Academic literature on the topic 'Prints 21st century Themes, motives'

This paper reports on a study investigating the use of gamification as a teaching strategy in an online setting for developing upper -secondary students’ 21st century skills (i.e., collaboration, critical reasoning, communication, solving complex problems, and being able to use and manage digital tools and devices). More specifically, the study aimed to empirically explore pedagogical design perspectives as well as students’ and teachers’ experiences on what opportunities and challenges they perceive about gamification teaching designs in this context. University students co-created the gamification activities’ design and the participating teachers chose virology and immunology (Biology 2 for upper-secondary schools in Sweden) as the topics. The study was conducted during Spring 2020 and in total 26 upper-secondary students, 2 teachers, and 7 engineering students studying in the Master of Science programmes participated. The empirical material is based on observations during the online tests in which the school students tested the university students’ design, a survey with the school students, post-interviews with the teachers and the university students, and the university students’ written report as a mandatory assignment in their course. The findings illustrate three themes: 1) developing pedagogical design principles for online gamification activities, 2) the school students’ experiences, and 3) the participating teachers’ experiences. The findings show that designing for gamification teaching in an online setting with a specific purpose in developing students’ 21st skills is quite a complex process. The participating teachers, for example, perceive gamification teaching designs as a catalyst for motivating and engaging students’ learning to a high extent, but the challenges they experience concern foremost how to design tasks and assess an individual student’s knowledge in collaborative assignments. The collaboration between the university and K–12 education concerned combining the different competences in the TPACK-model, and in addition aligning expressed motives and goals towards an applied teaching design. This presented study is an aspiration and a practical example of directing towards development of smart learning ecosystems.

The essay presents an overview of Jewish American prose of the second half of the 20th — first two decades of the 21st century within the context of multicultural literature of the USA. The definition of Jewish literature remains a matter of debate. The author of the essay based on the opinions of critics concludes on the criterion for assigning a writer to Jewish literature. It is the artistic embodiment of the personal Jewish experience and identity in the works of literature, the view “from inside,” the perspective of collective memory and the connection to history and culture. Jewish literature today is one of the most developed ethnic segments of multicultural American literature. Writers under study are recognized throughout the world, their works have been translated into many languages, including Russian, they are known to readers and have already become the subject of study by literary scholars. Today, Jewish American literature is represented by two generations of writers. “Senior” generation includes the authors born in the 1920s–30s who began their literary careers in the 60s when there was a generational change in national literature. “Young” generation is represented by the writers who began their literary careers in the 2000s. On the example of the works of the most famous authors of both generations, the author of the essay talks about the factors determining the specific features of Jewish American prose and its characteristic themes, problems, and motives: the search for identity and roots, the representation and rethinking of the Holocaust, ethnic stereotypes, the image of the Jewish family, and the traditions of Jewish humor. The study of the works of modern Jewish writers in the United States allows us to draw conclusions about the display of border consciousness, national and ethnic identity, and collective memory in fiction.

The article deals with the thematicism and thematic work in the first movement of Mozart’s Piano Sonata KV 311/284c (1777). The analysis of thematical process in this instrumental composition is examined under the angle of correlation between the contemporary and historical approaches: 1. the correspondence of the music theory concepts that were part of the lexicon of Wolfgang Amadeus and Leopold Mozarts (Ideen, il filo), with a complex of musical-analytical terms of our time, formed both in line with the historically informed theory, and in the context of the general theory of musical composition and form; 2. the comparison of research methods of the musical-thematic plan in the English-language and Russian musicology of the last half century. Sonata KV311/284c does not pertain to the number of Mozart’s compositions that have already been studied earlier from the point of view of the theory of topoi, which makes its analysis of additional interest. The article defines the topoi in the first Allegro, demonstrates their distribution in the sonata form, traces the logic of motivic and thematic transformations. The similarity of the “plotline”, which is formed from the relationship of the elements of the musical text (tonal, harmonic, melodic, textural, dynamic, etc.), began to be examined in musicology during the last third of the 20th and the early 21st centuries through the prism of the concept of narrative analysis. Such a plotline in Mozart’s sonata unfolds on two levels. The first is the typical for the sonata form “deducibility” of all themes from the main theme, that is, a certain “obligatory tonefabula” of the sonata composition (a term by Rostislav Berberov). The second level is the presence of an individual “intonation fabula” (a term by Inna Barsova), which is realized through the correlation of motives. In this plot, the archetypal narrative of comedy described by Almén (Byron Almén, 2003, 2008) gets its original embodiment. Thus, when considering the works of Mozart, both narratological analysis and the identification of a “common” classical musical language have significant prospects. At the same time, the relationship between the concepts that have been brought into scholarly use in our time and the concepts that have come from the 18th century is by no means unambiguous. The modern terms “narrative” and “topos” primarily define typological models, while the terms taken from the personal communication of Wolfgang and Leopold Mozarts fix individual of such models specific compositions.

Formulation of the problem. The creative work of the bright representative of the Italian opera U. Giordano consists of eleven operas. Despite the fact that the composer is considered a bright representative of verismo, not all his operas belong to this direction. For example, in the late period of his creativity (1910–1920), U. Giordano departs from the traditions of verismo and aims his search for the comedy genre («La cena delle beffe», «Dinner with Jokes»), the genre of opera novels («The King»). But all the same, the main, repertoire operas (as early as «Mala Vita», «Marina», and the mature ones like «Andrea Chenier», «Fedora») are the quintessence of the tradition of verismo. The opera «Siberia» is also considered to be such. The emergence of new productions of the opera in the 21st century gives a reason to appeal to this opus and analyse it in terms of stability of the traits of the composing style of U. Giordano. The purpose of the study is to identify the role of the opera «Siberia» in the context of creativity by U. Giordano. Analysis of recent publications on the topic of the article. U. Giordano’s creative work is systematically presented in the study of M. Morini (1968), where he collected articles not only written by himself, but also by other researchers of the composer’s creative work. Today it is the most complete publication of his letters and reviews on the opera productions. Vincenzo Therenzio reflects on the basics of the style of U. Giordano, Giovanni Ugolini resorts to the analysis of the traditions of verismo in the creative work of the composer. Carmine Ruizzo’s research is devoted to the manifestations of verismo in the creative work of U. Giordano. In relation to creativity (general characteristics) of U. Giordano one should list the encyclopaedic articles and the book by Alan Mallach, which covers the path of the Italian opera on the border of the 20th – 21st centuries from verismo to modernism. Regarding the opera “Siberia”, we should mention the review article by M. Morini and the articles directly devoted to the productions in the «Helikon-opera». We do not find a detailed analysis of the score of the opera in any scientific sources. Statement of the main content of the article. The plot of the opera «Siberia» is the love story of the officer Vasyl and the courtesan Stefana, who, after Vasyl was arrested, follows him to Siberia. The pimp Hleb cannot quarrel the lovers, but after an unsuccessful escape the injured Stefana dies. This tragic story is presented by the composer and librettist (Illik) on the background of the Russian reality, which creates a certain context of the love line of the main heroes. And the interpretation of the plot, and the musical concept in general, corresponds to the guides of the opera creativity of U. Giordano. Thus, generalizing the observations of G. Marqezi, M. Morini, and V. Therenzio, one can determine the following features of the composer’s opera style, among which there is the theme of love in the centre of the plot, the ability to create bright and exciting portraits of the main characters, the «stylistic equilibrium» (V. Therenzio), the reliance on the traditions of the Italian musical theatre, the combination of the purity of the picture and expression, the inclusion of reminiscences, the severity of orchestration, the provision of the national character to the score (by incorporating the musical material of the region in which the action takes place). All of them are embodied in the opera «Siberia». The analysis of the main scenes of the opera “Siberia” with the participation of the protagonists – Stefana and Vasyl – is presented, and it is proved that this opera (along with «Fedora» and «Andrea Chenier») is the quintessence of the traditions of verismo. Conclusions. In the context of the creative work of U. Giordano, the opera «Siberia» takes up the prominent place. It, along with the operas of the mature style («Fedora», «Andrea Chenier»), embodies the typical features of the opera style of the composer. So, the images of the protagonists are vivid in their musical characteristics. In addition, the musical images of Vasyl and Stefana are presented by the composer in the development. The very Vasyl owns almost all the main motives of the opera, which often appear before the listener in a slightly transformed form. Often there is just a reminder of them with similar intonations and rhythm. It should be noted that the musical material characterizing the image of Vasyl, in its expressiveness and intonation wealth, is not inferior to the woman’s party of Stefana, in contrast to the “La Traviata” by G. Verdi, where the main emphasis is on the main character – Violet. As for the orchestration of the opera, in general, it has a strict character, although the composer includes the simulation of a characteristic instrument for the colour provision. Thus, the vivid contrast in the scene of Stefana’s death is a picture of folk feasts under the sounds of the balalaika (which in the orchestra is imitated by the mandolin). The instrument symbolizes that somewhere far away, life continues to go on its own. The orchestral score of the opera “Siberia” is distinguished by the transparency of the texture, most of the material is laid out in the string group and the group of the wooden brass instruments. The timbres of the copper wind instruments are rare, as well as the great dynamic nuances. The feature that gives the opera “Siberia” a similarity to the best examples of the Italian theatre is the intonation concept. For example, the typical resemblance to G. Verdi’s “La Traviata” is that all the musical material of this picture from the lives of ordinary people is permeated with household song and dance intonations and rhythms. They fill both the recitative episodes and the aria ones. If in “La Traviata” the main theme of Alfred is presented in a waltz manner, with a three-part size, the themes of the hero of the opera “Siberia” of Vasyl are described predominantly in four-part sizes (including 12/8), which is more attractive to the song-romance composition. The parallel with “La Traviata” is still that the hero Alfred had to fight not only with the public condemnation about the choice of his beloved woman who led an unworthy way of life but also with the personal condemnation from his father and family. Vasyl also struggled for his beloved woman, who was also a courtesan, but for him it was not so important what Stefana’s being was like, the problem was her financial dependence on another man. The prospect of further study of the topic. In the modern theatre (after a long oblivion) both the directors and performers return their interest to the opera “Siberia”, which makes it possible to analyse the composition by U. Giordano from the point of view of the performing analysis.

