Reading Posthuman Ethics in Daniel Wilson’s Amped

In 20th century and beyond, humans have witnessed numerous advances in technology which have opened new horizons. Science and technology redesigned human life exponentially and humans always search for a more technological world and hence more comfort and ease. As such, going past human confinement could be accessible through a few changes in human form, but these changes posture a contentious point since people grow into being more reliant on technology in order to execute their desires and needs. What will happen to humanness and humanity? What will happen to their moralities and behaviors? In this manner, technological development could have both promising and discouraging pictures within the human mind. The current study cites Daniel H. Wilson’s Amped (2013) to discuss the clash of views between Transhumanists and Bioconservatives. Transhumanists believe that human improvement advances should be made broadly accessible, where people could adopt these innovations and apply them to themselves to have a better life. In particular, bioconservatives consider human enhancement technologies as ‘dehumanizing’ for these technologies might weaken human dignity and affect something that is profoundly valuable about being human. As such, Posthuman theory is consulted in order to analyze the ethical and moral concerns of human enhancement technology in Wilson’s Amped. The findings are summed in the importance of ethics in any kind of enhancement and conclude that the trustworthy source is a priority to ensure success.

Alcoholism and Identity Change in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day's Journey into Night

Although much research has been written on the idea of substance abuse in the American theater, this paper presents a new perspective by discussing how the abuser can undergo an identity change. Drug and alcohol addiction is one of the salient themes of twentieth-century American theater. Playwrights like Eugene O’Neill depicted this social problem in their plays by drawing upon their own personal experience in substance abuse. The paper examines alcoholism and drug addiction in O’Neill’s Long Day's Journey into Night. It shows how addicts experience identity change during the course of their addiction. The main argument, in this paper, is based on some sociological research on alcoholism and identity change proposed by Tammy L. Anderson. Identity transformation of the addicts may result from the existence of various personal and environmental factors, which correlate to personal and social identity respectively. These factors will be used in relation to the characters of the play to show how addicts and alcoholics pass through several stages to reach their final identity change. Those characters, by immersing themselves in substance intake, cease to belong to ‘normals’ and in their search for a new identity they liaise with ‘deviants’ where they find affinity. When the curtain is drawn, the addicted characters have already embarked on their journey which will end, both literally and figuratively, in haziness and fog, a strong indication of their loss of sense of existence and self-awareness.

Effects of Food Adverting Directed Toward Children and Adolescences on Food choice and Purchasing Request

The contemporary increase in commercial advertisements growth has either directly or indirectly targeted children and adolescences. This is to change and influence their behaviour toward commercial products and restrain them from their early ages. This study was conducted to examine and determine the effects of Television commercial advertisements directed at children and adolescents on their food choice and purchasing requests, and determining the parents' opinion on the influences of the Ads on their children. This study was implemented through filling-in questionnaires face-to-face with children and their parents in Sulaymaniyah city, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The results showed that most of the respondent children spend their spare time on-screen viewing, which makes them easily targeted to the contemporary advertising model. Most of the children (82.7%) were watching TV ads. This has significantly influenced children's behavior toward commercialized products, mainly by food and drink advertising (42.10%). Most of the children agreed that they would feel unhappy, sad and disappointed when their demands are refused by the parents, even though they understand the reason for their Parent's denial. Additionally, the results showed that the parents are concerned about the negative impacts of ads on their children's health and habits; hence they mostly agreed that there should be strict government laws and regulations to control ads in Kurdistan region and Iraq.

Resistance and Identity in The God of Small Things Written by Arundhati Roy

This paper presents an analysis of the novel "The God of the Small Things" written by Arundhati Roy. The primary purpose of this paper is to evaluate the idea of resistance and identity that have been described in the novel by the novelist. It will be demonstrated in this novel that how the resistance against the traditions and norms of post-colonial era is related to the self-realisation. There are different kinds of resistance that have been depicted in the novel at various circumstances. In Postcolonial context identity is a complex concept to be located in just a simple definition or to be investigated throughout a single theoretical approach. Resistance as a concept linked to the identity question. The Novel handles this notion and throughout its plot, besides the burden that is left from the colonial legacy, gender identity comes to the surface. Though women resistance appears as a reaction with identity suppression; yet it is a reflection of self-identification of gender inequality under patriarchal traditions inherited from long dominant masculine power. This paper elaborates on each type of resistance and activism that arises against the feudal and patriarchal forces structured by the economic and politically influential people in the new community as a sample in India after postcolonialism. Consequently, one of the points that the research ends with is that the act of resistance validates the pursuit for self-identity, which is an attempt to renown, reclaim and rename the world.

