Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Bodies'

Celestial Bodies Jared C. White ABSTRACT The following is a collection of original poetry written over a span of three years while attending the University of South Florida. The poetry is divided into five numbered sections, marking the major thematic divisions. Preceding the poetry is a critical introduction to the work that outlines the author's developing thematic ideology.

Bodies - be they fleshy or other - are simultaneously made by, made of, moved by, and the makers and movers of other bodies. Driven by the questions how do bodies emerge? what makes bodies move? and what can bodies do? bodies are placed at the very centre of this book in order to explain and show, not only how such bodily making and re-making - (re)making - and movement is done, but also why awareness and understanding of the processes and practices involved in the continual and ongoing (re)making and moving of bodies - of three particular kinds in particular (bodies of power/knowledge, humanised bodies, and bodies politic) - is vital to the study of international relations, conflict, and security and thus to the discipline of International Relations (IR). In short, bodies - of these three kinds in particular - require foregrounding because international relations, conflicts, and security practices are conducted by, on, and for bodies (humanised bodies and bodies politic in particular), according to bodies (namely referred to as dominant bodies of power/ knowledge, which become fleshed out as material bodies including humanised bodies and bodies politic and enact statecraft, further down the line). Moreover, as demonstrated in this book, which takes up the broad empirical case of post-9/11 American body politics and two case studies into the visual body politics of suffering and dead American soldiers since 9/11 and the 2013 Camp Delta hunger strike, there is much to be gained by taking the very particular embodiments of bodies into account, as every body is unique and it is according to distinctive bodily features, malaise/ailments, and feelings that bodies are moved to act (and in turn touch and move other bodies) and continually become other than they are.

Thesis (Ph. D. in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HASTS))--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Program in Science, Technology and Society, June 2004.
"May 2004."
Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-253).
This dissertation recounts the development of graphic models of human bodies and virtual reality simulators for teaching anatomy and surgery to medical students, residents, and physicians. It considers how researchers from disciplinary cultures in medicine, engineering, and computer programming come together to build these technologies, bringing with them values and assumptions about bodies from each of their disciplines, values and assumptions that must be negotiated and that often are made material and embedded in these new technologies. It discusses how the technological objects being created privilege the body as a dynamic and interactive system, in contrast to the description and taxonomic body of traditional anatomy and medicine. It describes the ways that these technologies create new sensory means of knowing bodies. And it discusses the larger cultural values that these technologies reify or challenge. The methodology of this dissertation is ethnography. I consider in-depth one laboratory at a major medical school, as well as other laboratories and researchers in the field of virtual medicine. I study actors in the emerging field of virtual medicine as they work in laboratories, at conferences, and in collaborations with one another. I consider the social formations that are developing with this new discipline. Methods include participant observation of laboratory activities, teaching, surgery, and conferences and extensive, in-depth interviewing of actors in the field. I draw on the literatures in the anthropology of science, technology, and medicine, the sociology of science, technology, and medicine, and the history of science and technology to argue that "bodies of information" are part of a bio-engineering revolution.
(Cont.) that is making human bodies more easily viewed and manipulated. Science studies theorists have revealed the constructed, situated, and contingent nature of technoscientific communities and the objects they work with. They also have discussed how technoscientific objects help create their subjects and vice versa. This dissertation considers these phenomena within the arena of virtual medicine to intervene in debates about the body, about simulation, and about scientific cultures.
by Rachel Prentice.
Ph.D.in History and Social Study of Science and Technology (HASTS

A struggling actress and single mother is cast in a leading role by a renowned director seeking women who have bodies without blemish, triggering a harrowing on-set odyssey that reaches a predatory boiling point.