IntroductionAccounts of criminals, their victims, and their pursuers have become entrenched within the sphere of popular culture; most obviously in the genres of true crime and crime fiction. The centrality of the pursuer in the form of the detective, within these stories, dates back to the nineteenth century. This, often highly-stylised and regularly humanised protagonist, is now a firm feature of both factual and fictional accounts of crime narratives that, today, regularly focus on the energies of the detective in solving a variety of cases. So familiar is the figure of the detective, it seems that these men and women—amateurs and professionals—have always had an important role to play in the pursuit and punishment of the wrongdoer. Yet, the first detectives were forced to overcome significant resistance from a suspicious public. Some early efforts to reimagine punishment and to laud the detective include articles written by Charles Dickens; pieces on public hangings and policing that reflect the great Victorian novelist’s commitment to shed light on, through written commentaries, a range of important social issues. This article explores some of Dickens’s lesser-known pieces, that—appearing in daily newspapers and in one of his own publications Household Words—helped to change some common perceptions of punishment and policing. Image 1: Harper's Magazine 7 December 1867 (Charles Dickens Reading, by Charles A. Barry). Image credit: United States Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. A Reliance on the Scaffold: Early Law Enforcement in EnglandCrime control in 1720s England was dependent upon an inconsistent, and by extension ineffective, network of constables and night watchmen. It would be almost another three decades before Henry Fielding established the Bow Street Foot Patrol, or Bow Street Runners, in 1749, “six men in blue coats, patrolling the area within six miles of Charing Cross” (Worsley 35). A large-scale, formalised police force was attempted by Pitt the Younger in 1785 with his “Bill for the Further prevention of Crime and for the more Speedy Detection and Punishment of Offenders against the Peace” (Lyman 144). The proposed legislation was withdrawn due to fierce opposition that was underpinned by fears, held by officials, of a divestment of power to a new body of law enforcers (Lyman 144).The type of force offered in 1785 would not be realised until the next century, when the work of Robert Peel saw the passing of the Metropolitan Police Act 1829. The Police Act, which “constituted a revolution in traditional methods of law enforcement” (Lyman 141), was focused on the prevention of crime, “to reassure the lawful and discourage the wrongdoer” (Hitchens 51). Until these changes were implemented violent punishment, through the Waltham Black Act 1723, remained firmly in place (Cruickshanks and Erskine-Hill 359) as part of the state’s arsenal against crime (Pepper 473).The Black Act, legislation often referred to as the ‘Bloody Code’ as it took the number of capital felonies to over 350 (Pepper 473), served in lieu of consistency and cooperation, across the country, in relation to the safekeeping of the citizenry. This situation inevitably led to anxieties about crime and crime control. In 1797 Patrick Colquhoun, a magistrate, published A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis in which he estimated that, out of a city population of just under 1 million, 115,000 men and women supported themselves “in and near the Metropolis by pursuits either criminal-illegal-or immoral” (Lyman 144). Andrew Pepper highlights tensions between “crime, governance and economics” as well as “rampant petty criminality [… and] widespread political corruption” (474). He also notes a range of critical responses to crime and how, “a particular kind of writing about crime in the 1720s demonstrated, perhaps for the first time, an awareness of, or self-consciousness about, this tension between competing visions of the state and state power” (Pepper 474), a tension that remains visible today in modern works of true crime and crime fiction. In Dickens’s day, crime and its consequences were serious legal, moral, and social issues (as, indeed, they are today). An increase in the crime rate, an aggressive state, the lack of formal policing, the growth of the printing industry, and writers offering diverse opinions—from the sympathetic to the retributive—on crime changed crime writing. The public wanted to know about the criminal who had disturbed society and wanted to engage with opinions on how the criminal should be stopped and punished. The public also wanted to be updated on changes to the judicial system such as the passing of the Judgement of Death Act 1823 which drastically reduced the number of capital crimes (Worsley 122) and how the Gaols Act, also of 1823, “moved tentatively towards national prison reform” (Gattrell 579). Crimes continued to be committed and alongside the wrongdoers were readers that wanted to be diverted from everyday events by, but also had a genuine need to be informed about, crime. A demand for true crime tales demonstrating a broader social need for crimes, even the most minor infractions, to be publicly punished: first on the scaffold and then in print. Some cases were presented as sensationalised true crime tales; others would be fictionalised in short stories and novels. Standing Witness: Dickens at the ScaffoldIt is interesting to note that Dickens witnessed at least four executions in his lifetime (Simpson 126). The first was the hanging of a counterfeiter, more specifically a coiner, which in the 1800s was still a form of high treason. The last person executed for coining in England was in early 1829; as Dickens arrived in London at the end of 1822, aged just 10-years-old (Simpson 126-27) he would have been a boy when he joined the crowds around the scaffold. Many journalists and writers who have documented executions have been “criticised for using this spectacle as a source for generating sensational copy” (Simpson 127). Dickens also wrote about public hangings. His most significant commentaries on the issue being two sets of letters: one set published in The Daily News (1846) and a second set published in The Times (1849) (Brandwood 3). Yet, he was immune from the criticism directed at so many other writers, in large part, due to his reputation as a liberal, “social reformer moved by compassion, but also by an antipathy toward waste, bureaucratic incompetence, and above all toward exploitation and injustice” (Simpson 127). As Anthony Simpson points out, Dickens did not sympathise with the condemned: “He wrote as a realist and not a moralist and his lack of sympathy for the criminal was clear, explicit and stated often” (128). Simpson also notes that Dickens’s letters on execution written in 1846 were “strongly supportive of total abolition” while later letters, written in 1849, presented arguments against public executions rather than the practice of execution. In 1859 Dickens argued against pardoning a poisoner. While in 1864 he supported the execution of the railway carriage murderer Franz Müller, explaining he would be glad to abolish both public executions and capital punishment, “if I knew what to do with the Savages of civilisation. As I do not, I would rid Society of them, when they shed blood, in a very solemn manner” (in Simpson 138-39) that is, executions should proceed but should take place in private.Importantly, Dickens was consistently concerned about society’s fascination with the scaffold. In his second letter to The Daily News, Dickens asks: round what other punishment does the like interest gather? We read of the trials of persons who have rendered themselves liable to transportation for life, and we read of their sentences, and, in some few notorious instances, of their departure from this country, and arrival beyond the sea; but they are never followed into their cells, and tracked from day to day, and night to night; they are never reproduced in their false letters, flippant conversations, theological disquisitions with visitors, lay and clerical […]. They are tried, found guilty, punished; and there an end. (“To the Editors of The Daily News” 6)In this passage, Dickens describes an overt curiosity with those criminals destined for the most awful of punishments. A curiosity that was put on vile display when a mob gathered on the concourse to watch a hanging; a sight which Dickens readily admitted “made [his] blood run cold” (“Letter to the Editor” 4).Dickens’s novels are grand stories, many of which feature criminals and criminal sub-plots. There are, for example, numerous criminals, including the infamous Fagin in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress (1838); several rioters are condemned to hang in Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty (1841); there is murder in The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit (1844); and murder, too, in Bleak House (1853). Yet, Dickens never wavered in his revulsion for the public display of the execution as revealed in his “refusal to portray the scene at the scaffold [which] was principled and heartfelt. He came, reluctantly to support capital punishment, but he would never use its application for dramatic effect” (Simpson 141).The Police Detective: A Public Relations ExerciseBy the mid-1700s the crime story was one of “sin to crime and then the gallows” (Rawlings online): “Crimes of every defcription (sic) have their origin in the vicious and immoral habits of the people” (Colquhoun 32). As Philip Rawlings notes, “once sin had been embarked upon, capture and punishment followed” (online). The origins of this can be found in the formula relied upon by Samuel Smith in the seventeenth century. Smith was the Ordinary of Newgate, or prison chaplain (1676–1698), who published Accounts of criminals and their gruesome ends. The outputs swelled the ranks of the already burgeoning market of broadsides, handbills and pamphlets. Accounts included: 1) the sermon delivered as the prisoner awaited execution; 2) a brief overview of the crimes for which the prisoner was being punished; and 3) a reporting of the events that surrounded the execution (Gladfelder 52–53), including the prisoner’s behaviour upon the scaffold and any last words spoken. For modern readers, the detective and the investigation is conspicuously absent. These popular Accounts (1676–1772)—over 400 editions offering over 2,500 criminal biographies—were only a few pence a copy. With print runs in the thousands, the Ordinary earnt up to £200 per year for his efforts (Emsley, Hitchcock, and Shoemaker online). For:penitence and profit made comfortable bedfellows, ensuring true crime writing became a firm feature of the business of publishing. That victims and villains suffered was regrettable but no horror was so terrible anyone forgot there was money to be made. (Franks, “Stealing Stories” 7)As the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution were having their full impact, many were looking for answers, and certainty, in a period of radical social transformation. Sin as a central motif in crime stories was insufficient: the detective was becoming essential (Franks, “True Crime” 239). “In the nineteenth century, the