Glorifying War in Iraqi Children’s Short Stories 1980s

Throughout history, literature has always played a key role in forming societies’ cultural heritage. Children Literature, in specific, is highly important since it helps the young readers to develop love and passion for reading which will eventually improve their emotional intelligence and creativity. It also nurtures significant social skills that enable the readers to have more positive attitudes about their lives. Nevertheless, children’s literature can turn into a tool to control children and brainwash them. Studying Iraqi children’s short stories during the 1980s shows how children are enculturated and treated as rich soil to sow the seeds of violence. In this paper, a selected number of short stories that were written during Iran-Iraq war are studied. It examines how these texts are engaged in literature of propaganda. It also focuses on the tools that are used to covey certain ideologies. The normalization, historicization, and mythologization of war are proved to be highly influential methods. Propagandistic and militaristic subjects and illustrations are also employed to convey implied ideological messages. The soldiers’ suffering is hidden while their death is celebrated. Instead of portraying the ferocity of war to remind young readers of its inhumane side, violence is encouraged, and the idea of peace is trivialized and rejected.

Impact of Oil Installations on The Rural Development and Environment

There is no doubt that oil is considered a strategic commodity for producing and exporting. It is been experienced that oil is an important means to achieve economic growth. The oil industries encounter conflicts such as widespread environmental issues, human displacement, and inadequate compensation for losses imposed in the oil-producing communities, and inadequate community level involvement. These are leading to alienation between states and the indigenous population. The aim of the current research is to investigate the impacts of oil field development for rural areas, having Taq-Taq Oil Field in Kurdistan Region Iraq (KRG) as a case study. The research project was conducted in the form of a survey study. The population of the study included the rural residents in six villages around the field. The necessary data for this research was collected squarely 48 samples. Rural residents in the study area were taken using a random sampling method. The reliability of the questionnaire was calculated by Cronbach alpha coefficient for different sections. After conducting a pilot study for each structure respectively calculated: economic infrastructural, social, cultural, and environmental factors. The results of factor analysis showed that the negative and positive impacts of oil industry development occurred in the rural area. In this case study, a variance of %64 explained for entire factors included: infrastructural, social, cultural, economic, and environmental.

Investigating Kurdish EFL Students’ Learning Styles at University Level

The present study aims at investigating the students’ learning styles in EFL classes at university level. Being aware of the students’ preferences and feedback concerning the way teachers teach and run their classes is important to ensure the success of the process of teaching and learning. Neglecting the students’ feedback and preferences in the class might affect the process of teaching and learning negatively. To avoid such a problem, the present study equips the teachers with a way to deal with different learning environments and class diversity. To achieve the aims of the study, a questionnaire of 20 items on the different learning preferences was designed by the researcher to collect data from 40 EFL seniors (23 males and 17 females) at University of Zakho during the academic year 2020-2021.The items included in the questionnaire are based on Fleming’s (2006) VARK model of learning styles with adaptation. VARK is an acronym referring to the four types of learners: Visual, Aural, Read and Write, and Kinesthetic. The data collected were analyzed using SPSS Software version 22 through One-Sample T-Test and Independent-Paired Samples T-Test. The results show that the students prefer using the board and taking notes during the lecture and dislike attending online lectures via Zoom and Google Meet platforms. They also do not prefer recorded PowerPoint lectures uploaded to the Moodle. This is an indication that locking universities and adopting a blended system of teaching due to Covid-19 has affected the process of teaching as well as learning negatively. This study can be considered as a road map for EFL teachers when launching teaching any module since it takes into consideration what the students are interested in, namely class diversity and students’ preferences.