Uppsatsen utgår ifrån Sara Ahmeds bok “Queer Phenomenology – Orientations, Objects, Others”. I uppsatsen diskuteras  hur vi människor upplever världen genom föremålen som omger oss och hur detta orienterar oss på olika sätt. På samma sätt som vissa förmål orienterar oss och gör att vi följer normativa linjer så kan andra föremål, eller föremål i andra situationer bryta dessa linjer och desorintera oss. Konst skulle kunna ses som sådana desorienteringsföremål som låter oss se världen på nya sätt. Uppsatsen innehåller också en diskusion kring induktiva resonemang i realtion till att förstå och navigera sig i välden och hur dessa år både nödvändiga och otillräckliga.

A medical evaluation of physical impairment imposes the additional burden of “labeling” the patient with the condition. The binary nature of the normal versus abnormal label emphasizes difference and can lead to trauma. Understanding differences, however, can lead to the generation of new forms and thus, more sensitive differentiation and representation. Tension is created by exploring different bodily forms—a dialectic between form and essence. I am designing a space that visualizes and illuminates difference as a source of trauma and amplifying the tension by comparing figures that represent varying degrees of normalcy. This forms a critique of idealized form and creates a context for people unaffected by this type of trauma to reflect on possible realities outside of their assumptions of normality.

This dissertation addresses the concept of the experimental in contemporary dance and performance. In it I argue that, although the word is used in very different ways in traditional artistic and scientific practices, a number of contemporary dance artists utilize experimental practices in their work that produce useful knowledge that is recognizable and transmittable beyond the walls of the theater or gallery. I have written about artists whose embodied work has been described as experimental, whose innovations and explorations have produced paradigmatic shifts in dance practice and new ways of knowing, both about and through bodies.

Using theories of embodied experience from performance studies, dance studies, phenomenology and enactive perception, I argue for shifting our attention beyond textual and visual models of understanding performance to a broader palette of sensory modes and ways that attendees and makers both enact them. I propose that by doing so we broaden the possibilities for understanding the effects of performance and gain much richer tools for creating, using and analyzing our experiences of performance. I make these arguments as a maker of performance and as one who attends, reads and writes about performances.

The final chapter is a reflection in language of my own experimental performance project Performance Research Experiment #2 which was/is a Practice-as-Research performance project that engaged and embodied ideas and practices of scientific experimentation to specifically explore ways that artistic practice and scientific practice may inform or interrupt each other. By extension the project tried to think, and move, through different ways that we know what we know.

This thesis supplements existing literature by examining the relationship between institutional regulations and gendered assumptions about bodies. This thesis draws from feminist social constructionist perspectives and gendered organizational theories to explore the role of gendered body assumptions in the organizational framework of a hypermasculine political institution. Using the U.S. military as an illustrative example, this thesis studies military policies and rationales historically, focusing on the post-Vietnam accelerated inclusion of women, the increasing use of combat as a divisive component, and the gendered structural elements that are used to determine physical competence. Findings coincide with existing literature and suggest that social meanings relating to gender are a prominent influence in U.S. military policy historically and contemporarily, even when biological reasons are cited as justification. This research provides implications for understanding institutional, strategic use of gender and provides analysis of how physical bodies and accompanying social meanings are impacted by institutional goals.

A survey of clinical samples revealed that LBs are a universal feature of tubercle bacilli in sputum. A number of conditions including hypoxia, Nitric Oxide (NO) exposure, pH, heat and cold shock were shown to promote LB formation in M. tuberculosis in vitro. The formation of LBs in NO exposed M. tuberculosis was shown to correlate with the level of antibiotic tolerance displayed by the population. Antibiotic tolerance was thought to be a result of transitory growth arrest; however attempts to assess the growth status of LB positive M. tuberculosis cells were unsuccessful. The morphology of LBs in mycobacteria varied according to the growth condition of the cell and may be due to a change in lipid composition. The mechanism by which LBs are formed in mycobacteria remains unknown; however, there was some evidence to suggest that it follows a scheme similar to that which has been previously demonstrated in Rhodococcus opacus. It was concluded that LB formation in mycobacteria may depend on a number of environmental factors, including conditions that promote growth arrest. The formation of LBs in M. tuberculosis may anticipate antibiotic tolerance. The presence of LBs in sputum tubercle bacilli may be used to assess treatment response in patients with tuberculosis; however, it remains to be shown that LB positive M. tuberculosis cells in vitro represent the physiological LB positive sputum bacilli.