role of the newly-fashioned detective as an agent of consolation or security is both commercially and ideologically central to the subsequent project of popular crime writing” (Bell 8). This was supported by an “increasing professionalism and proficiency of policemen, detectives, and prosecutors, new understandings about psychology, and advances in forensic science and detection techniques” (Murley 10). Elements now included in most crime narratives. Dickens insisted that the detective was a crucial component of the justice system—a figure to be celebrated, one to take centre stage in the crime story—reflecting his staunch support “of the London Metropolitan Police” (Simpson 140). Indeed, while Dickens is known principally for exposing wretched poverty, he was also interested in a range of legal issues as can be evinced from his writings for Household Words. Image 2: Household Words 27 July 1850 (Front Page). Image credit: Dickens Journals Online. W.H. Wills argued for the acceptance of the superiority of the detective when, in 1850, he outlined the “difference between a regular and a detective policeman” (368). The detective must, he wrote: “counteract every sort of rascal whose only means of existence it avowed rascality, but to clear up mysteries, the investigation of which demands the utmost delicacy and tact” (368). The detective is also extraordinarily efficient; cases are solved quickly, in one example a matter is settled in just “ten minutes” (369).Dickens’s pro-police pieces, included a blatantly promotional, two-part work “A Detective Police Party” (1850). The narrative begins with open criticism of the Bow Street Runners contrasting these “men of very indifferent character” to the Detective Force which is “so well chosen and trained, proceeds so systematically and quietly, does its business in such a workman-like manner, and is always so calmly and steadily engaged in the service of the public” (“Police Party, Part I” 409). The “party” is just that: a gathering of detectives and editorial staff. Men in a “magnificent chamber”, seated at “a round table […] with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall” (“Police Party, Part I” 409). Two inspectors and five sergeants are present. Each man prepared to share some of their experiences in the service of Londoners:they are, [Dickens tells us] one and all, respectable-looking men; of perfectly good deportment and unusual intelligence; with nothing lounging or slinking in their manners; with an air of keen observation, and quick perception when addressed; and generally presenting in their faces, traces more or less marked of habitually leading lives of strong mental excitement. (“Police Party, Part I” 410) Dickens goes to great lengths to reinforce the superiority of the police detective. These men, “in a glance, immediately takes an inventory of the furniture and an accurate sketch of the editorial presence” and speak “very concisely, and in well-chosen language” and who present as an “amicable brotherhood” (“Police Party, Part I” 410). They are also adaptable and constantly working to refine their craft, through apeculiar ability, always sharpening and being improved by practice, and always adapting itself to every variety of circumstances, and opposing itself to every new device that perverted ingenuity can invent, for which this important social branch of the public service is remarkable! (“Police Party, Part II” 459)These detectives are also, in some ways, familiar. Dickens’s offerings include: a “shrewd, hard-headed Scotchman – in appearance not at all unlike a very acute, thoroughly-trained schoolmaster”; a man “with a ruddy face and a high sun-burnt forehead, [who] has the air of one who has been a Sergeant in the army” (“Police Party, Part I” 409-10); and another man who slips easily into the role of the “greasy, sleepy, shy, good-natured, chuckle-headed, un-suspicious, and confiding young butcher” (“Police Party, Part II” 457). These descriptions are more than just attempts to flesh out a story; words on a page reminding us that the author is not just another journalist but one of the great voices of the Victorian era. These profiles are, it is argued here, a deliberate strategy to reassure readers.In summary, police detectives are only to be feared by those residing on the wrong side of the law. For those without criminal intent; detectives are, in some ways, like us. They are people we already know and trust. The stern but well-meaning, intelligent school teacher; the brave and loyal soldier defending the Empire; and the local merchant, a person we see every day. Dickens provides, too, concrete examples for how everyone can contribute to a safer society by assisting these detectives. This, is perfect public relations. Thus, almost singlehandedly, he builds a professional profile for a new type of police officer. The problem (crime) and its solution (the detective) neatly packaged, with step-by-step instructions for citizens to openly support this new-style of constabulary and so achieve a better, less crime-ridden community. This is a theme pursued in “Three Detective Anecdotes” (1850) where Dickens continued to successfully merge “solid lower-middle-class respectability with an intimate knowledge of the criminal world” (Priestman 177); so, proffering the ideal police detective. A threat to the criminal but not to the hard-working and honest men, women, and children of the city.The Detective: As Fact and as FictionThese writings are also a precursor to one of the greatest fictional detectives of the English-speaking world. Dickens observes that, for these new-style police detectives: “Nothing is so common or deceptive as such appearances at first” (“Police Party, Part I” 410). In 1891, Arthur Conan Doyle would write that: “There is nothing so deceptive as an obvious fact” (78). Dickens had prepared readers for the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes: who was smarter, more observant and who had more determination to take on criminals than the average person. The readers of Dickens were, in many respects, positioned as prototypes of Dr John Watson: a hardworking, loyal Englishman. Smart. But not as smart as those who would seek to do harm. Watson needed Holmes to make the world a better place; the subscriber to Household Words needed the police detective.Another article, “On Duty with Inspector Field” (1851), profiled the “well-known hand” responsible for bringing numerous offenders to justice and sending them, “inexorably, to New South Wales” (Dickens 266). Critically this true crime narrative would be converted into a crime fiction story as Inspector Field is transformed (it is widely believed) into the imagined Inspector Bucket. The 1860s have been identified as “a period of awakening for the detective novel” (Ashley x), a predictor of which is the significant sub-plot of murder in Dickens’s Bleak House. In this novel, a murder is committed with the case taken on, and competently solved by, Bucket who is a man of “skill and integrity” a man presented as an “ideal servant” though one working for a “flawed legal system” (Walton 458). Mr Snagsby, of Bleak House, observes Bucket as a man whoseems in some indefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply at the very last moment [… He] notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great mourning ring on his little finger, or the brooch, composed of not much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt. (278) This passage, it is argued here, places Bucket alongside the men at the detective police party in Household Words. He is simultaneously superhuman in mind and manner, though rather ordinary in dress. Like the real-life detectives of Dickens’s articles; he is a man committed to keeping the city safe while posing no threat to law-abiding citizens. ConclusionThis article has explored, briefly, the contributions of the highly-regarded Victorian author, Charles Dickens, to factual and fictional crime writing. The story of Dickens as a social commentator is one that is familiar to many; what is less well-known is the connection of Dickens to important conversations around capital punishment and the rise of the detective in crime-focused narratives; particularly how he assisted in building the professional profile of the police detective. In this way, through fact and fiction, Dickens performed great (if under-acknowledged) public services around punishment and law enforcement: he contributed to debates on the death penalty and he helped to build trust in the radical social project that established modern-day policing.AcknowledgementsThe author offers her sincere thanks to the New South Wales Dickens Society, Simon Dwyer, and Peter Kirkpatrick. 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Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. London: Richard Bentley,1838.———. Barnaby Rudge: A Tale of the Riots of Eighty. London: Chapman & Hall, 1841. ———. The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit. London: Chapman & Hall, 1844.———. “To the Editors of The Daily News.” The Daily News 28 Feb. 1846: 6. (Reprinted in Antony E. Simpson. Witnesses to the Scaffold. Lambertville: True Bill P, 2008. 141–149.)———. “Letter to the Editor.” The Times 14 Nov. 1849: 4. (Reprinted in Antony E. Simpson. Witnesses to the Scaffold. Lambertville: True Bill P, 2008. 149-51.)———. “A Detective Police Party, Part I.” Household Words 1.18 (1850): 409-14.———. “A Detective Police Party, Part II.” Household Words 1.20 (1850): 457-60.———. “Three Detective Anecdotes.” Household Words 1.25 (1850): 577-80.———. “On Duty with Inspector Field.” Household Words 3.64 (1851): 265-70.———. Bleak House. 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Criminality and Narrative in Eighteenth-Century England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2001.Hitchens, Peter. A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England. London: Atlantic Books, 2003.Lyman, J.L. “The Metropolitan Police Act of 1829.” Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science 55.1 (1964): 141-54.Murley, Jean. The Rise of True Crime: 20th Century Murder and American Popular Culture. Westport: Praeger, 2008.Pepper, Andrew. “Early Crime Writing and the State: Jonathan Wilde, Daniel Defoe and Bernard Mandeville in 1720s London.” Textual Practice 25.3 (2011): 473-91. Priestman, Martin. “Post-War British Crime Fiction.” The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction. Ed. Martin Priestman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. 173-89.Rawlings, Philip. “True Crime.” The British Criminology Conferences: Selected Proceedings, Volume 1: Emerging Themes in Criminology. Eds. Jon Vagg and Tim Newburn. London: British Society of Criminology (1998). 4 Feb. 2017 <http://www.britsoccrim.org/volume1/010.pdf>.Simpson, Antony E. Witnesses to the Scaffold: English Literary Figures as Observers of Public Executions. Lambertville: True Bill P, 2008.Walton, James. “Conrad, Dickens, and the Detective Novel.” Nineteenth-Century Fiction 23.4 (1969): 446-62.Wills, William Henry. “The Modern Science of Thief-Taking.” Household Words 1.16 (1850): 368-72.Worsley, Lucy. A Very British Murder: The Curious Story of How Crime Was Turned into Art. London: BBC Books, 2013/2014.

