On governing equations for crack layer propagation

Results of analysis on damage distribution of a crack layer, in a model material, supported the self-similarity hypothesis of damage evolution which has been adopted by the crack layer theory. On the basis of measurements of discontinuity density and the double layer potential technique, a solution to the crack damage interaction problem has been developed. Evaluation of the stress intensity factor illustrated the methodology. Analysis of experimental results showed that Arrhenius type constitutive relationship described very well the expansion of the active zone of a crack layer

Making public politics private: A narrative study of apartheid racial ideology and its effects on white teenage female sexual desire in post-apartheid South Africa

An effect of apartheid among the youth has been that transformation in educational institutions has largely not moved beyond artificial interaction. There is an obvious divide between public rhetoric of integration and private experience. A reason for this may be that the private realm is a fertile and productive space for the reproduction of prejudice, where desire is seemingly coded in private tastes and not political ideologies. Theoretically I examine how historical public discourses come to function as personal norms, expressed as personal desire not political ideology. Literature has shown that these racial ideologies function both to fetishize the Other in interracial relationships and to maintain the hegemony of whiteness in interracial contact. Through narrative interviews with a select group of white teenage girls from a mixture of schools in the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town, I analyse how historical power relations become an intimate part of our subject experience. Drawing on a psychoanalytical account of ideology I examine how their racial subjectivities are predicated on exclusionary logics that bar certain objects from being produced as desirable for them

Jack Kerouac\u27s Artistic Apprenticeship and the Discovery of His Authentic Voice

Few novels so clearly dramatize an artist\u27s discovery of his authentic voice as does Kerouac\u27s On the Road. The publication of the writing that Kerouac did before On the Road, and particularly the writing he did before The Town and the City, offers almost unprecedented opportunity to study his artistic apprenticeship and trace his development as an artist. To study Kerouac\u27s apprenticeship is to witness him learning how to liberate himself in order to be that which he would become. In addition to shedding light on this unexamined aspect of Kerouac\u27s career, I hope this study might inspire similar breakthroughs and breakouts in other would-be artists. The dynamics of this developmental process are under-theorized. No one to my knowledge has written of this process as thoroughly as Otto Rank, which is why I\u27ve used his theories of artistic apprenticeships to inform this analysis. I used Martin Heidegger\u27s Being and Time because he founds his philosophy on the same central question that I believe Kerouac founds his art: the question of Being. I wanted to examine Kerouac\u27s writing before On the Road to trace how his psychological artistic development was informed by the philosophical question that would give On the Road and his later works much of their power to move people. Within my study I move from the death of Kerouac\u27s older brother, Gerard, to the Joan Anderson/Cherry Mary letter that he received from Neal Cassady that convinced him once and for all that he could write an artistically worthwhile novel using first-person narration and unabashedly autobiographical material. I cover the broad spectrum of writing that influenced him, from the pulp fiction magazine The Shadow to the plotless, first-person short stories of William Saroyan, from the intense, verbose novels of Thomas Wolfe to the underground beauty he found in the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Louis Ferdinand-Celine. I examine the influences of football and jazz on his spontaneous prose technique. I also look at the influence of his artistic mentors Sammy Sampas, Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, and other Beat Generation figures like Lucien Carr and Herbert Huncke and, finally, at the influence of Neal Cassady himself. I also believe that the deaths of Gerard, Sammy Sampas, and Leo Kerouac, Kerouac\u27s father, had a profound impact on Kerouac\u27s artistic development and his ability to impart his feeling of life\u27s ephemerality into his art. Kerouac\u27s ability to impart this very feeling is the source of much of his writing\u27s artistic power. Jack Kerouac was an artistic innovator who began, like all artists must, as an artistic imitator. Before he wrote On the Road, he wrote several books as others had written them. A critical analysis of his pre-On the Road works offers one the opportunity to see a rare thing indeed: the development of an authentic artist in America

Review of Philippe Poirrier (ed.), Pour une histoire des politiques culturelles dans le monde, 1945–2011 [For a history of cultural policies in the world, 1945–2011]

Review of: Philippe Poirrier (ed.), Pour une histoire des politiques culturelles dans le monde, 1945–2011 [For a history of cultural policies in the world, 1945–2011], La Documentation Française: Paris, 2011. 477 pp

Review of Philippe Poirrier (ed.), Pour une histoire des politiques culturelles dans le monde, 1945–2011 [For a history of cultural policies in the world, 1945–2011]

Review of: Philippe Poirrier (ed.), Pour une histoire des politiques culturelles dans le monde, 1945–2011 [For a history of cultural policies in the world, 1945–2011], La Documentation Française: Paris, 2011. 477 pp

