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Authentic-lite rhetoric: the curation of historical interpretations in 'Hearts of Iron IV'
Get PDFThis thesis argues that 'Hearts of Iron IV' (HoIIV) presents curated historical interpretations about the origins of the Second World War. These claims are demonstrated through the concept of authentic-lite rhetoric; public-facing historical interpretations produced by computation and text. The thesis identifies HoIIV’s National Focus Trees (NFTs), diagrams that document the progression of history, as ‘engines of causality’ which simultaneously conceive of a recognisable past and function to statistically support the player. The thesis examines how territorial expansion, economic and industrial development, and political ideology are disseminated to the player through the NFTs of the German Reich, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom. The thesis illustrates how HoIIV’s curated expressions of history present the Second World War as an inevitable conflict. Through systemic and textual abstraction, the NFTs amplify political events, but overlook cultural and social phenomena. The thesis creates a framework for exploring the NFTs through external paratexts, utilising the HOI4 Wiki online encyclopedia as a dominant source base. HOI4 Wiki openly disseminates all computational and textual information associated to the NFTs. By consulting an external object of digital game culture, the thesis examines how the history of the late-1930s is curated by the NFTs and presents an innovative approach for understanding how both game system and text reinterpret history. In this methodology, the thesis demonstrates that historical game studies scholarship can be conducted without direct access to a digital game. Ultimately, the thesis determines that HoIIV’s NFTs present a fractious epoch where totalitarian regimes are more effective in waging war than democratic states. The NFTs characterise democracies as burdened by bureaucracy, while totalitarian nations are regimes of political, military, and industrial dynamism. Through these curated expressions of history, the developer-curators portray the mid-to-late 1930s as a linear passage towards an inevitable global conflict
Exploring the notion of literacy within physical literacy: a discussion paper
Get PDFThe concept of physical literacy is continuing to gain traction internationally. This increasing interest has also given rise to concerns about the use, interpretation and meaning of the term “literacy” within the context of physical literacy. This paper explores the development of the terms literate, illiterate, literacy, and illiteracy identifying their historical origin and contemporary meaning. This provides the backdrop to explore the use of the term literacy within the context of physical literacy. In the final part of this introductory section the recent popularity of the literacies movement is explored. Our discussion identifies key intersections and areas of tension associated with the use, interpretation and meaning of literacy in the context of physical literacy. We adopt Whitehead's philosophy of physical literacy and discussion is informed further by Derrida's notion of 'differance', and Barad's challenge to singular representations of concepts. Once harnessing these concepts, we reach a juncture of an in-between space; entry points of nonidentity (sameness) and points where multiple effects of difference are created. Key discussion topics include: discourse, language and interpretations of literacy; in/tangibility of literacy; capturing literacy; literacy as a process or a product; connotations of the terms literate and illiterate; neoliberalism and literacy and finally literacy as learning. We believe that when understood as the productive and meaningful interaction with/in/through the world, literacy is still the appropriate term within the context of physical literacy. Our discussion leads us to conclude that as embodied individuals, physical literacy is often the literacy through which other literacies have to pass. Through physical activity individuals can not only nurture their own physical literacy but also contribute toward a global or holistic literacy that helps us navigate, connect and make sense of ourselves, others and the world around us. However, the paper acknowledges that this meaning is not always grasped with the historical understanding of literacy as well as it's translations into other languages presenting challenges in articulating the intended use, meaning and connotations of the contemporary understanding of physical literacy
Do we enjoy what we sense and perceive? A dissociation between aesthetic appreciation and basic perception of environmental objects or events
Get PDFThis integrative review rearticulates the notion of human aesthetics by critically appraising the conventional definitions, offerring a new, more comprehensive definition, and identifying the fundamental components associated with it. It intends to advance holistic understanding of the notion by differentiating aesthetic perception from basic perceptual recognition, and by characterizing these concepts from the perspective of information processing in both visual and nonvisual modalities. To this end, we analyze the dissociative nature of information processing in the brain, introducing a novel local-global integrative model that differentiates aesthetic processing from basic perceptual processing. This model builds on the current state of the art in visual aesthetics as well as newer propositions about nonvisual aesthetics. This model comprises two analytic channels: aesthetics-only channel and perception-to-aesthetics channel. The aesthetics-only channel primarily involves restricted local processing for quality or richness (e.g., attractiveness, beauty/prettiness, elegance, sublimeness, catchiness, hedonic value) analysis, whereas the perception-to-aesthetics channel involves global/extended local processing for basic feature analysis, followed by restricted local processing for quality or richness analysis. We contend that aesthetic processing operates independently of basic perceptual processing, but not independently of cognitive processing. We further conjecture that there might be a common faculty, labeled as aesthetic cognition faculty, in the human brain for all sensory aesthetics albeit other parts of the brain can also be activated because of basic sensory processing prior to aesthetic processing, particularly during the operation of the second channel. This generalized model can account not only for simple and pure aesthetic experiences but for partial and complex aesthetic experiences as well
Religion and worldviews in English schools, study of religions, and disciplinary knowledge