Using Team-Based Learning in Teaching English to EFL Undergraduate Students

Team Based Learning (TBL) is a method that has been introduced to provide students with both conceptual and procedural knowledge to foster critical and creative thinking skills while students work in high functioning teams. The study throws some light on the TBL approach in general and the researcher's pilot- experiment on using the TBL in teaching English to EFL (English as a Foreign Language) undergraduate students. The main aim of this pilot experiment is to assess the TBL's effects on student engagement, accountability, and satisfaction and to identify the problems faced in applying it and then, in the light of the findings, to propose suggestions about how to use the approach effectively. Forty (40) second-year undergraduate students of the Department of English/ Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of Koya University were involved in this experiment and its evaluation. These students were taught through student learning teams for two successive academic years (2017-2018 & 2018-2019) in the subject of English Reading Comprehension. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from the students about their TBL experience using questionnaires. The results of the evaluation revealed that the vast majority of the students preferred TBL to the traditional individual learning and that the TBL has more positive effects on the students' engagement in class activities and assignments. The findings also indicate that despite the positive effects and the students' satisfaction with the approach, there are problems and obstacles on the way of its application in the classroom, but that with the proper use of the approach most of these problems can be overcome. What is important about this evaluation is that it is student-centered as it shows the real opinions of the students who lived the experience.

La Recherche de la Pureté dans Électre de Jean Giraudoux

Électre, le protagoniste de la pièce de théâtre de Giraudoux, était à la recherche de l’absolu dans son existence. Elle cherchait à rétablir la justice, la pureté et la vérité. Contrairement à tous les autres personnages de la pièce, elle n'a pas accepté le bonheur médiocre qui lui était offert. Sa recherche de la vérité résultait de la recherche de la pureté, en particulier dans sa famille. La plupart des personnages de la pièce souffraient d'impureté dans leurs relations familiales. La famille d'Électre est impure en raison des crimes commis et d'inceste implicite. Elle cherche à retrouver la pureté de la famille, mais la seule solution à cette impureté profondément enracinée est la mort et la destruction totale afin de commencer une nouvelle vie dès le début. La pureté de la pièce est représentée par un certain nombre d'éléments différents tels que la nature, l'enfance et la lumière. L'enfance, qui représente une existence innocente, joue un rôle majeur dans la pièce et constitue la cause principale de conflit entre Électre et sa mère. La nature est le seul élément pur et beau et elle conserve sa pureté tout au long de la pièce, mais elle ne peut toujours fournir un remède au dilemme éprouvé par Électre. Electra, the protagonist of Giraudoux’s play, was in a desperate search of the ultimate absolute in her existence. She seeks to restore justice, purity, and truth. Unlike all the other characters of the play, she has not accepted the mediocre happiness offered to her. Her search of truth resulted from the pursuit of purity, especially in her family. Most of the characters in the drama suffer from impurity in their familial relationships. Electra's family has been impure due to crimes committed and implied incest. She seeks to recover the purity of the family but the only solution to this deeply rooted impurity is death and destruction of everything in order to start a new life from the beginning. The purity in the play is represented by a number of different elements such as nature, childhood, and light as well. Childhood, that's innocence, plays a major role in the play and it is the overarching cause of conflict between Electra and her mother. Nature is the only beautiful and pure element and it preserves its purity throughout the play but still, it cannot provide a remedy to the dilemma Electra is experiencing.

The Sublime

This paper aims at analysing the concept of the sublime, which is a pioneering concept of the English Romantics poetry, in relation to the French revolution in the works of Edmund Burke. Burke, unlike all other thinkers who view sublimity as a delightful and elevating feeling, perceives sublimity as an element of dangerous and terrifying incidents and objects mainly in relation with the great incident of the French Revolution. Hence, the paper concentrates on that essential metamorphosis in the content of the concept from progression to regression in the concept of sublime. Burke himself witnessed the revolution in France and propounded his philosophical viewpoints revolving around the notion of the sublime. He contended that the sublimity is whatsoever that brings about terror or is what terrifies the subjects. From this, he concluded that the French revolution was sublime because it was dangerous and threatened the natural laws and order, religion and God’s genuine sublime, traditions and constitution. In this paper, in addition, his ideas to illustrate sublime will ultimately, to some degree, be evaluated and criticised. The second part will be dedicated to demonstrating the aesthetics nature and aspect of the concept of the sublime. While the third part will display the relation of the concept, the way it is exhibited in chapter two, in relation to the great revolution in France.