the entire module.Comment: 32 pages, 7 figure

Building better healthcare – technologies to facilitate evidence-based design processes

Building better healthcare – technologies to facilitate evidence-based design processe

A5_3 Sliding in Space

This paper is based on a thought experiment in which the scenario 'How long would it take a person to go down a slide from the Moon to Earth?' is addressed. After making various assumptions to simplify this experiment, the time taken was calculated to be 74 hours