It seems nowadays that any aspect of collecting and displaying tangible or intangible material culture is labeled as curating: shopkeepers curate their wares; DJs curate their musical selections; magazine editors curate media stories; and hipsters curate their coffee tables. Given the increasing ubiquity and complexity of 21st-century notions of curatorship, the current issue of MC Journal, ‘curate’, provides an excellent opportunity to consider some of the changes that have occurred in professional practice since the emergence of the ‘digital turn’. There is no doubt that the internet and interactive media have transformed the way we live our daily lives—and for many cultural commentators it only makes sense that they should also transform our cultural experiences. In this paper, I want to examine the issue of curatorial practice in the postdigital age, looking some of the ways that curating has changed over the last twenty years—and some of the ways it has not. The term postdigital comes from the work of Ross Parry, and is used to references the ‘tipping point’ where the use of digital technologies became normative practice in museums (24). Overall, I contend that although new technologies have substantially facilitated the way that curators do their jobs, core business and values have not changed as the result of the digital turn. While, major paradigm shifts have occurred in the field of professional curatorship over the last twenty years, these shifts have been issue-driven rather than a result of new technologies. Everyone’s a Curator In a 2009 article in the New York Times, journalist Alex Williams commented on the growing trend in American consumer culture of labeling oneself a curator. “The word ‘curate’,’’ he observed, “has become a fashionable code word among the aesthetically minded, who seem to paste it onto any activity that involves culling and selecting” (1). Williams dated the origins of the popular adoption of the term ‘curating’ to a decade earlier; noting the strong association between the uptake and the rise of the internet (2). This association is not surprising. The development of increasingly interactive software such as Web 2.0 has led to a rapid rise in new technologies aimed at connecting people and information in ways that were previously unimaginable. In particular the internet has become a space in which people can collect, store and most importantly share vast quantities of information. This information is often about objects. According to sociologist Jyri Engeström, the most successful social network sites on the internet (such as Pinterest, Flickr, Houzz etc), use discrete objects, rather than educational content or interpersonal relationships, as the basis for social interaction. So objects become the node for inter-personal communication. In these and other sites, internet users can find, collate and display multiple images of objects on the same page, which can in turn be connected at the press of a button to other related sources of information in the form of text, commentary or more images. These sites are often seen as the opportunity to virtually curate mini-exhibitions, as well as to create mood boards or sites of virtual consumption. The idea of curating as selective aesthetic editing is also popular in online markets places such as Etsy where numerous sellers offer ‘curated’ selections from home wares, to prints, to (my personal favorite) a curated selection of cat toys. In all of these exercises there is an emphasis on the idea of connoisseurship. As part of his article on the new breed of ‘curators’, for example, Alex Williams interviewed Tom Kalendrain, the Fashion Director of a leading American department store, which had engaged in a collaboration with Scott Schuman of the fashion blog, the Sartorialist. According to Kalendrain the store had asked Schuman to ‘curate’ a collection of clothes for them to sell. He justified calling Schuman a curator by explaining: “It was precisely his eye that made the store want to work with him; it was about the right shade of blue, about the cut, about the width of a lapel” (cited in Williams 2). The interview reveals much about current popular notions of what it means to be a curator. The central emphasis of Kalendrain’s distinction was on connoisseurship: exerting a privileged authoritative voice based on intimate knowledge of the subject matter and the ability to discern the very best examples from a plethora of choices. Ironically, in terms of contemporary museum practice, this is a model of curating that museums have consciously been trying to move away from for at least the last three decades. We are now witnessing an interesting disconnect in which the extra-museum community (represented in particular by a postdigital generation of cultural bloggers, commentators and entrepreneurs) are re-vivifying an archaic model of curating, based on object-centric connoisseurship, just at the point where professional curators had thought they had successfully moved on. From Being about Something to Being for Somebody The rejection of the object-expert model of curating has been so persuasive that it has transformed the way museums conduct core business across all sectors of the institution. Over the last thirty to forty years museums have witnessed a major pedagogical shift in how curators approach their work and how museums conceptualise their core values. These paradigmatic and pedagogical shifts were best characterised by the museologist Stephen Weil in his seminal article “From being about something to being for somebody.” Weil, writing in the late 1990s, noted that museums had turned away from traditional models in which individual curators (by way of scholarship and connoisseurship) dictated how the rest of the world (the audience) apprehended and understood significant objects of art, science and history—towards an audience centered approach where curators worked collaboratively with a variety of interested communities to create a pluralist forum for social change. In museum parlance these changes are referred to under the general rubric of the ‘new museology’: a paradigm shift, which had its origins in the 1970s; its gestation in the 1980s; and began to substantially manifest by the 1990s. Although no longer ‘new’, these shifts continue to influence museum practices in the 2000s. In her article, “Curatorship as Social Practice’” museologist Christina Kreps outlined some of the developments over recent decades that have challenged the object-centric model. According to Kreps, the ‘new museology’ was a paradigm shift that emerged from a widespread dissatisfaction with conventional interpretations of the museum and its functions and sought to re-orient itself away from strongly method and technique driven object-focused approaches. “The ‘new museum’ was to be people-centered, action-oriented, and devoted to social change and development” (315). An integral contributor to the developing new museology was the subjection of the western museum in the 1980s and ‘90s to representational critique from academics and activists. Such a critique entailed, in the words of Sharon Macdonald, questioning and drawing attention to “how meanings come to be inscribed and by whom, and how some come to be regarded as ‘right’ or taken as given” (3). Macdonald notes that postcolonial and feminist academics were especially engaged in this critique and the growing “identity politics” of the era. A growing engagement with the concept that museological /curatorial work is what Kreps (2003b) calls a ‘social process’, a recognition that; “people’s relationships to objects are primarily social and cultural ones” (154). This shift has particularly impacted on the practice of museum curatorship. By way of illustration we can compare two scholarly definitions of what constitutes a curator; one written in 1984 and one from 2001. The Manual of Curatorship, written in 1994 by Gary Edson and David Dean define a curator as: “a staff member or consultant who is as specialist in a particular field on study and who provides information, does research and oversees the maintenance, use, and enhancement of collections” (290). Cash Cash writing in 2001 defines curatorship instead as “a social practice predicated on the principle of a fixed relation between material objects and the human environment” (140). The shift has been towards increased self-reflexivity and a focus on greater plurality–acknowledging the needs of their diverse audiences and community stakeholders. As part of this internal reflection the role of curator has shifted from sole authority to cultural mediator—from connoisseur to community facilitator as a conduit for greater community-based conversation and audience engagement resulting in new interpretations of what museums are, and what their purpose is. This shift—away from objects and towards audiences—has been so great that it has led some scholars to question the need for museums to have standing collections at all. Do Museums Need Objects? In his provocatively titled work Do Museums Still Need Objects? Historian Steven Conn observes that many contemporary museums are turning away from the authority of the object and towards mass entertainment (1). Conn notes that there has been an increasing retreat from object-based research in the fields of art; science and ethnography; that less object-based research seems to be occurring in museums and fewer objects are being put on display (2). The success of science centers with no standing collections, the reduction in the number of objects put on display in modern museums (23); the increasing phalanx of ‘starchitect’ designed museums where the building is more important than the objects in it (11), and the increase of virtual museums and collections online, all seems to indicate that conventional museum objects have had their day (1-2). Or have they? At the same time that all of the above is occurring, ongoing research suggests that in the digital age, more than ever, people are seeking the authenticity of the real. For example, a 2008 survey of 5,000 visitors to living history sites in the USA, found that those surveyed expressed a strong desire to commune with historically authentic objects: respondents felt that their lives had become so crazy, so complicated, so unreal that they were seeking something real and authentic in their lives by visiting these museums. (Wilkening and Donnis 1) A subsequent research survey aimed specifically at young audiences (in their early twenties) reported that: seeing stuff online only made them want to see the real objects in person even more, [and that] they felt that museums were inherently authentic, largely because they have authentic objects that are unique and wonderful. (Wilkening 2) Adding to the question ‘do museums need objects?’, Rainey Tisdale argues that in the current digital age we need real museum objects more than ever. “Many museum professionals,” she reports “have come to believe that the increase in digital versions of objects actually enhances the value of in-person encounters with tangible, real things” (20). Museums still need objects. Indeed, in any kind of corporate planning, one of the first thing business managers look for in a company is what is unique about it. What can it provide that the competition can’t? Despite the popularity of all sorts of info-tainments, the one thing that museums have (and other institutions don’t) is significant collections. Collections are a museum’s niche resource – in business speak they are the asset that gives them the advantage over their competitors. Despite the increasing importance of technology in delivering information, including collections online, there is still overwhelming evidence to suggest that we should not be too quick to dismiss the traditional preserve of museums – the numinous object. And in fact, this is precisely the final argument that Steven Conn reaches in his above-mentioned publication. Curating in the Postdigital Age While it is reassuring (but not particularly surprising) that generations Y and Z can still differentiate between virtual and real objects, this doesn’t mean that museum curators can bury their heads in the collection room hoping that the digital age will simply go away. The reality is that while digitally savvy audiences continue to feel the need to see and commune with