Fearless: The Vagina Monologues

Performed annually around the world to celebrate womanhood, empower survivors of sexual assault and abuse, and create an open forum for challenging cultural attitudes toward women, the Vagina Monologues will be performed by Gettysburg College students next Thursday and Friday (February 20 & 21). [excerpt

Evolution as Connecting First-Person and Third-Person Perspectives of Consciousness

First-person and third-person perspectives are different items of human consciousness.\ud Feeling the taste of a fruit or being consciously part of a group eating fruits call for different perspectives of\ud consciousness. The latter is about objective reality (third-person data). The former is about subjective\ud experience (first-person data) and cannot be described entirely by objective reality.\ud We propose to look at how these two perspectives could be rooted in an evolutionary origin of human\ud consciousness, and somehow be connected.\ud Our starting point is a scenario describing how evolution could have transformed a non self-conscious\ud auto-representation into a conscious self-representation (Menant 2006). The scenario is based on the\ud performance of inter-subjectivity existing among non human primates (Gardenfors 2006). A key item of the\ud scenario is the identification of the auto-representation of a subject with the representations that the subject\ud has of her conspecifics, the latter feeding the former with the meaning: “existing in the environment”.\ud So during evolution, pre-human primates were brought to perceive their auto-representation as existing in\ud the environment. Such process could have generated the initial elements of a conscious self-representation.\ud We take this scenario as providing a possible rooting of human consciousness in evolution.\ud We develop here a part of this scenario by expliciting the inward and outward components of the non\ud self-conscious auto-representation.\ud Inward components are about proprioception and interoception (thirst, pain, …). Outward components cover\ud the sensory information relative to the perception of the body (seen feet, … ) and of its effects on the\ud environment.\ud We consider that the initial elements of a conscious self-representation have been applied to both inward and\ud outward components of the auto-representation. We propose that the application to inward components made\ud possible some first-person information, and that the application to outward components brought up third-person\ud information. Relations between the two perspectives are highlighted.\ud Such approach can root first-person and third-person perspectives in the same slot of human evolution.\ud We conclude by a summary of the above and introduce a possible application of this approach to the concepts\ud of bodily self and of pre-reflexive self-consciousness (Legrand, 2006)

Place attachment and continuity of urban place identity

This paper focused on place attachment and its significance in defining place identity with reference to three main shopping streets in the city centre of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Place identity refers to the identification of emotion and feelings to a particular place and the distinctive characteristics of the place in which human-place bonding is developed. The weakening of place identity has been identified as one of the urban design issues for contemporary cities. This paper identified the issues concerning place identity; concepts of place and place attachment constructs, the identification of place attachment constructs and place attributes that could be used as assessment indicators for future redevelopment of local urban places. A questionnaire survey and interviews were conducted to examine place attachment and to identify the characteristics of the places that exerted influence and would then benefit in terms of securing place identity which in turn sustained attraction and thus brought greater economic and tourism advantages to the city

Muriel Spark as auto-biographer in <i>Curriculum</i> <i>Vitae</i>

Examining Muriel Spark's main aims as an auto-biographer in her work Curriculum Vitae brings important resources in the exploration of the genre of autobiographical writing. This with the theoretical engagement, allows consideration of the critical issues surrounding the roles of author and reader in the construction of the literary self. Spark demands the reader participate in the constructon of textual meaning; overturning the conventions of autobiography, satirising its claims to omniscience and highlighting the impossibility of an authentic voice with regard to the self

Outdoor Adventurous Activities: The Learner's Voice and Learning in, through and about movement

This paper which has evolved out of a much larger doctoral thesis, explores the value of placing the learner at the heart of their own learning, whilst using the notion of learning in through and about movement as a pedagogical approach. This approach is examined in the context of Outdoor Adventurous Activities (OAA) at a residential camping centre, located on the Essex, Greater London borders in South East England in the United Kingdom. One hundred and sixty children, over a four-year period to date, have taken part in the venture and their views and thoughts are used to illuminate the discussion surrounding the value of learning in through and about movement in the outdoors.Peer reviewe

