Signifying the Self: Cultural Trauma and Mechanisms of Memorialization in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God

Starting from Hirsch and Smith’s concept of a feminist counterhistory and referencing the theoretical framework of cultural trauma, this paper undertakes a (re)reading of Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God as construction of gendered countermemory. Such an interpretation would enable a recognition of the political function of the novel as an identity matrix of African-American womanhood. Expanding upon the classical, post-Lacanian approach to trauma studies and its post-colonial reconfigurations, I use a poststructuralist framing of collective trauma, and the Saussurian concept of signification, to highlight the struggle for self-determination of an oppressed community as it is signified-upon by its oppressors through violently imposed discourse. I further question the complicity between conventional forms of narration and the hegemony of an external signifier, and I trace this patterned mechanism of aggression within the linguistic and diegetic fabric of the novel, in order to expose Hurston’s literary methodology of collective memorialization and the way it challenges canonical representations of trauma.

On the group of unit-valued polynomial functions

Let R be a finite commutative ring. The set $${{\mathcal{F}}}(R)$$ F ( R ) of polynomial functions on R is a finite commutative ring with pointwise operations. Its group of units $${{\mathcal{F}}}(R)^\times $$ F ( R ) × is just the set of all unit-valued polynomial functions. We investigate polynomial permutations on $$R[x]/(x^2)=R[\alpha ]$$ R [ x ] / ( x 2 ) = R [ α ] , the ring of dual numbers over R, and show that the group $${\mathcal{P}}_{R}(R[\alpha ])$$ P R ( R [ α ] ) , consisting of those polynomial permutations of $$R[\alpha ]$$ R [ α ] represented by polynomials in R[x], is embedded in a semidirect product of $${{\mathcal{F}}}(R)^\times $$ F ( R ) × by the group $${\mathcal{P}}(R)$$ P ( R ) of polynomial permutations on R. In particular, when $$R={\mathbb{F}}_q$$ R = F q , we prove that $${\mathcal{P}}_{{\mathbb{F}}_q}({\mathbb{F}}_q[\alpha ])\cong {\mathcal{P}}({\mathbb{F}}_q) \ltimes _\theta {{\mathcal{F}}}({\mathbb{F}}_q)^\times $$ P F q ( F q [ α ] ) ≅ P ( F q ) ⋉ θ F ( F q ) × . Furthermore, we count unit-valued polynomial functions on the ring of integers modulo $${p^n}$$ p n and obtain canonical representations for these functions.

AIGEN: Random Generation of Symbolic Transition Systems

AIGEN is an open source tool for the generation of transition systems in a symbolic representation. To ensure diversity, it employs a uniform random sampling over the space of all Boolean functions with a given number of variables. AIGEN relies on reduced ordered binary decision diagrams (ROBDDs) and canonical disjunctive normal form (CDNF) as canonical representations that allow us to enumerate Boolean functions, in the former case with an encoding that is inspired by data structures used to implement ROBDDs. Several parameters allow the user to restrict generation to Boolean functions or transition systems with certain properties, which are then output in AIGER format. We report on the use of AIGEN to generate random benchmark problems for the reactive synthesis competition SYNTCOMP 2019, and present a comparison of the two encodings with respect to time and memory efficiency in practice.

Peltae subacquee e specchiature marmoree La forma dell’acqua tra storia dell’arte e filosofia

This paper focuses on two canonical representations of water in 12th-century Venetian churches: (i) the so-called ‘peltae pattern’, usually defined as ‘geometric decoration’ and recognized as the symbol of water; and (ii) the ‘marble slab’, usually included among non-iconic decorations and recognized as il mare. Why did the medieval masters represent the same natural element in the same type of location in these two different ways? Our hypothesis is that (i) represented the turbulent water of terrestrial life, while (ii) represented heavenly water. We argue that support for both claims can be found by retracing the sources of the two decorative models and looking at them from an art historical point of view, and by analyzing them from a philosophical and perceptological standpoint in order to retrieve universal perceptual patterns that can sustain the iconological reading.

Two by two squares in set partitions

A partition π of a set S is a collection B1, B2, …, Bk of non-empty disjoint subsets, alled blocks, of S such that $\begin{array}{} \displaystyle \bigcup _{i=1}^kB_i=S. \end{array}$ We assume that B1, B2, …, Bk are listed in canonical order; that is in increasing order of their minimal elements; so min B1 < min B2 < ⋯ < min Bk. A partition into k blocks can be represented by a word π = π1π2⋯πn, where for 1 ≤ j ≤ n, πj ∈ [k] and $\begin{array}{} \displaystyle \bigcup _{i=1}^n \{\pi_i\}=[k], \end{array}$ and πj indicates that j ∈ Bπj. The canonical representations of all set partitions of [n] are precisely the words π = π1π2⋯πn such that π1 = 1, and if i < j then the first occurrence of the letter i precedes the first occurrence of j. Such words are known as restricted growth functions. In this paper we find the number of squares of side two in the bargraph representation of the restricted growth functions of set partitions of [n]. These squares can overlap and their bases are not necessarily on the x-axis. We determine the generating function P(x, y, q) for the number of set partitions of [n] with exactly k blocks according to the number of squares of size two. From this we derive exact and asymptotic formulae for the mean number of two by two squares over all set partitions of [n].

Non-symbolic numerosities do not automatically activate spatial–numerical associations: Evidence from the SNARC effect

The SNARC (spatial–numerical association of response codes) effect is the finding that people are generally faster to respond to smaller numbers with left-sided responses and larger numbers with right-sided responses. The SNARC effect has been widely reported for responses to symbolic representations of number such as digits. However, there is mixed evidence as to whether it occurs for non-symbolic representations of number, particularly when magnitude is irrelevant to the task. Mitchell et al. reported a SNARC effect when participants were asked to make orientation decisions to arrays of one-to-nine triangles (pointing upwards vs. pointing downwards) and concluded that SNARC effects occur for non-symbolic, non-canonical representations of number. They additionally reported that this effect was stronger in the subitising range. However, here we report four experiments that do not replicate either of these findings. Participants made upwards/inverted decisions to one-to-nine triangles where total surface area was either controlled across numerosities (Experiments 1, 2, and 4) or increased congruently with numerosity (Experiment 3). There was no evidence of a SNARC effect either across the full range or within the subset of the subitising range. The results of Experiment 4 (in which we presented the original stimuli of Mitchell et al.) suggested that visual properties of non-symbolic displays can prompt SNARC-like effects driven by visual cues rather than numerosity. Taken in the context of other recent findings, we argue that non-symbolic representations of number do not offer a direct and automatic route to numerical–spatial associations.