scholarly journals Decoding Tableaux Vivants: the Metareferential Potential of Painterly References in Cinema

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Cristian Eduard Drăgan

Abstract The article focuses on the intermedial relationship between cinema and painting, viewed as a self-referential process, and tries to determine various ways in which this type of signifying process can be used to “encode” various messages (within the work itself), or become an integral part of this (meta)communicative operation. Starting from a broad definition of intermedial references and continuing with a brief recontextualized detour through Gérard Genette’s taxonomy of transtextual instances, the author narrows down a specific technique that exemplifies this type of “codifying” procedure, namely the tableau vivant. In accordance with Werner Wolf’s proposed terminology, he attempts to determine the metareferential potential of this extra-compositional self-referential technique. The case studies focus on films by Peter Greenaway and Lars von Trier.

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 309-330
Author(s):  
Harro Maas

Abstract This article examines and compares three grids that were designed to serve explicit moral accounting goals: the calculation and improvement of character. The examples are tables which fall under a broad definition of diagrams. The examples follow another in time, but it is not the article’s intention to suggest a historical lineage between them. Rather, it is the intention to clarify the interplay between grids and the precepts or keys to their use. The first case is the so-called ledger of merit and demerit that was propagated by Yuan Huang, a scholar and bureaucrat of the late Ming-period, who recommended its use for moral improvement in four letters to his son, of which the most famous letter was on the improvement of one’s own fate. The second is Benjamin Franklin’s Art of Virtue, which Franklin in his autobiographical letter to his son equally described as a tool of moral improvement. The third is the so-called moral thermometer, or biometer, a tool developed by the French revolutionary and pedagogical innovator Marc-Antoine Jullien, who described this tool as a moral mirror and compass that would be especially of use in preparing and educating adolescents for their adult lives. All three represent generic methods of producing knowledge about an individual’s (moral) character, knowledge on which the users of these tables could act. Their differences have to do with the perceived relation of moral conduct to other spheres of life, religious, social, and economic, or all of these combined, but also with the different precepts to their use.


Author(s):  
Ross McKibbin

This book is an examination of Britain as a democratic society; what it means to describe it as such; and how we can attempt such an examination. The book does this via a number of ‘case-studies’ which approach the subject in different ways: J.M. Keynes and his analysis of British social structures; the political career of Harold Nicolson and his understanding of democratic politics; the novels of A.J. Cronin, especially The Citadel, and what they tell us about the definition of democracy in the interwar years. The book also investigates the evolution of the British party political system until the present day and attempts to suggest why it has become so apparently unstable. There are also two chapters on sport as representative of the British social system as a whole as well as the ways in which the British influenced the sporting systems of other countries. The book has a marked comparative theme, including one chapter which compares British and Australian political cultures and which shows British democracy in a somewhat different light from the one usually shone on it. The concluding chapter brings together the overall argument.


Author(s):  
Claude Markovits

This chapter deals with the question of innovation in Indian business from a historical perspective. After a brief survey of the literature, emphasizing how divided scholarly opinion was regarding the existence of forms of innovation in Indian business prior to the colonial era, the focus shifts to the British period. It is shown that Schumpeter’s definition of innovation equating it with technological innovation cannot be fruitfully applied to the Indian business scene. Two case studies are then proposed: Tata Iron & Steel, the largest Indian industrial firm, is shown to have been innovative in the specific context of India’s backward industrial scene, while the Sindwork merchants of Hyderabad are an instance of an Indian trading network which extended its range to the entire world. Concluding remarks interrogate post-Independence developments and stress the limits of the innovativeness of Indian business, prior to the recent liberal reforms.


Author(s):  
Nicholas J. Wheeler

This Introduction to the book does three things. First, it introduces the concept of trust and develops a definition of trust as the ‘expectation of no harm in contexts where betrayal is always a possibility’. Next, it identities two conceptions of trust that guide the book, ‘calculative trust’ and ‘trust as suspension’, which provide very different explanations for how actors form expectations that another will be trustworthy. It then shows how trust as suspension opens up a new theory of accurate signal interpretation and demonstrates how this theory is superior to costly signalling-based theories of accurate signal interpretation. The final section of the Introduction sets out the rationale for the case studies and the key assumptions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 1627-1636
Author(s):  
Aurora Berni ◽  
Yuri Borgianni

AbstractThe concept of User Experience (UX) dates back to the 1990s, but a shared definition of UX is not available. As design integrates UX, different interpretations thereof can complicate the possibility to build upon previous literature and develop the field autonomously. Indeed, by analysing the literature, UX emerges as a cauldron of related and closely linked concepts. However, it is possible to find recurring attributes that emerge from those definitions, which are ascribable to two foci: the fundamental elements of the interaction (user, system, context) and typologies of experience (ergonomic, cognitive, and emotional). Those are used to build a framework. We have preliminarily investigated how UX is dealt with in design by mapping a sample of UX-related experimental articles published in design journals. We classified UX case studies based on the framework to individuate the UXs that emerge most frequently and the most studied ones in the design field. The two-focus framework allows the mapping of experiments involving UX in design, without highlighting specific favorable combinations. However, comprehensive studies dealing with all elements and UX typologies have not been found.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 366
Author(s):  
Renato Macciotta ◽  
Michael T. Hendry

