scholarly journals Urban Humanities Pedagogy

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 120-128
Author(s):  
Jonathan Banfill ◽  
Todd Presner ◽  
Maite Zubiaurre

Founded in 1919, UCLA is nearing its first centenary, but the university builds on humanistic and liberal arts traditions that are many centuries long and globally diffused. The core disciplines that we recognize today as comprising the Humanities have deep roots in these institutional, cultural, and technological histories. But yet, for all its grand ambitions for reckoning with the world, the university has remained by and large an isolated institution, walled in and often walled off from its surrounding community, accessible to a chosen few, stratified by economic, social, and racial differences, and perhaps too invested in the security of its storied past. The Urban Humanities initiative is an attempt both to apply conventional tools in unconventional ways and to invent new tools by respecting the fundamental virtue of bricks, namely their porous nature. Is it possible to decolonize knowledge? If so, the studio courses it develops will have profound implications for the role of the classroom, syllabus, and for rethinking and developing new knowledge and practices.

2018 ◽  
pp. 32-38
Author(s):  
Liudmyla Pradivlianna

Surrealism, the XX century literature and art movement, inspired an impressive number of scientific research regarding different aspects of the phenomenon. This paper studies surrealism as a type of artistic thinking which raised the role of the unconscious in poetry. It focuses on the core of surrealist aesthetics – an automatic image, which allowed the poets to study human irrational states, such as dreams. Focusing on the themes of dreams and dream-like narrations, surrealists created poetry which was formed by specific images. An automatic image coming directly from one’s unconscious mind was expected to reveal new knowledge about the world and people. But as the poet ’functions’ only as a conductor of the unconscious images, it is the reader who has to create meanings in this kind of poetry.The paper regards surrealism in terms of a lingvo-poetic experiment and analyzes the linguistic characteristics of the automatic texts in the early poetic collection of David Gascoyne (1916–2001). It outlines the peculiarities of the British poet’s techniques which are built upon French surrealist concepts and theories and examines phonetic, semantic and syntactic aspects of his poetry. David Gascoyne’s lyrics demonstrates the poet’s commitment to the French version of surrealism, his interest in the unconscious and dream-like narration. The streams of arbitrary visual images, deep emotionality, the artistic use of the word, semantic increments of meaning make Gascoigne’s texts open to interpretation. And though the poet actually refers visual effects (we rather see dreams), specific dream-like patterns are created not only by lexical, but also by phonetic repetitions, via intonation in which lexemes acquire a new semantic load.


1990 ◽  
Vol 105 ◽  
pp. 76-80
Author(s):  
R. Robert Robbins

The undergraduate program at the University of Texas has grown into the largest astronomy teaching program in the world, with some 7000 students per year (almost 20,000 credit hours). The department has 22.5 Ph.D.-level teaching faculty, about 45 graduate students, and about 40 pre-professional undergraduate majors. But most of the enrollment is in courses that satisfy the science requirements of students in liberal arts and non-technical majors. In 1985–86, 96.4 per cent of our undergraduate credit hours taught were in such classes. It is instructive to examine the historical reasons for our growth and its educational consequences, and to draw some conclusions from both for other programs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 193-197
Author(s):  
Alan Glasper

In light of the emergence in China of COVID-19, the novel corona virus, emeritus professor Alan Glasper, from the University of Southampton discusses the role of the World Health Organization and other public health institutions in responding to potential new global pandemics and deliberates on the role of NHS staff in coping with infectious disease in clinical environments.


Educação ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Evandro Coggo Cristofoletti ◽  
Milena Pavan Serafim

The economic and political changes in the world, from the 1970s, changed the political education of the Public Institutions of Higher Education in the world. The direction of these changes was clear: the university approachedthe market and the company and created interaction mechanisms that did not exist. The article therefore reviews the academic literature that interprets the relationship between university and market/company from two perspectives: approaches that positively position of interactions, exposing their motivations, interests and forms of interaction, especially the notions on Knowledge Economy and Entrepreneurial University; approaches that observe this interaction critically and reflectively, exposing the problems of interaction, its negative aspects and the reflection of the true role of the public university from the perspective of Academic Capitalism.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr. Shishir H. Mandalia

Reading plays a vital role in life of a human. Reading provides experience through which the individual may expand his horizons of knowledge, identify, extend and intensify his interest and gains deeper understanding of himself, of other human beings and of the world. The study carried out to assess the reading habits of user of Sardar Patel University, VallabhVidyanagar, Anand, Gujarat. As a research tool; questionnaire was used for the data collection. Collected data were analyzed and tables were used to present the results of findings. Reading especially is a resource for continued education, for the acquisition of new knowledge and skills, for gaining information through media, especially newspapers, books, radio, television, and the computers. In this article investigator attempts to investigate the reading habits of users of the university.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lihui Chen ◽  
Jie Li ◽  
Wu Zhu ◽  
Yehong Kuang ◽  
Tao Liu ◽  
...  

