Ahead of Time : The Infrastructure of Amazon’s Anticipatory Shipping Method

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva-Maria Nyckel
Keyword(s):  
Specific Form ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Internal Logic ◽  
Over Time

This text conducts a close reading of Amazon’s 2013 patent for a “Method and System for Anticipatory Package Shipping” on three levels in order to investigate the patent’s aspirations towards a potential hardwiring of temporality. First, through the lens of media theory, the patent is conceptualized as a medium for transporting knowledge over time itself. On a second level, the patent is framed as a logistical medium both due to its aspired effects in the logistical realm and its internal logic. Third, the specific form of anticipation, prediction and prophecy is investigated by leveraging Elena Esposito’s understanding of (digital) prophecy with a particular focus on temporality.

The Textual Evolution of the Ottoman Şeyhülislams’ Fetvas: A Cross-Corpora Computational Analysis

Der Islam ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 98 (2) ◽  
pp. 516-545
Author(s):  
Boğaç Ergene ◽  
Atabey Kaygun
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Computational Analysis ◽  
Computational Techniques ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Institutional Evolution ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Term Evolution ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Over Time

Abstract In this article, we use a mix of computational techniques to identify textual shifts in the Ottoman şeyhülislams’ fetvas between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. Our analysis, supplemented by a close reading of these texts, indicates that the fetvas underwent multiple forms of transformation, a consequence of the institutional evolution of the şeyhülislam’s fetva office (fetvahane) that aimed to speed up and streamline the production of the fetvas: over time, the texts appropriated a more uniform character and came to contain shorter responses. In the compositions of the questions, we identified many “trigger terms” that facilitated reflexive responses independent of the fetvas’ jurisprudential contexts, a tendency that became stronger after the second half of the seventeenth century. In addition, we propose in the article a methodology that measures the relative strengths of textual and conceptual links among the fetva corpora of various Ottoman şeyhülislams. This analysis informs us about possible paths of long-term evolution of this genre of jurisprudential documents.

The Hermeneutical Keys to William James’s Philosophy of Religion: Protestant Impulses, Vital Belief

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 301-316
Author(s):  
David J. Zehnder
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Biblical Authority ◽  
American Psychologist ◽  
Over Time

This essay argues that the American psychologist and philosopher William James should be viewed in the Lutheran Reformation’s tradition because this viewpoint offers the hermeneutical key to his philosophy of religion. Though James obviously didn’t ascribe to biblical authority, he expressed the following religious sensibilities made possible by Martin Luther and his contemporaries: 1) challenge of prevailing systems, 2) anti-rationalism, 3) being pro-religious experience and dynamic belief, 4) need for a personal, caring God, and also 5) a gospel of religious comfort. This essay asks, in one specific form, how religious concerns can hold steady over time but cause very different expressions of faith.

The Principle of Division in Roger Caillois’s Man, Play and Games

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 855-873
Author(s):  
Peter D. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Simple Relation ◽  
Media Theory ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Basic Question ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
The Unconscious

Caillois’s classic text Man, Play and Games leaves open a basic question: Why focus on four specific kinds of play? Subsequent authors have offered their own rationalizations and expanded upon his game categories but have not explained Caillois’s approach. This essay performs a close reading of Man, Play and Games in order to evince his methodology. I argue that Caillois holds to the idea that play reproduces uncertainty in a safe and confined way but that a paradox troubles this vision and pushes him into a baroque formalism. Instead of a simple relation between model and copy, Caillois develops another, stranger concept of mimesis that continues and extends his Surrealist writing about insects and the unconscious. My reading builds on previous analyses of Caillois within game studies, sociology, and media theory to revise the methodological presuppositions built into the categorization of games.