The chakra system consists of seven energetic vortexes ascending up the spine that connect to every aspect of human existence. These vortexes become blocked and unblocked through the course of a life, these openings and closings have physiological and mental repercussions. Knowledge of these physical and mental manifestations, indicate where the chakra practitioner is in need, the practitioner can then manipulate their mind and body to create a desired outcome. These manipulations are based upon physical exercises and associative meditations for the purpose of expanding the human experience. As a poem can be thought of as the articulation of the human experience, and the chakra system can be thought of as a means to understand and enhance that experience, it is interesting and worthwhile leap to explore the how the chakras can develop and refresh the way we read and write poetry. This critical preface closely reads seven poems, one through each chakra, finding what the chakras unveil. Here, each chakra is considered for its dynamic creative capabilities and for its beneficial potentiality in the reading and writing process, finding each chakra provides tools: idea generators with the potential to free the poet from usual patterns of creativity while broadening vision and expressivity. In this collection of poetry poems are experiences chopped into consumable units that show and tell the constant negotiation between what is actually happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what is happening.

Bodies Degraded by Friction is a collection of poetry existing in finite spaces. The first section, “A Moment and a Moment and a Moment," attempts to capture in words small passages of time as simple as clicking through a Facebook photo album and as destructive as new love. The second section, “It’s Complicated," is a manuscript in progress detailing a year in the life of an “other woman" negotiating an interpersonal relationship role underrepresented in self-help books and mass media. Several themes run throughout the book: the consequences of the use of technology-mediated communication as digital isolationist mechanisms, the collisions of real/virtual identity and real/virtual place, disruption as a poetic device, and the idea that love is a fleeting and ultimately impermanent state.
Master of Fine Arts

Garments are everywhere in today’s society and often presented on the body, although the absence of the body in design can have an integral impact on how they are perceived by an audience. An experimental material coating, aided garments to become sculptural by portraying the essence of the body. This essay argues that garments are challenged through their perception and purpose by the absence of the body, allowing the sculptures to develop a language in their own right. Through means of forming methods, absence of the body and materiality, garments are able to evolve to communicate an idea challenging one’s preconceived garment notions and broadening the spectrum of situational presentational methods.

In this dissertation I historicize dominant discourses of disability and place my analysis of five published disability narratives in dialogue with those discourses in order to show how the authors of these narratives craft alternative rhetorics to resist representation that casts them as unsuited to public space. Critical to my dissertation is my belief that personal narratives by rhetoricians with disabilities are invaluable sites of rhetorical inquiry, especially in light of the marginalized subject position of people with disabilities in the larger culture. Because my dissertation connects rhetoric and disability studies, my purpose is two-fold. For rhetorical theorists, I argue that attention to dominant discourses of disability and the alternative rhetorics in disability narratives can expand our present understanding of rhetorics of the body to interrogate: (1) who has the authority to speak and who doesn't; (2) who the dominant culture grants the position of subject and who the dominant culture sees as inherently "Other" or an object; and (3) how differing intersections of identity as configured by the actual appearance of the body can often determine whether or not the body "speaks" or is "spoken of" and, in conjunction, whether or not that body is heard, ignored, or silenced. For disability studies scholars, I rediscover the disability narrative as a genre that provides people with disabilities an opportunity to make meaning of their embodied experiences and their material circumstances while simultaneously addressing the ways in which disability itself is also a social construction similar to race, class, and gender. Ultimately, I argue that disability narrative can be a vehicle for a "rhetoric of resistance" that I posit allows people with disabilities to: (1) move their bodies and their voices from the margins to the center of public space; (2) revalue the embodied experience of disability as a site for knowledge and meaning making; and (3) challenge dominant discourses of disability that cast the disabled body as inferior and thereby serve as justification for the cultural devaluation and social marginalization of people with disabilities.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses.
PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you.
2031-01-02

Thesis (M.S. in Electrical Engineering) Naval Postgraduate School, June 1997.
Thesis advisors, Richard W. Adler, Jovan E. Lebaric. Includes bibliographical references (p. 45). Also available online.