authentic materially-present objects, the ways in which they access information about these objects (prior to, during, and after a museum visit) has changed substantially due to technological advances. In turn, the ways in which curators research and present these objects – and stories about them – has also changed. So what are some of the changes that have occurred in museum operations and visitor behavior due to technological advances over the last twenty years? The most obvious technological advances over the last twenty years have actually been in data management. Since the 1990s a number of specialist data management systems have been developed for use in the museum sector. In theory at least, a curator can now access the entire collections of an institution without leaving their desk. Moreover, the same database that tells the curator how many objects the institution holds from the Torres Strait Islands, can also tell her what they look like (through high quality images); which objects were exhibited in past exhibitions; what their prior labels were; what in-house research has been conducted on them; what the conservation requirements are; where they are stored; and who to contact for copyright clearance for display—to name just a few functions. In addition a curator can get on the internet to search the online collection databases from other museums to find what objects they have from the Torres Strait Islands. Thus, while our curator is at this point conducting the same type of exhibition research that she would have done twenty years ago, the ease in which she can access information is substantially greater. The major difference of course is that today, rather than in the past, the curator would be collaborating with members of the original source community to undertake this project. Despite the rise of the internet, this type of liaison still usually occurs face to face. The development of accessible digital databases through the Internet and capacity to download images and information at a rapid rate has also changed the way non-museum staff can access collections. Audiences can now visit museum websites through which they can easily access information about current and past exhibitions, public programs, and online collections. In many cases visitors can also contribute to general discussion forums and collections provenance data through various means such as ‘tagging’; commenting on blogs; message boards; and virtual ‘talk back’ walls. Again, however, this represents a change in how visitors access museums but not a fundamental shift in what they can access. In the past, museum visitors were still encouraged to access and comment upon the collections; it’s just that doing so took a lot more time and effort. The rise of interactivity and the internet—in particular through Web 2.0—has led many commentators to call for a radical change in the ways museums operate. Museum analyst Lynda Kelly (2009) has commented on the issue that: the demands of the ‘information age’ have raised new questions for museums. It has been argued that museums need to move from being suppliers of information to providing usable knowledge and tools for visitors to explore their own ideas and reach their own conclusions because of increasing access to technologies, such as the internet. Gordon Freedman for example argues that internet technologies such as computers, the World Wide Web, mobile phones and email “… have put the power of communication, information gathering, and analysis in the hands of the individuals of the world” (299). Freedman argued that museums need to “evolve into a new kind of beast” (300) in order to keep up with the changes opening up to the possibility of audiences becoming mediators of information and knowledge. Although we often hear about the possibilities of new technologies in opening up the possibilities of multiple authors for exhibitions, I have yet to hear of an example of this successfully taking place. This doesn’t mean, however, that it will never happen. At present most museums seem to be merely dipping their toes in the waters. A recent example from the Art Gallery of South Australia illustrates this point. In 2013, the Gallery mounted an exhibition that was, in theory at least, curated by the public. Labeled as “the ultimate people’s choice exhibition” the project was hosted in conjunction with ABC Radio Adelaide. The public was encouraged to go online to the gallery website and select from a range of artworks in different categories by voting for their favorites. The ‘winning’ works were to form the basis of the exhibition. While the media spin on the exhibition gave the illusion of a mass curated show, in reality very little actual control was given over to the audience-curators. The public was presented a range of artworks, which had already been pre-selected from the standing collections; the themes for the exhibition had also already been determined as they informed the 120 artworks that were offered up for voting. Thus, in the end the pre-selection of objects and themes, as well as the timing and execution of the exhibition remained entirely in the hand of the professional curators. Another recent innovation did not attempt to harness public authorship, but rather enhanced individual visitor connections to museum collections by harnessing new GPS technologies. The Streetmuseum was a free app program created by the Museum of London to bring geotagged historical street views to hand held or portable mobile devices. The program allowed user to undertake a self-guided tour of London. After programing in their route, users could then point their device at various significant sites along the way. Looking through their viewfinder they would see a 3D historic photograph overlayed on the live site – allowing user not only to see what the area looked like in the past but also to capture an image of the overlay. While many of the available tagging apps simply allow for the opportunity of adding more white noise, allowing viewers to add commentary, pics, links to a particular geo tagged site but with no particular focus, the Streetmuseum had a well-defined purpose to encourage their audience to get out and explore London; to share their archival photograph collection with a broader audience; and to teach people more about London’s unique history. A Second Golden Age? A few years ago the Steven Conn suggested that museums are experiencing an international ‘golden age’ with more museums being built and visited and talked about than ever before (1). In the United States, where Conn is based, there are more than 17,500 accredited museums, and more than two million people visit some sort of museum per day, averaging around 865 million museum visits per year (2). However, at the same time that museums are proliferating, the traditional areas of academic research and theory that feed into museums such as history, cultural studies, anthropology and art history are experiencing a period of intense self reflexivity. Conn writes: At the turn of the twenty-first century, more people are going to more museums than at any time in the past, and simultaneously more scholars, critics, and others are writing and talking about museums. The two phenomena are most certainly related but it does not seem to be a happy relationship. Even as museums enjoy more and more success…many who write about them express varying degrees of foreboding. (1) There is no doubt that the internet and increasingly interactive media has transformed the way we live our daily lives—it only makes sense that it should also transform our cultural experiences. At the same time Museums need to learn to ride the wave without getting dumped into it. The best new media acts as a bridge—connecting people to places and ideas—allowing them to learn more about museum objects and historical spaces, value-adding to museum visits rather than replacing them altogether. As museologust Elaine Gurian, has recently concluded, the core business of museums seems unchanged thus far by the adoption of internet based technology: “the museum field generally, its curators, and those academic departments focused on training curators remain at the core philosophically unchanged despite their new websites and shiny new technological reference centres” (97). Virtual life has not replaced real life and online collections and exhibitions have not replaced real life visitations. Visitors want access to credible information about museum objects and museum exhibitions, they are not looking for Wiki-Museums. Or if they are are, they are looking to the Internet community to provide that service rather than the employees of state and federally funded museums. Both provide legitimate services, but they don’t necessarily need to provide the same service. In the same vein, extra-museum ‘curating’ of object and ideas through social media sites such as Pinterest, Flikr, Instagram and Tumblr provide a valuable source of inspiration and a highly enjoyable form of virtual consumption. But the popular uptake of the term ‘curating’ remains as easily separable from professional practice as the prior uptake of the terms ‘doctor’ and ‘architect’. An individual who doctors an image, or is the architect of their destiny, is still not going to operate on a patient nor construct a building. While major ontological shifts have occurred within museum curatorship over the last thirty years, these changes have resulted from wider social shifts, not directly from technology. This is not to say that technology will not change the museum’s ‘way of being’ in my professional lifetime—it’s just to say it hasn’t happened yet. References Cash Cash, Phillip. “Medicine Bundles: An Indigenous Approach.” Ed. T. Bray. The Future of the Past: Archaeologists, Native Americans and Repatriation. New York and London: Garland Publishing (2001): 139-145. Conn, Steven. Do Museums Still Need Objects? Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. Edson, Gary, and David Dean. The Handbook for Museums. New York and London: Routledge, 1994. Engeström, Jyri. “Why Some Social Network Services Work and Others Don’t — Or: The Case for Object-Centered Sociality.” Zengestrom Apr. 2005. 17 June 2015 ‹http://www.zengestrom.com/blog/2005/04/why-some-social-network-services-work-and-others-dont-or-the-case-for-object-centered-sociality.html›. Freedman, Gordon. “The Changing Nature of Museums”. Curator 43.4 (2000): 295-306. Gurian, Elaine Heumann. “Curator: From Soloist to Impresario.” Eds. Fiona Cameron and Lynda Kelly. Hot Topics, Public Culture, Museums. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. 95-111. Kelly, Lynda. “Museum Authority.” Blog 12 Nov. 2009. 25 June 2015 ‹http://australianmuseum.net.au/blogpost/museullaneous/museum-authority›. Kreps, Christina. “Curatorship as Social Practice.” Curator: The Museum Journal 46.3 (2003): 311-323. ———, Christina. Liberating Culture: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Museums, Curation, and Heritage Preservation. London and New York: Routledge, 2003. Macdonald, Sharon. “Expanding Museum Studies: An Introduction.” Ed. Sharon MacDonald. A Companion to Museum Studies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2011. Parry, Ross. “The End of the Beginning: Normativity in the Postdigital Museum.” Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 1 (2013): 24-39. Tisdale, Rainey. “Do History Museums Still Need Objects?” History News (2011): 19-24. 18 June 2015 ‹http://aaslhcommunity.org/historynews/files/2011/08/RaineySmr11Links.pdf›. Suchy, Serene. Leading with Passion: Change Management in the Twenty-First Century Museum. Lanham: AltaMira Press, 2004. Weil, Stephen E. “From Being about Something to Being for Somebody: The Ongoing Transformation of the American Museum.” Daedalus, Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 128.3 (1999): 229–258. Wilkening, Susie. “Community Engagement and Objects—Mutually Exclusive?” Museum Audience Insight 27 July 2009. 14 June 2015 ‹http://reachadvisors.typepad.com/museum_audience_insight/2009/07/community-engagement-and-objects-mutually-exclusive.html›. ———, and Erica Donnis. “Authenticity? It Means Everything.” History News (2008) 63:4. Williams, Alex. “On the Tip of Creative Tongues.” New York Times 4 Oct. 2009. 4 June 2015 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/04/fashion/04curate.html›.