‘Composition of place’, experiential set, and the meditative poem

2001 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 203-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuven Tsur ◽  
Motti Benari
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Mental Set ◽  
Orientation Process ◽  
Over Time

Meditative poetry has the ability to reproduce aspects of the meditative experience. In this paper we explore this ability, trying to clarify the phenomenon by pointing out the cognitive processes involved. We focus on Christian Jesuit meditation and pinpoint one of its most effective elements: “the composition of place”. We argue that three main abilities associated with “the composition of place” are responsible for the meditative quality detected in poetic meditative texts: The text’s ability to evoke an orientation process; the text’s ability to support diffuse perception and encourage divergent ways of processing; the text’s ability to generate the mental set required for this experience, the absence of purpose, and to supply the conditions that enable such a mental set to exist over time. We illustrate our theoretical discussion through a close reading of two meditative poetic masterpieces: Donne’s Holy Sonnet No. 7, and the Spanish anonymous sonnet “A Cristo Crucificado”.

scholarly journals Immediacy and Hypermediacy: mind the oscillation

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 31-41
Author(s):  
Luciane Maria Fadel ◽  
Jim Bizzocchi
Keyword(s):  
Interface Design ◽  
Return On Investment ◽  
Web Design ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Service Excellence ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Web Experience ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Over Time

This paper considers that web design comprehends the notion of transparency (immediacy) as a mean to support user immersion. But it also comprehends the notion of opaque (hypermediacy) as a mean to support interactivity. Therefore, the user oscillates between being immersed on the content and interacting with the interface, and this oscillation might disrupt the making sense process. We argue that the creative oscillation between immediacy and hypermediacy can enhance reality and thus support meaningful web experience. To this end, this paper investigates the role of agency to sustain oscillation between immediacy and hypermediacy in a website. Thus, this paper starts reviewing some of the works that instantiate narrative in design and those that focus on the agency that is experienced when interacting with a computer. Thus, agency is used as an analytical lens to investigate how interface design was used to specific outcomes in retail context: a sense of aesthetic, service excellence, playfulness and consumer return on investment. In order to that, it is performed a close reading in two versions of two specific genres of websites to understand how remediation changed over time and its implication on agency. The first genre is service design, and the second is product design. The results suggest that those design that privilege narrative and cognitive interactivity intend to provoke a sense of aesthetic and service excellence. The results also suggest that those websites that privilege explicit interactivity intend to provoke a sense of playfulness and consumer return on investment. In addition, a creative oscillation between immediacy and hypermediacy enhance reality and support meaningful user experience. In addition, this paper identifies some of the signifiers that support different levels of agency. Finally, exploring the oscillation between immediacy (transparency) and hypermediation (reflectivity) creates meaning to the experience because it acknowledges the interface and the role it plays in presenting reality.

scholarly journals An exploration on measuring and assessing ‘Tone at the Top’ with Dutch listed companies (AEX)

2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 297-305
Author(s):  
Bastiaan Versteeg ◽  
Robert Bertrand
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Text Analysis ◽  
Listed Companies ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Tone At The Top ◽  
Several Variables ◽  
Supervisory Boards ◽  
The Mean ◽  
Quantitative Text Analysis ◽  
Over Time

This article explores the measurement and assessment of Tone at the Top (TATT) in CEO letters of Dutch listed companies (AEX) over a 10 year period. A combination of quantitative (text analysis) and qualitative research (close reading) is conducted. The main findings indicate that measured TATT is relatively stable for AEX companies over time. However, at closer examination significant deviations from the mean TATT are evident. Possible explanations are provided for these out-of-range TATT scores through the identification of several variables, e.g., difficult operating circumstances, investments and disinvestments, changes in the composition of supervisory boards, corporate governance, and compliance with law and regulations.

scholarly journals Webs of Affection and Obligation: Glimpse into Families and Nineteenth Century Transatlantic Communities

2009 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Jane Errington
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
New Brunswick ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Upper Canada ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This paper explores the networks of affection, of frustration, and of obligation that continued to tie families and friends divided by the Atlantic in the first half of the nineteenth century as seen through the correspondence of two men — John Gemmill, who with his wife and 7 children emigrated to Upper Canada in the 1820s, and John Turner, who stayed home in England after his younger brother resettled in St. Andrews, New Brunswick in the 1830s. A close reading of this correspondence illustrates how kith and kin divided by the Atlantic continued to assert their place around family firesides, despite the difficulties presented by the gulf of time and space. Through their letters, correspondents on both sides of the Atlantic also negotiated often highly contested relationships that changed over time. At the same time, this link offered emigrants some reassurance of who they were and their place in the world as they negotiated new identities.

