scholarly journals In search of self: Navigating subjectivity amidst conflicts in Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park (2012)

k ta ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
Azalea Ayu Dewinta Fitriani ◽  
Isti Siti Saleha Gandana ◽  
Nia Nafisah
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Active Subject

Entrance into adulthood has often been seen as a phase marked by self-exploration, instability, and struggles to overcome tensions and conflicts. Eleanor & Park (2012) is a novel that explores issues of growing up and tells the story of how the two main characters go through the struggles of their adolescent lives. This study analyzes how Eleanor and Park construct and navigate their subjectivities amidst the various conflicts they face. It does so by, first, identifying and classifying the conflicts the characters encounter and then locating their provisional subject positions that draw on how they react to and deal with the conflicts. While the study confirms the dynamic nature of subject positions, both Eleanor and Park tend to bring to the fore their active subject position in dealing with the conflicts. Moreover, their subject positions further indicate that Eleanor and Park are empowered agents who are capable of deliberating thoughts and actions consciously. In navigating their subjectivities, both characters, in the end, are able to achieve personal growth and empowerment.

Psychotic, acritical and precarious? A Lacanian exploration of the neoliberal consumer subject

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 329-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aliette Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Consumer Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Mental Health Issues

Extending the critical project of interrogating the consumer subject form, in this study, the consumer subject is read as potentially acritical, precarious and psychotic through Dufour’s Lacanian-inspired analysis of neoliberal subjectivity. Reflecting on two case studies from an ethnographic-type study of young women, identity and consumer culture, I demonstrate how participants attempt to fulfil neoliberal ideals related to agency, productivity and creativity. Relying on commodities for symbolic anchoring in doing so, a ‘psychotic’ and precarious subject position is evidenced. While the findings could certainly be interpreted as productive, tendencies toward materialism, uncertainty and anxiety, along with pervasive mental health issues, provided the impetus to further problematise dominant understandings of the consumer. Neoliberal consumer culture is evidenced as a harmful, dehumanising ideology that fosters competitiveness, individuality and meritocratic tendencies, encouraging a reliance on ever-changing, transient commodities to (in)form the self. This occurs at the expense of compromise, communality and social welfare, through which subjects may find more stable and emancipatory symbolic anchors. Only by recognising critical theorisations of the consumer as dominant subject positions of neoliberalism can cultural consumer researchers begin to imagine opportunities for resistance and emancipatory change.

scholarly journals The origin of the Northern Subject Rule: subject positions and verbal morphosyntax in older English

2014 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
NYNKE DE HAAS ◽  
ANS VAN KEMENADE
Keyword(s):  
Middle English ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Corpus Study ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Peripheral Areas ◽  
Early English ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Syntactic Context

This article presents new evidence for the early history of the Northern Subject Rule in the form of an exhaustive corpus study of plural present-tense indicative verb forms in Northern and Northern Midlands early Middle English, analysed in relation to their syntactic context, including subject type and subject–verb adjacency. We show that variation between -∅/e/n and -s endings was conditioned by both subject type and adjacency in a core area around Yorkshire, whereas in more peripheral areas, the adjacency condition was weaker and often absent.We present an analysis of these facts in relation to the presence of multiple subject positions in early English, which we show contra earlier literature to be relevant for Northern English as well, We view -∅/e/n endings as ‘true’ agreement, which in the relevant dialects is limited to contexts with pronominal subjects in a high subject position, Spec,AgrSP; other forms of agreement (-s or -th) represent default inflection occurring elsewhere. This analysis supports the hypothesis that the NSR arose when the extant morphological variation in Northern Old English was reanalysed as an effect of pre-existing multiple subject positions.

Mesmerism and Agency in the Courtship of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning

1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 303-319
Author(s):  
Alison Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Female Patient ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Robert Browning ◽  
Dominant Male ◽  
Women's Poetry ◽  
Literary Influence ◽  
Active Subject ◽  
Sonnets From The Portuguese

It has not passed unnoticed that the courtship of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett coincides with Barrett's ambivalent fascination for mesmerism. But what has not been explicated is the interrelationship between mesmeric agency, the courtship correspondence, and Barrett's autobiographical Sonnets from the Portuguese. Daniel Karlin has suggestively described Barrett's representation of her suitor as an erotic mesmerist, to Browning's discomfort, but Karlin assumes the familiar stereotype of mesmeric power as an unproblematic operation of a dominant male practitioner upon a passive female patient. This essay critiques such an assumption, and suggests that a revised model of mesmeric influence helps elucidate not only Barrett's representation of the courtship in the letters and the Sonnets, but literary influence as well. If Barrett depicts herself in the thrall of a mesmeric agency, then how do we read what is interpreted by feminist critics as her revolutionary active subject position in the Sonnets, which has been taken as the transformation of Victorian women's poetry?