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Georgia Southern University, 2006.
"A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Georgia Southern University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Education" ETD. Includes bibliographical references (p. 141-156)

The generalized radiation conditions at infinity of Sommerfeld-Kupradze type are established in the theory of thermoelasticity of anisotropic bodies. Applying the potential method and the theory of pseudodifferential equations on manifolds the uniqueness and existence theorems of solutions to the basic three-dimensional exterior boundary value problems are proved and representation formulas of solutions by potential type integrals are obtained.

In this dissertation it is argued that humans constitute themselves as subjects in a complex of interrelationships between body, self, and society, The effects of these interrelationships are examined through the ways in which traumatic paraplegics constitute themselves as subjects following their accidents. Subsequent to paralysis there is a radical break in how paraplegics experience their bodies, in what they are physically able to do, and in the ways in which their bodies are interpreted socially, assigned meanings, and allocated space in which to do and be. Experiential accounts of paraplegia are presented as a means to exploring the implications of these changes in the ways paraplegics constitute themselves as subjects.

This thesis addresses how virtual reality technologies are being developed to shape a cultural politics of embodiment and subjectivity across local and global contexts. The research considers a number of approaches to understanding the techno-cultural changes and political dilemmas presented by virtual systems. Undertaking a critical consideration of these approaches, the thesis argues that virtual systems are neither 'demonic' technologies, nor transcendent cultural forms, but rather complex and deeply embedded social and cultural networks. Employing multi-sited ethnographic methods, the thesis investigates virtual reality technologies as technical systems, cultural narratives and commodity forms. As the analysis moves across a number of locations - including entertainment centres, manufacturing firms, art galleries, home offices and electronic/digital spaces - the connections between those locations become apparent. The analysis proposes that identifying these connections is a crucial step in mapping out a critical politics of virtual systems. The research concludes by arguing that such a politics is a politics of positioning, which is both oppositional, but is also cognisant of the sometimes contradictory workings of power in constructing techno-cultural alliances.

This thesis is written in collaboration with WindFlip AS in order to investigate the behavior of Hywind and WindFlip after the release of Hywind from the WindFlip vessel. Potential theory has been applied, and no viscosity has been taken into account in any part of the analysis. The interaction between two floating bodies in waves has been the major topic in this thesis. A literature study has been performed on the effects of interaction in steady flow and waves. The findings from the study indicate an increase in motions for the structure placed against the weather, and a reduction in motions for the lee-side structure. This results in a suggested configuration for the release operation, where WindFlip is placed up against the waves and Hywind in the sheltered area behind WindFlip. The motions of a basic single circular cylinder in regular waves are also looked into. By performing simplified analyses in Matlab and Wadam, the fundamental behavior of buoy-like structures such as Hywind and WindFlip was looked into in order to obtain an understanding of how the structures respond to incident waves. The WindFlip barge is to transport the wind turbine lying horizontally on top of WindFlip. Ballasting the barge at location will cause the structures to rotate to vertical position. The flipping procedure is estimated to last about six hours, and within this timeframe the structures will go through many different positions which again will lead to different responses to the waves. Three different positions have been looked into for the coupled WindFlip/Hywind structure, and the results are compared to results from model testing of these configurations. The numerical results compare well to the model test, which implies that the numerical analyses can be trusted and used for further evaluation of the process. Two identical circular cylinders freely floating in waves are looked into by a multibody analysis in the potential theory solver Wadam. The effects of the multibody analyses show the same trends as the literature study – an increase in motions for the weather side cylinder, and a decrease for the lee-side cylinder. The interaction effects do not give large alterations in the motions compared to single body analyses. The reason for this may be the viscous effects in the interaction, which is not accounted for in Wadam. By introducing an offbody point grid showing the free surface around the cylinders we observe lower waves in the wake behind the weather side cylinder. This also corresponds to the sheltering effects found in the literature study, and the reduction in response for the lee side-cylinder found in the multibody analyses. Multibody analyses have been performed for the specific case of WindFlip and Hywind by the use of Wadam. The release configuration suggested from the literature study is applied in the analyses, and regular waves between 5 and 23 seconds are used. Also in this case the responses for the weather side structure (WindFlip) are increased when the spacing between the structures is reduced, and the responses for the lee-side cylinder (Hywind) show a decrease with reduced spacing. The effects from interaction on the response amplitudes are not prominent in this case either, and the viscous effects will most probably have a greater influence on the interaction between the structures. A Matlab script has been made to visualize the motions of the two structures including the interaction effects on the phase angles and response amplitudes. From the visualizations we are able to detect combinations of wave periods and spacing that might be critical for the operation and hence should be looked into more closely. A second Matlab script goes through all possible wave period and spacing combinations, and shows graphically which situations that will cause the structures to collide in either the top or bottom point. The script always uses the response amplitude values for the motions, and by that we end up with an RAO for the horizontal distance between the structures. This RAO for the distance will be further applied by the WindFlip team in order to perform statistical studies on which situations are likely to give collisions between WindFlip and Hywind during the release process.