Shipmate Networks and Black Identities in the Marriage Files of Montevideo, 1768–1803

2013 ◽  
Vol 93 (2) ◽  
pp. 205-238
Author(s):  
Alex Borucki
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Slave Trade ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
Geographical Mobility ◽  
Over Time ◽  
The Catholic Church

Abstract The experience of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic crossing redefined the meanings of the nomenclature emerging from the slave trade. Under violent conditions, captives developed networks with shipmates on board slave vessels. These ties survived for decades if shipmates stayed together in the same region, as they did in Montevideo. Shipmate ties represented a living connection for Africans not only with their experience in the Atlantic crossing but also with their homelands. Shipmates provided support to their fellows when they needed trusted associates, as the marriage files of Montevideo clearly demonstrate. Enslaved Africans commonly asked fellow shipmates to testify about their past when marrying into the Catholic Church. Marriage files contain data on the routes Africans took across the Atlantic and the Americas. They indicate the origins of the groom, bride, and witnesses, their shared itineraries, and how these itineraries changed over time. Thus they reveal patterns of geographical mobility and networks created by common experiences. Marriage files can be easily quantified, which allows us to track historical trends. At the same time, each file offers a unique story. A close reading of these stories contextualizes the experiences of slaves in the Catholic Americas and underscores common patterns in ways that lie beyond quantification.

Generationsanklager – konflikt, følelser og ungdomsaktivisme

2021 ◽  
pp. 17-33
Author(s):  
Esben Bjerggaard Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Rhetorical Theory ◽  
Social Motive ◽  
The Social ◽  
Rhetorical Genre ◽  
Main Motive ◽  
Public Rhetorics ◽  
Point Of Departure ◽  
Over Time

Compared to rhetorical defenses the rhetoric of accusations has not garnered much attention from rhetorical critics over time. Two common threads in existing approaches to accusatory rhetoric are a link to an underlying affirmative motive and a view of accusations as a rhetorical genre. However, these threads have not been fully developed so far. This article takes its point of departure in Carolyn Millers rhetorical theory of genre and Celeste Michelle Condit’s work with angry public rhetorics in order to reveal the social motive of the accusatory genre. The argument here is that the main motive can be found in a desire for corrective action, but is further supported by a definitory and moral motive. This is then used as a basis for treating generational accusations as a specific form of accusation as well as analyzing it in relation to Greta Thunberg’s rhetorical accusations of older generations in the climate change debate

scholarly journals The Many Ways to Talk about the Transits of Venus: Astronomical Discourses in Philosophical Transactions, 1753–1777

2020 ◽  
pp. 237-257
Author(s):  
Reetta Sippola
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Scientific Journal ◽  
Scientific Discourse ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Topic Modelling ◽  
Astronomical Observations ◽  
The Many ◽  
Causal Theories ◽  
Over Time

This chapter uses topic modelling to explore the evolution of the scientific discourse in the scientific journal Philosophical Transactions in the mid-18th century. Combining cultural historical close reading and statistical topic modelling, the study demonstrates the value of combining ‘new’ and more traditional historical research methods. The study shows that there were at least nine ways of talking about astronomical observations around the two transits of Venus, in 1761 and 1768, and in this reveal several previously neglected themes and unnoticed temporal discourse changes. One notable theme when talking about experiments was the continuity regarding concern for exactness and reliability of the collected knowledge, while others indicate a significant use of algebra to explain astronomical events and that the amount of causal theories has weakened over time. The study furthermore documents a connection between politeness and strategic attention seeking using the transits of Venus. Finally, the results reveal significant astronomical conversations related to terrestrial weather, and the circumstances and equipment of experimenting and observing.

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