USB Journals (Univ. Köln)
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Risk-taking in Sexual Health Communication and Applied Theatre Practice: What Can Happen?
Get PDFThis article argues that risk-taking can be an essential part of applied theatre practice as when it is coupled with a dialogical approach, it can result in a situation where people "encounter risks on their own terms" and engage with discussions around sensitive and controversial subjects such as non-consensual sex. With reference to Beck’s notion of a risk-sharing community, it suggests that in the process of partaking in discussions on such issues, such a community can be established, whereby people take risks by challenging different views as well as taking action by discussing the subject outside of the performance space
“The Sea Will Make a Man of Him?”: Hypervirility, Effeminacy, and the Figure of the Queer Pirate in the Popular Imagination from the Early Eighteenth-Century to Hollywood
Get PDFThe figure of Captain Jack Sparrow, charismatic rogue and best pirate ever, has captured the cinema audience like no other pirate before him, it seems. Ask anyone what they think about Pirates of the Caribbean, and their response will very likely be centred on Johnny Depp\u27s flamboyant performance. Sparrow\u27s insistence on status ("It\u27s Captain Sparrow!"), on physical prowess, his skills in navigation and his having a bride in every port seem to mark him out as the typically virile pirate familiar to us from so many pirate movies of the twentieth century. Yet from the start, Sparrow\u27s virility sits oddly with his other signature character traits: his failure as a leader, his preference of negotiation to open fight ("Why fight when you can negotiate? All one needs is the proper leverage."), his slightly drunken swagger and mannered gesticulation, his mixture of elaborate wordplay and slurry pronunciation, let his demonstrative virility look like an act. Indeed, his performance of pirate manliness forever hesitates – almost uncannily, always hilariously – between hypervirility and effeminacy. This essay traces the “queer” pirate figure to the eighteenth-century popular imagination and explores the fascination its ambiguous gender performance holds for audiences, then as now
Not Becoming-Posthuman in the Ultimate Postfilmic Posthuman Male Fantasy: Queer-Feminist Observations on James Cameron’s Avatar (2009)
Get PDFThis article examines mainly the following: In what way is the digital mobilized in Avatar and in what complex ways are the filmic and the digital mutually constitutive? If one ever assumes, that cinema has some kind of (historically changing) specificity, if not an essence, but as a medium, and if one further assumes that cinema is a cultural technology, then what types of images, what kind of narratives and discursive strategies are enabled through the digital in conjunction with the cinematographic in Avatar? Furthermore, if cinema is supposedly, in a Deleuzian fashion, a system with specific features to reflect on, to show and to tell mainly about time, movement and their cognition, then what does Avatar tell us about the relation to the real, about lived, embodied time proper and therefore about subjectivity in general? What kind of subjectivity is addressed here? Closely related to this question is the last one, very seriously raised, if Avatar can ever be called a serious reflection on the philosophy of the subject brought to the fore by Rosi Braidotti as Zoëism. This article will, finally, answer this question negatively in showing that Avatar is the ultimate postfilmic posthuman male fantasy in the spirit of capitalism’s schizophrenic spectral logic
Large Language Models and the Varieties of Meaning (Reply to Koch)
Get PDFThis article responds to Steffen Koch’s, ‘Babbling stochastic parrots? A Kripkean argument for reference in large language models’ (this journal). Koch attempts by appealing to the causal theory of reference to show that when LLM’s use (or seem to use) proper names, they refer to what those names standardly refer to in the language from which they were drawn; Koch then suggests ways to generalize the strategy beyond proper names to kind terms, both natural and social. We argue here that Koch’s argumentative strategy is needlessly controversial and even if successful, would be of limited scope. We offer instead a more direct argument for the conclusion that LLM’s use language (rather than merely appearing to do so) because they meet the conditions required to perform rudimentary acts that Austin (1975) termed phatic acts. The argument applies to language generally, and implies that when so used, that language carries its usual linguistic meaning
Episode 11 Yashika Graham on poetry
No full textIn this episode Andrea Hollington talks to poet Yashika Graham about her new collection "Some of us can go back home", the role of language and poetry and more. Learn more about Yashika\u27s approaches to poetry and listen to one of her poems
What impact do government prevention measures have on the lives of cannabis users in their teens and early adulthood in Bavaria? - Police inspections and criminal law measures as a preventive tool: (02/2025)