Thesis advisor: Richard Kearney
The pursuit of living a good and moral life has been a longstanding ideal of philosophy, an ideal that dates back to the writings of Plato, and more specifically, Aristotle. This ideal establishes that a good life as a happy and flourishing life is pursued by developing the right motives and the right character. And in order to live this life, one must, then, develop a virtuous character, i.e., be a virtuous person, who desires the good. Finally, in the pursuit of the good, one must not do so alone; rather, one should pursue the virtuous life with others, i.e., friends, because they enhance our ability to think and to act. This specific position which is taken up by Aristotelian virtue ethics, however, has recently come under scrutiny by certain studies in social psychology. Particularly, the concept of character has been discredited by empirical studies. Furthermore, the classic model of the virtuous person has assumed only persons with able-bodies. As a result of these two criticisms, Aristotelian virtue ethics has been discredited as a fantasy ethics available for only a few to achieve. The principle aim of this dissertation is to develop and defend an account of Aristotelian virtue ethics which is grounded in empirical psychology and enables people with disabilities to flourish as moral exemplars within a society. The value of virtue and character for ethical debate is imperative for human happiness within moral life. Instead of happiness being something an individual strives to acquire or feel, Aristotelian virtue ethicists have argued that true happiness is human flourishing. In other words, in order to be happy, humans should focus not just on what it is good to do, but also, and more importantly, focus on who it is good to be. To live a good life, then, it is necessary that one is a good person, or has a good character. Thus, to acquire virtues such as charity, benevolence, honesty, and generosity and to shun vices such as dishonesty, cruelty, or stinginess, is the task, Aristotelian virtue ethicists have argued, that leads to eudaimonia, i.e., human flourishing. The person who has acquired virtuous character traits, then, is the person who is most happy in life. However, the attempt to understand human happiness as a result of a virtuous character has become vulnerable to criticism from philosophical positions grounded in empirical psychology and disability theory. In light of the charge that virtue ethics is a fantasy ethics, many philosophers argue that Aristotelian virtue ethics should be abandoned because it is an ethics with little or no scientific basis. In my defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics, I first address the objection that Aristotelian virtue ethics is a "fantasy ethics" which has no grounding in empirical psychology, and thus, as a result, should not be used for moral theory. This objection has been put forth by certain "Situationist" philosophers, who cite psychological studies which demonstrate that the idea of a virtue as a "global character trait" is something that humans do not actually, or very rarely, possess. This objection to Aristotelian virtue ethics has dealt a devastating blow. In response to this objection, philosopher Nancy Snow has mounted a defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics which is grounded in empirical psychology. Snow's defense, though superficially appealing, has two intractable problems. I address the failure of her proposal in Chapter One: The Problem of Virtue as Social Intelligence. The first problem Snow faces concerns her use of CAPS as a method for virtue ethics to be used throughout life. I call this problem the longitudinality problem, which argues that Snow's proposal for the constancy of virtue for longer than a period of six weeks is overreaching. The second problem Snow faces concerns her reliance on virtue as social intelligence for the actual achievement of being virtuous in daily living. This problem turns on the empirical criteria for what makes a person capable of virtuous action and I call this problem the exclusivity problem, which excludes people with "Autism" form being virtuous. As an alternative to Snow's account, I begin my defense of Aristotelian virtue ethics by developing the following account of empirical virtue based on a narrative identity which desires and actively pursues the good in life-long striving. This moral desire is encouraged through the shared dialogue of virtuous caregiving, which enables a moral novice to flourish and grow into a moral expert. This pursuit of the good enables everyone to flourish and incorporates insights from disability, embodied cognition and social psychology. To accomplish this task, I begin with an examination of the first of two foundational components of character, i.e., the four processing levels of CAPS theory in Chapter Two: Moral Perception. Although CAPS theory provides a solid beginning for an account of virtue, it is not a sustainable theory throughout life. This theory of social-cognitive moral psychology needs to be supplemented by developmental moral psychology. CAPS theory also assumes the individual's perspective in the dynamic interaction between situation and character. It assumes a person's intentions, and this assumption of intentionality - desires, intentions, and beliefs - assumes a person's embodiment in that situation. In other words, CAPS theory assumes lived embodiment. In this chapter, I turn to the method of phenomenology used by both psychologists and philosophers of embodied cognition to account for the moral "interpretation of the situation" experienced by people with illness or impairment. As a complimentary to CAPS and the second foundational component for character, certain moral psychologists have argued for the narrative development of Event Representations for virtuous character. This development begins with the shared dialogue of the caregiver and dependent asking the dependent to recall events which have just occurred. In this practice, the caregiver's aim is to help the dependent form memories and incorporate those memories into the creation of a narrative identity. In Chapter Three: Representations of Moral Events, I extend the caring relation to this practice of shared dialogue to incorporate certain forms of intellectual disability, such as "Autism" and Alzheimer's disease. To accomplish this, I incorporate the roles of narrative and trust in order to construct the relation of dependency and interdependency as trusting co-authorship rather than reciprocal capability. After establishing the importance of the caregiver in the development of one's narrative identity, I employ the life narrative longitudinal psychological approach to moral development as a structure for the moral event representations and schemas guided by the caregiver. Finally, I argue that the co-authorship of one's life story animates one's moral desire for the good and as a result, leads to the development of interdependent virtues. In Chapter Four: Moral Self-Coherence through Personal Strivings, I examine the importance of personal strivings for a sense of lived self-coherence for character over time. My argument is that our personal strivings are unified by the life story which animates and directs those strivings throughout our lives. Although our personal strivings may be altered or deterred due to life transitions including accident, illness, and "disabling injury," they still retain a sense of unity through our overarching life story. It is this narrative which gives unity to both our psychological intentions and bodily intentions, even when they are experienced as a phenomenally lived dualism due to illness, stroke, or impairment. In order to make my argument, I examine ten case studies from medical patients. I argue that our personal strivings toward the good guide our growth of character from a moral novice to become a moral expert. In Chapter Five: Flourishing Bodies, I develop an empirically grounded model of a virtuous character which begins with interdependent virtues and eventually grows into independent virtues. To do this, I draw on the two foundational components of character: CAPS theory and event representations. From the caring relation and shared dialogue of the caregiver, an individual begins to develop basic moral schemas, tasks, and scripts. This is when the individual is a moral novice. As the novice pursues excellences in these practices, the novice grows into a moral expert according to those virtues and becomes virtuously independent. The moral expert, unlike the moral novice, executes virtuous action with ease. Having acquired skills of virtue and knowledge, the moral expert knows the right thing to do at the right time and does so with the right reasons. MacIntyre, however, acknowledged the limit of ethics and turned to politics to address specific needs for people with disabilities such as care, financial support, educational support, and political proxy. The purpose of the final chapter, The Virtue-Oriented Politics of Interdependence, is to follow MacIntyre's endeavor and to propose a virtue-oriented politics of interdependence as an initial solution. First, I examine the various forms of oppression facing people with disabilities in society. In order to address these forms of oppression for people with disabilities, I argue that a shift in the central component of a political framework is needed. Instead of focusing on distribution or recognition, one should focus on education in the broad sense. In conclusion of my dissertation, The Fragility of Virtue, I provide a perspective of our human condition that is a vulnerable one. In this final section, I discuss the role of our collective vulnerability and the fragility of human goodness with regard to illness and impairment. And that our interdependence is strengthened through the virtue of friendship. I finish with a proposal of the role of sacrifice as a way to reconcile the pursuit of a flourishing life in the face of our own fragility
Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013
Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Discipline: Philosophy