No full textSince the publication of the Commission on RE report for England in 2018, there has been much discussion of the concept of ‘disciplinary knowledge’ and of which academic disciplines underpin the school subject commonly called Religious Education (RE) e.g. Kueh (2018, 2020); Georgiou and Wright (2020). Study of Religions was notable for its absence. Against these and other more outspoken critics such as Barnes, this article argues for the simple answer, which would seem obvious to members of BASR, the university discipline known as Study of Religions, or previously and more ambiguously, Religious Studies (cf Alberts, Jensen). This is not however to accept that Religion and Worldviews in schools is merely a watered-down version of SR at university level, or that other disciplines including philosophy or even theology cannot make useful contributions. Future RE needs to build upon the insights of the Commission, the Worldviews Project and other recent projects such ‘Big Ideas’ to construct a vibrant and memorable curriculum which is both academically rigorous and personally inspiring, providing students with the knowledge and skills they need not only for the few who choose Study of Religions at university, but transferable to the many situations in which they will find themselves in in later life, both professional and personal
Bioinformational philosophy and postdigital knowledge ecologies
No full textOffers new approaches to bioinformational philosophy. Presents new directions in postdigital research. Links postdigital knowledge ecologies to planetary Anthropogenic challenges
Futures studies, mobilities, and the postdigital condition: contention or complement
No full textThis paper explores relationships between recent developments in the fields of mobilities, futures, and postdigital studies. The article covers six main themes: questions and their histories; definitions; research methods and ethics; the nature and ownership of knowing and learning; understandings of time, space, identity, community, and relationships; and political processes and political legitimacy. The article was written in three steps. In the first step, the leading author (John Traxler) has identified the relevant themes. In the second step, proponents of each position have freely responded to the themes (futures studies, Stuart Connor; postdigital theory, Sarah Hayes and Petar Jandrić; mobilities, John Traxler). In the third step, the responses have been collectively (re)mixed and edited, identifying complementary and conflicting concepts and ideas. The article was initiated a month before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and it was completed over one and a half years later. Thusly, responses and analyses have included the pandemic experience without explicitly focusing to the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper concludes with drawing together contributions, seeking underlying commonalities and differences, and looking for trends, convergence, and change. Epistemically, the three positions discussed in this paper are far from commensurable. Yet they are compatible and complementary, in a postdigital dialogue, in a sense that they all need each others’ inputs on the road to a better understanding of our current condition, and the road to a better future
Narrative approach to understand people’s comprehension of acquaintance rape: the role of sex role stereotyping
Get PDFOne of the most unreported crimes is acquaintance rape. This may be the result of people’s understanding of what rape is because of their rape script and their stereotypes of victim characteristics. These judgements may be moderated by sex-role stereotyping (SRS). We utilised a narrative approach to understand low and high SRS participants’ rape scripts. Young-adult participants described what they believed a typical rape was, followed by describing an acquaintance rape and then what they believed the stereotypical victim of each crime would be. A narrative analysis was conducted on the data. We found that the blitz script is still held by 44% of low SRS and 47% of high SRS people despite 90% of rapes being committed by an acquaintance. While acquaintance rape scripts existed, the emotional imagery and content of these depended on participants level of SRS. Stereotypical victim characteristics also depended on SRS: those with high SRS were more likely to endorse rape myth ideals in describing victims than those with low SRS. These results have implications for educating people about what rape is so that victims might feel more confident in reporting rape
Is the blue wall of silence a fallacy in cases of police sexual misconduct?
Get PDFPolice sexual misconduct encompasses a range of behaviours: from sexually inappropriate language directed towards colleagues or members of the public to engaging in sexual relationships with vulnerable members of the public. All types of police misconduct are thought to be under-reported, in part because of the ‘blue wall of silence’ where police officers fail to report colleagues’ wrongdoing for reasons of loyalty and a fear of retribution. A sample of 382 English police officers were invited to assess eight fictional police sexual misconduct scenarios to ascertain whether the scenario was a breach of the Code of Ethics, the expected level of discipline and if they would report the officer. Reporting likelihood was increased when officers perceived the scenario to be a breach of the Code of Ethics and worthy of a higher level of discipline. Female officers were more likely to report sexual misconduct than male officers, and scenarios involving direct colleagues were less likely to be reported. Non-reporting was greatest for sexual harassment between colleagues and the seriousness of this behaviour was minimised as justification for non-reporting. Use of confidential reporting was minimal with direct reporting to a line manager to be the preferred option
A natural history of vision loss: insight from evolution for human visual function
Get PDFResearch on the origin of vision and vision loss in naturally “blind” animal species can reveal the tasks that vision fulfills and the brain’s role in visual experience. Models that incorporate evolutionary history, natural variation in visual ability, and experimental manipulations can help disentangle visual ability at a superficial level from behaviors linked to vision but not solely reliant upon it, and could assist the translation of ophthalmological
research in animal models to human treatments. To unravel the similarities between blind individuals and blind
species, we review concepts of "blindness" and its behavioral correlates across a range of species. We explore the ancestral emergence of vision in vertebrates, and the loss of vision in blind species with reference to an evolution-based classification scheme. We applied phylogenetic comparative methods to a mammalian tree to explore the evolution of visual acuity using ancestral state estimations. Future research into the natural history of vision loss could help elucidate the function of vision and inspire innovations in how to address vision loss in humans