Justifications of citizens’ subject positions in public debates on welfare

2016 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Mikael Autto ◽  
Jukka Törrönen
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Day Care ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Public Debates ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Welfare State

Foucault’s work has inspired studies examining how subject positions are constructed for citizens of the welfare state that encourage them to adopt the subject position of active and responsible people or consumers. Yet these studies are often criticised for analysing these subject positions as coherent constructions without considering how their construction varies from one situation to another. This paper develops the concept of subject position in relation to the theory of justification and the concept of modality in order to achieve a more sensitive and nuanced analysis of the politics of welfare in public debates. The theory of justification places greater weight on actors’ competence in social situations. It helps to reveal how justifications and critiques of welfare policies are based on the skilful contextual combination of diverse normative bases. The concept of modality, in turn, makes it possible to elaborate how subject positions in justifications and critiques of welfare policies become associated with specific kinds of values. We demonstrate the approach by using public debates on children’s day care in Finland. The analysis illustrates how subject positions are justified in relation to different kinds of worlds and made persuasive by connecting them to commonly desirable rights, responsibilities, competences or abilities.

Aspects of the syntax of ce in French copular sentences

2019 ◽  
pp. 153-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Roy ◽  
Ur Shlonsky
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Syntactic Analysis ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Relativized Minimality ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Constraints ◽  
Copular Sentences ◽  
Copular Sentence

This chapter offers a syntactic analysis of French ce in copular constructions. It is argued that the distribution of ce is best understood in terms of the conditions on the agree operation inside the copular sentence. The proform ce, an expletive, is inserted whenever an agreement relationship cannot be established between an element in the subject position and an element from the PredP (Bowers 1993). Two sources of agreement failure are considered. In one case, agreement failure results from syntactic constraints on movement (Relativized Minimality, criterial freezing) together with focalization. In the other case, agreement failure results from the absence of accessible phi-features on the subject, possibly as the result of a grammatical shift taking place at the interface. This chapter further highlights the relevance of two subject positions (Subj1 and Subj2) each with their own interpretational properties.

Relative inversion and non-verb-initial imperatives in Early Modern Swedish

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Magnusson Petzell
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Additional Assumption ◽  
Structural Difference ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Syntactic Differences

This article deals with two syntactic differences between Present-Day Swedish (PDSw) and Early Modern Swedish (EMSw): first, only EMSw allows VS and XVS word order to occur in relative clauses; second, only EMSw permits non-verb-initial imperatives. One structural difference between the varieties is assumed to be a prerequisite for all these word order differences: the subject position was spec-TP in EMSw but is spec-FinP in PDSw. Only the lower position (spec-TP) is compatible with inversion (VS) and fronting of non-subjects (XVS) in relative clauses as well as with imperative clauses having elements other than the imperative verb in the initial position. To be able to account for the latter phenomenon, however, an additional assumption is needed: the imperative type-feature, [imp], always accompanies the verb in PDSw but is tied to an operator in EMSw. The first assumption about differing subject positions is independently motivated by findings already in the previous literature. The second assumption about the differing behaviour of [imp] in the two varieties is supported by the distribution of imperative verbs over a wider range of syntactic contexts in EMSw than in PDSw.

Patients as `Safeguard' and Nurses as `Substitute' in Home Health Care

2009 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stina Öresland ◽  
Sylvia Määttä ◽  
Astrid Norberg ◽  
Kim Lützén
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Home Health Care ◽  
Analytical Method ◽  
Home Health ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
The Subject ◽  
To Receive

One aim of this study was to explore the role, or subject position, patients take in the care they receive from nurses in their own home. Another was to examine the subject position that patients say the nurses take when giving care to them in their own home. Ten interviews were analysed and interpreted according to a discourse analytical method. The findings show that patients constructed their subject position as `safeguard', and the nurses' subject position as `substitute' for themselves. These subject positions provided the opportunities, and the obstacles, for the patients' possibilities to receive care in their home. The subject positions described have ethical repercussions and illuminate that the patients put great demands on tailored care.

scholarly journals Using institutional entrepreneurship to understand the role of innovation teams in healthcare: a longitudinal qualitative study

BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. e046750
Author(s):  
Angela Melder ◽  
Ian Mcloughlin ◽  
Tracy Robinson ◽  
Rick Iedema ◽  
Helena J Teede
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Hospital Setting ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Institutional Entrepreneurship ◽  
Subject Positions ◽  
Service Redesign ◽  
Innovation Teams

ObjectivesWe draw on institutional theory to explore the roles and actions of innovation teams and how this influences their behaviour and capabilities as ‘institutional entrepreneurs (IEs)’, in particular the extent to which they are both ‘willing’ and ‘able’ to facilitate transformational change in healthcare through service redesign.DesignA longitudinal qualitative study that applied a ‘researcher in residence’ as an ethnographic approach.SettingThe development and implementation of two innovation projects within a single public hospital setting in an Australian state jurisdiction.ParticipantsTwo innovation teams, with members including senior research fellows, PhD scholars and front-line clinicians (19 participants and 47 interviews).ResultsDespite being from the same hospital, the two innovation teams occupied contrasting subject positions with one facilitating transformational improvements in service delivery, while the other sought more conservative improvements. Cast as ‘IEs’ we show how one team took steps to build legitimacy for their interventions enabling spread and scale in improvements and how, in the other case, failure to build legitimacy resulted in unintended consequences which undermined the sustainability of the improvements achieved.ConclusionsAdopting an institutional approach provided insight into the ‘willingness’ and ‘ability’ to facilitate transformational change in healthcare through service redesign. The manner in which innovation teams operate from different subject positions influences the structural and normative legitimacy afforded to their activities. Specifically, we observed that those with the most power (organisational or professional) to bring about transformational change can be the least willing to do so in ways which challenge current practice. Those most willing to challenge the status quo (more peripheral organisation members or professionals) can be least able to deliver transformation. Better understanding of these insights can inform healthcare leaders in supporting innovation team efforts, considering their subject position.

Pedagogical conditions for the development of the competence of the teacher's self-improvement

2020 ◽  
pp. 100-105
Author(s):  
Larisa V. Abdalina ◽  
Lyudmila V. Ivanova
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Advanced Training ◽  
Self Development ◽  
Pedagogical Competence ◽  
Self Worth ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Growth Development ◽  
Definition Of

Based on the analysis of current scientific literature on the problems of self-improvement of the teacher, we formulated the definition of the concept "competence of self-improvement of the teacher". We considered this competence of the teacher as an important component of his vocational and pedagogical competence; we specified understanding of essence and structure of self-improvement as activity, process, result of personal growth and development of teacher acting as its competent subject, initiator. We disclosed an understanding of the essence of pedagogical conditions as an essential component of the pedagogical process, integrating into itself a certain set of measures aimed at achieving the desired goal; defined and formulated a set of external and internal pedagogical conditions, having a certain potential for influencing the development of the competence of self-improvement of the teacher in the process of intra-school advanced training. In detail, we considered the internal pedagogical conditions, the creation of which ensured the development of the competence of the teacher's self-improvement: increasing the motivation for professional and personal growth; development of the self-worth of education (self-development); strengthening the subject position. We noted important aspects of increasing motivation in the form of a productive form of self-development of a teacher; we disclosed developing possibilities of self-worth of education for formation of competence of self-improvement of teacher; we indicated the relevance of strengthening the subject position of the teacher in conditions of purposeful advanced training.

Growing up in hip hop: The expression of self in hypermasculine cultures

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dave Hook
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Growing Up ◽  
Global Culture ◽  
Social Commentary ◽  
Hip Hop Culture ◽  
People's Party ◽  
Multi Method Approach ◽  
Growth Change ◽  
Method Approach

Recently, rappers Talib Kweli and Evidence discussed the conflict between rapper identity and individual identity as a person ages, with Kweli describing how a rapper’s persona ‘becomes like an armour’ and Evidence observing that ‘after a while that stops getting rewarding’ (People’s Party with Talib Kweli 2019: 54). These observations highlight the difficulties for artists to be able to express their own growth and development as their artist personas become ‘fixed’. This fixing or flattening of persona, combined with a hypermasculine culture that reflects a society where even the phrase ‘to catch feelings’ is a derogatory term, creates an environment in which opportunities for expression of personal growth, change and emotional responses have become limited. Taking an autoethnographic, multi-method approach, this article looks at examples in my own work with hip hop group Stanley Odd, which focus on personal, reflexive commentary as opposed to cultural or social commentary. Through the analysis of three songs released between 2012 and 2014, this article describes creative tactics and responses designed to navigate the boundaries of hip hop culture, Scottish culture and global culture, circumventing restrictions on emotive responses.

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