If C is a convex body in R^n and X is a k-dimensional linear subspace of R^n, we denote by S(C,X) the shadow boundary of C over X which is defined as the collection of all points which belong to C and to one of its tangent (n-k)-flats orthogonal to X. For almost all directions in R^3, the shadow boundary is a curve encompassing the body C. It has been established long ago by G. Ewald, D.G. Larman and C.A. Rogers [11] that, for every given C, S(C,X) is almost always a topological (k-1)-sphere. As a follow on from this result, in 1974 Peter McMullen asked whether most of these shadow boundaries would have finite “length” [15]. This is already shown to be true for polytopes and also true for general convex bodies when the dimension of the subspace X is 1 or n-1. Here we show that almost all shadow boundaries have finite “length” whatever the dimension k, 0< k< n, of the subspace X. The set of shadow boundaries of infinite “length” has also been considered in the context of Baire category. In 1989, P. Gruber and H. Sorger proved that, in the Baire category sense, most pairs (C,X), where C is a convex body in R^n and X an (n-1)-dimensional subspace of R^n, produce shadow boundaries S(C,X) of infinite length. Here we show that this result also holds for pairs (C,X) where X is a k-dimensional subspace, 0< k< n. We also consider the length of increasing paths in the 1-skeleton of a convex body. We conclude with observations and open questions arising from the work on shadow boundaries of the first two chapters.