Validation of the Scale of Emotional States in the Physical Education Context

The purpose of the present study was to validate an instrument of student emotional experiences in the Spanish Physical Education context. The sample of participants consisted of 864 secondary education students from various educational institutions of Spain who ranged in age from 13 to 19 years. To assess the psychometric properties of the Scale of Emotions in Physical Education (SEPE), various types of analyses were conducted. The factor structure of the SEPE was examined through confirmatory factorial analysis in relation to two models. In the first model, it was proposed that the eight first order factors, which represented the eight emotional states, would be correlated amongst each other. In the second model, an eight-factor model with two higher order factors was proposed, with these higher order factors representing distinct sets of positive and negative emotions. The results provide support the presence of an eight-factor second order model which consisted of sets of four positive emotions and four negative emotions. These results provide evidence for the reliability and validity of the SEPE within the Spanish Physical Education context

Smart radio and audio apps: the politics and paradoxes of listening to (anti-) social media

The recent crop of vocal social media applications tends to appeal to users in terms of getting their voices heard loud and clear. Indeed, it is striking how often verbs like ‘shout’ and ‘boast’ and ‘brag’ are associated with microcasting platforms with such noisy names as Shoutcast, Audioboom, Hubbub, Yappie, Boast and ShoutOmatic. In other words, these audio social media are often promoted in rather unsociable terms, appealing less to the promise of a new communicative exchange than to the fantasy that we will each can be at the centre of attention of an infinite audience. Meanwhile, many of the new forms of online radio sell their services to listeners as offering ‘bespoke’ or ‘responsive’ programming (or ‘audiofeeds’), building up a personal listening experience that meets their individual needs and predilictions. The role of listening in this new media ecology is characterised, then, by similarly contradictory trends. Listening is increasingly personalised, privatised, masterable and measurable, but also newly shareable, networked and, potentially, public. The promotional framing of these new media suggests a key contradiction at play in these new forms of radio and audio, speaking to a neo-liberal desire for a decentralization of broadcasting to the point where every individual has a voice, but where the idea of the audience is invoked as a mass network of anonymous and yet thoroughly privatised listeners. Focusing on the promotion and affordances of these various new radio- and radio-like applications for sharing speech online, this article seeks to interrogate what is at stake in these contradictions in terms of the ongoing politics, experience and ethics of listening in a mediated world

The Effects Of Photographic Presentation Modes On Semiotic Understanding Of Land Art Among Iranian Art Students

Land art consists of sculptures, carvings, and performances located at specific natural surroundings to deliver messages of love and concern for the environment. As they are ephemeral or located in inaccessible places they are documented for reference in the form of photographs taken by the artists or by people interested in the works. Seni bumi terdiri dari arca, ukiran, dan persembahan yang dibuat di lokasi semulajadi tertentu untuk menyampaikan mesej cinta dan keperhatinan terhadap alam sekitar. Oleh kerana hasilan seni ini adalah bersifat sementara atau ditinggalkan di lokasi-lokasi yang sukar dilawati maka dokumentasi hasilan karya ini dibuat melalui gambar-gambar foto yang diambil oleh artis-artis berkenaan atau penggemar-penggemar seni tersebut

Developing intercultural understanding for study abroad: Students' and teachers' perspectives on pre-departure intercultural learning

This study reports on students’ and teachers’ perspectives on a programme designed to develop Erasmus students’ intercultural understanding prior to going abroad. We aimed to understand how students and their teachers perceived pre-departure materials in promoting their awareness of key concepts related to interculturality (e.g., essentialism, stereotyping, otherising) during an intercultural education course for mobile students. Twenty pre-departure Erasmus undergraduate students from an Italian university, four teachers and one observer participated in the study. Seven hours of audio/video recordings of classroom discussions and teachers’ retrospective narratives were analysed thematically. Although students initially subverted the goals of one of the tasks, they demonstrated foundations of intercultural thinking; followed by movement from self-interest to intercultural awareness of the other; and finally, developing intercultural awareness, supported through opportunities to express emotions/feelings and discussion and application of key concepts of interculturality. Teachers’/observer’s perspectives confirmed the quality and flexibility of the materials in developing students’ intercultural awareness. The findings suggest that pre-departure materials can help students to recognise variety and complexity in self and others in intercultural encounters. But students’ primary needs for practical information should first be satisfied; interactive spaces for expressing emotion and feelings are important for understanding self and others; and scaffolding activities help students to understand intercultural concepts