Psoriasis affects the health of myriad populations around the world. The pathogenesis is multifactorial, and the exact driving factor remains unclear. This condition arises from the interaction between hyperproliferative keratinocytes and infiltrating immune cells, with poor prognosis and high recurrence. Better clinical treatments remain to be explored. There is much evidence that alterations in the skin and intestinal microbiome play an important role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, and restoration of the microbiome is a promising preventive and therapeutic strategy for psoriasis. Herein, we have reviewed recent studies on the psoriasis-related microbiome in an attempt to confidently identify the “core” microbiome of psoriasis patients, understand the role of microbiome in the pathogenesis of psoriasis, and explore new therapeutic strategies for psoriasis through microbial intervention.


Author(s):  
Vadzim S. Mikhailouski

Neo-Marxism world-system analysis was an effective means of the understanding of the postcolonial global order. The concepts of «core», «periphery» and «semi-periphery» reflected the dependent development of states in the global capitalist system. Capitalism structured the global order in the classical Marxist dichotomy of exploiters and exploited which can be represented with various subjects (states, groups of states, territories) and which according to neo-Marxism can’t disappear, because it reflects the essence of global antagonism. However, the realities of global development at the end of the 20th century demanded that neo-Marxism should reconsider the rigid link between the core-peripheral approach and the horizontal vision of the world: globalisation caused massive flows of migrants to highly developed countries and the gradual blurring of the boundaries between the core and periphery. There was the question in neo-Marxism which was about the ability of capitalism to preserve the core-peripheral organisation of the global division of labour. There was the idea that capitalism was able to reproduce core-periphery relations within the core states by including immigrants in the super-exploitation of labour through a covert policy of neo-racism. Such a vertical organisation of the core-peripheral model around the world, which was called dual society in neo-Marxism, would mean the formation of the global semi-periphery. The purpose of the article is to verify the neo-Marxist concept of the global semi-periphery using the example of the role of the migration factor in its formation. The study is based on UN data, as well as studies with a pronounced statistical component. According to the results of the study, it was concluded that the neo-Marxist concept of the global semi-periphery had not been verified by actual empirical material (on the example of the role of the migration factor). The available statistical and analytical data do not allow to totally confirm the neo-Marxist position that the global order under the influence of migration has been transformed and that it works in the conceptual model of a dual society. Globally, migration is not a determining factor in the widespread formation and unification of the dual method of labour exploitation within states. The quantitative data on the flow of migrants, comparative data on salaries in the countries of the core and the degree of concentration of income among certain groups of the population in the countries of the capitalist system state that the world is still largely reproduced in the horizontal core-peripheral model. Thus, there are no empirical grounds for stating the presence of a global dual society under the influence of the migration factor and consequently the presence of a global semi-periphery within the neo-Marxist approach of E. Balibar, I. Wallerstein, M. Hardt and A. Negri.


Author(s):  
Rennie Naidoo

The purpose of this article is to stimulate debate about the developing paradoxes and dilemmas facing the university academic. This article argues that academics are increasingly being steeped in an inauthentic existence due, at least partly to, egocentrism and sociocentrism. A modest transdisciplinary- existential analytical framework is applied as an intellectual method to reflect on the prevailing monological perspectives stifling the role of academics, in working towards building a more sustainable future. Using concepts such as the subject, facticity and transcendence, the article investigates the dialectical tensions between some of these monological perspectives and proposes avenues to create new possibilities to progress the role of the academic. The article argues that the multilogical perspectives of transdisciplinary thinking and the empowering perspectives of existential thinking can provide academics with the necessary conceptual tools to transcend egocentrism and sociocentrism. While it is likely that new contradictions will emerge as a result of this synthesis, open-minded academics are urged to ignite their imaginative powers and take up the challenge of creating and acting on new possibilities. A transdisciplinary-existential dialectical approach can provide a richer understanding of present dilemmas in academia and the world, and suggest more satisfying paths to a sustainable future.


2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Lucio Baccaro ◽  
Chiara Benassi ◽  
Guglielmo Meardi

This special issue wants to honour the memory of Giulio Regeni, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge who was assassinated while he was conducting field research on independent trade unions in Egypt. This introduction and the following articles focus on the theoretical, empirical and methodological questions at the core of Regeni’s research. Unions have traditionally been regarded as crucial for representing the interests of the working class as a whole and for building and sustaining industrial and political democracy; however, there is a debate about the conditions under which unions can be effective, and the role of unions’ internal democracy is particularly controversial. The article discusses the theoretical linkages between trade unions, democratization and union democracy and concludes with a reflection on the new concerns about the risk of conducting field research on these issues raised by Regeni’s death.


Author(s):  
Tat’yana V. Bychkova ◽  

The paper considers the role of the language personality in speech activity in neologizations of abbreviated SMS messages in the English discourse. Within the framework of the communicative-discursive direction in Russian linguistics, a paradigmatic approach to the study of the role of the language personality in the creation of new knowledge has been established. The language personality is able to participate in the process of nominating objects and actions of the world picture. Intralinguistic and extralinguistic factors influence language changes. Intralinguistic factors provide potential for language renewal, including its neologization, in accordance with the laws of dialectical development. Extra- linguistic factors are represented by numerous social and socio-political phe- nomena from the surrounding world. The high popularity of SMS messages is explained not only by the action of the law of saving speech efforts in the language, but also by the ability of language personality to express emotions in the language, thanks to the opportunities for innovations and improvisations inherent in it. The paper considers the language functions and stylistic features of abbreviated SNS messages in English discourse.


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