Smith on Jenkins, \u27Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture\u27

Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins. New York: Routledge, 1992. viii + 343 pp. $95.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-415-90571-8;$38.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-415-90572-5. In Textual Poachers, Henry Jenkins examines the underground world of the media fandom, people who create fiction, artwork, and other forms of expression based on television shows. Drawing on a rich theoretical background with sources ranging from feminist literary criticism to cultural anthropology, Jenkins applies and adapts Michel de Certeau\u27s model of poaching, in which an audience appropriates a text for itself. Taking a stand against the stereotypical portrayal of fans as obsessive nerds who are out of touch with reality, he demonstrates that fans are pro-active constructors of an alternative culture using elements poached and reworked from the popular media

Smith on Bacon-Smith, \u27Enterprising Women: TelevisionFandom and the Creation of Popular Myth

In Enterprising Women scholar Camille Bacon-Smith describes the underground culture of media fandom, that is, the network of fans who create fiction, poetry, art, and other creative works based on favorite television shows and then gather to circulate these works. Because I have been an active participant in this culture for twenty years, Bacon-Smith\u27s book was of particular interest to me, not only as an academic, but as a fan. Bacon-Smith has taken on a daunting task: reporting on a cultural phenomenon both as an engaged participant and as an unbiased observer. Her position is typical of the ethnologist who studies contemporary society, and this book is a useful example of the ethnologist\u27s dilemma, as well as an informative text on the culture she studies

Teachers' perspectives of gender differences in the social behaviours of preschool children : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Education at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

The present research study explored early childhood teachers’ perspectives about social behaviours and gender in young children, in particular the way in which children’s gender related to teachers’ reports of the prevalence of, perspectives about, and strategies used in response to children’s social behaviours. The specific social behaviours examined within this study were prosocial behaviours, social leadership, social dominance, and aggressive behaviours. This study was designed within an interpretivist and pragmatic epistemology, and used a mixed methods online survey to investigate teachers’ perspectives. The online survey was comprised of four sections: demographics; defining social behaviours and their traits; social behaviour scenarios; and gender and Te Whāriki. To allow investigation of differential responses related to gender, two versions of the survey were created where the gender of the child portrayed in the social behaviour scenarios differed across survey versions. The gendered scenarios were used to gather data on whether there was a difference in teachers’ perspectives about and the teaching strategies used for children’s social behaviours based on the gender of the children involved. The majority of the responses to the survey indicated that the teachers identified there to be little difference in the display of social behaviours in young children based on children’s gender. However, the two social behaviours which were reported by the teachers as having the most differences based on gender were social leadership and aggression. The teachers’ strategies identified in the findings showed that there was some difference in teaching strategies used based on the children’s gender, specifically in the areas of social dominance and aggression. The findings provide a snapshot of the way in which teachers define and interpret social behaviours, and suggest that gender plays a limited, but still potentially significant role in the teaching practices they chose to adopt in a variety of scenarios. The teacher’s acknowledged the importance of ensuring gender equity in their practices, but findings suggest that further support may be needed to aid in the delivery of equitable practices

Smith on Hanley, \u27The Metaphysics of Star Trek

Review by Anne Collins Smith on the H-PCAACA mailing list, June 1998. The Metaphysics of Star Trek by Richard Hanley. New York: Basic Books, 1997. xviii + 253 pp. $18.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-465-09124-9. Richard Hanley\u27s The Metaphysics of Star Trek is an engaging examination of certain philosophical issues raised within the Star Trek universe. Its title, however, is overly broad; it would be more correctly titled, The Twentieth-Century Applied Metaphysics of Star Trek. The earliest reference in the bibliography is an article written in 1950; the next earliest, 1960. The vast majority of sources are from the 1980\u27s and 1990\u27s. There is nothing wrong with this focus; it is simply a limitation that should be noted

Voldemort Tyrannos: Plato’s Tyrant in the Republic and the Wizarding World

In the Harry Potter novel series, by J. K. Rowling, the character of Lord Voldemort is the dictatorial ruler of the Death Eaters and aspiring despot of the entire wizarding community. As such, he serves as an apt subject for the application of Plato’s portrait of the tyrant in Republic IX. The process of applying Plato to Voldemort, however, leads to an apparent anomaly, the resolution of which requires that we move beyond the Republic to the account of beauty presented by Plato in the Symposium. In doing so, we shall find that while Plato can help us to understand Voldemort, Voldemort can also help us to attain a deeper understanding of Plato

Pragmatism and Meaning: Assessing the Message of Star Trek: The Original Series

The original Star Trek television series purported to depict a future in which such evils as sexism and racism do not exist, and intelligent beings from numerous planets live in a condition of peace and mutual benefit. As many scholars have observed, from a standpoint of contemporary theoretical analysis, Star Trek: The Original Series contains many elements that are inimical to the utopia it claims to depict and thus undermine its supposed message. A different perspective may be gained by drawing on the American pragmatist movement, in which the value of an idea is judged by its effectiveness, how it ‘cashes out’ in terms of its impact in real life. Thus, the meaning and value of Star Trek: TOS can be assessed by observing its effects on its audience. This perspective coordinates well with Taylor’s discussion of the necessary conditions for the realization of a protreptic moral order in the social imaginary, as well as a pragmatist understanding of audience engagement and education

Future multilateral cooperation with the DPRK: Food Security and agriculture

This report reviews the data on food security and agriculture in the DPRK. It investigates the meaning of the term ‘food security’ as understood by the DPRK government and the United Nations agencies working in the DPRK. The paper reviews the causes and condition of food insecurity in the DPRK. The paper charts the government’s responses to the food and economic crisis of the mid- 1990s, before evaluating food security in the DPRK in terms of aggregate national food availability as well as food accessibility by different social groups. The paper also notes the DPRK government’s new approach to moving towards a cooperation strategy with the international community based on development instead of relief. Building on this new approach, the paper proposes a set of recommendations designed to offer a multisectoral approach to reconstituting sustainable food security in the DPRK. In so doing, the paper offers suggestions for possible future multilateral cooperation in the context of food security as a policy goal for the DPRK

Mad, bad, sad or rational actor: Why the 'securitization' paradigm makes for poor policy analysis of North Korea

This article argues that the dominant paradigm for understanding and explaining north Korean domestic and international politics is in crisis. The dominant securitization paradigm is divided into its 'bad' and 'mad' elements and is derived from the crudest of Cold War politics and theories. The paradigm no longer provides a useful frame of reference for international policy-makers having to 'do business' with North Korea. The intervention of the humanitarian community in north Korea since 1995 has shown the obsolescence of the securitization paradigm and provided the foundation for two alternative approaches-the 'sad' and the 'rational actor' conceptual framework. The article concludes by arguing for the utility of a historicized and contextualized rational actor model which, it is argued, offers a realistic underpinning for international policies that seriously wish to promote peace, stability and freedom from hunger on the Korean peninsula

Overcoming humanitarian dilemmas in the DPRK (North Korea)

This report examines the diversity of humanitarian agency responses to working in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)—north Korea—and proposes a set of recommendations for agencies and governments