Transportation infrastructure in mountainous terrain and through river valleys is exposed to a variety of landslide phenomena. This is particularly the case for highway and railway corridors in Western Canada that connect towns and industries through prairie valleys and the Canadian cordillera. The fluidity of these corridors is important for the economy of the country and the safety of workers, and users of this infrastructure is paramount. Stabilization of all active slopes is financially challenging given the extensive area where landslides are a possibility, and monitoring and minimization of slope failure consequences becomes an attractive risk management strategy. In this regard, remote sensing techniques provide a means for enhancing the monitoring toolbox of the geotechnical engineer. This includes an improved identification of active landslides in large areas, robust complement to in-place instrumentation for enhanced landslide investigation, and an improved definition of landslide extents and deformation mechanisms. This paper builds upon the extensive literature on the application of remote sensing techniques and discusses practical insights gained from a suite of case studies from the authors’ experience in Western Canada. The review of the case studies presents a variety of landslide mechanisms and remote sensing technologies. The aim of the paper is to transfer some of the insights gained through these case studies to the reader.


Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 125
Author(s):  
Lisa Lai-Shen Cheng ◽  
Laura J. Downing

It is widely agreed that prosodic constituents should mirror syntactic constituents (unless high-ranking prosodic constraints interfere). Because recursion is a feature of syntactic representations, one expects recursion in prosodic representations as well. However, it is of current controversy what kinds of syntactic representation motivate prosodic recursion. In this paper, the use of Phonological Phrase recursion is reviewed in several case studies, chosen because prosodic recursion mostly does not reflect syntactic recursion as defined in current syntactic theory. We provide reanalyses that do not appeal to prosodic recursion (unless syntactically motivated), showing that Phonological Phrase recursion is not necessary to capture the relevant generalizations. The more restrictive use of prosodic recursion we argue for has the following conceptual advantages. It allows for more consistent cross-linguistic generalizations about the syntax–prosody mapping so that prosodic representations more closely reflect syntactic ones. It allows the fundamental syntactic distinctions between clause (and other phases) and phrase to be reflected in the prosodic representation, and it allows cross-linguistic generalizations to be made about the prosodic domain of intonational processes, such as downstep and continuation rise.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 214-238
Author(s):  
Nienke van Andel ◽  
Martin J.M. Hoondert ◽  
Marcel Barnard

Even before they started the editorial board of the new Dutch hymnal was blamed for being too elitist. The fact that they had been selected on the basis of their expertise made them vulnerable for such criticism. Subsequently the position of the editors has been a point of continuous reflection. In this contribution, we will argue that this image of editors as dissociated from users of the hymn book is only one among several available identity repertoires. In order to answer the question which ‘identities-in-relation-to-users’ do the editors construct in the meetings of the board and how do they value these identities?, we will use a broad definition of identity and focus on positions performed in social interaction. The interaction in question concerns seven selected meetings of the editorial board, all of which were audio-taped and transcribed. Looking closely at the identities that were constructed during those meetings, we distinguish six positions, ranging from a great to no distance between editors and users: editors, professionals, experienced, vanguard, pleasers and equals.


Author(s):  
Hanseung Woo ◽  
Kyoungchul Kong

Safety is one of important factors in control of mechatronic systems interacting with humans. In order to evaluate the safety of such systems, mechanical impedance is often utilized as it indicates the magnitude of reaction forces when the systems are subjected to motions. Namely, the mechatronic systems should have low mechanical impedance for improved safety. In this paper, a methodology to design controllers for reduction of mechanical impedance is proposed. For the proposed controller design, the mathematical definition of the mechanical impedance for open-loop and closed-loop systems is introduced. Then the controllers are designed for stable and unstable systems such that they effectively lower the magnitude of mechanical impedance with guaranteed stability. The proposed method is verified through case studies including simulations.


2021 ◽  
pp. 540-554
Author(s):  
Tegan Bristow ◽  
João Orecchia Zúñiga

This chapter presents an examination of why—in contemporary Africa, with Southern Africa as the primary focus—there are very few artists working with sound in a manner that fits the paradigm of sound art as it is known in Euro-America. Emphasis is not placed on a lack of intellectual engagement, which is significant in the Euro-American definition of sound art. What is presented does not aim to deviate from this, but rather acts to affirm an engagement with alternative forms of knowledge and mechanisms of sound found in the South. Three areas are explored; these however are interlinked and do not stand alone. The first is an understanding of the practice of interdisciplinarity as political engagement. The second explores the role of community and communal interaction with sound and how this is fundamental to form in the region. The third extends this by showing how the histories of knowledge and power are fundamental to these explorations in the region, emphasizing how contemporary explorations of sound are used to both contain and shift these histories. The chapter takes shape with the use of case studies and draws on interviews conducted by the authors.


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