In the worlds of virtual reality, whole objects and bodies are created in an immaterial manner from lines, ratios and light pixels. When objects are created in this form they can easily be manipulated, edited, multiplied and deleted. In addition, technological advances in virtual reality development result in an increased merging of physical and virtual elements, creating spaces of mixed reality. This leads to interesting consequences where the physical environment and body, in a similar vein to the virtual, also becomes increasingly easier to manipulate, distort and change. Mixed realities thus enhance possibilities of a world of constantly changing landscapes and adjustable, interchangeable bodies. The notions of virtual and real coincide within this thesis, reflecting on a new version of reality that is overlapped and ever-present in its mixing of virtual and physical. These concepts are explored within my exhibition Immaterial - a creation of simulated nature encompassing a mix of natural and artificial, tangible and intangible. Within the exhibition space, I have created a scene of mixed reality, by merging elements of both a virtual and physical forest. This generates a magical space of new experiences that comes to life through the manipulated, edited, morphed and re-awakened bodies of trees.

This paper describes my research project and body of work, which investigates social inequalities through the different language and functions of everyday objects. The research moves on from my previous Honours research project on the dou ble nature of caravan parks in NSW and looked at the changing demographics of these locations. I noted the increase of semi-permanent, residential 'homes' for low income earners and the unemployed, in these holiday locations. This paper examines broader social issues of homelessness and social inequalities within our society. I look at the complexities in the definitions of homelessness and the ways in which people find themselves in the position where they rely on welfare agencies and government support. I also investigate different representations of homelessness by artists and other social commentators, ranging from the hopeless victim to the vagrant. This section locates my social concerns with the context of theoretical debate and artistic representation. I have used everyday and mundane objects in my artworks to discuss these social concerns. Everyday objects posses a language and commonality that is familiar to all members of society. This language is developed from the different historical, cultural and functional qualities that everyday objects possess. I discus this in relation to the development of the everyday object in artistic practices from the early 20th century to today. Of specifically importance to my practice is the influence of contemporary German artists and their manipulation of objects to make works with political and social content. Throughout this paper I have discussed individual art works which illustrate my social concerns and the practicalities of the everyday. Revealing how I juxtapose certain objects to question the uneven nature of travel and home, with regards to possessions and mobility. Additionally I challenge the normal functions of objects to reveal new absurd possibilities of use.