Spatial languages in IsiXhosa

This thesis investigates some aspects of spatial language of isiXhosa. It identifies the elements of isiXhosa used in the spatial domain and analyses their use and distribution across the language. Six isiXhosa-speaking language consultants were interviewed, all males between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two years. They have all grown up in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa and are currently attending tertiary institutions within the Western Cape. The methodological framework adopted for this research was developed by the 'Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics' (MPI) in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Their research tools "Man & Tree" and "Space Games" were employed to gather the language data on spatial language of isiXhosa. A particular focus in this study was placed on investigating the underlying spatial models employed in the deictic axis, i.e. the face to face model or the single file model. The data reveals that both models seem to be employed by the young male isiXhosa-speakers of the study. Furthermore, the thesis also analyses what frames of reference these particular isiXhosa speakers utilize. The survey revealed variation in the use of models among these young speakers. This variation can be explained as language contact phenomena since all language consultants are in an English speaking environment at least for several years

Subject positioning in the South African symbolic economy: student narratives of their languages and lives in a changing place

A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of the Witwatersrand December 2015Language use is irreducibly social and historical, bearing the complexities of difference, location, and power. These dynamics are particularly visible in “post”-apartheid South Africa, where historical and contemporary asymmetries of race and class are refracted through language politics, practices and experiences. “Youth embody the sharpening contradictions of the contemporary world in especially acute form” (Comaroff & Comaroff, 2005, p. 21) because they are often at the coalface of societal change. At this particular historical moment the paradoxes and challenges of South African students are acutely visible when examining the role of language in reproducing a bifurcated education system, and indeed society. Methodologically, I examined 15 student narratives about their experiences of language in everyday life. The narratives were generated using a multi-modal approach to language biographies, where participants’ linguistic repertoires are visually represented in different colours on a pre-given body outline (Busch et al., 2006). The inclusion of the visual component provided participants with a nuanced vocabulary for constructing their narrative accounts. This narrative data was then thematically analysed with a focus on participants’ subject positioning. Firstly, it was found that the notion of an authentic identity functioned as an ideological claim. The participants referred to a desire for authentic cultural roots, through reference to what they considered “pure” African languages. They articulated a sense that an authentic cultural identity might be lost by virtue the ubiquitous nature of English in their lives. Participants positioned themselves and others as either belonging or not belonging, depending how “authentic” a member of an identity category one was assessed to be. The narratives demonstrated that the nuances of language and voice become the site for the nano-politics of identity and authenticity (Blommaert & Varis, 2015), especially when cultural and racial identity categories appear to be in crisis. Secondly, English was constructed as a variable symbolic asset across different fields. Representations of English and African languages were positioned in line with existing colonial and racial tropes where English was represented as the language of the mind and rationality, while African languages, even when positively described, were construed as languages of the body or emotion. For black participants, while it was appropriate and desirable to speak English at university, in other fields, such as the home, English could be negatively sanctioned. It is the relation of power between fields in the symbolic economy that influences the reception of a linguistic asset. I argue that English was negatively sanctioned (while still being desirable) as a way of containing the power of English qua whiteness. The link between desirability and derision that English represents makes claims to authenticity, as well as accusations of betrayal, pivotal in the subject positioning of participants in relation to their experiences of language across different fields. These student narratives about experiences of language capture a particular historical moment and demonstrate how the youth straddle the contradictions of the past and the future. However, while these narratives are historically specific they also point to the universal process of becoming a subject through language

Authenticity and love in The Sun Also Rises and On the Road

This thesis explores the themes of authenticity and love in Ernest Hemingway\u27s The Sun Also Rises and Jack Kerouac\u27s On the Road, and how each novel conveys these themes differently; In The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway delivers the themes of authenticity and love by carefully and precisely crafting a story in which the hero of the story, Jake Barnes, changes significantly between the beginning of the story and the end. He acquires the courage to love, risking his authenticity in the process; In On the Road, Kerouac\u27s dual heroes, Sal Paradise and Dean Moriarty, exhibit no discernible growth or change throughout the story. Interestingly, it is through their very lack of growth, their inability to mature, that the novel\u27s themes of authenticity and love are delivered. They are as incapable of love at the end of the story as they are at the beginning. This becomes part of their authenticity

Organizational weaknesses of the Greek Manufacturing industry: a case study of footwear

This thesis is concerned with those factors influencing the present performance of Greek manufacturing industry and the ways in which improvements could be realized after Greece joins European Communities..Detailed examination is made of the Greek footwear industry and its problems as the country emerges from a semi developed state to a position approaching parity with Western European countries. Particular attention is paid to the technology employed, capital deployment, industrial structure and managerial performance. In order to illustrate the path of development of the Greek footwear industry a comparison is undertaken with the British footwear industry which has a longer history and has employed larger scale methods since the 19th century. This comparison illustrates the opportunities and pitfalls likely to face the Greek industry in coming years. One section of the thesis is also concerned with trading relationships between the U.K. and Greece and identifies the market opportunities available to Greek industrialists. A detailed analysis is undertaken of the available secondary sources of information particularly official statistical data relating to production, capital expenditure, imports and exports, employment and consumption. Use is also made of various surveys of trade and production in footwear undertaken by trade associations and other bodies. The field research study has been largely directed towards practicing managers in companies of various size and is concerned with exposing standards of management and of relating efficiency to organization structure. The thesis is also concerned with the many wide issues affecting the development of manufacturing industry in Greece including the influence of social structure and social institutions, the values of modern Greek society and the complex organizational problems which Greece needs to overcome in order to take its place amongst the more established states of Europe