No full textDieses Working Paper untersucht die Auswirkungen staatlicher Präventionsmaßnahmen auf die Lebenswelt von Cannabiskonsument:innen im Jugend- und jungen Erwachsenenalter in Bayern. Aufbauend auf qualitativen Interviews analysiert die Arbeit, wie polizeiliche Kontrollen und strafrechtliche Sanktionen das Vertrauen in staatliche Institutionen, soziale Beziehungen und persönliche Lebenswege beeinflussen. Theoretisch fundiert durch Konzepte der Normabweichung, sozialen Kontrolle und des Labeling Approach, zeigt die Analyse sowohl die kriminalisierende Wirkung der Maßnahmen als auch mögliche positive Effekte durch gezielte Prävention. Abschließend werden die Ergebnisse in den Kontext einer zeitgemäßen Präventionspolitik eingeordnet und Perspektiven für zukünftige Maßnahmen aufgezeigt.This working paper analyses the effects of state prevention measures on the lifeworld of cannabis users in adolescence and young adulthood in Bavaria. Based on qualitative interviews, the paper analyses how police controls and criminal sanctions influence trust in state institutions, social relationships and personal life paths. Theoretically based on concepts of norm deviation, social control and the labelling approach, the analysis shows both the criminalising effect of the measures and possible positive effects through targeted prevention. Finally, the results are categorised in the context of a contemporary prevention policy and perspectives for future measures are outlined
Civic Statistical Literacy: Konzept und praxisnahe Umsetzung am Beispiel des Klimawandels
No full textEin wirksames zivilgesellschaftliches Engagement in lebendigen Demokratien erfordert aktive Beteiligung und ein umfassendes Verständnis von Daten und Statistiken zu gesellschaftlichen Themen. Die Ausbildung in Statistik und Datenanalyse an Schulen und Hochschulen ist jedoch oftmals weder darauf ausgelegt, einschlägige Fähigkeiten zu vermitteln, noch die statistische Kompetenz der Lernenden zu verbessern. In Erweiterung von Statistical Literacy stellt dieser Aufsatz das Konzept der Zivilstatistik vor. Zivilstatistik konzentriert sich auf das Verstehen und Kommunizieren von statistischen Informationen zu gesellschaftlichen Themen, wie sie von den Medien, Statistikämtern oder Nichtregierungsorganisationen bereitgestellt werden. In diesem Beitrag stellen wir exemplarisch mögliche Einsatzszenarien für die Lehramtsausbildung vor und leiten Implikationen für die Thematisierung zivilstatistischer Inhalte im Rahmen der Lehramtsausbildung ab.Effective civic engagement in democratic societies requires active participation and a broad understanding of data and statistics on societal issues. However, statistics and data science education in schools and universities is often neither designed to teach relevant skills nor to improve students\u27 statistical literacy. As an extension of statistical literacy, this paper introduces the sub-discipline of civic statistics. Civic statistics focuses on understanding and engaging with statistical information on societal issues as provided by the media, statistical offices, non-governmental organizations and other statistical providers. In this article, we present examples of possible application scenarios for teacher training and derive implications for the thematization of civic statistics in the context of teacher training
Making Sense of the “Monsters Next Door”: General Strain and the Rampage Violence Narrative
No full textFollowing the Columbine High School Massacre in 1999, two distinct profiles of the rampage shooter emerged within the literary imagination: the type of narcissistic psychopath as which Eric Harris has been characterized, and the figure of the depressed pariah that was associated with Dylan Klebold. Employing a number of socially constructed myths that emerged following Columbine, many fictional accounts of school shootings utilize the media’s attempts to understand Eric and Dylan’s motives and therefore focus on the shooter’s internalization of social strain due to his inability to form social bonds within their schools and communities. Each character struggles to achieve some form of aspirational reference, whether it be popularity or hegemonic masculinity, and is frequently impeded by some form of noxious stimuli (i.e. general strain). The fictional shooters of rampage violence narratives perceive their strained existence as justification for violence; ultimately deeming themselves victims forced to kill by the societies that alienated them through a twisted take on retributive justice. The narratives’ differing characterizations of the rampage shooter, evoking the socially constructed myths that developed in the wake of the Columbine Massacre, typically compel utter disgust by employing the characterization of Eric or a hesitantly compassionate understanding towards the shooter in an effort promote tolerance towards those that are ostracized through representations of bullied outcasts like Dylan. Such narrative themes will be evinced through readings of Lionel Schiver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003) and Jodi Picoult’s Nineteen Minutes (2007)
Winning at Any Cost? Gender, Sport and Violence
No full textSexual violence on college campuses is not a new issue, however, the current media spotlight has brought greater public attention to this problem. Yet, despite this attention, there continues to be incidences of sexual violence across university campuses, and in university athletics in particular. In more than 100 cases of sexual violence on Canadian university campuses over a ten-year span, 23% involved university athletes as alleged perpetrators (Quinlan et al.). Given that competitive athletes compose between 1-3% of the university student population in Canada, they are over-represented in reported cases of sexual violence (Quinlan et al.), which suggests that sexual violence in university sport is particularly problematic. In this paper, this issue is addressed by asking how ruling relations inform institutional responses to sexual violence. First, to explore this question a literature review of sexual violence in sport is provided. Second, a description of how the ruling relations of organizations as a conceptual framework is outlined. Third, a consideration of the institutional responses to two cases of sexual violence in university athletics reported in the Canadian media are described. Following a discussion concerning these cases, suggestions are offered that address sexual violence in Canadian university sport, which may be translatable to other contexts