The research project uses still life as a means of exploring current events of violence and oppression. These events are represented through juxtaposing plastic toys with organic objects. The toys include a range of popular generic toys such as army men, cowboys and Indians and toy soldiers. The organic objects were selected for their relationship to the specific event being represented. The toys and organic objects were positioned to create interesting and logical compositions. Themes of the series include opposing objects and ideas pitched against each other such as plastic/organic, perpetrator/victim, violence/peacefulness and destruction/sustenance. Within each work the plastic toys take on the demeanor of the tyrant(s), whereas the organic objects adopt the role of the victim(s). The research project uses these themes to convey the message that violence is both a barbaric way of dealing with conflict and a senseless form of self-expression. I have used symbols and metaphors to build a visual language. For the language to be translated accurately a great deal of research has taken place into the appropriate still life objects for each work. Each work incorporates metaphors and or symbols for both the oppressor and victim within the event being represented. The studio outcome of this research project, Silent Bang, includes a series of highly detailed finished paintings of various scales. Silent Bang as a body of work is colourful and aims to be aesthetically pleasing in addition to conveying a powerful message that incites interpretation.

‘Becoming Animal’: Motifs of Hybridity and Liminality in Fairy Tales and Selected Contemporary Artworks serves as a theoretical examination of the concept of the hybrid. My research unpacks the liminal aspect of hybridity, locating the hybrid in the imaginative world of popular fairy tales, folk lore and mythology. In my accompanying MFA exhibition, Becoming(s), I explore these motifs through an installation of mixed-media sculptures which are based on the hybrid creatures that populated the fantasy world of my childhood. The written component of my MFA submission will relate directly to my professional art practise, developing it further and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis I will consider the liminal in relation to the ‘animal turn’ in contemporary art, with a particular focus on relevant artists working with the motifs of hybridity, such as Nandipha Mntambo, Jane Alexander and Kiki Smith. The ‘animal turn’ is a term used by Kari Weil (2010: 3) to describe a contemporary interest in issues of the nonhuman, and in the ways that the relationship between humans and nonhumans is marked by “difference, otherness and power”. Of key concern to my research will be Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming animal’. Rather than describing a transition from one stable state to another, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a radical dissolution of boundaries – not just between species (such as ‘human’ and ‘animal’) but between any essentialising binaries. As such, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a conception of identity as being fluid and mutable, rather than stable and fixed.

This mini-thesis interprets the convergence of food and memory and explores dialectical processes associating food, identity and (post)memory, particularly in the context of post-apartheid South Africa. Considering works by prominent South African Artists Berni Searle and Churchill Madikida as well as my own artistic practise and usage of food as conceptual medium, this study considers the converging effects of food, identity and memory, together with the materiality of food, from a fine arts perspective, as particularly rich and developing arena for memory work

Notre thèse a pour enjeu la poétique de la distance dans les fictions de dix écrivains français et francophones de la seconde génération de la guerre d'Algérie (1954-1962), c'est à dire à distance de cet événement. Leurs fictions, publiées entre 1987 et 2010, interrogent la transmission et la filiation.
Doctorat en Langues et lettres
info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Masters of Technology in Fine Art Degree, Durban University of Technology, 2017.
The aim of this research is to investigate the exploration of transience in the work of selected artists. This study used qualitative, practice-led research methodology. This research is practice-led as my art making plays an integral part in guiding my research. Process philosophy provides the theoretical underpinning and contextual framework for this dissertation. I focus on both contemporary artists and philosophers who explore the notion of transience. As my selected artists and I use paper as a predominant medium, I look at how paper is an ideal choice of material through which to explore themes of transience. The selected artists that I investigate include Peter Callesen (1967-), Mia Pearlman (1974-), Jodi Carey (1981-) and myself. Through this research I have found that artists expressed similar sentiments to that of process philosophers centuries before these theories existed, and continue to do so today. This validates transience as a relevant form of visual enquiry. Through the exploration of transience by contemporary thinkers and the selected artists, I briefly examine the scope of interpretations and possible meanings of transience. The investigation into paper as an art medium supports its appropriateness as a means to explore themes of transience. The exploration of the selected artists’ work highlights the various aspects of transience as a concept based on both subject matter and medium. This research resulted in a body of work, exhibited in partial fulfilment of the Master of Technology Degree in Fine Art.
M