The basic, universal movement of the running body has been repeated and made visible in aesthetic, scientific, and political debates. Such debates of the body may depend on live movements in real space-time, movements articulated by motion capture devices, or movements that exercise in imagination: a head of state who uses the running body to manipulate his political subject, for example, or a series of images taken from an optical motion capture system that simultaneously represents and dissects movement patterns of the body in its swiftest motions, or a sound art installation that voices the familiar dynamics of running steps and heavy breathing. In each instance, the bodily practice of running is extracted from its seemingly unmediated everyday, placed instead within aesthetic methodologies and technologies to scrutinize the movement and its complex of meanings. This action is meant to reveal that real experience-that nonfictional movement, as it were-of the body running, to see into the rhetorical, cultural productions of our public, bodily realities. I begin this inquiry by defining the term "running body" and examining the manner in which that body was scientifically observed and aesthetically codified in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Then, the running body is investigated in experimental choreography, visual arts, and political demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s. Thirdly, I will address the use of the actual running body within contemporary art exhibitions, as either an intervention or interruption to accustomed meaning-making within traditional spaces for art. At the dissertation's end will be an exploration of the running body as a critical method for reorienting the narrative of contemporary history with image technologies, art installation devices, and the moving body. This study demonstrates that if, at the very base of our existence, our bodies move the world and, in turn, the world around us moves our body, this same reciprocity can hold true in shaping historical consciousness and self-consciousness.