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Separately, Connectedly: Exploring Trauma Through Ekphrasis in Contemporary Novels
Get PDFThis thesis examines ekphrasis as a rhetorical tool to explore, represent, and contemplate trauma affect in contemporary novels. From the Greek phrase for ‘description,’ ekphrasis is part of a long and ancient literary tradition, dating as far back as the ancient depictions of art on urns, weaponry, as well as more disambiguated descriptions of scenes and people. The uses of ekphrasis as a literary device are broad and complex, but its use is under-researched in contemporary novels, and there is a near total absence of investigation into ekphrasis within the novel as a means of contemplating and understanding the affect of a condition that is inherently abstract and disorienting.Literary trauma theory has evolved considerably in recent years. In keeping with important findings in psychology and psychiatric research, there is a broad recognition that rethinking trauma representation beyond the recitation and reliving of events and into textured descriptions of trauma affect is essential for thoughtful, nuanced explorations of an experience that resists narrative convenience. As a result, there are increased calls to accept and represent its inherent fractured nature and resist the authorial temptation to forge a story around it that fits neatly into a cohesive whole. This thesis proposes a framework for considering how various aspects of ekphrastic descriptions of real and imagined art as well as their connotative and denotative significance in the novel reveals nuance in the representation of trauma affect through the activation of language and image. The contemporary novels explored herein are: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt, and How to Be Both by Ali Smith. Each of these novels present ekphrasis and affect differently, which enables broader testing of the flexibility of the proposed framework
Transdisciplinarity from the Grassroots:Exploring Student-led Dialogues for Sustainability
Get PDFThe responses of higher education (HE) institutions towards the climate crisis and escalating social inequalities have been researched from either “top-down” (i.e., institutionally-led) or “bottom-up” (i.e., student-led) perspectives. As scholars call for enhanced insight into the space between these two poles, this paper provides an autoethnographical account of a “bottom-up” network led by doctoral students – Researchers 4 Sustainability (R4S) – initiated within a UK university to contest “top-down” structures by way of disciplinary silos. Likening disciplines to communicative subsystems, we draw on a social constructivist perspective of dialogue to demonstrate how three forms of dialogue – exploring, explaining and expanding – support not just the transcending of disciplinary boundaries, but crucially, institutional hierarchies, in the creation of sustainability knowledge. Herein, we introduce a framework against which to organise student-led dialogues relative to their inter- and/or trans- disciplinary orientations and offer recommendations for theory and practice
Carter, Porter, Herrera:Overcoming Mythology to Achieve Agency (Sometimes) Effectively
Get PDFThis article explores the work of three fiction authors examining how they allow protagonists to bring originality to their use of stable mythological content to form new ways of organizing social relations. Across the three, the protagonist is led toward a pivotal moment, confronted by symbolic objects and figures that pose a real danger, from which some improvise, escape and form a more satisfying life. Fiction demonstrates how agency is possible, that humans can play with any given identities and roles and establish a different social order, at least sometimes effectively. Given the constraining power of mythology, this article builds on three core problems identified by Barthes to show how these writers can: first, undermine the naturalization of figures; second, challenge the notion that since order is largely given, then intentionality and agency are futile; and third, overcome how facts or veracity in myth-driven meaning lack any historical specificity by instead portraying direct experiences that produce their own identities, categories and relations. These findings are significant because the writers step outside politics to develop ideas about how political relations can be made differently through will, ability to experiment and enjoy experiments’ outcomes, and by living with greater multiplexity of perspectives
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Augmented Statistics of Quaternion Random Variables:A Lynchpin of Quaternion Learning Machines
Get PDFLearning machines for vector sensor data are naturally developed in the quaternion domain and are underpinned by quaternion statistics. To this end, we revisit the `augmented' representation basis for discrete quaternion random variables q^a[n], i.e. [ q[n] q^i[n] q^j[n] q^k[n] ]; and demonstrate its pivotal role in the treatment of the generality of quaternion random variables (RV). This is achieved by a rigorous consideration of the augmented quaternion RV, and by involving for additional second order statistics, besides the traditional covariance E{q[n]q*[n]}. To illuminate the usefulness of quaternions, we consider their most well-known application - three-dimensional (3D) orientation and offer an account of augmented statistics for purely imaginary (pure) quaternions. The quaternion statistics presented here can be exploited in the analysis of the existing and the development of novel statistical machine learning methods, hence acting as a lynchpin for quaternion learning machines
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