I focus on four operas premiered in Europe and the United States between 2009 and 2016 in which elements of the medieval, ritual, ancient, religious, and mystic emerge through their source material: _Adam and Eve: A Divine Comedy_ (2015, Norway), by Cecilie Ore and Bibbi Moslet; _Kalîla wa Dimna_ (2016, France), by Moneim Adwan and Fady Jomar; _Lilith_ (2009, USA) by Anthony Davis and Allan Havis, and _Paradise Reloaded (Lilith)_ (2013, Austria), by Peter Eötvös and Albert Ostermaier. This dissertation argues that these operas, rather than seeking a renaissance or rebirth of the mythic, draw inspiration and narratives from what I am calling “distant pasts,” reimagining universal or “timeless” narratives of humanity through a specific contemporary lens in an explicit and deliberate interrogation of the political present. Mapping out different modes of staging these distant pasts in response to cultural and political change in the twenty-first century, I suggest new modes of conceiving adaptable operatic “networks of comprehension” that encompass the multiple subject positions and geographical and cultural contexts that shape opera today. Each opera is presented as a case study in a single chapter, balancing musical analyses with political, historical, and cultural critique. Interviews with “stakeholders” (composers, librettists, singers, directors), many of which I conducted, form an integral part of this process. My analyses explore these four operas’ unconventional attitudes towards time, narrative, and drama, and in probing each opera’s idiosyncratic relationship with its distant pasts, I chart the complex manifestations of recent political discourse in Europe and the United States, especially concerning the intersection of feminism, race, religion, and secularism.

Thesis: Over the past decade there has emerged a growing body of scholarship concerned with the impacts and influences of automobility. Its purpose has been to understand the dominance of the car not simply as a technology of transport but as a system of actors, materials, objects, ideas and infrastructure. While much of this research recognises the pervasive presence of the car in our lives in terms of different representational formats, relatively little consideration has been given to what creative artists might contribute to this research. Adopting an interdisciplinary framework incorporating contemporary art, visual anthropology and the archaeology of the contemporary past, this study explores the intersection of car cultures and creative practice to consider how cars can operate as a form of art. In doing so the author proposes that artistic engagements with the car provide unique insight into the experiences of contemporary life. This argument follows from the understanding that art is not simply a mirror of or response to the socio-cultural and political context in which it is manifest. Art is also a conceptual tool for thinking about the very substance and conditions of contemporary existence. Incorporating research undertaken across numerous car culture sites and communities along with a detailed analysis of six case studies, the project makes extensive use of photography as a mode of research. Within the accompanying exegesis the author discusses how her own artwork engages with the influence of automobility in our daily lives. She identifies her working practice as one that is strongly inspired by objects, images and materials that already exist in the world. This enduring interest in the way people make their worlds is informed by her training and sensibility as an archaeologist. The artist explores this idea as a general influence on her practice and more specifically through her investigation of car cultures. The signature of the automobile is all around us, but through its very ubiquity it often goes unnoticed. It is this affect of the everyday - the power to hide in the light - that has especially influenced the artist's approach to the subject. How might this presence in our lives be envisaged without representing the car itself? By abstracting the auto from automobility the artist aims to reflect on the contradictory ideas and emotions that underlie our relationships to the motor vehicle. The story of the car is also allegorical. From the point of purchase to the aftermath of its obsolescence, the automobile is a site for the projection of our desires. The artist's photographs and video work are an expression of this sweet melancholy; the beauty of hope and the spectre of unfulfilled promise. In discussing how she came to develop her practice in response to this topic, the artist concludes that many different modes of being and making - from driving, to talking, to photography - may constitute art as practice-based research. Exegesis: This exegesis discusses how I came to develop a body of work that engages with the influence of automobility in our daily lives. I identify my working practice as one that is strongly inspired by objects, images and materials that already exist in the world. This enduring interest in the way people make their worlds in informed by my training and sensibility as an archaeologist. I explore this idea as a general influence on my art practice and more specifically through my very ubiquity it often goes unnoticed. It is this effect of the everyday - the power to hide in the light - that has especially influenced my approach to the subject. How might this presence in our lives be envisaged without representing the car itself? By abstracting the auto from automobility I aim to reflect upon the contradictory ideas and emotions that underlie our relationships to the motor vehicle. The story of the car is also allegorical. From the point of purchase to the aftermath of its obsolescence, the automobile is a site for the projection of our desires. My photographs and video work are an expression of this sweet melancholy; the beauty of hope and the spectre of unfulfilled promise. In discussing how I came to develop my practice in response to this topic, I conclude that many different modes of being and making - from driving, to talking, to photography - may constitute art as practice-based research.

Link to dataset: https://doi.org/10.25399/UnisaData.14152106.v1
The work of Bruce Nauman can be understood as an enquiry into the absurd. His work is a critique of art, the artist and society, and is in part viewed as a mediation of stereotypical ‘truth’. The absurd is defined and analysed to elucidate the nature of art and human behaviour by means of literary comparison, in particular of Camus, Sartre and Wittgenstein. This research focusses on Nauman’s subversive performance- based work and analyses how he simulates a particular work of Duchamp. I propose that Nauman espouses human activity into the functionality of objects, such as fountains. My artworks expand on Nauman’s interrogation of the concept of a ‘true artist’ by embodying an absurd fountain as a Sisyphean construct. In contextualising my work in relation to incessant duty, insecurity and double negatives, I offer a regenerative vigour against idolisation of success through contemplation of the artist’s doubt and the absurd.
Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology
M.A. (Visual Arts)

The Contemporary Agriculture and Rural Land Use (CARLU) Specialty Group was organized in 1985 (Napton 1989) to provide a forum for researchers who identify, describe, and explain the geographical patterns of agricultural activity and rural land use. Indeed, rural and agricultural geographers study many aspects of rural land use, including rural settlement, rural environmental management, the globalization of primary industries (i.e. agriculture, forestry, and mining), and also utilize spatial technologies for rural systems analysis. The various dimensions, consequences and policy implications of long-term sustainability of rural landscapes in industrialized, capitalist countries and particularly in North America, have been matters of special attention (Pierce 1994; Troughton 1995; Ilbery 1998). The early Jeffersonian ideal of a nation populated predominately by rural freeholders remains a popular and persistent theme in American culture. The country craft motifs of cows, chickens, and apples adorn many urban kitchens. Nearly all children know Laura Ingalls Wilder’s popular stories about a Farmer Boy (Wilder 1933) or a Little House on the Prairie (Wilder 1935). But the agrarian conditions Wilder describes in these stories near the start of the twentieth century bear little resemblance to the conditions faced by farmers in rural areas at the start of the twenty-first century due to social and agricultural change (Bell 1989; Baltensperger 1991; Roberts 1996; Lang et al. 1997; Lawrence 1997). Likewise, the quaint scenes of chickens and pigs printed on paper towels do not hint at current environmental and social concerns with large-scale livestock production in the US (Furuseth 1997; Hart and Mayda 1997). In many ways these historically imbedded ideals clash with the current reality of rural areas. Rural and agricultural researchers provide insight into how rural North America evolved to look like it does today. Their research helps describe the cultural, economic, environmental, political, and social forces that influenced and continue to influence rural places. This research often suggests what alternatives are available for rural areas in the future. Following the introduction, this chapter is organized according to four main research themes: rural regions, agricultural location theory, rural land-use change, and agricultural sustainability.