Illuminating Sensory Archaeologies

Light has a fundamental role to play in our perception of the world. It meditates the relationship between people and things within space, and is crucial to our understanding of the material culture of past societies. This chapter introduces light as the core focus of the volume; its qualities and affordances in different contexts and (im)material environments; its design and manipulation; and its elusive properties. The introduction also outlines how the contributions are structured. Chapters serve as case studies to show how diverse spatial and temporal contexts can advance archaeologies of light and with light. The volume is divided into seven thematic parts, each of which explores how light enables or hinders interactions, materializes and is being materialized, animates and illuminates, accentuates and shadows, generates symbols, meanings, and systems, creates beliefs and phenomena, transforms rituals and traditions, structures spaces, and shapes atmospheres. The volume then closes with an Afterword by Tim Ingold, who comments on the chapters and reflects on the role of light and dark as a constitutive element of the things we see around us.

Never mind the city guides: The topos of a city in urban fantasy (with interpretative emphasis on Neil Gaiman’s novel Neverwhere)

The paper focuses on the phenomenon of urban fantasy with a particular interest in the topos of a city, which assumes great significance as a thematic and motivic element in the subgenre. The authors touch upon the relation between (sub)genre and topos/topoi in general, but also more specifically, between urban fantasy and the city, regarding the urban area as a distinct setting with a specific atmosphere, character or genius loci. Within this frame, the paper seeks to exemplify the aforementioned relations through an interpretative study of Neil Gaiman’s novel Neverwhere, which breathes life into the London underground scene. London Below comes to personify, literally, the vices of London Above via the use of anthropomorphic strategies. Moreover, the spatial peculiarities of the novel not only contribute to the creation of the fantastical atmosphere but they also function as a vehicle of social critique and a constitutive element of the protagonist’s transformation.

Memory

The chapter surveys the role of memory in Byzantine literature as an intrinsic, constitutive element in the process of literary creation and consumption. It proposes that texts and discourses carried the memory of other texts and discourses, and aimed at the incitement, manipulation, and indeed the creation of such memory among their readers and audiences. This (as the authors term it here) “textual” memory functioned as a code that defined the literary event in Byzantium. Attention is drawn to the techniques of memorization, to the many types of text that collected material from other texts in order serve such techniques, and to the modes of citation as the main way by which textual memory was enacted in Byzantine literature. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Byzantine literary “commonplaces.”

Closing camps

Refugee camp geographies vary greatly; however, the most fleeting informal camps and decades-old institutional settlements have in common that they are meant to be temporary. While research on camps has been attentive to their spatialities, relatively little work has focused on closures. However, we consider the permanent possibility of closure as a constitutive element of life-in-the-camp. Closures, then, must be situated within the exclusionary landscapes in which states manage migrants custody, protection and displacement. We accordingly present camp closures as manifestations of sovereign power and the study of camp afterlives as key to critical understandings of camp geographies.

Students’ and Instructors’ Understandings, Attitudes and Beliefs about Educational Theories: Results of a Mixed-Methods Study

(1) Background: Educational theories are a constitutive element of educational studies. Despite their theoretical relevance, little is still known about students’ and instructors’ understandings of educational theories and their theory-related attitudes and beliefs. (2) Methods: To elucidate these constructs and to test their relevance, we conducted a mixed-methods study with 32 students and 12 instructors of educational studies at a German university. (3) Results: We found that both groups perceived educational theories as rather abstract concepts. Students reported rather negative attitudes and naive beliefs. For both groups, we found that attitudes and beliefs were strongly tied to motivational and affective aspects when dealing with educational theories, which stresses their relevance for educational studies. (4) Conclusions: We suggest a systematic theoretical clarification of the term educational theories. Furthermore, consideration of students’ and instructors’ theory-related attitudes and beliefs can give rise to meaningful practical implications (e.g., through self-reflection).

3 The Third Element

This chapter focuses on the norm-creating character of the standard whose customary status is tested as another possible constitutive element of customary international law. It examines the third constitutive element of customary international law, which is the common recognition by international law of the enormous definitional powers to the International Court of Justice when it comes to the custom-identification criteria. It also explores the discursive performance that consists of the constant turning of a blind eye to a specific claim made by the Court in the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelve. The chapter highlights the 1969 North Sea Continental Shelf wherein the Court confirmed the dualistic approach and the consciousness of having a duty may be in order to offer an articulate definition of opinio juris for the first time. It argues that the requirement that the standard whose customary status is tested must be norm-creating as it was prescribed by the Court in the North Sea Continental Shelfcase.

On the relation between argumentative style and linguistic style

Argumentative style is assumed to be instrumental to the implementation of an arguer’s strategic plan to resolve a difference of opinion in his/her favor. One important constitutive element of argumentative style are linguistic choices. It is therefore crucial to pay close and systematic attention to linguistic choices and their argumentative functions in the analysis of argumentative style. In this paper we discuss how a linguistic-stylistic analysis can be conducted systematically by making use of methodological insights from the so-called “linguistic-stylistic approach”, and how such an analysis can be integrated with a pragma-dialectical analysis of argumentative discourse. Our aim is to show how such an integration could be helpful in analysing the presentational aspect of an argumentative style, and how the outcomes of such an analysis could be linked to another aspect of argumentative style, namely the strategic considerations implemented in the argumentative discourse and more particularly the argumentative strategies involved.

Mediators’ reframing as a constitutive element of a reconciliatory argumentative style

This paper shows that reframing of conflict can be considered as a constitutive element of a “reconciliatory argumentative style” (van Eemeren, 2019), which is typical of dispute mediators, whose aim is to steer parties towards the resolution of their conflict. On the basis of a systematic empirical analysis of mediation cases, we first show that reframing encompasses a change of issue, which may or may not be justified by arguments. Then, we show how it is functional to the three aspects of mediators’ strategic manoeuvring, being used consistently by mediators in their effort to help parties solve their conflict on the basis of reasonable discussion.

‘It’s OK to feel’: The emotionality norm and its evolution in U.S. print journalism

Between the 1960s and the 1990s journalists in U.S. newspapers created, constructed, and advanced emotionality as a new occupational norm in American print journalism, challenging some aspects of the dominant objectivity norm while simultaneously affirming its overall relevance. This historical study delineates how the emotionality norm emerged as a constitutive element of narrative journalism during this time period. Drawing from archival research, in-depth interviews, and textual analysis of trade publications, this study analyzes how narrative journalists developed moral ideals, practices, and justifications for advancing narrative journalism as an acceptable and desirable mode of emotional storytelling. As the emotionality norm affected journalistic roles, expanded the repertoire of journalistic forms, and transformed the emotive posture of newspapers, it contributed in nuanced and deliberate ways to the interpretive turn in U.S. journalism.