1,720,959 research outputs found
Childhoods dis-ordered: Non-realist narrative modes in selected post-2000 West African war novels
No full textPhilosophiae Doctor - PhDThis study explores how selected West African war novels employ non-realist narrative
modes to portray disruptions in the child�s development into adulthood. The novels considered are
Chris Abani�s Song for Night (2007), Ahmadou Kourouma�s Allah is Not Obliged (2006),
Uzodinma Iweala�s Beasts of No Nation (2005) and Delia Jarrett-Macauley�s Moses, Citizen and
Me (2005). These novels strain at the conventions of realism as a consequence of the attempt to
represent the disruptions in child development as a result of the upheavals of war. A core
proposition of the study is to present why the authors in question are obliged to employ non-realist
modes in representing disrupted childhoods that reflect the social and cultural disorder attendant
upon war. The dissertation also asks pertinent questions regarding the ideological effect of these
narrative strategies and the effect of the particular stylistic idiosyncrasies of each of the authors in
figuring childhood in postcolonial Africa. The novels in question employ surrealism, the absurd,
the grotesque and magical realism, in presenting the first person narratives of children in war
situations, or the reflections of adult narrators on children affected by war. This study further
analyses the ways the aesthetic modes employed by these authors underscore, in particular,
children�s experiences of war. Through strategic use of specific literary techniques, these authors
highlight questions of vulnerability, powerlessness and violence on children, as a group that has
been victimised and co-opted into violence. The study further considers how these narrative
transformations in the representations of children in novels, capture transformations in ideas about
childhood in postcolonial Africa
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Reversing perverted development: magical realism in Moses, Citizen & Me
Full text linkThis paper focuses on reimagining the developmental process of the child soldier who has developed abnormally into adulthood and bringing him back into normal childhood. In particular, it considers how the attention of Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s novel, Moses, Citizen & Me (2005) is directed at restoring the childhood of the child soldier. The novel achieves this aim through employing creative narrative techniques to take the monstrous adult that the child has become, through a reverse-development, back to childhood from which the child may be re-educated and re-formed. The novel thus represents how the child soldier whose experience has turned him into some kind of ‘monster’ may be restored to humanity. The paper argues that magical realism in Moses, Citizen & Me encompasses a therapeutic tendency that represents a form of healing for child soldiers. 
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Childhoods dis-ordered: Non-realist narrative modes in selected post-2000 West African war novels
Full text linkPhilosophiae Doctor - PhDThis study explores how selected West African war novels employ non-realist narrative
modes to portray disruptions in the child’s development into adulthood. The novels considered are
Chris Abani’s Song for Night (2007), Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is Not Obliged (2006),
Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation (2005) and Delia Jarrett-Macauley’s Moses, Citizen and
Me (2005). These novels strain at the conventions of realism as a consequence of the attempt to
represent the disruptions in child development as a result of the upheavals of war. A core
proposition of the study is to present why the authors in question are obliged to employ non-realist
modes in representing disrupted childhoods that reflect the social and cultural disorder attendant
upon war. The dissertation also asks pertinent questions regarding the ideological effect of these
narrative strategies and the effect of the particular stylistic idiosyncrasies of each of the authors in
figuring childhood in postcolonial Africa. The novels in question employ surrealism, the absurd,
the grotesque and magical realism, in presenting the first person narratives of children in war
situations, or the reflections of adult narrators on children affected by war. This study further
analyses the ways the aesthetic modes employed by these authors underscore, in particular,
children’s experiences of war. Through strategic use of specific literary techniques, these authors
highlight questions of vulnerability, powerlessness and violence on children, as a group that has
been victimised and co-opted into violence. The study further considers how these narrative
transformations in the representations of children in novels, capture transformations in ideas about
childhood in postcolonial Africa
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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